Episode #68 Real World Secrets to Scaling Startups from Owner.com CRO and Former Shopify Director, Kyle Norton

In today's episode of Revenue Reimagined, we're joined by Kyle Norton, CRO at Owner.com.

Kyle discusses the significance of implementing different "rhythms" in a business, such as measurement rhythm, planning rhythm, and operating rhythm, likening it to a car engine that functions well with these elements in place. He shares insights from his career journey, including experiences at Shopify and owner.com, underscoring the importance of long-term vision and value creation in scaling a startup. Norton also emphasizes the need for forward-looking decisions with a pre-committed budget to enable rapid scaling and strategic investment in growth, highlighting the role of executive coaching in broadening perspectives beyond sales numbers. Additionally, he stresses the value of a structured approach to tracking and analyzing data, advocating for a Revenue Operating System that includes measurement cadence and team rhythms to drive actionable insights and efficient communication within the team.

During today's show, Kyle shares his secrets on:

- scaling startups beyond just sales metrics

- running the business like an engine and what that takes

- communication and generating actionable insights instead of trying to go after every metric

Any founder, entrepreneur, or business leader can steal the lessons Kyle shares in this episode and use them for their own success.

Follow Kyle - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylecnorton/

PS - huge shout out to Sendoso for sponsoring our show.

We could not do this without you.

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🎁 Lastly, we have a gift for you!

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Transcript

00:23 well welcome back to another episode of
00:25 the revenue reimagine podcast we have
00:27 with us today a legend in his own right
00:30 in the space Kyle nordon who is the cro
01:32 of owner.com where he owns sales
01:34 Partnerships onboarding
01:36 success support Revenue operations and
01:39 enablement you have a little small job
01:41 over there uh Kyle's also a limited
01:43 partner at GTM Fund in stage two Capital
01:45 advisor angel investor spent a ton of
01:48 time at Shopify um and he does a lot of
01:51 work with SAS Focus funds and startups
01:53 where he shares insights and expertise
01:55 on scaling selling and just as
01:58 importantly servicing SAS products Kyle
01:60 thanks for joining man yeah thanks for
01:01 the invite looking forward to it I'll
01:03 try to live up to you a you have a small
01:05 little job at owner.com you you run a
01:07 department or two yeah yeah exactly how
01:11 how do you how do you go from like a
01:13 Shopify that had that you probably own a
01:15 little bit of it to like owner where you
01:17 own like a lot of it and I think this
01:19 will go into some of the conversations
01:21 on Frameworks and efficiencies but you
01:24 know how do you how do you make that
01:26 jump I was pretty it's funny Adam and I
01:29 were just talking about this before you
02:30 jumped on but um I was uh historically a
02:34 startup guy I had never worked for a
02:36 public company my first company was
02:37 maybe 250 people then I went into a true
02:40 startup of that I was Employee 26 for my
02:43 first VP sales gig um I did late stage
02:47 late stage private and didn't think I
02:51 could do a big public company I was like
02:53 that's not for me I don't want to work
02:54 for a big company um and then was
02:58 chatting with Jake dun
02:01 and just getting his advice and he's
02:03 like hey we do this all the time as
02:04 startup people we say it's like oh no
02:07 startup's the only real thing this is
02:09 like the this is the only uh career that
02:13 matters and he was like that's a silly
02:16 way to think about it you can learn a
02:17 ton from seeing how a big scaled company
02:21 operates and so I went into those
02:22 conversations with a much more open mind
02:25 and it was my boss from two jobs before
02:29 that brought me into shop or made the
03:32 introductions um and I loved it like I I
03:38 really I like learning new things and
03:40 you learn a very different skill set I
03:42 learned how to operate in a very product
03:45 Centric context I learned how to partner
03:48 better with product and speak that
03:50 language deal with like a large Matrix
03:53 organizations so there was a ton of
03:56 really
03:57 interesting takeaways from that
03:59 experience and now I'm back back in a
03:00 startup but like I feel very familiar
