Why Your Customer Reference Program Should Live Under Sales

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hi and welcome to the Advocacy Channel, a customer marketing podcast brought to you by impact.com today we're thrilled to have Will Fraser joined by two expert guests from Sage Intact, Kara Manfredi and Simon Le-Fevre. They're here to share something special. How they run a world class customer reference program from within their sales department. With decades of combined experience, they'll walk us through how this unique approach has helped drive both adoption and revenue. In this episode, you'll learn why placing your reference program under sales can make a huge difference, how to make that transition work, and practical ways to show the value of your program. Enjoy. [00:00:48] Speaker B: Kara, Simon, I'm so happy to have you here today. Thank you both so much for joining us. [00:00:53] Speaker C: Thanks for having us. This is really exciting for us. [00:00:56] Speaker B: Wonderful. Just to kind of help our listeners learn a little bit more about you, I'd love to get a, a bit of an understanding of your background. So Kara, maybe you kind of give us a little understanding of kind of how you've gotten here through your professional life. [00:01:07] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. So I have been kind of in this niche of customer reference programs for several, several years. Just I'm truly passionate about it. Built out my own little community back in the day. There weren't a lot of people that were, you know, known about how do you manage reference programs? How are you doing it? And based on the fact that I'm in the Boston area, there's a lot of startups and so I was kind of a jack of all trades and it just kind of like morphed into this, hey, Kara, you have a great relationship with customers. Would you be willing to kind of take on this idea of customer references? And it just evolved from there. And having the community that I build out to network on a quarterly basis was kind of like the start of it. It was, hey, look, everybody else is doing this in some different form or fashion, but let's connect and share best practices. So I've always been like a huge networker. I got involved in this program and have been doing it for years. At one point was even doing consulting but have been working with startups to ground zero to enterprise size organizations walking in and kind of leveling up what their idea of reference program is and just making it world class. So that's kind of how I got my start in it, but I'm passionate about it. Anyone that has spent time with me knows that I could talk about reference programs all day, but he'll give the opportunity to have Simon talk about how he got involved with this So I. [00:02:34] Speaker D: Kind of started at Sage in 2019. I came in as a contractor and it was a whole new world for me. I've done a lot of different things before. Contact center planning, project management planning. And it was. I kept getting given these projects that were almost a blank page with one sentence that kind of said, this is broken, go fix it. And I then built a reputation for getting to be the fixer. Roll into 2021. I end up working with the North American VP of Sales. He's got a string of things that low hanging fruit being told that they're quick fixes. Could I come in and have a look at them? And one of them was reference program. And that's kind of how I got involved. At that point. I didn't know what a Reference program was. 2015, I think this is key to just call out. I found out I was dyslexic. And through that, one of the things that I found is that I've got this naivety which means I'm not afraid. And I'll just go and go, all right, that's what you want doing all right, let's go do it. And that's what I did with the reference program. [00:03:33] Speaker B: Cool. It's a straight line as any. Right? We're all just perfectly woke up and started. No, no. That's wonderfully loaded background there. You know, we talked a little bit before the show and you two were telling us about your customer reference program. And then it kind of uniquely actually sits under the sales department instead of maybe more the marketing or customer marketing departments. We might see it just help us understand, you know, like first of all, kind of, you know, why is it over in sales? And why do you think that's. That's different, but just helps understand how that came about. [00:04:01] Speaker D: The reason why it came about was just because as I said that I was working on projects for the sales team and the then VP of sales said on a reference program, I said, but you've got one, we've got one. He went, it's not working. I want it under sales. I was like, okay. Did a bit of research, went back and said, it's not normally under sales. Why is it under sales? He goes, because then I've got total ownership of it. Then I know what I'm getting and I can get my team to be using it because I know there's an advantage. And as part of that I found a business case, an old business case that had gone back, I think it was two, three years earlier. And it sort of it was quite inflated in as much as it was like a full blown team. There's a director, there was a couple of heads, and there was like, I don't know, six or seven people underneath it. And I was like, that ain't realistic, not when we don't know what's going to be required. One of the things it said was, we need a manager. And on the back of needing a manager, it was somebody in the sales team that had worked with Cara before that had said, hey, how about speaking to Cara? And that's how we