Matthew Magee

When looking to remove friction from a process; I like to begin at the end and trace it backward. Document all the things that create pain, errors, and problems at each step and handoff along the way. Then dig into those to learn the causes. When we discover these things and align the solutions to the desired outcomes of reducing pain for everyone; then we can start the change management processes that allow us to communicate what we're going to change, why we're going to change it, and how things will be better once we've all completed the changes. It's easier said than done; but by doing the simple root-cause analysis and align to shared desired outcomes you'll find better alignment and smoother processes with good adoption.

Completely agree with my colleagues here - leverage automation wherever possible. For user entered data like Opportunity Close Dates and Sales stages; we have built reporting that show records that are "out of compliance". Close dates in the past; Opportunities that are staged incorrectly or need a quote, etc. Publishing this report in a dashboard that sellers and managers have access to allows them to quickly see when they have records that need updating. Helping managers to see the value in keeping these records in compliance as a driver of forecast accuracy then also drives top-down enforcement.

I like to view this challenge through a lens of: make it easy for a user to input data correctly the first time and prevent cleanup before it has to be done. For example: Think about what kind of data fields you're using and limit what kind data can be to be put into them. One of the big cleanup projects my team worked on which had a big impact was cleaning up Billing addresses. When our CRM was set up; Billing State was an open text field. So we had many names misspelled. So we converted to a picklist with correctly spelled States (and cleaned up and re-uploaded the existing data). We no longer have misspelled State names. It's a simple example; but one that once you start thinking along those lines - you find other ways to apply it.

I think this is an important one. A metric without meaning is just numbers. But when you understand WHY the metric drives outcomes or indicates optimal performance, people begin to take ownership differently - driving outsized results. I used to work for a retailer who would track the weather trends along with their inventory levels to begin to get ahead of purchasing when changes in the weather was on the horizon. This on it's own is smart - but also communicating it to other inventory managers and sales managers began to drive them toward watching the trends themselves and starting to make recommendations on inventory as well. This drove smart just-in-time inventory and improved sell-through that went straight to the bottom line.

We make use of our historical conversion and time-in-stage data to provide data-based scrutiny of our Commit and call in the current and out quarters. For example: we have a good grasp of how long it takes our customers to negotiate a new agreement because we have data on it. So if a seller is committing an opportunity to close with a date that is less than that range; and they haven't started the negotiation of the agreement, we can be almost 100% certain that they need to move their close date. With this data; my Sales Ops team can call deal slips with astounding accuracy often before the seller or manager can, simply because we're looking at it objectively and without being too close to the details. Your data is like a superpower!

This step requires a keen eye toward managing redundancy in your tool stack so you don't own multiple platforms that do the same or have similar capabilities AND doing good build versus buy diligence. There's a lot of really enticing tools out there; some of which over-promise their ability to deliver the moon. Have a good grasp on what the real return on investment is versus finding ways to streamline your own process without a tool. Some tools though - there's no replacement for. Like good solid firmographic data providers for marketing and territory segmentation. Know your "must haves" from your "nice to haves" and make any new suitors prove they have better capability to deliver with a real-world scenario and validation.