Latest / Revenue Problem Solvers / Your Biggest Revenue Problem Isn't Sales. Former MetLife VP, Jennifer Doty

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Your Biggest Revenue Problem Isn't Sales. Former MetLife VP, Jennifer Doty · Revenue Problem Solvers

0:00
And there was a lot of duplicative work.
0:01
And I'll never forget that one workflow asking a woman why
0:04
there was a work step that checked the prior step.
0:07
And she goes, well, I can't trust that they did it right.
0:12
That was like a major aha moment for us, major aha moment.
0:16
And what we uncovered is there was a lack of trust and
0:21
accountability across the team. Welcome back everybody to the
0:25
Revenue Problem Solvers podcast, where we look to crack the code
0:28
on growing your business by tackling the challenges to keep
0:30
revenue leaders up at night. I'm Carl Ortmanns and on today's
0:33
episode, we're going to dive into a topic we actually haven't
0:35
really covered much here, but it is the topic of operations and
0:39
strategy. More to come.
0:42
Today's podcast is sponsored by the great team at Virtual
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Well, that's exactly what Virtual Causeway does.
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1:16
Now, my guest today is a career operations leader who's figured
1:22
out that the fastest path to revenue transformation isn't
1:24
hiring better salespeople, it's fixing how the the work actually
1:28
flows. Welcome, Jennifer Doty.
1:31
Most people who spend 20 years running operations at a company
1:35
like MetLife stay in operations. But Jennifer did it differently.
1:38
She used that as a vantage point to understand something that
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most sales leaders see from the inside.
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Where does the revenue actually breakdown?
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She's held multiple group vice president roles at MetLife,
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running client services, broker relationships, product launches
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and at one point, she said a global IT integration.
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She wasn't managing pipeline, she was managing what happens
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after the deal and before the next one.
2:01
Well, that's a different kind of education.
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After MetLife, she went on her own, advising companies from
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startups to Fortune, One hundreds on operations and
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business model transformation. Today, she's AVP of partnerships
2:12
at 3 Flow, a platform rethinking how brokers and carriers place
2:15
employees benefits, which is in most companies still a mess of
2:20
emails and spreadsheets. She's watched companies try to
2:22
reinvent their go to market strategy by changing what
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salespeople say. And her diagnosis is different.
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She thinks the real problem is how the operation around the
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sale is designed. And until you fix that, you
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know, you're just running. You're just training people to
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run on a faster or broken track. Jennifer, welcome to the podcast
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and thank you for joining us. Thank you, Carl.
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So excited to be here. Me too.
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This is 1 where I'm I'm really looking forward to because it is
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a topic that's so important inside of a business and it
2:49
doesn't really get the air coverage or even the topic maybe
2:53
the time to talk about the topic that it should.
2:55
So it'll be fun. So as we get kicked off, maybe
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share with everybody a little bit about your world.
3:00
What industries or verticals do you work in?
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What are the selling motions? What size companies do you work
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with? Yeah.
3:06
Thank you so much. So as as you said, I spent
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almost 20 years of my career in at MetLife and a variety of
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roles and ultimately LED all of group benefit operations for the
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US And prior to that, I was ACPA by trade and by background and
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spent a lot of time in the finance world.
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And then currently I work at 3 Flow, which is a technology
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platform, a benefit placement system that allows brokers and
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carriers in the group in, in space to more effectively
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exchange data for rating and quoting the pre sale part of the
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process. So I, I started as AVP of
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partnerships and when I came to three flow and then just two
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years ago I moved into running customer operations because when
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you're a glutton for punishment and you can see what needs to be
3:56
solved and fixed, there is often always a place for me in the
4:01
operational process workflow world.
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And so here I am and this is what I've been doing.
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In addition to that, I have a portfolio career.
4:08
I have created another business on the side of my desk, which is
4:12
called Live Pure. It is a nutrition and supplement
4:15
company that I'm part of and that I am actively growing.
4:19
And in addition to that, I do speaking engagements, workshops
4:23
on coaching and education and training based on my experiences
4:27
that I've had. And how do I help teams and
4:29
individuals get out of their way, out of their own way to
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help, you know, drive the outcomes that they're looking
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for. So a lot of different things,
4:38
but yeah, super happy to be here and chat with you today.
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Yeah, so you don't really do much.
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I don't know how you have time to do anything with all of that.
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Holy moly. I thought trying to run a
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podcast was time consuming. No way.
4:51
You got way more on your plate. So how we got to today's
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conversation is I asked Jennifer just like I asked everybody
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what's a successful revenue to be LED or an existing challenge
5:03
that you've either solved or currently solving.
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And we had a really fun back and forth conversation, if you can't
5:08
tell already and it was, but it was really clear that we had to
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talk about building operations strategy with sales.
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And so maybe we just started with the probably the most basic
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of questions. However, it's kind of a loaded
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question, Jennifer. How come this is still a problem
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and how come this problem still continues to exist today?
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Yeah, absolutely. I think it boils down to you got
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to start with the leadership, right?
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And does the leadership understand and identify with
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what happens on both sides of the fence, Right.
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And so there's a, a sales process and then you have to
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implement that sale, whatever that means to you, whatever
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industry you're in. And then there's a lot of
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downstream workflows that happened from there that really
6:00
result in a customer experience that you want to be amazing.
6:04
You want your customers to want to leverage your product or your
6:08
platform or your service above all other opportunities or
6:12
competitors that are out there, right.
6:14
And I think it, it starts with with really having that
6:18
education and understanding on both sides.
6:20
So that includes does the operational leader and do enough
6:25
of the right levels tiers within the organization.