brought Cara into the reference program. Cara, do you want to fill in the rest of that? [00:05:05] Speaker C: Yeah. As I mentioned networks before, it was actually a business case that I had helped them on four years before. And my husband said, why are you spending time working with these people and giving free consulting? I said, hey, you never know. It could end up in a job someday. And lo and behold, here I am. And they pull out this old business case that I had done working with the previous employee at Sage intacct. So it was really exciting for me because as you discussed, they don't typically sit under the sales organization. But what was so wonderful about it was, is that we had adoption right off the gate of buy in from the sales svp. We had money for a budget, which is something that we all know is kind of a challenge when you're in marketing and you're constantly having to go over to the sales team and say, hey, use us. You know, we have value. Kind of just having that kind of perception. In some organizations, sales team doesn't want to listen to a CMO say, hey, you got to utilize a reference program. They're like, yeah, whatever. So being closer to the sales organization, I'm already in the club, so to speak, and their boss is saying, you need to use the reference program and we need to identify a way to make this work efficiently to show value. And having that ability to do that under the sales organization was right out of the gate. Something that I had never experienced in my entire career, which is brought us is tremendous success. [00:06:28] Speaker D: One of the things is around the adoption, the fact that you've got top, top down, so you don't have to worry about it. But the other thing we found out recently, been speaking to quite a few people outside. All of a sudden people saying, hey, actually being in sales, that makes so much sense. And it's as if people are having a bit of an aha moment. And here we are doing it. And when we've spoken to different organizations, the Biggest challenge they've faced is how do you get the sales organization to do the thing that you want them to do, I. E. Use the program and by, as Kara said, being under it, being in it. And we've been very well looked after by being represented and also being able to represent ourselves in meetings and getting that visibility. Because I think that sometimes the visibility of the reference program is not. Is not easy. [00:07:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense now that you say it right. It's one of those things that, like once said, make sense, but before that is in obvious or not obvious. I guess the question I'd ask just to kind of flesh it out is, you know, what's the disadvantage of being under sales versus marketing? Are there challenges that come from being under sales, or is it just kind of like, no, this is the answer. [00:07:32] Speaker D: This is the sweet spot. This is like the seat right next to the fire, nice and cozy. It's the best place in the house. [00:07:39] Speaker B: Now, I understand there's kind of a few different distinct reference type programs you're running. Right? You've got, if I ever correctly got Community Champions and the reference program. Are all of those under the sales team. Is that kind of like you're finding it all succeed under there or how does that work for the company? [00:07:55] Speaker D: So when we set. When I set out to look at this reference program, what do we need to do? I had a look and thought, there's got to be something else. That Sage is a big organization. What else have they got? And Sage Intact had been going for such a long time. So when I looked into it, we found there was a communities and there was a Champions program, an advocacy program, but they were siloed, so they talk little to each other. And so what I didn't want to do was I didn't want to reinvent the wheel, but I didn't want to step on anybody's toe. So those two areas have now, as Sage Intact has evolved and as Sage has evolved, those two areas sit under different parts of marketing. And whereas what we've gone and said is we'll do one thing and we'll do it well. And that is customer speaking to a prospect. Kara, do you want to add to that? [00:08:43] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, the whole thing is our focus. And my I eat, sleep, drink references, I wake up every morning. How am I going to get that deal to close faster with identifying the right reference? That's the other part of it is we've looked at this and have identified ways that we can match Our prospects to our customers Personas. It's who's the person that made the decision to purchase, who's the one that is involved in the implementation? Who's the one that's the end user? As those requests come in in different flavors, they're really important for the sales team to match as quickly as possible. So for us, you know, we work collaboratively with those other departments to ensure that we are providing them with the information that they need from a reference program perspective, Whether it's we speak to a customer that's really articulate, and we've vetted them for the program, and we know that they would love to get the word out about what they're doing. We work collaboratively with those teams and share that information. So it's like a team together. It's just really, really helpful. And it's work. [00:09:48] Speaker B: You just. I just love it. I just love this question. You just kind of said there so casually, which I ra hear in reference programs, which is just like, I wake up thinking, how am I going to get that deal to close faster? I feel like so many reference