03:02 with this um even the job at Shopify was
03:05 to build a build a new go to market
03:08 engine within Shopify my team was five
03:10 people when I started and then we grew
03:12 it to like 80 people in 18 months and
03:15 then we reordered and I went from this
03:17 point of sale group to a to a regional
03:21 um mandate um so yeah I've I've bounced
03:25 around you you've seen a you've seen a
03:28 little bit of change so we were uh we
04:30 were talking before the show started so
04:32 fun fact for everyone um Kyle holds the
04:35 job the only job I've ever interviewed
04:37 for haven't gotten um and actually was
04:39 upset about it um having spent time at
04:41 toast like that that's how much I
04:43 believe in what you all are doing there
04:45 but when you started um it was I think
04:47 VP of sales and Partnerships right it
04:49 certainly wasn't C VP sales we didn't
04:51 have Partnerships yet yeah so so you
04:53 were just startup World leading a sales
04:56 team reps plus a manager like couple
04:59 million bucks AR yeah we were we were
04:01 very small and you and you are what now
04:04 I don't know if you're willing to share
04:05 the AR but how many how many reps like
04:07 how how how big is your team 20 20 plus
04:10 million my team's about a 100 now across
04:13 sales and the other functions
04:15 Partnerships onboarding so that that's a
04:18 massive massive jump in a very short
04:21 amount of time right what is different
04:25 specifically about the growth that you
04:27 have contributed to an owner versus a
04:30 similar growth at Shopify but in startup
05:32 Land versus like big company so 5 to 80
05:34 versus two to you know where you are now
05:38 yeah Shopify was interesting because
05:40 they
05:42 were one of the one of the really
05:44 interesting um philosophies that they
05:46 have is to operate as a hundred-year
05:50 company we're here to build a
05:51 hundred-year company so they don't get
05:52 caught up even for a public company they
05:54 don't get caught up in the quarter
05:56 you're indoctrinated in the onboarding
05:58 we don't pay attention to the stock
05:59 price we're here to drive value for the
05:01 customer and ultimately the market is a
05:04 you know a weighing machine versus um
05:08 uh the market is a oh voting Machine
05:12 versus weighing machine and like if you
05:14 know in the long term it's a weighing
05:15 machine because the the real value
05:18 you're creating is is what will be um
05:21 represented in the market cab and so um
05:25 the Mandate I was given is like hey
05:26 you've got like in my first year like 80
05:29 headcount that's that's book that's
06:31 earmarked for you do what you want with
06:33 it I was like oh okay just like I get
06:37 that cart blanch there's no Gates
06:39 there's no this it's like yeah yeah like
06:41 we're we know that the point of sale
06:43 product is good we we are confident that
06:46 a sales motion is going to accelerate
06:48 our growth based on some like early
06:49 learning so go for it and so um I could
06:53 scale as fast as I thought we could uh
06:57 go without things falling apart and and
06:60 I could make um upfront Investments
06:03 without needing to worry about the burn
06:05 impact or um you know
06:09 overbuilding and so I brought in
06:11 enablement really early uh revops really
06:14 early we grew those teams I hired
06:17 leaders that were like you know not
06:19 really stage appropriate so like one of
06:21 my first managers was a former VP of
06:23 sales and she would have never taken the
06:25 role if if I hadn't said hey look like
06:28 the team is going to scale to this
06:30 number in this period of time the budget
07:32 is committed come in to do the manager
07:34 thing and then I'll slot you into U the
07:36 second line role and then she became I
07:38 had a sales for that group and and in
07:41 like an instant and um I could just
07:45 make I could make so many
07:47 forward-looking decisions because the
07:49 the budget was pre-committed and startup
07:53 you know we are still building with the
07:55 future in mind and we're making
07:57 Investments ahead of time you have to
07:59 play a much finer balancing game of you
07:03 know you don't want to overhire make the
07:06 mistake that so many companies have made
07:08 over higher compared to your pipeline
07:10 production or compared to the product
07:12 maturity and then you're doing like mini
07:14 layoffs or riffs like that or or you're
07:17 in a like a tight burn situation like
07:19 that that's not a fun place to be so
07:22 you're you're slightly more staged and
07:26 gated in terms of those Investments but