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I mean, ultimately at every seat, people understand what's
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happening on the sales side, right?
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What are the obstacles for the sales team as they try to grow
6:39
the pipeline and try to increase revenue in sales, right?
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And what are they trying to solve for?
6:44
And then on the flip side, the sales organization needs to
6:48
understand once they've sold it, what are the downstream impacts
6:53
of what they've sold? And this has been the bane of my
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existence since I've was a wee young woman in operations,
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right? Can I deliver what the
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salesperson sold? And there's a lot of opportunity
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around that and making sure if, if you've got a good
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understanding and most importantly, trust, right, you
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can, you can operate more in the fringe around the things that
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are not standard, around the things that aren't typical or,
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or perfect, right? And once you have that trust,
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you can work together to deliver, you know, in in a more
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effective way. So I, I really like what you say
7:36
there, because there is a, the question like salespeople are
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going to go sell something and they go, well, I told the
7:40
customer. And so you kind of got to figure
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it out, right? And we've, I mean, I've seen
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that happen many times of, you know, while I sold this, well,
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now you got to deliver it. Well, actually what we, what you
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just sold, we actually can't do. So we need to fix it.
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So I, maybe I'll, if we can go back to this part when you
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started to rebuild the strategy with sales, because I'm, I'm
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thinking about it in this way, sales teams are going to look at
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it from a customer experience and they're going to go, well,
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what's the fastest path to closing a sale, just as an
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example? And so I'm going to do sales
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training. We're going to have our own
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process. We're going to implement it.
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We're going to go where does operations actually come into
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aligning with that strategy? Have you looked at this from,
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hey, look, when you go and produce your sales strategy or
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your entire customer workflow or the customer journey operations,
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we actually want to sit in the room and listen and hear how did
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you, how do you connect those two worlds together?
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So it's one seamless process for the customer and they see no
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friction between anything other than this is what you said, this
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is what you did, this is what you did.
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And because operations is effectively the do what sales
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said they're going to do. Exactly.
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So it all starts with planning and I did it at MetLife and I do
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it today in my day job with three flow right as we and I do
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it in in planning for next year. But I do it in our day-to-day.
9:03
Things change, right, and strategies change and sales
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tactics change depending on are you behind target or are you at
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Target right? Like so things change across the
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year, but it's sitting down together and having a plan,
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right. And so that includes
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understanding, you know, what is the, what are the sales goals?
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Where are they coming from, right?
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What, what, what accounts are they coming from?
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Like in my world today, it's what brokers are they coming
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from, what new brokers, what existing brokers, right?
9:36
And then understanding what are the levers that I have in
9:40
operations to make that go really, really well, because the
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last thing you want to do is sell something and then lose it,
9:47
right? And so doesn't matter what
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industry you're in, when you're in insurance, it's all about
9:51
persistency and retaining the business.
9:54
It's no different in any other industry, right?
9:57
Right. Whether you want to retain the
9:58
customer or retain the account, right?
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You have to have a really good experience.
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And So what I, what I do is I sit down and I say, OK, these
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are your top accounts that you're either going to grow or
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expand and then you're going to go get some new ones, right?
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What are the things that operations can deliver to help
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make that true? In addition, are there any value
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added benefits that operations can help create that will
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actually help bolster your value proposition to that to that
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customer, right? And then managing that process
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as you get into the day-to-day, right.
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And so I was just meeting with one of my team members today and
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we're thinking about like, how can we help support the sales
10:43
team? What are the types of things
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that we can do? And we were brainstorming some
10:49
ideas around helping create a view of broker account
10:53
management and broker insights that would be super valuable
10:57
from an operational perspective that provides more details that
11:02
they have with other vendors that they might partner with,
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right? And now with AI, you can
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leverage a lot of things, right? And you can put a lot of
11:11
information into Claude and say, can you give me a health, you
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know, a, a, a view, a health of this broker on a, you know, on
11:19
whatever time period you're looking for and then dig into
11:21
those details and insights, right?
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And so we're doing a lot of work around that now and it really
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helps the sales team see you as a partner, not just the person
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on the other side of the wall they throw things to, right as
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I've been on, I've been in that kind of organization as well.
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OK, what I I love it because it's funny to me, because I'm
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laughing, going, OK, I've been in those, been in those points
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of like, they'll figure it out there.
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Yeah. They'll figure it out.
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Yeah, On the, so on the operation side, let's let's
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maybe sort of like hone in a little bit because there's
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operations from like thinking like because I've had people on
12:01
the podcast who are in manufacturing and operations and
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manufacturing means something very different.
12:05
There's sales operations, there's revenue operations,
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there's marketing operations, there's all kinds of operations.
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So when you're thinking, when we're having this conversation,
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what lens are you bringing this from?
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Is it a sales operations, a marketing operations?
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Is it truly like the the Inc is it's?
12:20
True delivery, it's true delivery of the IT of the
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service in, in my world today, it's of the platform.
12:28
So basically we sell the opportunity to work on our
12:34
platform and transact business on our platform and then a
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broker says, OK, cool, I'm going to sign up for that.
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And then we implement that broker and we get the leaders on
12:43
board. But then you have to get the
12:44
users on board, right? And then they go about
12:47
transacting business, right? And so it's about how do we help
12:52
support that relationship on how the broker is transacting
12:57
business on a day-to-day basis, right.
12:59
So that includes the level of accuracy that we provide, the
13:03
speed of which that we can like reply with questions or, you
13:09
know, things that, that don't always work out perfectly or,
13:12
you know, it's not cookie cutter.