programs that I talk to, they're trying to figure out, how do I get five more people in the program, how do I get six more contacts? And these are good mechanical pieces. But I think that is almost like in itself, such an illustrative line that comes, you know, flows so naturally off your tongue to show the difference of having this program inside of a sales org. That is your question. I just love that that is your question. [00:10:23] Speaker C: And that's also building the trust and credibility with the sales team. Those are the quotes that I get from my AES that I showcase on a town hall monthly call, like, hey, this reference call won my deal at the time of we're going to lose this deal. To get a references in there that are the right Persona. They understand exactly what they need to have answered during that call to solidify their buying decision. If I don't have trust from the sales team, that affects the whole adoption of it. Right. So I want to show value and I want to make sure that they're closing deals, and I want to make sure that our prospect has that story. Because sharing best practices is key. Right. Being able to talk about why you bought a month ago. Right. What is it about that buying experience that was different from our competitors that's still fresh in their mind? So valuable. Right. As you're kind of going into it, going, how do I pick? What's your experience? It's something that I am kind of Customer obsessed about from every direction, whether it's from the prospect or from the sales team or from the marketing team. For my team, we all have to have a seamless experience. [00:11:33] Speaker D: We also looked at the fact that we under the sales org, the fact that we've reduced down the time it takes to get a reference. So when it started, when I first looked at it, it was 10 days and that wasn't even to get a reference, that was to get an indication as to whether there is a customer available. We've reduced it down by 85%. It now takes. We've got an SLA of two days, a day and a half on average. But that means then there's things that Kara can turn around really quickly and that's because the team have such good knowledge and understanding of the customers. And that's something you're not going to get with AI. These guys know the customers intimately. They know who to touch, who to request and when not to sort of speak to these customers. But they know who's got the right detail to support the sales team. Then the sales team appreciate that. And that's how we build the trust by what we've delivered and how that increases the sales velocity. [00:12:28] Speaker B: Now when you were saying at the beginning here, your VP of sales needed this reference program fixed and it was supposedly low hanging fruit, but it was living under marketing at that time, correct? Or was it just kind of defunct? [00:12:41] Speaker D: It had been there for a long time and when we looked at the actual sort of structure of it, it looked like a reference tool. It worked. But what we found was that 60% of the base was identified as being referenceable. And it's worse than looking for a needle in a haystack because you're told that there's references there. But what we didn't have was what can they talk about? So that's when I said to car I said, right, what do you want? You've got 20 plus years experience, what do you want this to do? We've got a massive opportunity, we've got a slim window but a massive opportunity to turn this into something amazing. What is it you want to do? And that's where Cara came in. I'm going to pass over to Kara to say what she said. [00:13:18] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean we looked at our base and it was more than half of our direct customer base was referenceable. And that just didn't seem right to me. Right. Usually we're looking at trends between 10 to 20% of your customer base is referenceable. So that's when we kind of looked at and said, okay, this is more of a quantity than it is a quality, which is affecting the timeline of identifying references. And so having the information, vetting them, learning about. About the fact that a customer is not only willing to be referenceable, but they actually implemented us three other times at other organizations, which is not being tracked in the salesforce system. It's not easy to find. So having a tool was part of that magic. Right? Being able to find things very quickly and to deliver on the request in a timely manner was key for us as well. And it shows metrics, which is, you know, sales just wants to see dollars, right? How many deals are you helping us to close? What's revenue? How do we increase that? How do we get better adoption? [00:14:22] Speaker B: No, I think that's a really interesting quantity over quality kind of problem you're finding there. Let's imagine we've got a listener right now who's hearing this saying, wow, you're right. I have to move this over to sales. It's sitting over in my success or my marketing department, and they're missing these key points. How did you actually go from transitioning that into sales? How did that go? And were there some immediate results you saw or some rapid results you saw from that transition? [00:14:45] Speaker D: Like most transformations that I've worked on, it's about the people. It's about getting people to buy into it and understand it. But in this case, it was about people that already owned it and working with them to sort of show how we could improve it or what we could do or what the rationale behind it was. There was also competition from marketing about why we. Why are you looking at references? And what we had