Strategic planning

Beth Torrie

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Beth is the founder of Torrie Communications, a firm specializing in analyst relations, positioning & messaging, as well as customer-centric marketing. Beth has spent 20 years in technology, helping companies large and small differentiate and grow their business. With 5 successful exits under her belt, Beth has a reputation for transitioning goals into results. She specializes in using customer-driven differentiation, market research, industry analysts and upstream influencer programs to fine tune and amplify the right messaging and increase revenue. You can listen to her podcast about analyst relations here.

Why are you passionate about helping services businesses?

Services organizations have unique challenges in that they need to differentiate on their people, expertise, certifications, support and services. Many times, minor tweaks to packaging and positioning can make a big difference in revenue without major investments.

You have been working with industry analysts for 20+ years, building analyst relations programs inside organizations and now as a consultancy. When is the right time to start a formal analyst program, and how should companies measure success?

Analyst Relations programs are resource intensive in terms of research contracts and executive time. It is important to start when you can answer the most important questions: Who is your ideal client and why? What do you offer that no one else does? Can you share five customer success stories that highlight  your differentiators?

Where do you think companies go wrong when it comes to getting a better return on their analyst investments?

Research contracts are very expensive; I see a ton of folks simply not using them, or not using them enough to justify the costs. If your organization purchases a research contract, the value of that contract needs to be justified on a regular basis. It’s also really important to identify the goal of the research relationship. Is it influence, learning or both?  And then to make sure every interaction is working to meet one of those goals.

How do you help your clients work with analysts to become a more frequently recommended vendor?

When analysts hear a well-honed value proposition, they connect that value with problems they hear in the market. Analysts speak with hundreds (or more) clients who need vendors to help them. The first step is to create a clear,  carefully constructed differentiated message to help the analysts understand how your services help your clients. When you share that message, plus a great roadmap and customer references who can back it all up, you’ll have the attention of the analyst. Analysts genuinely want to connect end user clients with vendors who are going to help solve problems. Then it’s a matter of engaging those analysts in a consistent and collaborative way that influences their agenda and perspective on you and the market.

You’ve built customer reference programs for a number of companies over the years. Where should companies start when it comes to building a program like this?

Any company looking to grow will need references for sales, investors, partners, analysts, press and more. It’s important to have a centralized source of who the best customers are, their status, their NPS (even anecdotally), transparency and reporting for the requests the organization is making for each reference, and if possible, the results of those reference calls. Customer reference programs take a unique level of organization and communication, but it starts with assigning an owner, and it should be someone senior. There should be a discussion at the C-level at least every month to monitor this topic.

Bob Maller

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Bob is the President and Chief Culture Officer of Collaborative Solutions, and an expert at growing teams, practices and partnerships in the fast-moving cloud computing space. To call Bob an IT services veteran might be putting it mildly. He started his consulting career in the ‘90s at global consultancies Accenture and Deloitte, before going on to manage consulting teams at PeopleSoft. That experience served him well when he joined Collaborative Solutions as its second employee. Over the years he’s grown Collaborative to more than 1100 employees and Workday’s longest tenured partner. Along the way, he’s also created a firm well respected for its work, culture and dedication to diversity, winning a ridiculous number of Best Places to Work awards. Collaborative was acquired by Cognizant in 2020, and Bob continues in the same role at Collaborative as Cognizant’s standalone Workday practice.

Why are you passionate about helping people-based businesses?

When we developed our core values at Collaborative, the clear first value was People. While it can be cliche to mention People as a core value, it’s the businesses that truly nurture and develop their people who are most successful — especially in services. Real magic happens with collaboration, which is why when you’re building a firm or a practice, teamwork is such a critical trait. The “smartest” or most-skilled person may not be a fit for your organization if they don’t thrive as a member of a team.

As the second employee at Collaborative Solutions, you grew the firm from a niche PeopleSoft federal contractor to a ‘crown jewel’ of the Workday ecosystem with more than 1000 employees. What was the most challenging part of that early journey and what was it when you reached scale?

In the early days, the challenge was to differentiate ourselves. As we became a Workday partner, the fear was that we would build a practice and the large SIs would swoop in to hire them away. This is why hiring the right people and building a sustainable, employee friendly culture was, and is still, critical.

Our first acquisition (a Workday consultancy in Australia) was also an interesting milestone. Integrating them into what was then a North American-centric business and making them feel a part of the Collaborative family took real work.

At 500+ employees, I no longer knew each employee, which was a very weird feeling. We needed ways to stay in touch with each other and keep engagement high. So we launched the Collabie Convos series (intimate video calls with 15-20 employees) to discuss a variety of topics. We also put a lot more emphasis on developing the people in the firm to become leaders and great ambassadors of our culture. It cannot just be the senior leadership team who sets the tone for the culture.

You’re a huge advocate of culture and inclusivity. What is the key to scaling culture as the company grows, expands and evolves?