13:13
And so you know, it, it can't be necessarily automated.
13:16
And so people have to touch, you know, you got to get somebody in
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there to, to, to touch something that gets kicked out.
13:23
So it's it's truly how we support the delivery of the
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three flow platform. OK, perfect.
13:30
And I, I want to make sure that we sort of hone in on it because
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we could, I could, I could already imagine somebody being
13:35
like, well, I'm in Rev OPS and I think of it this way.
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I'm in marketing OPS or I'm in like true operations and I'm
13:40
thinking about either way. But the delivery aspect is so
13:43
important. And if you've ever seen like
13:46
winning by design, I don't know if you know their model, they
13:48
call it the bow tie model. So it's, you know, they, they
13:51
look at it as a double funnel, right?
13:52
Because there's that friction point, the potential friction
13:55
point in the middle sales goes through their funnel, they, they
13:58
close it and now it's on for the delivery side.
14:00
And it's like, can we actually grow and expand and deliver and
14:03
do all the things for that customer?
14:05
So my question I maybe to go back to it is you, I think you
14:08
said a little bit of the planning and how do we get them
14:11
across together? In your experience, do you try
14:14
to bring 1 centralized, maybe centralized or one common, let's
14:19
say common, one common methodology from lead to
14:23
delivery and renewal and everything in between similar to
14:26
the bow tie model? Or how do you get the two
14:29
totally different groups to align on a methodology and a
14:33
strategy that takes that customer all the way through the
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journey that they the sales team operates, they run through their
14:39
sales process, everything operations picks it up and says,
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great, we got you from here and we're going to build on and
14:45
continue to operate and grow. And now you're up and running
14:48
your carried on how, how does that conversation sound and how
14:51
do you get everybody aligned to bring one common theme across
14:55
the board? Yeah.
14:56
So the finance person in me loves this question because it's
14:59
all about the revenue model, right?
15:02
It all boils down to how much money are you going to earn and
15:06
will you get paid on those sales?
15:09
Will you get paid on it? Are you going to make money on
15:12
the thing that you're doing right?
15:14
And so I take a sales model and I, yes, I look at the nuances of
15:18
like who is it and like what accounts is it and the timing of
15:22
it, right? And so it's all those different
15:24
factors. It's like, what are you bringing
15:25
in? Who are you bringing in?
15:27
When are you bringing them in? And then what is the volume of
15:31
what you're bringing in, right? And so from an operational
15:34
perspective, I translate that volume from sales into what's
15:38
the widget of work then for my team, right?
15:42
And so in our world, we do a lot based on coverages, right?
15:46
That's the widget of work that gets transacted through the
15:50
platform, right? And so I, you know, we, we do a,
15:54
we, there's a lot of assumptions.
15:55
Nothing is perfect, but you just align across teams on these are
15:59
my assumptions. Does that, does that align with,
16:03
you know, my, with what you're thinking, with what I'm
16:05
thinking, right. And then we create estimates,
16:08
estimates off that. And then from there we, we do
16:11
the, the trade-offs and choices of like, well, I can do this, or
16:14
I can do this, or I can do this or I can do this, right?
16:17
And we boil it down to what's most important and make sure
16:20
that the the we can execute, absolutely execute on on the
16:24
bare minimum that we need to be successful.
16:27
What it makes me sound, what it makes it sound like to me is you
16:30
just effectively explained building an annual plan as an as
16:35
a leadership team, not in silos. Correct.
16:39
And we have the same conversation with product and
16:42
engineering because I have to make sure a lot of what my team
16:46
does is around the fringes of what's delivered in the actual
16:51
platform from a capability standpoint.
16:53
So if something is delayed or something is delivered in an MVP
17:00
minimum viable product fashion, but it's not fully all built
17:05
into the product, the fringe work is what my team manages,
17:09
right? Because to the customer or the
17:11
user, you want to make it look like the platform is delivering
17:16
all the things that you've witnessed and, and promised,
17:19
right? And so we all know there's
17:22
things that don't go in as perfectly as planned for a lot
17:25
of different reasons, right? And so that's where my team
17:28
comes in and you know, basically supports the product delivery
17:35
right in, in what they're delivering and how they're
17:38
delivering it from an operational standpoint.
17:42
When you made this aha, because I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm hearing you
17:45
talk about it and I'm thinking, OK, there had to have been an
17:48
aha moment for you to go. Hold on a second.
17:51
We're not talking the same language.
17:53
We need to get people talking together.
17:56
What was that aha moment for you and how did you link the the
18:00
problem statement together to bring the right people to the
18:03
room to even start this conversation?
18:06
Yeah, it started with, it's really great because it started
18:10
with our, our head of sales. He's phenomenal.
18:12
And he wrote like a, it really was like a stream of
18:16
consciousness, right, on all the things that he thought needed to
18:21
be true in order to achieve the sales plan, right?
18:24
And it's more than numbers, like it.
18:27
It's a lot more than numbers. There's a lot more storytelling
18:30
to it, right? And so I took that document,
18:35
right? And so as he created this
18:37
document, I was like, if it's in this dissertation, I called it
18:42
his dissertation because it was sort of that long.
18:44
And I'll never forget. I read it over a cup of coffee
18:46
one morning. And I sat here with my
18:48
highlighter and I said, every time there's something that my
18:51
team's going to have to touch or worry about that as a risk, I'm
18:55
highlighting it, right? And I knew Carl, if I captured
19:00
all of those risks and all of the work that was like, you
19:04
know, on the page and I had a plan for how I could deliver it,
19:08
we were good. And so I called him and I'm
19:10
like, I think I have figured out how to align the planets on how
19:16
to, you know, how to make sure we can support this sales plan,
19:19
right. And so that was the aha moment
19:22
for me to really just take that and and put his plan into my
19:28
practice, right, because I've seen so many times in prior
19:32
lives, right, operate sometimes up, you know, in in bigger
19:36
companies, sometimes operations does not report to the person
19:40
that the head of sales reports to.