to do was, again, educate them on, look, this is what we're doing. We're only doing one aspect of this, and I think by doing that, one aspect helps. But the transition piece was interesting because we had one VP that was absolutely committed to just getting the tool in. Just get the tool in, right? That's what I need you to do. And we. Internal processes, right? Takes a lot. Takes a lot longer. Everything takes a lot longer than anyone anticipates. Nobody thought it was going to take as long as it did. In March, the VP that we had left. So we get a new vp and the first time we meet him, he says, why are you in our team? Why are you in. I don't know why you got hired, why you two, you got no revenue. You're not helping. What are you doing? I'm really struggling to understand Kara And I came off that call and went, oh, shoot, what are we going to do? And what we learned through all of this is that ability to pivot. So you're faced with this thing that you weren't expecting. How do you prepare for the unknown? You don't. But what you do know is you know where you want to get to. How do we do it? So within two weeks, that VP of sales went, I know exactly why you're in this team and I'm so glad that you're in it. Don't ask me what we did, I can't remember. By doing that, it then gets the trust, getting the trust of the top person. It then just cascades down. And so the transition was from get the tool into right, I need references, so just get me some references. So we had to switch our attentions to, right, we've got 60% of the base. How do we interrogate the base? How do we validate the base? Because we can't just go the 60%. All right, we've got references. So we started looking at it. That was a mammoth task. And I think on each occasion that we face something new that we've as a group, not faced before. I've done this in other organizations, but not with sort of a reference team. This is how we'll set it out. This is what we're looking for. So what's your objective? What's your aim? What do we think the challenges are going to be? How are we going to tackle this? And my background in contact center planning and capacity planning was how long is it going to take you to get through this? So we can give an estimate of how long and how much resources needed. So when we managing expectations back up to the V.P. look, we're going to go vertical by vertical. You tell us which vertical you want us to go through. Which is the most? The one that's going to give you the most bang for your buck or the most impact? You work that one through, we'll follow that through, we'll set up a process and we'll just go through each of the verticals one by one until we get to the end of it. It took a while. That took six months. [00:17:53] Speaker B: I love, you know, but the question I was going to ask is kind of like, how does being under the sales team change your strategy? I love it because this is like such a clear cut situation where it went from. It's about the tool. It's about the tool. It's about the tool to like. It's about the revenue Contribution. I'm curious if that changed kind of any other of your strategies or maybe the typical strategies you would see in a reference program, right? Like that clear sales directive of like, it's not about the tool, it's not about the administration as much as it's just about let's get the deals done. Did that change any other strategies or was that. Help me understand that kind of takes. [00:18:29] Speaker D: Away some of the problems because, you know, from the top, that's what that person wants. And you're not dealing with a multitude of people going, oh, I want A, I want B, I want pink, I want red, I want yellow. It just simplifies it down. And if you go, okay, if that's what they want, this is what we need to do. But I think from Cara's perspective, and this is the diff. That is kind of like the bit where I've never worked with anybody like Cara before, and Cara's never worked with anybody like me before. And I was really surprised when she was telling me that we would be doing all of this stuff. We'd be doing like getting customer references, getting case studies, getting quotes, people to go and attend a webinar, people to do this. And I was like, how the heck could you do that? She said, no, we can't. So that's why it works. It works so well. Under sale. We know what we're doing. Cara, do you want to add to that? [00:19:18] Speaker C: Doing that one thing and doing it well. The references support sales. Again, working collaboratively with the other teams to share that information and you build a bond with them. And, you know, I meet monthly with our PMMs and per the vertical, and they'll say to me, hey, I just went to this event and we've got this customer that's willing to do a webinar and a case study. And they would definitely do a call. So then we feed off each other, right? And then I'll go and I'll say, hey, we just had a really great qualification call with someone who's so articulate. I think they would bring a lot of value to that vertical, maybe doing a webinar. So working collaboratively, but being under the sales gives you that ability to build that trust, get the budget, the buy in. And it's something that, you know, in the conferences that Simon and I have spoken at recently, we were at the Customer Marketing alliance event and every. Everybody in the room, you know, when we talked about our numbers, they're like, they just kind of went back and their jaws dropped. I mean, the ability to build that trust, have the team utilizing the references and to show the revenue that it's helped impact is just astonishing. It's something we're really