07:30 but now you know like we clearly have
08:31 this extreme product Market fit we know
08:34 like really closely the economics of we
08:38 add this money to marketing these people
08:40 to to sales these bdrs here and like the
08:44 output is so consistent um over a 12-
08:47 year time Horizon now I can really like
08:49 now we're hitting the gas and and we can
08:51 do that with a predictability that gives
08:54 that um gives us a lot of financial
08:56 confidence yeah it's interesting it's
08:58 almost like every dollar you spend you
08:59 kind of know what that Roi is so like if
08:01 I'm going to go hire a new head count
08:03 it's going to cost me
08:04 $80,000 I know that return is going to
08:06 be 240 320 in Revenue coming in the door
08:11 and I think that's where a lot of
08:13 people I've always had this thought like
08:15 everyone that you hire should have an
08:17 Roi number attached to them but how do
08:19 you get to that place is is always a
08:21 tricky place it's just like going to the
08:24 process systems and structure yeah like
08:27 you need you need the systems and
08:28 structure and infrast structure built so
09:31 that you can build up a track record of
09:34 hey I've got a 12-month history of when
09:37 we hire 10 bdrs nine of them do really
09:40 well we promote a ton of them and they
09:43 they produce a pretty consistent
09:44 pipeline number yeah and um what where
09:47 many businesses find themselves when
09:49 where many startups find themselves is
09:51 you hire a handful of people one person
09:55 is ripping it right two people are doing
09:57 nothing three and then
09:00 you know it's hard to pile a bunch of
09:02 extra headcount into that system with a
09:05 ton of
09:06 confidence um because you don't have
09:09 repeatable playbooks in infrastructure
09:12 and I think that's like a thing that
09:13 we've tried to do well here what's
09:16 what's been the hardest thing you've had
09:19 to overcome in that scale like that
09:21 scale is super quick like the the amount
09:23 that you scaled in that time frame is a
09:27 bit probably unnatural to many people
09:29 that would be listening to this so what
10:30 was the most difficult thing that you
10:31 overcame in that
10:35 scale so one of the most important
10:38 things to fix early on was um
10:43 onboarding so I inherited onboarding at
10:45 some point and um it didn't have a lot
10:49 of infrastructure and yeah it's great to
10:52 be ripping in sales but if you know a if
10:56 a a material portion of these people
10:58 don't activate because we do
10:00 month-to-month contracts so they either
10:02 don't activate or activate late or
10:05 they're not set up properly then this
10:07 has like a pretty significant impact on
10:09 the business and and I think what I try
10:12 to do as a revenue leader is is think
10:15 really holistically about the business
10:17 and and try to not get trapped into the
10:19 sales number I think this is a trap that
10:21 many people fall into is you know they
10:24 they feel like they're successful
10:26 because the sales number is great but
10:28 you the business isn't growing cuz churn
11:30 is bad well like half or more of churn
11:33 is probably customer quality certainly
11:35 was for us or how they were set up for
11:38 success with the expectations that were
11:40 set or you know the features that were
11:42 demoed and where did we emphasize and so
11:45 I think the biggest thing for me is to
11:46 make sure that like from top of funnel
11:50 all the way through to customer value um
11:54 we were running those parts of the
11:56 business with the same intentional
11:00 um approach in in proficiency that that
11:03 was probably the biggest thing that I've
11:05 spent the most time on the last little
11:07 while so it's funny because I think we
11:10 see this everywhere and what you just
11:13 excuse me described as perfect it's what
11:15 we see all the time the sales leader or
11:18 the C the the
11:20 cro
11:21 um who only focuses on sales has no idea
11:25 about marketing has no idea about
11:26 customer success and it's like oh you
11:28 know I we we signed 100 deals you know
12:30 in the past quarter and that's great
12:32 well yeah but 41 of them are still here
12:35 like that's not necessarily a good thing
12:37 that you want to be proud of when when
12:39 you're scaling Kyle and when you're
12:41 looking at you know stepping into that
12:43 through cro role and owning the entire
12:46 Revenue number like how do you determine
12:48 where you're going to spend your time
12:50 and I I want to piggyback that also with
12:53 how do you direct your CEO's time
