The CRO of the Year & CMO Talk Growth & Alignment
Shawn Conahan and Tristan Barnum, the CRO and CMO of Wildfire, explore vital aspects of aligning marketing and sales in B2B. They stress trust, collaboration, and customer success while ensuring incentive plans emphasize long-term over short-term rewards. They underscore team building and fostering a positive company culture as vital for driving success.
marketing
CMO
Podcast
b2b
C-suite marketing perspectives
C-SUITE MARKETING PERSPECTIVES PODCAST "The 'CRO of the Year' & CMO Talk Growth & Alignment" GUEST: Shawn HOST: Conahan Steve MacDonald GUEST: Tristan Barnum
ABOUT Shawn Conahan CRO of the Year "The comp plans for everyone involved in generating revenue look more like long- term incentives and stock options. Yes, there are bonuses. Those bonuses are largely subjective. One of the subjective criteria is the quality of the deal, not necessarily the quantity of the deals you closed.” - Shawn Conahan, CRO at Wildfire
ABOUT Tristan Barnum Chief Marketing Officer "We invested heavily in nurturing a positive culture where employees feel valued. Regular alignment meetings, transparency from leadership, and a shared vision foster this culture. We have incredible morale. We have a wonderful culture. We root for each other. We celebrate each other's successes.” - Tristan Barnum, CMO at Wildfire
FULL EPISODE "This is probably the number one lesson that we try to teach our entire company is that there are no individual winners on our team. We're not competing individually for glory on any given partner or product or whatever the case may be. We are trying to all win as a team together." - Shawn Conahan
FULL EPISODE: Topics Covered Alignment is Cultural Establishing a Company Culture for Everyone's Success Rethinking Incentives and Compensation (No Quotas) A Buyer’s Journey Process for Stalled Deals What Truly Drives Success
“Championing Culture for Everyone's Success” (4:01) This 4:01 video with Shawn and Tristan discusses their culture, including freedom, responsibility, transparency, trust, empowerment and alignment. "We have incredible morale. We have a wonderful culture. We root for each other. We celebrate each other's successes." - Tristan Barnum, CMO
YOUTUBE SHORT: Culture is responsible for roughly half of our success. "With great freedom comes great responsibility. Good decision, good. Bad decision, good. No decision, bad." - Shawn Conahan
“Moving Beyond Sales Quotas” (3:39) In this 3:39 video with Shawn and Tristan, they emphasize the importance of establishing long-term relationships with partners (clients) rather than simply closing deals and moving on. "We focus on the quality of the deal, not necessarily the quantity of the deals closed." - Tristan Barnum, CMO
YOUTUBE SHORT: We don't want a certain number of deals. “We are incentivizing for the long term. There are no monthly, quarterly, or annual quotas." - Shawn Conahan
“The Perfect Plan For Tackling Stalled Deals” (4:36) In this 4:36 video with Shawn and Tristan, they discuss the common issue of stalled deals in sales and how to overcome them. “The most effective thing that a CRO can do differently that has run into stalled deals is just bring a process, and the buyer will absolutely appreciate you for it.” Shawn Conahan
YOUTUBE SHORT: A process for getting stalled deals unstuck. "Anybody who has run into a deal that has gotten stalled, usually they're just trying to buy time to figure out what's happening." - Shawn Conahan
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