extremely proud of. [00:20:33] Speaker D: Go back to your question, Will, because what strategies did we change? We didn't know. We kind of did what is the right thing. A lot of the things that we tried to do or that we've attempted to do and been successful in doing, we were told you can't do it. We were told you can't go and speak to a customer as just bought. They haven't used the pro, they haven't used the tool. You need to go and speak to them at nine months. That's ridiculous. Why are you doing that? You can't reduce down the amount of time it takes to get a reference. You won't be able to do it. We've tried. And all of those occasions where people say, you can't. I love that because to me that's just the gauntlet that's like, yeah, I'll pick that up and I'll take it and I'll show you that we can do it. But I wouldn't have been able to do it without Cara. I think working with anybody else, we just. It is a yin and a yang. She's got the reference side of it. I've got an understanding of Sage, but I've also got an understanding of, right, this is the way we do it. Let's just go, how do we get from A to B as quick as possible? Right, let's go find it. [00:21:30] Speaker C: Every company needs a Simon. I didn't even know that his role existed until I came here. I'm like, where have you been for the last 25 plus years? If someone like that in there helping me to kind of go, no, go here, do that. I mean, like, you jump into these organizations and like Simon mentioned, they want to do case studies, videos, press releases, webinars, and do references. And what you end up really seeing a lot of the times is something's going to suffer, right? Adoption, maybe with sales, suffers because you're being hit up more from the marketing side to produce case studies. How can you do it all? How? You just can't. I go back to do that one thing and do it well. Start with the references. We've been told you can't ask a customer to be a reference right out of the gate. Well, you know what? When you say you shouldn't do it, we'll do it. We'll try it and see what happens. And we call customers as soon as they buy and we ask them, would you be willing to be a reference to share your experience with our prospects? You were in the same position a month ago, two weeks ago, and they're more than willing, totally happy in more instances than I would expect. And they're saying, yeah, because you know what, I've actually implemented you two or three times before. I love you guys, hence that's why I'm here again. And I'd be happy to share that information. So that's quite valuable to a prospect who needs that information to again make that buying decision. [00:22:50] Speaker B: I think of this one, you've convinced me that this needs to live under sales. You convinced me that you can transition it from an existing kind of program very rapidly with clear direction into this idea of like a revenue target. Let's say someone else has heard that, they believe that. What are the challenges that they should expect? We've already kind of talked a little bit about some of them here, but are there any other kind of key challenges that you think transitioning an organization's reference program someone is likely to run into? [00:23:17] Speaker D: I think it's self belief. I think that just the belief that what you're doing is the right thing. When we started out, I said, cara, I think this is the right thing. We go and talk to other people in the community. Kara, being well connected, we then start talking to various organizations and explaining what we're doing. And hey, we'd like to learn from you and what can we learn? What can we do? Sharing that idea, you quickly realize that there are problems out there that you either have overcome or you don't have, or they've got solutions for things that you've not even thought about. And I think that, that, you know, as Kara said, like it's an army of one, usually in a reference or customer advocacy. And if you can tap into other people, just share, share the good stuff, but share the bad stuff. And I think that was one thing it could be down to. It's having to do everything. You can't do everything. So what is the priority and what I would say is go and speak to or work out who your major stakeholders who are your customers. If your customer is a sales and that's going to drive more revenue than case studies or getting the number of people into the advocacy program, then I'd push towards that, find out what's driving the business, stepping back from it. Rather than you're in there and you're faced with all of these questions, just work with other people. They're the subject matter experts, there's got to be a business direction. There's got to be, you know, there's a budget, there's a forecast, there's a direction for the next three, five years. Find out what that is and how you can support it and put forward, hey, would this be, you know, I'm looking at what we're trying to do. Maybe it's to support what your business needs are. We could do xyz, but we can't do abc. Kara, what do you think? [00:25:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think get into sales as quickly as possible. Get them and show them that you can add value. You know, having a tool that can help track the influence of revenue, speaking to your peers and saying, we've got instances where there are other organizations, organizations that are doing this and they're finding it to be extremely effective. So I would say, you know, reach out to the network and find out. But I mean, my, now that I've had a taste of this, right? It's so good, right? It's so good that like my mission now is like, if