It starts with formalizing and promoting your core values. In the early days, it’s about defining and discovering those values as a founding team. As we got larger, it became very important that every employee around the world knew what our core values were and why we had them. We reinforced them daily and worked them into our processes. They weren’t just words or phrases on a wall in an office.

Selecting and developing the right leaders within your practices is also critical, and should constantly be reviewed. These are the leaders that new hires will look to, even more than the executive team. Do you have the right leaders? Do they exemplify our core values? Did we promote people into areas they cannot handle and would be better suited as individual contributors? We, as leaders, cannot be afraid to ask these questions and make adjustments along the way.

When it comes to inclusivity, it simply needs to be a priority – a focus from the top down. I’d also highly encourage instituting a buddy and/or mentoring program to indoctrinate people into the company and to ensure that they have someone to help navigate their careers within the company.

Keeping employees engaged is never easy, but it can be even more challenging during rapid growth and downturns. What are some things leaders can do to keep engagement high throughout a company’s lifecycle?

The first thing is to survey your employees, but just as importantly, do something with the results. Show your employees that what they told you is valued and, if it needs work, that it’s being addressed. I am a big believer that surveys are anonymous and people understand that improvement is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. For trust to flourish, leaders need to be vulnerable and transparent. Talk to your people more often than you think, through a variety of mechanisms. Use video as much as possible when communicating important things (as opposed to a flat email that no one really reads).

Megan Nail

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Megan has a knack for getting to the heart of a company’s culture and goals, and designing compensation structures that attract, engage, and retain the talent to achieve those goals. She is currently a leader in NFP’s Total Rewards Practice, advising clients on compensation strategies, pay equity, incentive pay structures, and how to use compensation as a key component of the employee value proposition. Megan’s career has been focused on professional services firms, and she is passionate about creating total rewards structures that support growth and scalability. Megan holds a range of professional certifications, is a board member for the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM’s) Indiana chapter, and is the co-author of Joy Powered Organizations. She’s also an active volunteer, sports fan and mom of two sons.

Why are you so passionate about helping people-based businesses?

People are the core of every business – but with people-based businesses, the connection is undeniable. I love working with services businesses because they are willing to invest in their talent, which they know is the only way to achieve their goals and ultimately success. This allows us the opportunity to think broadly and creatively about total rewards strategies, including compensation programs, that recognize and reward their greatest asset.

You’ve advised a lot of organizations on their sales compensation strategy over the years. How should CEOs and CROs think about compensation as they move upmarket and to larger accounts (>$1M+)?

As you move up market and grow your team, it’s important to make your sales compensation plans and strategy more sophisticated. An important note – this does not mean to make it more complicated! Sales compensation plans need to be simple and straightforward enough so they are easily understood by the team, but also clearly motivate and drive the behavior and performance you want.

The first step is to reassess your sales targets and cycles. Larger sales typically take longer to sell – and less frequent payments and achievements will impact your sales team if plans aren’t structured well. Then, evaluate your profitability on larger sales. Do you need to adjust your plan to account for different levels? If teams will be working on a sale, how will you share the credit and payments?

Finally, formalize your plan. In a start-up environment, it’s common to have little (or no) formal documentation of your sales compensation plans. Clearly communicating a plan so everyone is on the same page is key – and will avoid questions, dispute and ill will in the future!

What advice do you give to companies who are rolling out an equity incentive program to their employees for the first time?

Equity is a powerful tool – and employees are attracted to opportunities that provide equity because of its unique opportunity to create sustainable wealth. However, studies have shown again and again that equity compensation recipients do not understand their rewards. My advice is to take the time to educate your team on the awards and how they create value – and the important details like tax consequences. Also, invest in a meaningful and equitable way to structure the grants based on tenure, job level or whatever factors are most important to your business. The bottom line is intentional and clear communication around equity incentives will help ensure you and your team both perceive the high level of value that exists in these programs.

What impact do you think the move to remote work as a more acceptable practice will have on companies’ total reward programs and policies in the long term?

For many years, remote work was a key differentiator for consultancies; but that competitive advantage is fading as more and more companies are moving to remote or hybrid work cultures. For those jobs that can be done remotely, I believe this will become an expectation by employees and an imperative for companies to compete for talent. Total rewards programs and policies will become more consistent across the employee population and less focused on physical events and perks (such as free food, swanky offices and happy hours). Employers are demanding that all benefits be equitable for both remote and in office employees. Businesses must continue to evolve and rethink their employee value proposition.

How can companies structure their compensation and workforce policies to appeal to a more diverse workforce?

The workforce will only continue to become more diverse over time – which is a huge advantage. However, we have to recognize that with this diversity comes different needs and opportunities to structure compensation and programs. Giving options and flexibility will allow employees to customize a total rewards package that works for them. For example, while older workers may value a rich retirement contribution and the stability of a higher base salary, younger workers may value student loan repayment programs and a lower base salary with higher upside potential.

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