Ashley Brucker Stepien

I like money. A lot. I also like saving money. (So I can spend more of it later 😂). So when looking at what SaaS to integrate into our marketing and sales stack, Total Cost of Ownership is a pretty huge metric for us. https://buff.ly/3SexH1J #salesforce #hubspot #finance #marketing

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Key takeaway from Lenny Rachitsky's podcast with Marc Benioff:  1) Salesforce can’t win the AI Agent race 2) Marc’s part of the problem 3) Salesforce's customers will suffer most 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐧’𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐈 𝐀𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 Salesforce is a 30-year old platform designed from the start to silo data, it's completely isolated from other critical enterprise systems, and it's been frankenstiened by various bolt-on acquisitions (e.g. mulesoft, tableau, slack, heroku, etc.). Agents require seamless data connectivity. The only thing seamless about Salesforce is the annual price increases. "I keep having these kind of existential freak out moments about AI." Rightfully so, Marc. He knows Salesforce is structurally deficient. The best he can do now is paint an alternative reality:  “This is a startup. We're a 25-year-old, 75,000-person, $300-something billion market cap startup.” Sure, Marc. Just like Larry’s got Oracle running like a $500B startup. No one’s buying the distribution stats. Call it AgentForce because it'll be forced into every renewal, just like “premium support,” whatever that is. And, telling us that Einstein led the way is simply insulting. No customer ever looked at their bill and said “that Einstein upgrade really paid for itself.” 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜’𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦 Just to be clear, Marc’s a brilliant entrepreneur. An all-time great. But, he could not sound more out of touch: > Ads with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson (jump the shark?) > Name dropping “my friends” Chris Rock, Michael Dell, and Neil Diamond > Stock’s at an all-time high but “I didn’t even know” > “Money isn’t the goal,” easy for you to say > Various homes, especially the one in the “blue collar town” A 60-minute podcast, and two-thirds of it was Marc humble-bragging. Even Lenny joked "You have the most amazing friends list, all these folks you mentioned." Engineers capable of solving this generation’s most transcendent technological challenges want a leader who’s in the trenches with them grinding, sacrificing, inspiring. Look at Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Jensen Huang - driving cutting edge technology, leading with mission and purpose. The contrast could not be more striking. 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 “I'm throwing everything against the wall and looking at what's going to stick.” Translation: Salesforce is spraying and praying.  1) Flood the zone with noise and misinformation 2) Buy time sewing seeds of distrust and consuming customer resources 3) Get lucky and find something that works, likely via M&A.   Marc’s right, AI is an existential threat to Salesforce. It’s just sad that Marc’s willing to burn the bridges at the expense of his customers. Hopefully, one of Marc's many "good friends" will offer some candid advice. #AI #Agents #CDO

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Kelvin’s been helping businesses solve their Salesforce CPQ challenges for years. His technical expertise is deep, and he’s worked with customers in every industry. This article shares what he’s learned in that time, and how businesses can get the most from their CPQ: https://lnkd.in/gDtmFTcm 

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A poorly executed #customersuccess strategy will kill your #NRR for years to come. I've seen it first-hand too many times over the years. Here is how you deliver a well-executed CS strategy to drive great NRR and ultimately, business growth: 🛣️ 𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝗗𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞 & 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 The first step in any customer success strategy is understanding the full & dynamic revenue & customer journey. This means not just knowing what your customers do, but why they do it. How and why did they buy your services? How do they move through their journey with you (rarely ina straight line!)? By understanding their motivations, you can better anticipate their needs and deliver solutions that truly add value. And don't forget, the old-school customer journey is not the standard anymore, you need to use the full, dynamic revenue & customer journey to get the full picture. This stretches from pre-sale to post-sale and allows for the customer to move in and out of journey phases/stages dynamically. 📈 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 Customer success is not a reactive function. It's about being proactive, anticipating customer needs, and addressing them before they become issues. You have to ensure that your strategy is aligned around, and fosters, a proactive CS culture and process that allows your team to execute effectively. This not only improves customer satisfaction, but also reduces churn, and creates more expansion opportunities. Both key factors in improving NRR. 📊 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚-𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 In the #SaaS & #CS world, we have access to a wealth of data. By leveraging this data, we can make informed decisions that drive customer success. This could be anything from identifying usage patterns to predict churn, to understanding which features drive the most value for customers and beyond. And it needs to go beyond telemetry, usage etc. Also capture, track and understand customer goals and other qualitative data points. One problem is that this data is often siloed or hard to access, so make sure you have systems (like RevSetter) that can bridge that gap and allows CSMs to effectively action the data & insights. 🤝 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫-𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 Customer success should not be the responsibility of a single department. It should be ingrained in the company culture. When everyone in the organization understands the value of customer success, it becomes a strategic priority that drives business growth. This is why the dynamic revenue & customer journey, the engagement focus, and the proactive mindset are so important. When those are present - and a strategic & customer-centric approach is adopted by the CEO & leadership - the sky is the limit. Leverage these four building blocks and your CS strategy and execution will thank you for it ✅ *** 🛎️ If you enjoy my content, follow me for more ♻️ Repost to share with your network

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I'm looking for CPQ success stories! If you don't have one yet, perhaps consider our Health Check offering. We specialize in CPQ remediations and have quite a few success stories to share. CPQ can be tricky so if yours gets a gold star, do share. I'm sure others would appreciate any tips or best practices. #happytohelp #cloudgiants