I could change the, you know, the job description back 25 plus years ago, it was, you're a customer marketing manager, you're an advocacy manager. Like, we need to like switch it to just be like reference pro program, sales, customer reference program. And we're living under the sales umbrella. It's like kind of my mission to kind of change that. And you know, as I mentioned earlier, we were at Customer Marketing Alliance Summit and references should be under sales. And it just like everyone was like, yes, 100%, but working collaboratively with marketing to keep emphasizing that because everybody works with the customer. But if we kind of work together, it really does help influence the sales, the budget, marketing, supporting, getting customers on board. It's turned out to be a really great thing here. [00:26:33] Speaker B: What does a collaboration with marketing look like in this example? Right, you're kind of over in the department of revenue sales and you're talking to the department of marketing. But what does that collaboration look like? [00:26:45] Speaker C: I mean, for me, it's meeting with the various teams on a monthly basis, sharing the list of what references are involved in the program, what they've done for us based on the vet, vetting and qualification process that we have, you know, sharing that information with them and then talking to them and they may say, hey, we have a new product launch coming out or we're going to be starting this type of program. Are there people in the program that would benefit from. So it's kind of just Having those lines of communication open and being able to share is huge. It takes a lot off me because I'm able to kind of feed my reference program, and they're able to feed their marketing initiatives too. So you start with the references, build that relationship with a customer. A lot of times we used to go in as advocacy managers, like, okay, will you do a reference, a case study, a webinar, a press release? Like, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we just met. But if we can talk about why you bought. Let's just start there and see where we go from there. Build that relationship. Thank them accordingly. Invite them to events or things, treat them well. You're building that rapport. And then they become much more comfortable. And when marketing says, do we have someone that would do XYZ based on our relationship? We can then go and say, hey, you know, Mary, would you be willing to do this? I know you've been hearing a lot of calls, and it would be really helpful to share that information with the wider audience. So that's kind of like what it would look like, a collaborative effort with marketing. [00:28:12] Speaker D: And from my perspective, it's kind of the thing that came into my head when you asked that question was a Venn diagram. It's like, where's the overlap? Where's the win? So in negotiation, it's about, win, win. And that's the best way. So what can I do for you? If I can get you the reference and I can give you these customers that we know and that we've identified because we've worked with them, and it's. How do you move them up? So to Kara's point is like, instead of bombarding them with everything, it's about stepping back and having a plan. So if we get those customers in at the early stages that they've just been sold to, so they're on the reference program. Let's just stay close with them, how many references they do. So we're starting to measure. We're getting some metrics on those customers, Kara, then introducing to the PMMs. PMMs then want to do interviews. Okay, look, they've gone and done an interview, right? Maybe now we can mention that we've got a community. Hey, we've got a community. And this is what the community. And we think you'd be great in that or you would benefit from being in the community, because some of the things you're asking about. We've also got an advocacy program. So you have one team that's feeding the others, and it's not to say that that marketing is woo. We're not saying that. What we've identified is we can be kind of that lock in the door, the key to open it, and then work through on a logical basis instead of every department trying to take chunks out of a customer and the customer going, whoa, I've had enough. You're just talking to me too much. [00:29:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I know that makes a lot of sense. I love that coordination and just owning of the reference of a customer. Right? They're the customer that we can use them in many different ways, but that makes a lot of sense. I know you guys, you got this new VP and they said, hey, basically, how do you contribute to revenue? [00:29:50] Speaker C: Right. [00:29:50] Speaker B: I'm kind of curious, like, how do you actually measure your roi? How are you showing your contribution? And I think, Cara, you said kind of like, show sales that you can add value, but, you know, how are you showing sales that you can add value today? [00:30:03] Speaker C: So we have a tool that we use, and of course, they haven't. They haven't said mention us during this podcast, but we use RO Upland. I've used all the various tools throughout my years, and we use them. But I think at the end of the day, having a tool that can help you measure what you're doing, we associate it to our opportunities. So the process for us is AE goes into our CRM and they create a request from their opportunity, and we're pulling that revenue over to the request, and we're able to track and measure on that. So we can look at how many deals we won with references and how many deals we lost with references. Do we go back