19:42
And you have very different objectives and very different
19:44
goals. And that is really hard.
19:46
I have the benefit of being at a small company.
19:48
We all work for the same cause, the same the same plan, the same
19:53
targets. There's there's no competing
19:55
priorities, right? That's like a whole nother show
19:58
that we could do, Carl. But I it, it is, it's really
20:02
helpful when you're on the same page.
20:04
When my goal is to hit revenue and his goal is to hit revenue,
20:09
it really is fairly simple to lay out what needs to be done to
20:13
make that true. And I think there's the common
20:15
theme right there is you just said the common goal, it's
20:18
revenue. You're not looking at different
20:20
things, right? You're not looking at from, hey,
20:22
look, I'm looking at it from AC SAP perspective.
20:24
You're looking at it from revenue.
20:25
And if you look at it from 2. Different and I've been there,
20:27
I've been there in those world. Or how about from a cost
20:30
perspective, how about cut $10 million out of your organization
20:34
because I need you to and you got a whole 2 metrics, you know,
20:40
flat? Hard.
20:43
So how did I mean how did that go when you had to actually look
20:46
at it? Did you, did you have to redo an
20:47
entire budget with the team or is it just?
20:49
Oh yeah, entire budget. I mean, I so when I, so that
20:53
was, that was definitely navigating landmines politically
20:56
and personally and professionally and all, all, all
21:00
things considered, because it, when I had to do that and I was
21:02
at MetLife, I had to hit my, I had to hit my savings target and
21:08
I couldn't break the business. And so I had to align where were
21:14
the places that I could save that wasn't going to break the
21:17
business and really start to think about, OK, well, what
21:23
options do I have? OK, so, and it was people, I
21:27
mean, this was, this is, you know, 1000 people that reported
21:32
to me that I had to work through, right?
21:33
So the majority of my cost was not technology or spending
21:38
necessarily in other buckets. It was really people related.
21:41
So my levers were could I outsource more and do labor
21:46
arbitrage and and spend less money?
21:49
Could I relocate people and just do a relocation strategy to a
21:55
lower cost part of the country and save money that way?
22:00
Could I, I mean, back in those days, it was robotics.
22:02
AI wasn't even like, you know, on anybody's radar yet.
22:06
Could I leverage robotics in a way that would automate certain
22:11
parts of the process? Or even better yet, could I
22:14
eliminate things? Could I say there were things
22:17
that we were going to stop doing?
22:19
And here's why, right? And so thinking through all
22:23
those different opportunities and making sure that like my
22:28
role was save the money, don't break the business, Making sure
22:35
I could comfortably voice the concern around if I couldn't hit
22:39
the $10 million, why I couldn't hit the $10 million as an
22:42
example. And the nature of that.
22:45
And then work through the politics to make the right help,
22:50
to get the right people to help me go to bat, to make sure I
22:53
didn't have to cut costs where it would.
22:56
It would hurt too much. There's a lot of planning and
23:00
strategy that goes into even just trying to do that.
23:02
And I can only imagine the level of detail that you had to get
23:06
into of we need to save 10 million.
23:08
Here's how we're going to do it. This is my contingency plan.
23:10
Here's what's going to happen next.
23:11
Oh, and hey, by the way, I don't know how this conversation
23:14
sounded, but oh, by the way, sales team, you're familiar with
23:17
doing this process that changes now it goes to this process,
23:21
which is effectively a lot of change management.
23:24
And and I think there's a question that I should be asking
23:26
you here is there is a major change management component that
23:31
happens when you start to do any of these operational changes or
23:34
the strategy changes. And so when you went back to
23:36
that moment, what did that operational change management
23:40
look like once you came to the conclusion of this is the path
23:44
everybody signed off on go? Yeah.
23:48
So it was definitely a combination of people, process
23:51
and technology impacts, right. And so we, to your point, once
23:56
we got to, you know, you think the hard part is, is getting to
23:59
a plan. That's not the hard part, Carl.
24:01
The hard part is always execution because there's people
24:05
involved, right? And so you have to start with
24:09
your leadership team and then getting them on the boat with
24:12
you. Can they get on the bus and sign
24:15
up for what we're doing on the bus?
24:17
You got it 'cause if you don't, when you're dealing with this
24:19
many people, right? You got to get your leadership
24:21
whether they like it or not, can they get on the bus, right?
24:25
You don't have to like it, but I need, can you be on the bus with
24:27
me, 'cause if you can't, well, that's a whole different
24:29
conversation, right? And so you start there with
24:32
alignment on this is what we need to do and This is why we
24:34
need to do it. Do you understand and can you
24:37
get behind that and can you advocate for that outside of
24:42
this room? You can say whatever you want
24:43
inside this room, but when you walk out, are we all going to
24:45
say we're on board? OK, cool.
24:48
You get past that. And then you put together with
24:52
that team, with your team of the next level of leaders, because
24:55
those are the ones that are going to execute.
24:57
It's not me in my office personally executing all these
25:01
different work streams, right? I needed people to like help
25:05
make it true, right? And so then working with your
25:08
next level of leaders to put the plan plan in place.