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Operators are change agents - and most people hate change. Check out this segment of The Ops Drops where VP of RevOps, Julia Kim, shares how to make organizational planning lean and easy by creating tiger teams and building trust. Full episode here: https://lnkd.in/eFn7fkPb

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Sharing RevOps co-op community best practices on something we all know is critical - designing territories to ensure the success of your sales force and, by extension, your company. The number of different strategies available make selecting the right one both challenging and critical. The team at RevOps Co-op delve deep into this topic 👇 https://gag.gl/Nm2xoO #RevOps #Data #DataQuality

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💜 Gainsight + Champion 💜 We just released a killer new eBook together on how to drive growth through your hidden customer champions. With many of us in the midst of 2025 planning, this book dives into the incredible growth engine right in front of us: our customers. The ebook has practical insights on empowering champions and learnings from top brands using Gainsight and Champion. I just re-read it myself, and it's giving me all sorts of light bulb moments (yes my phone just happened to take a 100% organic photo right when I finished reading it. And yes that is my thinking pose.) Check it out 👇

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Our partnership with Brex now gives us unparalleled insight and breadth in SaaS purchasing reports

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⏰ ICYMI: Our Book is Coming Soon! Accelerating Revenue: Your Definitive Guide to the Theory and Practice of Go-To-Market Enablement is designed for those looking to master the core of GTM Enablement. Whether you're new to the field or a revenue leader aiming to boost team productivity, this book offers practical insights and proven strategies. Curious to learn more about transforming your approach to Enablement? 👉 Head to the Level213 website for more details! www.level213.com/services #book #revenue #enablement #GTM

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Great article by Vernon Keenan talking about some of the new Einstein releases and the impact it will have on RevOps market. We've seen Salesforce recently take a number of steps to integrate more data sources between this announcement + Data Cloud and the deepening relationship with Snowflake. We think there is a big opportunity for an AI native company to help unite data across the enterprise sales data stack. That's where Myko comes in, as we build a proprietary knowledge graph of your data during onboarding so you have one layer than can communicate across systems.

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🔥 Act fast to prevent your tech stack obsolescence! 🔥 🤖 Is Ai killing your current SaaS solution relevance? There are some 70,000 Ai startups in the US alone! From R&D, through product solutions, partnerships, product marketing, to enablement, & field sales onwards to successful client outcomes ☎️Contact Mission Intelligence or DM me to explore a strategic health checkpoint, and commercial execution plan #SaaS #AI #SalesStrategy #MissionIntelligence #EnterpriseSales #RevenueGrowth #ProductMapping #FutureProof

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Check out this quick video how Altify Account Plans can help you find pipeline in existing accounts and help you GROW revenue.

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Do you know what a Sales Performance Improvement Plan refers to? Do you know how to craft a Sales PIP properly to boost sales results? You can find answers to these questions in the article below. The ability to detect a sales representative's performance gap is just the first step. The more important goal is how to design a sales performance improvement plan to eliminate this gap. Do you use Sales PIPs in your company? #b2bsales #salesperformance #salesleader #pip #salestips

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Do you love multi-select picklists?! 🔽☑️☑️☑️ Best field type IMO. And that’s my favorite selling point for Keyplay’s Salesforce integration.🤓 Some details matters. Text area fields are very frustrating when you want to segment and sort your account lists in SFDC. RevOps people know this pain. That’s why I love those picklists. Bigger picture, I’m proud of Keyplay’s SFDC integration for ease of use and speed to setup. I made a page and video showing it here: https://lnkd.in/gYHvRS77 #salesforce #SFDC #RevOps

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📣 Cacheflow launches Revenue Recognition for Salesforce users in partnership with APPropoz REVvue! SaaS deals aren't as straightforward as they used to be, which has caused finance teams to struggle with Rev Rec. But with Cacheflow and REVvue, you can now... ⚙️ Automate contract ingestion ✅ Ensure compliance with ASC 606 accounting standards 👁️ Gain real-time visibility and reporting Read more about the partnership in the press release below!

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Just in time personalized learning = Level up your team = Maximize your revenue

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Not only is the gulf of understanding between CRM and MAP admins a source of siloes, but native MAP-CRM sync leaves both wanting! Read the latest from RevOps co-op columnist, Camela, to leave how to avoid some of the typical issues. #CRM #MAP #sync

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Are you ready for Salesforce Prompt Engineering? 🏎️ Can you make AI dance to your tunes? 🕺🏼 See what you can do. AGENDA ⬇️ 1. Introduction: AI in Salesforce 2. Prompt Engineering Fundamentals: Lifecycle, Few Shot Learning 3. Advanced Techniques: Scoring-Based & Coaching Prompts, Humanizing AI-Generated Emails 4. Tips & Tricks: Recency Bias, JSON Prompts, HTML Generation 5. Enhancing Effectiveness: Dynamic Locale, RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), File Analysis 6. Grounding Rules: Data Privacy and Security, Ethical Considerations, and Salesforce-Specific Guidelines 7. Q&A Today at 2PM CST. Sign up here https://lnkd.in/g3VBPHDv Event sponsored by GPTfy #promptengineering #salesforce #gptfy #aicloud #genai #salescloud #servicecloud

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