Turning Sales Teams Into High-Performers with AI

0:00 (logo whooshing) Today we have founder, CEO of People Lens. Yogi, thank you so much for being here today. So stoked to dive into your platform. The experience that you take from a real eclectic background of business and sales and go-to-market expertise, I think is really shown in the way you've crafted the product. I don't think there is anyone that we work with at LeanScale or anyone who listens to this channel that doesn't believe that there's a lot of opportunity to improve how the sales team is performing. And I think your AI powered approach to coaching and improving sales performance is a really powerful way to help increase results

0:44 on the revenue side of the business. So thank you for being here. Excited to dive into the product. Before we do that though, I always love to hear what gave you the inspiration to start People Lens and how did you get everything kicked off? - Absolutely. Anthony, thank you for that introduction and just delighted to be here. Congratulations on that swanky setup there. The studio looks really cool and I'm a fan of the part. Really see the value that this adds to your clients and what you do to bring innovation to the community and to the world. My journey goes way back. So I was a strategy consultant and did that for a while. As I left that world,

1:35 I got lost in tech land and I bounced around a bunch. And each time I changed companies, I changed functions. So I went from the world of strategy to the world of sales, from there to the world of marketing, from there to the world of product. And I was really fortunate along that journey to find great set of folks, great set of mentors to guide me. And I continued on that journey, went from product to people to IT. I was at Palo Alto Networks 2018, 2019, new CEO, new board. We were a very successful company at that point, a single product, firewall company. New CEO came with a vision like, we need to be a cybersec giant

2:25 and off we went on the acquisition trail, 17 acquisitions, five quarters, really buying our way into that portfolio. With each acquisition we brought in the product team, the engineering team, but for go-to-market we'd lean on our homegrown reps and the story began to play out. Stock doubled in a pretty short span of time, revenue grew at a nice clip. But then as we were wrapping up 2019, stuff hit the fan. And we missed our numbers two quarters in a row. The stock literally fell off the cliff. It went back to exactly where it was before the first of those 17 acquisitions and-- - Oh man. - We began to, yeah, it was all hands on deck.

3:16 And we began to try a few different things, more sales ops, more strategy consultants, more customer insights, nothing seemed to quite play out. And my boss, I sat in the people team, leading people tech and people analytics. My boss said, "We've got to do our bit. "This is our problem. "And you've got to put on your people lens." And that's when we began to focus on the rep, focus on the manager. And as we dug in, as we began to stitch those data sets, we saw Mike, that AE was struggling. He had grown up as a box seller, a hardware seller. He did that 50K deal month after month after month. But in this new construct, in this new portfolio,

4:07 he was struggling. And as we began to see where he needed help, as we again brought those data sets, whether it was his calendar, his CRM data, his enablement systems data, we saw he needed help with product knowledge, with consultative skills, with mindset. And as we began to serve him those pieces together with his manager's help, we saw Mike go from that world of 50K box seller to the world of a seven figure SAS seller. And in that pain, the world of people lens came to life. And our mission is really to make every rep a better performer and a manager a better coach. And again, grateful for all the folks that have guided this journey to bring it to life.

4:52 - That's a great story. And I love like Palo Alto Networks, such a gem in the tech community and such a good story. So I'm sure there's so many good learnings there. And I think you're also dealing with a group of people, people who go into sales don't go into sales to lose. So they're highly competitive. They're highly interested in self-improvement and becoming the best salesperson they can be. And it also impacts their paycheck. So they have every incentive in the world to try to do better and same with their managers and coaches. So I think everybody is always really hungry for any bit of knowledge that can give them an edge

5:33 in becoming a better salesperson and winning more revenue. So I think where you're at is a perfect place to be. And I would love to, I know you have a demo prepared for us. I'd love to dive in and just take a look at the approach that you have taken to get this type of Intel to a person to help them become better. - Absolutely, Anthony. And the more we do this, the more we recognize the struggles in a world today where data sets have really exploded, but insights continue to only trickle in. And so we do really four things. One is we unify the data sets that are sitting across the enterprise, pretty much every rep touch point going well beyond

6:25 that go-to-market data set, we widen that aperture and augment that customer data set with org and people data sets, i.e. a rep's calendar, their enablement systems, their engagement systems, their conversation, and we bring those together. We unify those systems where that connective tissue. Number one, number two is we are able to then run our proprietary models, bring those structured and unstructured data sets. Number three, we really put this together in a lens for every persona. Of course, for the corner office and for the execs, we have their own lens, but we largely focus on the front lines where execution happens.