25:11
I had HR at every single meeting, one of the best HR
25:16
partners I ever worked with. And she helped navigate a lot of
25:20
the people changes and the timing around the people changes
25:24
because not only did we need to eliminate jobs, we needed to
25:28
hire for different jobs. So there was like a lot of
25:32
reorganization conversation that needed to happen, right?
25:36
And then once we've laid out on paper, this is what we're going
25:40
to do and this is the sequencing of how it works, then it's the
25:44
question of, well, how are we going to roll it out and how are
25:48
we going to be successful in how we roll it out?
25:51
And you can do that a variety of different ways, right?
25:53
You can do it based on your book of business.
25:55
You could do it geographically, you could do it based on based
25:58
on work stream. You know, we had a bunch of
26:02
different ways that we did it. But I'm a big believer when you
26:06
have hundreds of people who work for you, I'm a big believer in
26:09
being as transparent as possible as soon as you can in the
26:14
process, right? And so the sooner everybody
26:17
knows what's going on, the better off everyone's going to
26:21
be, even if it's hard work, right?
26:23
Because you don't want people to be making up stories in their
26:25
head of what's going to happen. Yeah, the story I'm telling
26:29
myself is a is a very dangerous position to be in, especially
26:31
when you don't have the context of the OR the insights.
26:34
And actually, Andrew Quinn, who helped build the, the sales
26:37
enablement or actually it wasn't, he called it something
26:40
different as he went in, but he at, at HubSpot, he worked with
26:43
Marco Bears and, and with, with the leadership team.
26:46
But anyways, as he started to, he was talking to me about this,
26:49
He said, you know, one of the problems with delivery is that
26:52
everybody finds out at the same time.
26:54
And so when, when raps look to their manager and the manager's
26:57
like, I found out the same time you did, and the manager goes to
26:59
the director and the director's like I found out.
27:01
And then it's the, it's the cascading effect.
27:03
And that's where that I say it at the end of the conversation
27:06
or out of the podcast. But it's when everybody likes
27:09
new, nobody likes different. And when you do both at the same
27:12
time, it can cause friction or uncertainty.
27:14
And that, that is the problem statement when you try to do any
27:18
sort of change management, you don't give that cascading
27:21
effect. And I, I'm also thinking if
27:23
there's two things that come to mind as you're talking about
27:25
this, the 1 is when you start making these changes, there's
27:29
one option as a, as a Rev OPS person likes to say is I just
27:33
turn stuff off and see if people freak out.
27:35
And if they don't, then I know it's not worth it.
27:37
But if they do freak out, then I have clarity of like, well, how
27:40
do you use it? What do you use it?
27:41
And they give me the information that I need to look at the the
27:45
other. The other thing is maybe to ask
27:47
you is when you start to make these changes, there's somebody
27:51
on somebody who's on the podcast.
27:53
And I don't want to speak out of turn because I can't fully
27:56
remember who it was, but we talked to he, he said something
28:00
like attach yourself to an invoice and follow the bouncing
28:05
ball at any point. Did you use that sort of common
28:09
theme to create that strategy end to end of like you follow
28:12
the, the the you follow, you attach yourself to an invoice.
28:15
And you saw exactly where I went to find the friction points to
28:18
say, hey, head of sales, I read your dissertation.
28:21
And by the way, here are the break points that we need to be
28:23
aware of. Yeah, I definitely did that.
28:26
When we transformed the service organization at MetLife, we took
28:29
all of the work flows from the start of the sales process all
28:34
the way until a claim was received and paid or a bill.
28:41
A bill was sent to an employer group and we went through every,
28:44
we broke down every single one of the workflows in a workshop
28:47
in person, like back in the day, in real life, you sat together
28:51
and we literally had workflows on a wall.
28:54
And I would get the person who led that current workflow, so
28:58
talk about what they did and the current state of the workflow
29:01
and what the pain points were. And we'd color code or star all
29:04
the pain points. And then I'd ask them, well,
29:06
why? Why is that a pain point?
29:08
And they'd explain the process, right?
29:10
And one of the things I uncovered as we did this is
29:15
there was a lot of duplicative work.
29:18
And there was a lot of because again, I wasn't like in the
29:21
weeds. So it was good to have me and
29:22
some of the other leadership there to like watch real time,
29:25
like, oh, this is how this process actually works.
29:28
And this is the life cycle of a policy, right?
29:31
Like through the journey. And there was a lot of
29:33
duplicative work. And I'll never forget one
29:35
workflow asking a woman why, why there was a work step that
29:39
checked the prior step. And she goes, well, I can't
29:42
trust that they did it right. That was like a major aha moment
29:50
for us. Major aha moment.
29:51
And what we uncovered is there was a lack of trust and
29:56
accountability across the team. No one trusted that the person
30:02
before them was going to do the job they needed to do.
30:04
So they needed to follow up 40 times.
30:07
And we wondered why things took so long.
30:09
And so then the aha moment after that moment, we realized we
30:14
needed to do an accountability training as part of this roll
30:18
out of this new transformation and sit people down and talk
30:24
about what does accountability mean to you?
30:27
And do you feel accountable? Do you think your peer is
30:31
accountable? I mean, it was a real, it was a,
30:34
it was a real reflective self development type of conversation
30:40
because part of our problem was people didn't trust each other.
30:46
That's a great example to go back to because as you change,
30:49
you make change for a bunch of reasons, but that's a great
30:53
example of like, OK, I did that. Now taking it from there, like
30:56
what? How did you change that?
30:58
Was it truly just retraining people?
31:01
Was it, hey, going back, I don't know if the two stories are
31:04
connected, but like saving that 10 million and looking and the
31:07
accountability chart and saying, you know, am I following it
31:11
properly? Yeah, no, no, no, yeah.