12:55 because a lot of you know sales leaders
12:57 that we speak with have no idea how do
12:59 you get the CEO to focus where they need
12:01 to focus instead of with what they think
12:03 is
12:05 important so it's there's two questions
12:08 there so one is sort of the difference
12:09 between an executive and a senior leader
12:12 yep and so I
12:14 think um a sales leader thinks about
12:18 their team first they think about their
12:21 team the sales number their Compensation
12:24 Plan it's relatively short-term
12:27 oriented um and they are
12:30 additive to the company they're adding a
13:32 lot but you are additive an executive is
13:35 a multiplier and so as opposed to
13:38 thinking about their their sales team
13:40 they think about the company first
13:42 instead of thinking about their
13:43 Compensation Plan you're thinking about
13:46 Enterprise Value instead of being
13:48 shortterm focused on the quarter the
13:50 pipeline you need you're focused on
13:52 long-term Revenue quality you have an
13:55 understanding of the p&l and that's what
13:57 makes you a multiplier that's what makes
13:60 you um a person that is able to create
13:04 like real Enterprise Value and this is
13:07 the feedback that I get a lot from uh
13:11 the board and my CEO is that that they
13:14 appreciate the fact that I am like not
13:16 just thinking about the close one number
13:19 and um I think I get that feedback
13:21 because it's not super common and they
13:24 they maybe don't see that all the time
13:26 across the portfolio and so that's the
13:28 distinction is like are you additive are
14:31 you just are you like bringing in the
14:32 sales number or are you a multiplier
14:34 you're like a productive contributor to
14:36 product conversations you're who taught
14:38 you who taught you to think that way
14:40 because that that's not normal right
14:41 like and you just said it like they
14:42 don't see it all the time where where
14:44 did you have this Epiphany or who taught
14:46 you that like man it's not just
14:48 about the closed One deals like I'm I'm
14:50 not going to get where I want to go in
14:51 my career that way people buy from
14:54 people that's why companies who invest
14:56 in meaningful connections win the best
14:58 part gifting doesn't have to be
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14:07 entire sales process trust me I led
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14:21 sos.com yeah there was two places you
14:24 know when I became a first time VP sales
14:27 I really tried to learn about like
14:29 building a sass business what what is
15:31 this whole thing about and like not to
15:34 be a total uh brown noser but like
15:37 saster like I I like went so crazy deep
15:40 on all things saster and I learned so
15:42 much from Lenin before he was before
15:45 owner and I was involved with them
15:46 personally but like really trying to
15:48 understand the the the broader picture
15:50 and like Lenin was one of the first guys
15:53 that really really talked about the
15:55 importance of Cs and how to think about
15:57 that as a revenue engine and so
15:00 um I started to try to educate myself
15:03 there because my first VP sales job like
15:05 I was not that well-rounded I was really
15:09 I was like focused on the sales number
15:13 and the thing I pushed product on where
15:15 the things that like got me the sales
15:17 number and I didn't have like a like a
15:19 churn oriented um view there um so just
15:23 like General reading and then I worked
15:26 with a really good executive coach Sky
15:28 Pao to here in Toronto and um he pushed
16:32 me to like um see the bigger picture and
16:36 just you know like executive coaches do
16:38 it's like how do you think like what do
16:40 you think that person thought about that
16:42 and how do you think they interpreted
16:44 this and and through this Executive
16:45 coaching work I really came to
16:47 understand I'm like oh yeah you know
16:49 that probably isn't the right approach
16:51 you know as a salesperson you're a
16:53 competitor like I'm a competitive
16:55 psychopath and like that's why I was do
16:58 job
16:60 that's why I was good at the job because
16:01 I want to win but at the same time you
16:03 got to be able to turn that off when it
16:04 comes to your teammates and I had to
16:07 learn how to create like win-win
16:10 conversations as opposed to like debate
16:12 yeah like when I had a thing like when
16:14 there was a strategic disagreement I
16:16 went into as Adam Grant would talk about
16:19 like prosecutor and preacher mode and I
16:22 would just like like Hammer people with