7:07 So we have a manager lens and a rep lens, and we help the individuals with where they are at. It's really about helping reps grow as opposed to letting them go. And then four, we make it pointed, we make it personalized with our performance agents and our nudges that we bring to the front lines to help them understand where they need to execute. So let's jump in and see how that plays out. And we'll start with the manager lens. So let's bring that up here. Awesome. So this is the manager lens. Leila is a manager. She's got a bunch of folks on her team. She can pick an outcome she really cares about. Here, she'll jump into code entertainment,

8:01 and she knows who sits where on her leaderboard. She knows who's a performer, who's not. So she'll go in and pick Whitney, Whitney's struggling. Leila obviously knows that. She can pick a best-in-class performer, or she can pick Annabelle, and Leila knows this. What she doesn't quite know is why is Whitney struggling? And as people lens, surface is the key driver for Whitney's performance, or lack thereof. They happen to be her med pick score, her time with customers, her time to respond to emails. And we now get really pointed. It's about identifying where in that med pick is Whitney really struggling.

8:50 And we see her economic buyers coming in later in the cycle. Our research indicates that when we bring them in earlier, deals close at 15% higher, giving Whitney the impact and the opportunity to lift a game to do another 100K in revenue as she goes into next quarter. All of this is obviously visible inside Salesforce, or it can get sent to a rep's calendar as a nudge, or in her Slack, really meet them where they live. So this is that manager lens. What we also have is the rep lens, where Whitney can jump into her own lens. She obviously has a bunch of dashboards today, but this is her lens. She can begin to see her outcomes. What's she making?

9:48 How can she do a little more? Painting a few scenarios out there. Her meetings, her manager one-on-one, the agenda, the nudges that are active completed. Her pipe, the activities, where she allocated her time, last week, last quarter, her competencies, her learning, really that 360 view for her to help her zoom into where she needs to go. But where this again comes to life is in that execution flow. And she can begin to see what are the nudges that have come in her direction, the active nudges and the completed nudges. Full cycle, we can begin to see where did she need that help? Where did Leila, her manager, nudge her?

10:33 And once she nudged her, once she completed that nudge, how did it full cycle, again, move the needle on an outcome, her code attainment, really making sure we can see and grow the top line with a focus on that frontline.

10:51 - I love it, and I think a lot of this, like you said, this data is kind of in disparate areas. They have to log into a lot of different dashboards or tools to get some component of this. But I think the tailored nudges that are specific to improving their performance is really unique. On those nudges, are you looking at this at the deal level as well, how to perform specifically better for a particular deal? Are you looking at this just for the rep in general, or are you kind of looking at both, like high level zoomed out of the person, but then in the micro with a specific dealer opportunity? - Great, great question, Anthony.

11:36 And so what we see is, for example, one of our customers, a sales enablement leader, she's got Gong open here, Salesforce open here, Tableau open here, and she's trying to triangulate between those three and really struggles to surface, where is that individual at, and where does the individual need the help? What People Lens is able to do is bring those pieces together for her, and then zero into what does the manager need to do to help that rep? And so for us, it's doing it at two levels. One is at the deal level aggregate, not just at the call, but bringing call, bringing emails, trying to piece those together and diagnose

12:28 where does this individual drop off in a deal? And the second layer we do that at is really thinking about it with a rep lens, a true rep 360, zeroing into what's the muscle that a rep, really needs to lift to up their game. And that could be a competency, that could be a skillset. So we surface that across their journey, for example, why do reps take long to ramp? And we are able to understand like what are the three or four drivers that matter inside a company? For example, if it's a technical product, they could be spending more time with the product guy. So with their SEs, and that matters in how quickly you ramp,

13:21 that matters in how you surface your inhibitors and really address them quickly. And that is relevant both in the channel scenario and in the sales scenario. So really getting pointed, but always putting that rep at the center would be observed like really first principles is over the last few decades, a lot of the energy was around the customer. Rightfully, so they got us here, but there've been systems, there've been data sets like around what is the spouse's name? What is their pet's name? Like you can get a gazillion feels on the customer. What we think about is really true first principles, the customer on one side, the product at the center

14:10 and the rep on the other. We're trying to do the same for every rep. We're trying to bring that rep into the equation, they were a forgotten part, and begin to serve them with their own lens. Really thinking about every attribute, every skill, every competency, where they allocate their time, their activities, and then run our models to determine where they're struggling, bring that back to them, really identifying that muscle they need to flex to lift their game. - No, that makes a ton of sense. I think getting the insights that a rep needs to be better is super important, and I think that's where it starts,

14:50 like is the individual focused on self-improvement on an ongoing basis? Now for another persona, for execs within a company, they might have multiple sales managers. What type of insights and data are you surfacing that are helping them make decisions, helping them in the boardroom, and helping them make sure their leadership team is doing the job they need to be doing too? - Great question. What we found is that there are really, really solid consultants, experts serving the corner office, but they serve them at points in time, when they're in deep pain, or the RevOps team puts together QBR decks, dashboards, and that's looking at a stack rank of reps.