31:13
It was all part of 1 and the same.
31:14
I mean, we, we took it back and it was really mindset work that
31:18
the team needed to do, right. And I had to do, I had to stand
31:25
up in front of a lot of rooms and say, I understand you've had
31:29
a lot of leaders before me. And I understand that, you know,
31:33
people have come and go and you just think I'm the latest person
31:36
here rolling out the latest thing.
31:39
And I know you all tell me you don't like the way it currently
31:43
works. I know you all tell me it's too
31:46
hard. And what we're trying to offer
31:48
you is a different way that's going to be better.
31:51
And so I'm asking for you to give me 30 days in this rollout.
31:55
And if we get to the end of 30 days and this doesn't feel just
31:59
a little bit better, I expect that you're calling me because I
32:03
want to know why. And so I put my personal
32:07
integrity and commitment on the line to say, I know this is
32:11
uncomfortable what we're asking you to do, but I'm committed to
32:16
you to make it better. And if what we're doing doesn't
32:19
make it better, we will do it differently.
32:21
We will change what we're doing. And that's when the tide started
32:25
to shift because once people understood that everyone was
32:30
going to be held accountable, everybody was responsible for
32:33
what they needed to do. Everybody shows up to work
32:36
everyday, Carl, with positive intent.
32:38
I assume you're going to do your job instead of what I thought
32:42
about you yesterday. You'd be amazed at how things
32:48
felt differently across the team.
32:52
OK. So I really like how you call
32:54
this out because there's the intent is a key thing.
32:57
But as you went through it, did you have milestones that you
33:01
were, you were there like what was that when you rolled it out
33:05
because it is that new and different.
33:07
But what were the the milestones or what were the, the markers
33:11
that you said, hey, by the way, we're going to try to get to
33:14
here at this point. So then there is clear, like you
33:16
said, transparency of what the goal was.
33:19
And so people could see either, hey, we're on track or we're off
33:23
track. Yeah.
33:24
So it was two things. There were a lot of metrics.
33:26
There were a lot of metrics about moving people.
33:29
Have we move people in the right roles?
33:31
Have we transferred books of business to the right people?
33:34
Have the new workflows been stood up?
33:37
So a lot of metrics on the what, right.
33:40
But then we also really focused on the how, which is how did it
33:46
feel, right? And so we did a bunch of like
33:52
sentiment surveys on a periodic basis that I work with HR on on
33:56
sending out, right. And so we did surveys before we
34:00
rolled out the new model, during the model, and then 90 days, 90
34:05
days into the model, right? And we really ask people a bunch
34:10
of questions like, do you feel like you know what your job is?
34:13
Do you feel like you know what you're accountable for?
34:15
Do you feel like you're supported, right?
34:17
Do you feel like, you know, you understand what success looks
34:20
like? Does this feel better than it
34:22
did six months ago, Yes or no? And we really paid attention as
34:27
well as day-to-day, we did this thing called huddles, right?
34:29
And so it was part of rolling out this new accountability
34:34
model is we did daily huddles. And so each team would huddle
34:38
for 15 minutes and the manager would go around and be like,
34:42
from a capacity standpoint, like, how are you, Carl?
34:45
Right. And everybody had to, like, pick
34:46
a :) for the day, right? Were you, like, good, eh, OK.
34:51
Or like dying, right? And so it gave people, yeah, it
34:56
gave people the opportunity, like, if you need help, speak
34:59
up. Like, don't hide under a rock.
35:02
Like, if you're having a hard time, this is your opportunity
35:05
to ask for help. And you get credit when you ask
35:07
for help, right? And so it really helped get
35:10
underneath how people were feeling around the changes.
35:14
So that way we could nip issues in the bud around behavior if
35:18
there was. I mean, some of the biggest
35:21
naysayers were the people who hated the existing model.
35:23
But guess what? They love to hate the one they
35:25
had and they didn't want to change it.
35:28
And I'm like, what am I going to do with those people?
35:30
Right. And so we needed to make sure
35:32
that like the well wasn't being poisoned as we went through it.
35:36
And we did really well at, you know, getting people, getting
35:41
people on board. And, you know, I, I always
35:44
believe when there's someone who tells you it's not going to
35:47
work, I can't fix it. Well, guess what?
35:48
You just signed yourself up to lead a team.
35:53
That's hilarious. I and I love that you call it
35:55
huddle. So my background, I don't know
35:57
if how much it, but I, I played football for the majority of my
36:00
career and that was that was my thing.
36:01
And I love the analogy of huddle.
36:03
And one of my, one of my close friends, Angus Reed, he wrote a
36:05
book on our offensive line coach called Thank you, coach.
36:08
But he, he's done talks and we talked about the huddle because
36:11
the huddle is, if you've never played football and the huddle
36:16
is a thing where you come in and there's real talk happening in a
36:21
very finite amount of time. Like you have in candy of 25
36:25
seconds in the, in the US, sometimes you have 45 that you
36:28
have different time frame. So you have to translate and
36:31
transform a huge amount of conversation in a very short
36:35
period of time. And you got to be fully present
36:36
with your mind, with your body and with your actions.
36:39
And you got to be like, knock it off.
36:41
And we got to do this. And but it allows for that
36:43
moment, right? So you go into it and you've got
36:46
to be fully focused because when that you say break, whatever
36:51
happens, that's what you're doing.
36:53
You are going and you are fully aligned and you're carrying on.