16:24 the data and my and the customer
16:26 feedback and like try to beat them into
16:29 subm Miss but like you can't convince
17:31 anybody of something in that scenario
17:32 because now getting to the right answer
17:35 or what I perceive to be the right
17:36 answer means they have to lose the
17:38 debate and especially if you're this is
17:41 a you know multi-time CEO or there's an
17:45 age difference or you know there's just
17:47 a power difference between VP sales and
17:49 and CEO like you're very unlikely to win
17:51 that battle because you've created a
17:54 win- lose argument so I I had to learn
17:57 to get better at like building a more
17:01 constructive way to like get to the
17:03 right answer it's okay Adam we can get
17:05 you to multiplier we know you're to
17:07 added of right now we can get you over
17:08 to multiplier it's all good we we'll we
17:10 we'll train you up we'll train you we
17:12 we'll show you the
17:13 way yeah listen I'm I'm good with it
17:17 Kyle um as the cro in your Evolution
17:20 from you know being the the VPS sales
17:24 into the cro and now you see a cross to
17:26 go to market motion from you know
17:28 marketing through C and and see how
18:30 products running what would you say are
18:33 the top three things that new cro should
18:36 be looking at from a metrics perspective
18:40 um that would help Drive their
18:43 business so outside of the sales stuff
18:46 you mean it could be anything like
18:47 anything through the the goto market
18:49 like is it lead conversion is it deal
18:52 velocity like what are the metrics that
18:54 you're really keen on right
18:56 now there's not three there's more like
18:59 30 30 sure so let me let me justl I know
18:02 that but I maybe the top 10 yeah let let
18:05 me just highlight some of the things
18:07 that I think people Miss y because I
18:09 think we're all looking at our funnel
18:10 and breaking it down by AQL to book book
18:13 to show show to demo held close rates
18:16 like that I think we do a pretty good
18:18 job of um but I think where people could
18:21 spend more time if you want to position
18:23 yourself to be like an executive like
18:26 I'm a part of even if you're just the
18:28 even if you only own sales but you want
18:30 to be a seite contributor and seen in
19:32 that light I think the if there were
19:35 three things like go deep on churn and
19:38 understand what part of churn is driven
19:40 by sales either expectation setting
19:43 handoff quality customer quality like
19:46 are these the right people that have the
19:48 right problem for us to solve because if
19:52 you close a deal and it turns in 12
19:54 months not good it's better to like not
19:56 have had that Revenue at all yeah it
19:58 actually cost you money like the net the
19:60 net gain is negative like what's the
19:02 return is some it's at least 18 months
19:04 right if you're good yeah 18month
19:07 payback period lots of companies would
19:09 love Yeah but it could be 24 36 months
19:12 and and so let alone talking about like
19:15 well if 30 33 at toast Kyle when I was
19:18 there but who's counting if they and if
19:20 they really if they really calculate C
19:22 CAC properly I mean who's calculating C
19:25 properly yeah and like it works for
19:27 toast because you've got a this other
19:29 Suite of products and you're expanding
20:31 and all the stuff but um so I think like
20:34 Revenue leaders if you want to be taken
20:36 super seriously by your CEO and have
20:37 your opinion valued you have to be able
20:40 to speak about the business broader than
20:43 just sales so a super deep understanding
20:45 of churn and especially understanding
20:47 what role sales plays in that churn and
20:50 then own it just be like hey I looked at
20:53 a bunch of this stuff this is on me my
20:55 team is closing some like questionable
20:58 deals or we need to do better and like
20:00 go spend the time Shoring that stuff up
20:03 yeah um so a really deep understanding
20:07 of churn would be number one efficiency
20:10 I think like this was a again a big
20:12 difference between firsttime VPS sales
20:14 me versus now is I'm like yeah more reps
20:17 let's hire more reps let's like get more
20:19 bodies in here we like all collectively
20:23 built a model that was way too
20:25 optimistic and we ended up having a
20:27 layoff like 25% of sales team at some
20:29 point because we just like didn't have
21:32 the pipeline yeah to to feed the that
21:35 team and so being more efficiency
21:37 focused understanding your unit
21:39 economics payback period CAC
21:42 LTV how do all these things um play