and look and see what happened? But having that information provides us with the support to have additional head count as we look to expand our program. It just, you know, when you put dollars in front of a salesperson, you go, hey, we saved this time. We've got quotes that back us up that say, hey, that reference helped me close my deal. You've got a team that's there, you know, as a command center. You know, we're all in. I've got two former SDRs that are on my team, and they, you know, they're very comfortable speaking on the phone, and so they're just, you know, we're calling people and we're getting it done. So when you have that sense of urgency for everything, it definite definitely builds that support for them. Money is what drives them, right? So it's being able to have the metrics for that and then to keep the pool populated and growing too Working with our customer account managers to fill the pipeline of where we may be lacking in certain references as we're getting new requests and we're like, geez, we don't have anybody like that. So, you know, working with those teams as well is equally important, which is why it makes it really nice to be in the situation that we're in. [00:31:51] Speaker D: I think to Kara's point, it's like, yeah, it's the money, but it's the time. How do you increase the sales velocity? How do you show how many deals are using the reference, how many new references are being populated? All of those things are going to give a sense of trust, a sense of satisfaction, and a sense of purpose. We've been on a sort of an internal kind of roadshow about, hey, look, there's a reference program. Everybody in Sage Intact is aware of their reference program on the back of recent successes. We emailed the CEO and said, hey, Steve, Steve Hare is the CEO. So you say, hey, Steve, just letting you know we've got recognition. We've been told it's best in class. World class. Just won an award. Just thought we'd let you know. And on the back of that, then we got to meet Chief Commercial officer and his BE. And there's a monthly all hands for sales VPs and directors. And we've been asked to go and talk at that, just to sort of share what we're doing, to sort of see if we can share again. It's just sharing best practice. I mean, Kara and I talk forever about it because we're so passionate, because it's worked, it's been hard work. I mean, don't get me wrong, this didn't just click fingers and it happened. It took a lot of effort to get it to work. But I think that the fact that the tool took so long to get in actually was a favorite, was a huge favorite. It wasn't something I wanted to do, but it actually focused us on right, how do you put the governance in? What do you put in? If you haven't got, where do you start from scratch? What's the best thing to do? Because if you haven't got references and you need to get them, how do you do it? I quickly realized there's two sides to it. One is you gotta feed it, and the other one then is you can feed from it. And it's understanding and getting that across because people saying, right, reference program, just give me a reference. And it's. It's crazy. So it's about managing expectations. [00:33:45] Speaker B: I think this is one of those things with any form of relationship, partnership, you know, reference. It's like there is a part where you are building a relationship. You have to feed that energy into it, continually investing in it so that you can have those things ready for when you get that. Without fail, that request, you know, three days to end of quarter, trying to close a deal, need to get a reference across. That is clearly not the time to start. So I just love that reminder that you have to feed these programs. They're not a tool that you set up and then forget. They're not something you just put on the list of the 600 things we're asking CSMs to talk about when they do their QBRS, right? Like this is a program that needs continual care and tending but can then have continual outputs. I love that. That sounds like you have an amazing program. It sounds like, you know, the results are coming in. I'm just curious, what does the future look like? What are the areas that you're looking to advance and make it the next iteration of a world class program? [00:34:43] Speaker D: So the thing that we haven't yet kind of resolved, so when we said we were putting in a reference program, everybody got really excited and went great, so what are you going to do for partners, Kara, what have you done for partners? That partners is tricky. And so we did what we normally do, which is go and speak to the teams and they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, partners, yeah, we definitely need reference program, definitely need a reference program. And you start to talk to them and it's like they've got the references, they just don't have it centralized. So it's in their heads, it's on their phones, it's on scraps of paper. So we haven't. It's that thing of you're victim of your own success because the more you do, the more successful you become, the more known you become, the more people want of you and capacity is the issue. We'd love to go and look at partners. We've spoken to a number of organizations and they kind of said it's a different thing. You can't do one on one calls. Well, maybe she can't, but maybe she can, right? Because how do we know? Nobody's given us any evidence to say that it doesn't work. They've just said it doesn't really work and I need to find that out. Then it's saying how do we. One of the things within Sage, when we brought the tool in, they said, okay, can this go global? Another