36:56
So I love that you said it in that way because it does give
36:59
people the ability to 1 express himself and know, look, this is
37:02
the thing. We're going to be focused.
37:03
We're going to do it and then we're going to break and we're
37:05
going to carry on. And a lot of times I actually
37:07
call it a huddle. So people know, look, be
37:09
yourself, be yourself. Let's talk about it.
37:12
If it's uncomfortable, we're going to go through it.
37:14
But at the end of this, like you said, you know, can you, can you
37:18
advocate for this? Yeah.
37:20
The other thing I've seen in my career in leadership, people
37:24
really want to be seen. And so it gave people the
37:28
opportunity to be seen. And it wasn't always about the
37:33
hard stuff. I mean, we worked on the hard
37:34
stuff, but it was also like celebrating great things that
37:38
happened. You know, somebody got like an
37:41
amazing accolade, an e-mail from a broker that went to a sales
37:45
Rep about how much they love their account manager, right?
37:48
Like it was celebrating things along the way and recognizing
37:53
people, right? And so I find even in my
37:56
day-to-day job today, when people in this virtual world, my
37:59
gosh, it's hard to see people, You're not seeing people most of
38:03
the day, right? Unless they're doing this with
38:05
you, right? Like, and they want to feel
38:07
seen, right? And so those huddles gave people
38:11
an opportunity for people to see them.
38:15
Which is the most important thing is people go to work.
38:18
Like you said, I'm, I'm going to come to do my best, but I also
38:22
want to know that I'm being seen and recognized.
38:24
Now there's some people that are like, look, I'm going to fly so
38:27
far under the radar. I'm just going to go ahead and
38:28
do my thing. But as you said, you have a
38:32
problem with it. Guess what?
38:34
You're not leading it. Because if you have this much
38:37
conviction, you're going to be the one to carry it across and
38:40
you're going to be the one to tell us the yes or the no.
38:42
Yeah. And I remember in the new model
38:44
we rolled out, there was nowhere to hide anymore.
38:48
There used to be places to hide in the old model.
38:52
And I called it like alligator arms, right?
38:54
You like, you sort of did enough, but not more than was
38:57
needed. And no one ever really knew
39:00
because the accountability didn't go far enough down in the
39:03
organization. And so we changed all that.
39:07
And so there was nowhere to hide because we had not just team
39:11
metrics, but we had personal metrics and so we could track,
39:16
you know, what was people's inventory and volume and
39:20
workflow and turn around times. And not everyone loved that.
39:28
Not everyone loved that, right? I've, I've learned in the last
39:30
couple months at 3 flow, we talk about a driver versus a
39:33
passenger mentality as an associate.
39:37
And you know, we're now at a moment where we need all
39:41
drivers. There's no room for passengers
39:44
anymore, right? And so I think, you know, in
39:47
that my prior life, passengers got really comfortable really
39:52
easy before we changed that, that new model and transform the
39:55
service model, right? And we moved, we moved into a
39:58
world where everyone had to drive.
40:01
You had to drive. How did you distinct when you
40:05
say driver versus passenger? So I'm not making stuff up my
40:08
own. A driver like I'm going to be
40:10
leading and be following and going to be pushing and a
40:12
passenger is just sitting like I'm just going along for the
40:15
ride and I'm going to do what I'm told, I'm going to carry on.
40:17
Is that how you just made the distinction?
40:19
Yeah, I mean, pretty much. I mean, drivers see what needs
40:22
to be done and do it, and passengers wait to be told.
40:27
Passengers, you know, aren't looking for how to do a better
40:32
job tomorrow. They're just looking to do the
40:34
job. You know what?
40:35
What's my job, I'll do it right kind of thing.
40:38
And drivers are really looking to improve, drive change, make
40:43
things better, see what needs to be done, whether it's your job
40:47
or not. Could you do it?
40:50
So the passengers are the ones that go, not my job.
40:54
Yeah, yeah. And the drivers are obviously
40:56
going to be the change managers, which is, which is really.
40:59
And I like how you call that out.
41:01
And also as you're building those strategies, I have to
41:03
think when you had to make that $10 million cut when you rolled
41:07
this strategy out, there were people that were like, hey,
41:09
Jennifer, you know what? I didn't sign up for this.
41:11
I don't want it. I'm out.
41:12
And it did it actually. Bring.
41:15
Yeah. Did you see that happen or were
41:17
there still people that were like they resisted the change
41:20
and say, look, you can tell me do this, but I'm not doing it.
41:23
And that made your decision a little bit easier on on how to
41:27
how to move this. I mean, there were a couple of
41:29
people in the beginning who were like that.
41:32
I mean, they quickly got on board because they realized we
41:36
weren't budging and if they didn't get on board, there was
41:38
another option and we didn't need you anymore.
41:41
So we made it quite clear that this was the plan, and if you
41:46
didn't like this plan, we'd help try to find you another role.
41:50
But we didn't really. It wasn't an ask.
41:53
It was, this is what you're gonna do or you can choose to
41:56
leave and we'll we'll be OK with that.
42:00
I mean, there were on the flip side, there were a lot of people
42:02
who were like, sign me up. I've been waiting for this.
42:05
Like, yeah, right. So, so like that worked out well
42:09
too, right? Because I think as you, as you
42:12
change and there's, there's space right there.
42:16
I had a leader who always said to me, take your space when
42:19
there's a void and there's a gap and there is an opportunity and
42:23
there's something new, fill the space, right?
42:27
And so there are a lot of people who stepped up and filled the
42:30
space, which is incredible to see as a leader.
