Apollo.io’s Kim Walsh on Unlocking the Best Buyer Experience

00:00:03:09 - 00:00:25:12
Ben Hillman
On a gloomy Tuesday in February, a customer steps into a computer store with one particular item in mind, drenched but with a pep in his step. The customer walks to the shelves containing HP products and picks out a pavilion desktop with 16 gigabytes of memory and a one terabyte hard drive. They place the box on the counter and grab their wallet.

00:00:25:19 - 00:00:26:21
Shop Owner
Find everything you were looking.

00:00:26:21 - 00:00:34:08
Ben Hillman
For, says the manager. Yep. The customer says, Do you take Amex? The manager gestures over to the Apple section.

00:00:35:00 - 00:00:37:04
Shop Owner
Did you want to check out any Apple products?

00:00:37:13 - 00:00:39:19
Ben Hillman
Nope, says the customer. Maybe some other time.

00:00:40:02 - 00:00:43:08
Shop Owner
Perhaps you'd like a demo of the Dell Inspiron Compact desktop.

00:00:43:15 - 00:00:54:08
Ben Hillman
The manager continues. The customer's face turns into a frown as their soaked clothes begin to puddle in the carpet. I'd really just like the HP. It does exactly what I need. And we.

00:00:54:08 - 00:00:59:03
Shop Owner
Just did a survey and found that. Computer users like yourself don't actually need a. Keyboard.

00:00:59:03 - 00:01:00:02
Ben Hillman
Interrupts the manager.

00:01:01:04 - 00:01:02:10
Shop Owner
Would you like to find out more?

00:01:03:07 - 00:01:26:09
Ben Hillman
The customer puts away their wallet, walks out of the store and marches towards the best buyer across the street. I'm going to be honest with you. Previous story didn't actually happen. It was fiction. I made it up. But this scenario rings true to the world of B2B SaaS. It's easy to get caught up into what you see as the ideal way you want to acquire customers.

00:01:26:19 - 00:01:35:05
Ben Hillman
But we can't forget what the customer actually wants. You might want to give them a demo, but sometimes your customer is already ready to buy.

00:01:35:22 - 00:01:47:17
Kim Walsh
I think there's this concept of like, Don't let your art jerk show to your customer. Experience customers and buying software. The buyer's in control and you have to figure out how to, like, serve the customer.

00:01:48:06 - 00:02:17:00
Ben Hillman
That's Kim Walsh, today's guest. She heads up sales, partnerships and customer success over at Apollo Data. As an early member of HubSpot and her continued journey through sales and growth, she's learned valuable lessons in the world of B2B SaaS. In our interview with her and Patrick Campbell, recorded at Sangster in 2022, Kim discusses a number of topics that will make you a better operator, like hiring tips, effective product led growth, and much, much more.

00:02:17:07 - 00:02:39:20
Ben Hillman
From Paddle, it's Protect the Hustle, where we explore the truth behind the strategy and tactics of B2B SaaS growth to make you an outstanding operator. On today's episode, we dive deep with Jim Walsh. We talk about setting up high quality operators for success. How to crush excuses when Hiring. Raising the bar within teams. How to master product led growth.

00:02:40:09 - 00:03:02:23
Ben Hillman
And the three buckets that drive revenue. After you finish the episode, check out the show notes for an in-depth field guide focused on what we go over. Let's hear what Kim has to say about setting up high quality operators for success.

00:03:04:11 - 00:03:08:07
Kim Walsh
Hi, Patrick. Kim Wolf, I run all the the market out of hello.

00:03:08:10 - 00:03:10:22
Patrick Campbell
All go to market. What does that entail?

00:03:10:23 - 00:03:16:14
Kim Walsh
Sales, partnerships, onboarding and customer success. All the things that we should be putting the customer first on.

00:03:16:14 - 00:03:25:07
Patrick Campbell
There we go. Oh, I like that. That's great. And I know a little bit about your history, but you'd like for those that don't know the great Jim Walsh, like what's what's kind of the history of things? How'd you get here?

00:03:25:09 - 00:03:27:20
Kim Walsh
Well, I always say I'm Canadian because that's who I am.

00:03:27:21 - 00:03:32:02
Patrick Campbell
I'm like, all of a sudden I have a tree of OC, nice maple sirup, etc..

00:03:32:03 - 00:03:55:08
Kim Walsh
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I came to the U.S. on a soccer scholarship and go to school and had a lot of fun and didn't want to leave. I always wanted to come to the U.S. and ended up selling office equipment as my one of my first gigs, which was wild. Then ended up getting into footwear and so started a footwear company in the U.S. was like a first employee launching that, then old footwear designer turned web designer.