21:46 together and can you understand it by
21:47 channel so is your inbound Channel
21:50 really efficient but your outbound
21:52 channel is a is a mess okay then how do
21:54 you go um improve efficiency there um
21:60 and the final thing would just be like
21:01 holistic p&l like holistic understanding
21:04 of the p&l or just forecasting in
21:06 general right like not from the top down
21:09 but maybe more Bottoms Up like
21:11 forecasting yeah yeah yeah and when I
21:14 say pnl I mean like the the profit and
21:16 loss statement the the income statement
21:19 to really understand all right like how
21:23 does this whole machine work and what
21:26 are the levers that drive growth because
21:29 what oftentimes as Revenue leaders we
22:30 don't understand is like the changing
22:34 churn has such an exponential impact on
22:38 the business and and maybe that is where
22:40 you should spend an entire quarter
22:42 versus something else or maybe you know
22:44 by understanding the p&l and and really
22:46 looking at like the cost of the events
22:48 that you've been running and oh we only
22:49 generated this much revenue and this
22:51 much revenue turned in this period And
22:54 so like the the return on those things
22:56 like just I think just General Financial
22:59 and p&l fluency is like another place
22:01 that if you want to like make that true
22:04 seite jump is is important yeah I was uh
22:09 I I I was typing notes I I don't do that
22:11 a lot during our our shows but I'm I I'm
22:14 lit literally typing notes this is
22:16 recorded you you can go back and listen
22:18 to it it it w hurt you I I I understand
22:20 but it's easier for me to remember if I
22:22 take the notes at the same time Kyle
22:25 what's your um real quick what's your
22:27 opinion on and I and I totally agree
22:30 with you I don't think enough people
23:31 understand churn as it relates to sales
23:33 or even one more Step Up marketing like
23:35 is it really the right ICP that we're
23:37 selling into because that drip down from
23:39 marketing into sales like there's you
23:42 get into like a domino effect if it's
23:45 wrong at the top then it's gonna be
23:46 wrong in the middle and it's going to be
23:48 really wrong at the end and cost you a
23:50 lot of money but what's your opinion on
23:53 looking at nrr or ndr versus churn from
23:58 like a metric to like pin your hat
23:01 on it's all important like you got to
23:03 look at gross and net if you only look
23:06 at one you're going to miss some of the
23:07 picture because your net your nrr could
23:11 look good uh because you've got two or
23:14 three customers that have like expanded
23:16 like crazy but then from a logo count
23:18 perspective you've bled 20% of of your
23:21 customers and and that will give you
23:24 different signal it's all about
23:26 triangulation like you it's it's hard
23:29 because you don't want to look at every
24:31 single metric and get lost in it but at
24:34 the same time you want to figure out
24:35 like what are your what are your
24:38 absolute like must move
24:41 metrics um my VP sales Brett he he talks
24:45 about with his team like biggest needle
24:46 movers this week this month what is your
24:48 number one bigest biggest needle mover
24:51 and so we're we're combing through in
24:53 our monthly business review process
24:55 everything we look at like every piece
24:57 of data across the team team and um then
24:01 go find the thing that we want to spend
24:03 the most time on and then we go really
24:05 deep on it and so by going through Net
24:09 versus gross churn nrr versus ndr versus
24:12 grr you you can start to pick up these
24:15 patterns and then you just pick that one
24:16 thing and then tackle it over some
24:20 period of time so you don't have to
24:21 constantly juggle 100 metrics yeah but
24:23 it's in some Cadence um for us it's
24:26 monthly because we're S&B High Velocity
24:28 but for many businesses it's like once a
24:30 quarter you really go through everything
25:32 and then and then let that direct you to
25:36 the can't miss metrics so like in my
25:39 SLT in my SLT meeting agenda there's a
25:43 section of it in notion that stays there
25:45 every week which is like the can't miss
25:47 metrics these are the things that we
25:49 care about right now so I don't care
25:51 about clothes rate right now we feel
25:52 great we feel good about close rate
25:54 we've moved close rate significantly you
25:56 know a couple quarters ago but like the
25:59 one thing is whatever and like we look
25:02 at that thing every single week to to
25:04 track against that to track against it
