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Jun 17th, 2024

From data to deals: top takeaways from Rosalyn Santa Elena [video]

Today’s sales teams have no shortage of data. The trick is turning those insights into action.

We recently talked to Rosalyn Santa Elena, founder and CRO at The RevOps Collective, about how organizations can go from closed-lost to closed-won using their data as part of our recent event: From data to deals: leveraging RevOps insights for sales.

Here are three of the top takeaways from that conversation (check out the full recording above).

1. Data doesn’t drive efficiency on its own

“I've seen so many organizations where they have so many accounts, so many contacts, so many leads just flooding their CRM, but they're not doing anything with it. All it is is noise.”

—Rosalyn Santa Elena, founder and CRO at The RevOps Collective

If collecting data was all it took to build more pipeline and close more deals, revenue operations professionals would be out of business. Fortunately for them, that’s not the case.

As Rosalyn highlighted, modern organizations are capturing more data points than ever. But unless they’re using this data to identify meaningful signals and take action on them, it’s not really worth anything.

Part of this work is technical—determining how data is structured and defined, configuring how it’s captured and passed to downstream tools.

But ultimately, the core problem every company has to solve revolves around ease of use. That is, the availability, accessibility, and actionability of data.

Integrations

If reps are forced to spelunk through siloed tools or hunt and peck for relevant insights about their target accounts, they’ll revert back to surface-level fit criteria and spray-and-pray strategies.

How Notion runs go-to-market intelligently

Of course, going beyond standard firmographics and buyer personas ups the complexity, both for RevOps and the teams they support. That’s why it’s essential to invest in tooling that will help non-technical team members identify and utilize key buying signals.

2. Current customers are an intelligence goldmine

“There's so much gold in understanding why your customer bought and what the value is that they're receiving. Because that all feeds back into your top-of-funnel and helps to refine your ICP and get better information around the types of accounts you should be selling to.”

—Rosalyn Santa Elena, founder and CRO at The RevOps Collective

Much like Practical Prospecting’s Jed Mahrle, Rosalyn is a big believer in using your current customer base to improve your outbounding motion.

Figuring out why certain customers buy (and buy faster)—as well as why certain customers stick around or churn—can be hugely helpful, both in terms of refining customer fit criteria and replicating sales messaging.

As organizations study why certain leads convert at a higher rate or move down the funnel more quickly, commonalities become clear. This makes it easier to replicate high-performance tactics across the team at large, whether it’s related to qualification, timing, messaging, or some other factor.

That said, it requires the ability to dig deep into granular buyer actions and attributes, both at the person and account level.

Person360™

That may explain why it’s a strategy Rosalyn thinks too many companies put on the backburner.

3. Great timing beats fluffy personalization

“We talk about personalization a lot for reps, but I mean, it's not about personalization, it's about relevance. And I think that's where we, from an ops perspective, really need to help empower our sales and our marketing teams.”

—Rosalyn Santa Elena, founder and CRO at The RevOps Collective

“Right person, right message, right time.” Easy to say, harder to do. Especially the last part.

It’s one thing for reps to find an economic buyer and craft a personalized, relevant message. It’s another thing to make sure it hits their inbox when they’re in-market and on the hunt for a solution.

Rosalyn sees lots of companies get close to the finish line—right ICP, right persona—only to stumble when it comes to timing.

Team alerts

Luckily, this is another area where signals can help—particularly those related to job changes, hiring trends, news events, and other compelling events that indicate that now is the right time to reach out.

But even great timing can fail to move the needle if you’re contacting buyers on the wrong channels. Understanding where their attention is—and where they’re most comfortable kicking off a conversation—is crucial.

How CelerData runs go-to-market intelligently

Outbound isn’t dead. It’s just often ignored. Nailing time and location can help you break through the noise.

Modern sales teams are living in the golden age of customer intelligence. They just need the right tools and tactics to put it to work.

These are just a few of the takeaways from our conversation with Rosalyn Santa Elena.

Watch the recording for the full story.

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