00:03:55:12 - 00:04:18:11
Kim Walsh
We started a marketing agency. Then we were acquiring all of our customers off of HubSpot Free Tool, the website grader tool. If you remember that tool, you plug in your website, you get a score. And then that led me to HubSpot. So then I met like Brian Dharmesh when the inbound marketing book was Amazon bestseller. I was acquiring a lot of customers for the marketing agency and I was like, Wait a minute, something's really going on here.

00:04:18:21 - 00:04:40:00
Kim Walsh
And it was a really cool, ambitious company in Boston that had like so much ambition. And I was like, Oh, can I join? And then I needed a green card and an H-1B. And Brian Elliott in my interview said, You're like high maintenance. So HubSpot gave me an H-1B. They gave me a green card. And yeah, I was there for a long time.

00:04:40:00 - 00:04:50:14
Kim Walsh
As I started, I was there. I think when there are 80 people, about 15 million in revenue and left when there were over 1,000,006,000. So yeah, ten years. It was fun.

00:04:50:18 - 00:05:15:05
Patrick Campbell
We could definitely have like an entire six episodes about experiences at HubSpot. There should be like a good documentary series like done by someone on that. But it's kind of thing like the H-1B one is actually a really interesting, you know, thing because I think that I know now we're going to talk about necessarily by like we actually found even as like a smaller company, like it's great to find not only like really good talent, but even like increasing diversity of talent and those types of things.

00:05:15:05 - 00:05:32:09
Patrick Campbell
And I think it's one of those things that it's just stating us out loud. It's a good little hack for like early stage companies even because it now it probably costs it a lot more like back then, but it doesn't even cost as much. And so did HubSpot like have a program for that or was it just like you were a one off and then eventually and you might not even know the answer to that.

00:05:32:09 - 00:05:39:12
Kim Walsh
So I mean, you're touching on we didn't even talk about this, but like I was the first person that HubSpot sponsored for an H-1B, which is why.

00:05:39:12 - 00:05:40:23
Patrick Campbell
We dealt with the lawyers. Yeah, Yeah.

00:05:41:07 - 00:06:01:22
Kim Walsh
But because I had tried so hard to stay in the U.S., like I was on a ten visa and went to an H-1B, like, it doesn't make it easier to come to the U.S. if you're Canadian or for whatever country you're from. It took me 15 years to get a green card, and I actually left HubSpot for 60 days because I was like, You guys told me you're going to get my green card and you're making me a little nervous.

00:06:01:22 - 00:06:29:22
Kim Walsh
And I was in sales, so it was like, I like my livelihood. It was like, did I hit my number or not? And I had to build trust with the HubSpot leadership team. So something was going on. I was like, you know, I'm actually going to leave. And then I got an offer to join Dropbox, and then I saw Brian Halligan out of that HubSpot alumni event because they put on all these events early on for alumni, because it was very important for HubSpot to like build a community with people who are current employees or employees that laugh and how and was like, Why do we lose you?

00:06:29:22 - 00:06:45:06
Kim Walsh
Cam? I was like, You know why? Brian I needed a green card. And then he was like, Oh, okay, let's bring you back. So then they brought me back and then I was like, Okay, you know, I need my green card. But it was an interesting thing because no one had ever done it before. And I guess I like to drill plays a little bit of a path.

00:06:45:06 - 00:07:00:05
Kim Walsh
I like to be like the only one and help other people. And then now there's, you know, the person right after me who got an H-1B and a green card. I just got my U.S. citizenship two months ago. She just got it. Her name is Maggie. She sells that is that HubSpot today? She's got her U.S. citizenship last month.

00:07:00:05 - 00:07:22:12
Kim Walsh
So it's like so cool because it ties like who you are as a person with like the job you're in. Like, I'm forever grateful to Halligan, to JD, to everyone who, like, took a chance on Mark, took a chance on me, and then I got my green car. I got to stay here. I have a wife and three kids, you know, like, that's all, like, really cool stuff that I was allowed to stay here because of a company.

00:07:22:12 - 00:07:49:06
Kim Walsh
Ultimately, I had to do a good job, right? But so yeah, now we'll have spot sponsors, thousands of people, and it's just it's really cool. And then from a diversity perspective, it's interesting now, like you can hire remote employees anywhere like Apollo, we have over like 220 employees that represent 106 countries. So like, think about that, right? So it's like, whoa, like we just we're in an offsite in Cancun.