question from me was like, well, what do you mean by global? This is on Sage intacc CRM. We've got a number of different CRM it. And I said, well, can it go global for Sage intact? Yes, but can it go global so that we can get more products onto it? And it was like, well, yeah, but that dictates on when we would move over to the global gmo. That activity is taking place. It's going to take a while, but that would be the next thing. It's like, how do you even set that up? And when they talk about it going global, they're talking about, can we get the tool in place? Car. And I know that the tool is the last thing to put in place. So what we need to do is go and educate people to say, what have you currently got? What do you want? What do you think you need? So this was the getting onto this VP and director level of sales call as a show and tell. That's the first iteration of that. So it's how do we promote what we've got? How do we show how this would benefit? How this is recognized as being world class. Yeah. [00:37:02] Speaker C: Cara, your thoughts from internal perspective? That's one. And external. I know I'm always a fan of growing my network and it's always been to connect with as many people like me. And now I'm really just looking to connect to more SVP so I can help evangelize the value. Right. And find out who those people are that are the marketing people that you know and connect everyone to be like, hey, did you ever consider this? So in all my years doing this, there was no such thing as a customer reference person. And now we've got people that are ahead of reference program. We've got people that are VPs. So maybe my mission in life for the rest of the time that I'm working is to change the title to be sales Customer Reference program. Right. I'd love to see that title out there and let it be a specialist and a manager and then the VP of Right. Because we've seen all these title kind of evolve. That would be awesome. Hopefully it wouldn't take as long as it took to get everybody else into those roles. 20 plus years. I just think that it's like, what are you waiting for? Let's show you what we've done to help you grow your organization. [00:38:12] Speaker B: Love that card. I think we've heard a great story here today about the idea of changing where the reference program lives and the results that you can see from that if our listeners are kind of getting excited and there's only one thing they could take away from today's show, what would that be for you? What would be the one takeaway you want to make sure that they get. Get. [00:38:28] Speaker C: Don't be nervous about evangelizing your program and asking for help and getting it up there. Get the visibility internally. If you've got a good business case and it's, you know, you have other companies like us that you could share examples of how we're doing, I just say, go for it. What have you got to lose? And, you know, I'm like, just don't try. Right. [00:38:51] Speaker B: Simon, how about you? What's one key takeaway you'd hope that our listeners take today? [00:38:54] Speaker D: It's that thing of just putting one foot in front of the other and just going with it. [00:38:58] Speaker C: Right. [00:38:58] Speaker D: You got to start somewhere. There's probably a lot of people that are sitting there going, if only. Maybe I've got this idea. If you've got the idea, just find a way to implement it. Don't be afraid. You're going to learn so much. I always talk about opportunities, so much so that my kids, they get annoyed at me because I turn everything into an opportunity, what it is. There's a massive opportunity for you to learn. Learn from whatever. You will learn about yourself, you will learn about the business, and you will learn what your strengths and what your weaknesses are. And if you learn about those, you can improve on it. [00:39:31] Speaker C: Yeah, just go for it. [00:39:33] Speaker B: Wonderful. I think that's a great way to sum up this episode. And just thank you both so much for your time here today. I'm sure our listeners have learned a lot. I know I have. You know, if someone wanted to learn more from you or connect with you, what would be the best way for them to find you? [00:39:48] Speaker D: So just link up with me on LinkedIn. [00:39:51] Speaker C: Yeah, we've also started. Well, I'm trying to make them quarterly calls, but, you know, again, I've opened up the doors again for these best practice calls. Also, I have a channel on Slack, but you have to be part of the group. But anyways, we just had a recent meeting and there was like 50 people. There is a need and a thirst for the knowledge, so I'll just continue to do that. But best through LinkedIn to be a part of those types of calls moving. [00:40:15] Speaker B: Forward, we'll put links into your profiles, into the show. Notes here today for anyone who's looking to connect and any other links you guys want us to share. Just thank you both very very much for sharing your insights and experience with our audience today. It's been a pleasure. [00:40:28] Speaker C: Thanks for the platform to do this same. [00:40:33] Speaker A: Thanks for joining us for another great episode of the Advocacy Channel brought to you by impact.com be sure to join us next time as we bring on more expert guide guests like Kara and Simon. If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. If you're looking to build powerful referral marketing programs to better engage and retain your customers, advocates and partners, head over to impact.com to learn more about our referral platform. That's a wrap for this episode of the Advocacy Channel. We'll see you real soon.