The Secret To Aligning Your GTM Function with Mark Truman, Chief Revenue Officer at EdgePetrol

In this episode of The Revenue Insights podcast, Mark Truman, Chief Revenue Officer at EdgePetrol, discusses the importance of identifying your ICP, the switch from field to remote sales and the advantages of the OKR goal-setting. 

• Mark’s LinkedIn
• EdgePetrol Website

Identifying your ICP 

Mark shares how important it was to hone in on who their ICP was and the problems that their product solves. However, it did take a 22 hour trip to South Africa with a prospect that was not their ICP to learn this! 

Tip for new CROs

He advices anyone who is new to being a CRO to get in customer success as soon as possible so they can get their hands dirty with setting up processes and ensuring customer satisfaction. 

RevOps at EdgePetrol

At EdgePetrol, RevOps as a function aims to improve what you do with your data and the way that data works for you. It provides the ability to optimize processes for sales, marketing and customer success. 

Without data, it can be very difficult to identify where improvements could be made. 

Overcoming Challenges 

Like many businesses during the pandemic, EdgePetrol had to pivot their field sales team to a remote one and they have been growing the team ever since. 

The biggest challenge in the past few years has been changing the way EdgePetrol sells. The pandemic ripped out their sales process. It was about finding new ways to reach their ICP. 

It was a challenge to become an online business when their ICP does not typically spend their time online. 

Alignment Across Teams 

The first step in creating alignment across teams is creating transparency. Giving every team and individuals access to reports and dashboards and encouraging an environment where people feel comfortable making suggestions. 

EdgePetrol does this with an all hands weekly meeting where they go through wins, challenges and dive into any data that needs to be highlighted. 

However, it is important to remember that sometimes providing too much visibility can get you into a mess!

What would you do differently? 

Mark would’ve started hiring senior people from the get-go, starting with a VP of sales. He believes this would have accelerated EdgePetrol’s growth. 

EdgePetrol focuses on a culture fit when hiring. Some of the characteristics that they look for include: business acumen, determining, ability to learn and develop. 

Mark firmly believes that it does not matter if you know the technical aspects of the job but if you have these attributes you will be able to learn it. This is the type of candidates they are looking for. 

Empowering your teams with OKRs

OKRs can sometimes feel like a task and end up meaning nothing. 

EdgePetrol sets one OKR for each team and aim for their OKRs to be transparent, and visible but most of all allow our teams to see if they are hitting their goals. 

It is a really good idea to hand over the management of your OKRs to RevOps teams. RevOps teams have knowledge of all the different aspects of the business and can better understand the true impact of OKRs. 

Recommended episodes:

• Leading A Sales Operation Team with Guy Weigert, VP Sales Solutions of SimilarWeb
• A New Sales Ops Team Structure with Brian Chin, Director of Revenue Operations at Spring Health
• Simplicity: The Foundation for Building Efficient Sales Products and Processes with Pouyan Salehi, CEO and Co-founder of Scratchpad

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