15:39 They make really important people decisions in those conversations they're about grow or go, and they're largely driven by anecdotes. They're largely driven by what folks might have to say in that meeting, as opposed to hard facts. And so we have this exec lens. Let's see if I can pull it up here. What she begins to see is this overarching view, where as she looks at her team, she can zoom into the three key drivers that matter for her reps, her reps go to attainment, and they're met pick score, they're timed with customer, they're technical skills. And all of this is, again, visible at the aggregate level across the reps,

16:31 so she can look at a stack rank of reps, and tying it back to the manager lens, tying it back to the rep lens, we see here Sherry Stuggling, rather she's one of the top performers, Met Pick is her driver for that performance, and we can also begin to see her top three drivers there. As we double click, we can begin to see that massive middle. And what we see is in most organizations, there is that B pool or that massive middle, and there's a massive opportunity to help these folks lift their game. As we zoom in there, we can look in to see where is each individual struggling again, and how can the manager, the respective manager,

17:29 begin to help the Joanne, the Cordels of the world at an aggregate level when the CRO sits down with their RevOps leader or their enablement leader, they can have a conversation on what are their strategic initiatives, their priorities, their programs, are they aligned to Met Pick, are they aligned to growing technical skills, because this is that opportunity to surface and make those bets really aligned with the insights coming through across the team. What we found is the most expensive math in sales is when you really rep, let reps go, and it's really expensive. It's almost 18 months of math if you think about revenue coming in.

18:21 And there's an opportunity to change that narrative, to change that math, and to begin to think about coaching reps and not cutting reps, because that is quite a game changer, and that massive middle pool can really move that needle if it's addressed with personalized insights and helping that manager, that quarterback, guide those conversations, lead those reps, change their game. - Yeah, one of the biggest things we do at Lean Scale, so for all of our customers, we put together a growth model, we lead planning for the companies that we work with, and one of the biggest missing attributes that people overlook is sales team attrition

19:10 and how that impacts your capacity. So typically, you have your current reps, you're thinking, okay, I'm gonna add five, 10, 20 more throughout the year, and this is what their capacity is gonna be. People are starting to understand ramp now, like, okay, it's gonna take a quarter or two for them to ramp, so I need to hire them earlier. They completely leave out of the equation, which one of those reps are gonna be good leavers or bad leavers, ones that you hire, you made a mistake, you need to make a quick decision, which one of your good reps is gonna find an even better job somewhere, and how are you backfilling that,

19:47 and how can you lower the attrition rate as much as possible, 'cause it's very expensive. The recruiting fees, recruiting time, even if you're not paying for a recruiter, enablement and training and ramp, like, two quarters of them trying to build pipeline, it's immense how much you invest in that team. So for you to make all that investment and then they just leave and go somewhere else, or you think they're a lost cause and not worth keeping when maybe they just need better coaching, it's a huge impact to the growth of any company. - Yeah, very, very well said, Anthony. And so it really ties back to our mission. We believe reps are, as you said,

20:31 really have that potential. It's about helping them surface that and empowering the manager with the AI agents with that performance nudge to grow that rep as opposed to letting them go. - Absolutely. Well, I was hoping we could transition a little bit. This is maybe for the RevOps-y folks that are listening right now. What does the integrations ecosystem look like for Peoplelens? How do we get all the rich data that we're capturing in a million different tools into Peoplelens so you can let your models do the magic on coaching the reps? - Yeah, super. As we go into customers, that's really at the heart of it.