42:33
That's awesome. So after the after the 30
42:37
eighths, I just looked at time like I, I, I told you, you got
42:39
to get out of here because you've got more important things
42:41
to do for tomorrow. As you started to go through it
42:46
and that the did, how did did you do like a weekly check in?
42:49
Did you do a a after the 30 days?
42:51
How did the communication of the strategy roll out go?
42:54
And then once that 30 days happened, was it like, hey,
42:57
Jennifer, like we got this like you don't have to meet us
43:00
anymore, Like we're good. We trust you.
43:02
Yeah. So back when we rolled out the
43:04
new service model, we did it by region and we would kick each
43:06
region off with a training session, which was an in person
43:11
like 3 day training session. And so I had my leaders joined
43:16
every single roll out. So by the time we got to the
43:20
last region, those leaders were already starting to move.
43:24
Right. I'll never forget in the with
43:26
the service model, my, my service leader, she's like, I
43:28
got this, I'm going to go and I'm like, OK, like cuz, cuz we
43:31
were very methodical about how we were moving teams and blocks
43:36
of business because we didn't want to overwhelm the team or
43:39
sales. So we didn't want, we didn't,
43:43
we, we, we did it within 12 months, but we didn't, we didn't
43:47
go any, we didn't go any much faster than that because we
43:50
wanted to make sure we got each region set up for success right.
43:54
And so, but once we got them up and running, they adapted the
43:59
plant, the the rollout plan or the maintenance mode, right?
44:03
They adapted that to what worked best for them.
44:07
And that was OK. I mean, there were certain
44:08
things are like, no, you got to keep it.
44:10
You got to keep at least three huddles a week, right?
44:12
But they might have moved away from daily huddles, right?
44:15
And that was fine. As long as their metrics were
44:18
fine and their people were fine. I was like, that's OK.
44:21
Yeah. It's great.
44:23
And now the now you've got everybody on the bus and they're
44:26
effectively driving the bus for you or I would not say for you,
44:30
but with you, which is which is great.
44:33
OK, so let's move in to wrap up and get you out of here because
44:37
I think I could talk to you for hours and hours and maybe and
44:40
hopefully there's the second one at the end of every
44:43
conversation. I ask, everybody likes new,
44:44
nobody likes different and doing both the same time can cause
44:47
friction or uncertainty. So for somebody thinking about
44:49
levelling up, how they can improve their their operations
44:51
and sales strategy or even just that relationship, what are two
44:55
or three actionable things you can tell them to do on Monday
44:58
morning so that they can get kick started on the right foot?
45:02
Develop an amazing partnership with your sales or operational
45:07
counterpart. Meet with them, have a cup of
45:09
coffee with them once a week. I meet with my sales leader
45:13
usually once a week, and we usually just sit and drink a cup
45:16
of coffee and talk most of the time.
45:18
Sometimes we're solving for World Peace, other times we're
45:20
not. But develop a real trusted
45:23
relationship with your counterpart so that you
45:27
understand what they worry about and that you can read them end
45:34
up meeting, or read them in a in a Slack message, or read them
45:38
when they raise a concern. Because the faster that the two
45:43
of you are a joint partnership, there's a lot less noise when
45:48
your sales. Speaking as an operational
45:51
leader, as long as my sales leader knows I always have his
45:54
back, he never needs to worry. And as long as I know that he
45:59
always has positive intent with everything he's doing, he's not
46:03
looking to blow my team up. He's he's got people on his team
46:08
who know enough about operations to speed bump them when they
46:12
need to be speed bumped and they'll come over and they'll be
46:14
like, do you know that blah, blah, blah, blah.
46:16
Has this proposal out there? And I'm like, no, but tell me
46:19
more, right? So as long as you've got that
46:22
relationship, things will go far smoother for you as you plan and
46:28
you go through the day today, yeah.
46:30
So the two things I kind of took out of that was understand their
46:34
world, like sit in their shoes almost like it kind of sounds
46:36
like you're doing that. And then the second one is
46:38
separate the signal from the noise.
46:42
So those are those are two really great points to to share.
46:47
So this has been, this has been awesome, Jennifer.
46:49
So if people want to talk to you a little bit more, they say,
46:52
hey, you know what, I want to see what's going on.
46:53
Where? Where can they find you?
46:56
You can find me on LinkedIn or you can also find me on my
47:00
website, jenniferdoty.com. You can contact me there.
47:03
Awesome. Well, today's been you know,
47:06
Jennifer and I don't we have never met.
47:08
We've only had a couple of short.
47:10
We had a very short conversation in this.
47:12
You have such great energy and excitement and you know, I could
47:15
certainly see how working underneath working in your team
47:18
and working for you is. You know you will always bring
47:21
the best to your team and you'll also just give them the great
47:24
energy to go and do their best. And that's the thing that I kind
47:27
of take away from today. And, and finding those details
47:30
to make the customer better. Also making your team better and
47:34
giving everybody the right space to be successful is certainly
47:37
what I take away from this. So I really appreciate you doing
47:38
this with me. Thank you so much.
47:40
It's such a pleasure to be here with you.
47:42
Awesome. Well that's going to wrap up
47:43
another episode of the Revenue Problem Solvers Podcast.
47:46
Obviously, want to thank you, Jennifer, for sharing these
47:48
incredibly invaluable insights. There's some strategy you can
47:50
put into action tomorrow. Remember, success leaves clues
47:53
in every revenue problem has a solution.
47:55
Sometimes you just need the right conversation to find it.
47:58
Until next time, it's Carl with Revenue Problem Solvers helping
48:00
you turn your obstacles into your opportunities.
48:02
Thank you for joining us and we'll see you in the next time.