25:06 that's a good way to like take
25:09 this um pretty like
25:13 overwhelming um cloud of data and try to
25:16 like thin it down to something that's
25:18 that's that drives more action love I if
25:22 memory serves me right you actually
25:24 shared um your business review template
25:28 on LinkedIn in like a week ago or two uh
26:30 I think you shared like a massive NOA
26:32 document of like every metric that
26:34 everyone looks at um and that you have
26:37 your teams report on yeah I think I
26:38 shared like six different notion
26:40 templates on my substack so I gave a
26:43 talk at saster which should be up um the
26:46 recording should be up in in a week or
26:48 two and I went through what I call my
26:50 Revenue operating system Revenue OS yeah
26:54 um thanks to Brandon gayy for that name
26:57 but I shared this whole Revenue OS which
26:60 is a breakdown of like how I run the
26:01 team how I communicate the metrics and
26:03 then I made template versions of
26:05 everything so you can go to the substack
26:08 um the revenue leadership
26:09 podcast um I actually I I actually
26:12 literally have it in a window on on my
26:14 screen good nice like TR true true true
26:17 story and so everyone doesn't think that
26:19 I'm lying and I'm writing a newsletter
26:22 on this topic of the difference between
26:24 Executives and Senior leaders so now I
26:28 got to figure out how to stop all right
27:30 there we go so that that that's super
27:33 cool um I I love the giving back it's
27:36 something that's important to us as well
27:38 and the fact that you're willing to
27:39 share that and make other people better
27:42 um I think is huge Kyle we work with and
27:45 we talked to a lot of Founders um first
27:49 time maybe second time C with the
27:52 passion you have for specifically for
27:54 Frameworks and infrastructure when
27:55 they're trying to build out for the very
27:57 first time like a real go to market you
27:59 know motion where where where would you
27:02 tell them are the top things like you
27:04 got to start here you you can't freaking
27:07 go here unless you start here yeah so
27:12 this is it on my substack my Revenue
27:14 operating system I wrote a whole like
27:17 massive uh page on this and so you can
27:19 get it in a lot more detail but um it
27:23 starts with the measurement Cadence like
27:26 your your your ability to understand
27:28 what's actually happening in the
27:29 business if you can't understand and you
28:33 don't have the right infrastructure to
28:35 capture um what's happening on the front
28:38 lines then you can't do anything really
28:40 so you need the right data collected in
28:44 a lightweight structured manner you need
28:46 a Cadence to review that data then you
28:49 need a um you need a a planning Rhythm
28:54 like a light planning Rhythm so each
28:56 month how do you synthesize is how do
28:59 you synthesize what's happened and make
28:02 sense of it and make decisions about
28:04 what's going to happen in the next month
28:06 um that's like the planning
28:09 Rhythm
28:11 um and then the final piece would
28:14 be like your team rhythms so what how do
28:18 you operate daytoday so we do our weekly
28:21 standup and we cover these things and
28:23 here's the template for our meeting and
28:24 then every week I want a written summary
28:27 and I use this thing called maple
28:28 metrics Advanced so what what did you do
29:31 that week planned what are you planning
29:33 to do the next week learnings and
29:34 emergencies
29:36 Maple um and uh my senior leaders all
29:40 fill up fill out a maple update that I
29:42 review on Sunday nights and it Powers
29:44 what what we do in our one-on ones and
29:46 what we want to talk about in team
29:47 conversations and so if you can have a
29:49 good measurement Rhythm a lightweight
29:52 planning Rhythm like a a a routine by
29:55 which you pause and take stock and plan
29:57 for the next period and then an
29:59 operating Rhythm so how you want to
29:02 engage as a team so a template for your
29:04 one-on ones and there's a template
29:06 linked in that page a template for your
29:08 team meetings a template for your weekly
29:10 update if you can get that stuff in
29:12 place like the engine will will work
29:16 pretty
29:17 well what was uh what was the Ean Maple
29:23 emergencies it's like emergencies are
29:25 just stuff that's important but stuff
29:28 that's important didn't make maple so e
30:31 e might be like a little alarmist but uh
30:34 yeah it's like things sometimes
30:36 sometimes alarmist is needed like listen
30:38 everything can't be an emergency and