21:19 What we see is they've got a pretty, pretty solid stack. They have a fancy CRM, a fancy conversational intelligence play, a couple of enablement systems, LMS, CMS, and they obviously have the reps calendar, a few other productivity plays out there. What we find is that they wanna add more data sets. And when we begin to ask the question, how are you using the data that's sitting in your backyard today? The answer quickly leads to a siloed set of data. - Sure. - So for us, it's imperative as we really build out our platform to be that connective issue and to bring the data sets from across those systems. So we have APIs built out again,

22:25 against a few dozen systems that just pretty much starts off bringing in data from your Salesforce, from your conversational intelligence systems, from your enablement systems, from your calendar, and let our models then surface these execs, these manager, these replans out of the gate, like in a day we can get this going. So companies don't have to really invest or care about expensive integrations or expensive implementations. Out of the gate, we can begin to really put this out. And we do 30 day pilots, where all of this is visible in the first day or so, and then we just tune. We let our models get better, let the insights get sharper

23:12 and begin to build out that business case together for that long-term investment. So we believe there's a massive ecosystem out there. And as RevOps leaders or as systems leaders, the ecosystem has gotten rich, again, with more systems, with more data, but that insight is lacking and there's a need to personalize those insights for the managers and the reps, which is where our focus is. - Makes a ton of sense. And I don't think people realize, so the average size of the go-to-market tech stack, we primarily work with series A, B, C companies. When you're at that series B, series C stage, the average number of tools is over 30

23:59 in your go-to-market tech stack alone. That's not talking about your core tools like email and Slack and everything like that. That's just tools dedicated to go-to-market. So yeah, pulling all those insights together in this context of coaching and getting your reps better, really, really tough to do and really siloed. So I think being able to do that is really powerful. So Yogi, I think anytime's probably a good time to be investing in coaching your sales team, coaching your go-to-market team. But from your perspective, when have you seen is the best time to bring on people lens? And for people to start getting really serious

24:39 about investing in this level of coaching for their team. - Yeah, great point. We see a few and what we see is when a leader comes in

24:52 and they are bringing in a new methodology, could be medic, could be spiced, could be value selling.

25:03 This becomes that vehicle to really understand adoption, not just at an aggregate level, but at an individual level, understand the elements and the competencies in the areas that the individual is struggling with. Because a bunch of our customers have the conversation intelligence platform, but they don't have the time. They're not able to really dig in and understand where is a rep struggling. What people lens does is it is able to jump into those calls, jump into the email, marry that against the framework. And then surface that like, where is this individual struggling and begin to help the manager decipher that so that their coaching conversations

25:51 are really revolved on that area. So methodology helping accelerate the adoption of that methodology is a massive area. One of the big area is for the exact lens. You have a new leader come in, a new CRO. They have a pretty good hypothesis of what's happening or the blockers, but as they begin to use people lens, they can validate some of their hypothesis. Here are the areas where we need to make a big bet or here are the areas where we need to make those strategic investments. And so that's where we're finding good amount of momentum and some fun conversations happening. - I love it. Like I said, probably anytime's a good time,

26:30 but if you find yourself kind of in that era of your company, where you are, it sounds like you can absolutely extract so much value out of bringing people lens in and starting to use the insights that you provide. Yogi, thank you so much. I think this has been super helpful. I love the way people lens has really thought about it from the lens to the name, which makes it easy to remember, but coming in from a sales rep view, how do I make myself better? What can I focus on to push this deal along, enhance my skills? I care about my career, I care about my performance and giving me the tools to do that is incredibly powerful for me.

27:11 Then the managers and coaches, I think of the sales managers as the coaches of the team, how can they lean in and help? How do they help the B players become A players? How do they help decide whether this is somebody who maybe it's not a right fit or they just need the right level of coaching? And then rolling it all the way up to that exact level lens where you can see what company-wide investments do I need to be making to make sure that my sales team is equipped to perform at their highest ability is something that I think is really lacking in the market right now. So this was awesome. Thanks for sharing the product. Thanks for giving all the insights

27:48 from such a fruitful career, but also your experience with people lens as you built this out. Yogi, what's the best way for people to get in touch with you personally and potentially get started with leveraging People Lens today? Yeah, so peoplelens.ai, the demo is out there. That's the best way to get in touch. And of course, LinkedIn, Yogi Punjabi, that's the other really easy to get in touch and get some time. And we can do personalized demo, do a pilot, begin to really put this in the hands of reps. That's the way I'd recommend anybody out there. And you have a terrific audience, right? Anthony, as you have done this for a while,

28:36 you guys are true experts in this space as you take the time and invest the energy to understand the lay of the land and bring that together, stitch it together for a bunch of your clients. So your comments and your perspective from that point of expertise really appreciated that. Absolutely, happy to share it. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. And as you grow and develop and the product continues to iterate and transform, we'd love to have you back. And Yogi, we can't wait to see what you all build next. Thank you for having us. Looking forward to following your journey too. Thank you.