30:39 everything can't be a fire um but there
30:42 are things that like hey it might not be
30:45 and I I like Maple it might not be in
30:46 one of these categories but dude I
30:48 got to discuss this with you before we
30:50 we get off this Zoom um and I like Hur I
30:54 like these um pneumonics and anagram and
30:59 and like silly things like Maple or like
30:02 our can't miss metrics or Kyle's top 10
30:05 like I I name all of these things so
30:07 that they're memorable and when I say
30:10 hey like we got to do this or we got to
30:11 do that like everybody knows what it is
30:13 and we can sort of teach people around
30:14 it it's like common language like total
30:17 common language yeah yeah yeah yeah
30:20 could be okrs and you can call it
30:22 whatever you want but like just having a
30:24 Common Language um makes things run a
30:27 little more smoothly
30:28 man I wish we had 90 more minutes uh
31:31 there there there is so much I I I would
31:33 like to plug you in for another 90
31:36 minutes we are definitely going to have
31:37 to find a time for a V2 uh but in the
31:40 intrum uh as we wrap it up as we do with
31:43 everyone I'd love it if your game uh to
31:45 throw some rapid fire at you man let's
31:47 do it all right early bird and Night
31:51 Owl I was a night out now I'm an early
31:54 bird is that because of kids is that
31:57 because of the hours of Francisco mostly
31:60 because of kids yeah gets yeah yeah
31:02 that'll get you every time then you just
31:04 become a early bird though for the rest
31:06 of your life so just yeah exactly uh if
31:09 you weren't in Tech what other industry
31:12 what other industry or uh something else
31:15 that you would be
31:17 in
31:19 trade I have no idea musician Sports
31:24 person I like what I do yeah I would
31:27 love to say profession professional
31:28 athlete but I'm not like not that
31:30 physically gifted so that's a that's a
32:32 poor poor answer I almost went to fine
32:33 arts school I was like a nice I went to
32:36 business school but I was a a hair away
32:38 from going into fine arts school so
32:40 maybe I'd be a sculptor sculpture was
32:42 like my thing okay nice Kyle what's your
32:46 favorite guilty pleasure snack man oh
32:49 wings or salt and vinegar
32:51 chips oh my kid would love you salt and
32:54 vinegar chips I can't the wings I'm with
32:56 you on man can't do the salt vinegar oh
32:59 the best what's the uh most used work
32:01 Emoji in slack text
32:04 Etc probably the handshake okay makes
32:08 sense Mak sense all right two more um
32:12 other than your iPhone or Android I hope
32:14 you use an iPhone um but other than your
32:16 phone what's the one Tech Gadget you
32:18 can't live without oh airpods for
32:22 sure I listen
32:24 to according to my Spotify wrapped I
32:27 listen to 54,000 minutes of podcasts
32:29 last year wow like two hours a day yeah
33:33 I I mean I when I work out when I wash
33:35 dishes when I'm like doing chores I got
33:37 a podcast going or an audio book so
33:40 you're a true lifelong learner then like
33:42 it's all about learning constantly I'm
33:44 addicted yeah that's awesome man um my
33:47 wife likes to tease me like she's like
33:49 you love tidbits just like tidbits about
33:52 stuff anything and everything uh I like
33:55 to learn about and that's why I started
33:57 the my own podcast because I'm like ah I
33:60 gotta I think I can do something here I
33:02 listened to enough I gotta I gotta part
33:04 of uh part of Top Line in Pavilion right
33:07 part of the pl I love that I love that
33:10 uh last one as we wrap it up dream
33:11 vacation
33:14 destination I like Adventure
33:18 vacations uh Japan was the best vacation
33:20 I've ever been on I would say my wife
33:22 and I did that right before having kids
33:25 but anything that you know like
33:28 Wilderness
33:30 Adventure far-flung
34:33 places
34:35 um yeah probably like something
34:38 mountaineering in the Alps would be
34:40 would be up there for me right now I've
34:41 never done that love that cool that's
34:44 awesome we uh my my dream is an African
34:46 safari um so I'm with you with uh that
34:49 was our honeymoon and it was the second
34:51 best trip we've ever done it was so
34:54 jealous yeah felt like you were in
34:55 Jurassic Park it was a crazy experience
34:58 Kyle thank you so much for joining man
34:00 go check Kyle out on LinkedIn if you are
34:03 a small and medium uh restaurant owner
34:05 small median business restaurant owner
34:07 checkout owner.com the absolute best
34:09 restaurant Tech you can find Kyle thanks
34:12 for joining the show man thanks for
34:14 appreciate man