00:07:49:15 - 00:08:09:12
Kim Walsh
Last month, we had 106 countries represented in the room. So you're looking around, you're like, wow, look at these stories. Like someone flew like 26 hours to get there from India. But like, it was interesting, right? So kind of cool to think that like back in 2010 when I joined HubSpot, I needed an H-1B. Like it was a whole different ballgame for recruiting and hiring talent.

00:08:09:20 - 00:08:12:10
Kim Walsh
Now at Apple, we hire people from all over the world.

00:08:12:11 - 00:08:36:17
Patrick Campbell
Yeah, and I think that's a really bring up an interesting point that I think is so intrinsic and you and Apollo and probably HubSpot, but it's worth like pointing out a little bit, you know, we always struggle with hiring and not just hiring, but like hiring a diverse pool of people because like the first people you kind of meet or want to hire are just kind of a people, you know, And, you know, for better or for worse, like your your network isn't necessarily diverse like a lot of times because you kind of hang out with people who look like you or act like you.

00:08:36:21 - 00:08:51:16
Patrick Campbell
And even if they technically are diverse, maybe by the numbers, they still kind of act like you and like talk like you. Right? And so what we did and you're kind of suggesting and seems like this is what HubSpot did and correct me if I'm wrong, is, you know, one of the easiest things you can do is like, what are the mechanical aspects we have access to, right?

00:08:51:22 - 00:09:07:07
Patrick Campbell
You know, H1 B one. That's something that we can go there that a lot of businesses aren't going to go there and it's naturally going to bring us more diverse talent, remote. I know I've always had a little bit of a funny relationship with remote, so they didn't necessarily go there. But remote is a way that you can bring that diversity as well because it naturally happens.

00:09:07:13 - 00:09:10:17
Patrick Campbell
The fact that you can hire anywhere.

00:09:12:01 - 00:09:17:12
Ben Hillman
Now let's hear about how to crush excuses when hiring or.

00:09:18:21 - 00:09:24:23
Patrick Campbell
Is there any other like mechanical things They're like, I like to call them excuse crushers when it comes to this type of topic that you can think of.

00:09:24:23 - 00:09:46:08
Kim Walsh
I just think people like the excuses are that people think it's hard. I bring up that comment that Brian said to me in my interview back in 2010, like, Oh, you're high maintenance. Like, your heart is like, Yeah, but like, think about the ambition that I had to try and stay thinking about what I had to do. You think about the type of people who have tried to, like, overcome something in their lives or like got an H-1B or needed or like moved to another country?

00:09:46:08 - 00:10:03:02
Kim Walsh
Like, that's what's so cool. I think about like diverse candidates and hiring people that come from different countries is like, think about what they have gone through. And everyone has this unique story. And then how you come together as a team is so cool. Like and I'm not saying like we're an expert at it and there was just this thing at home.

00:10:03:02 - 00:10:20:06
Kim Walsh
So I did two things at HubSpot prior to Apollo one, I helped build the enterprise business so help HubSpot go up market. There was another comment that Halligan made and yet one moment he came and my whole team, we sat together. No one was remote. We were all in person and he was like, Wolf, your entire team looks like they could live in Nantucket.

00:10:20:14 - 00:10:22:23
Kim Walsh
And I was like, okay, he's not wrong.

00:10:22:23 - 00:10:24:17
Patrick Campbell
They got their vineyard, vines, everything. And it was.

00:10:24:17 - 00:10:29:04
Kim Walsh
Just like it was an enterprise sales team. You know, everyone kind of looked like, Yeah, sorry about shoes.

00:10:29:05 - 00:10:30:02
Patrick Campbell
I got I gotcha.

00:10:30:02 - 00:10:45:02
Kim Walsh
You know, lived in on the way in New England and I was like, what? I was like, that's a mistake on my on my part because of everything I just told you I care about. I actually fell into this like, you know, you got to own your faults. Like, I fell into it. I was like, okay, I don't have a diverse team.

00:10:45:02 - 00:11:00:05
Kim Walsh
It was diverse and gender, but that was it. And then all of a sudden I was like, You know what? I'm never going to do this again. Because talking about the excuses, I'm like me as the hiring manager or me as the leader of the group. I have the ability to change it. I have the ability to impact it.

00:11:00:12 - 00:11:15:21
Kim Walsh
Yeah, I have the ability to talk to recruiting. I have an ability to like, you know, at home. So we put like metrics around our top of the funnel, like who we wanted to hire and let's just make sure it's diverse in nature, starting with the top of the funnel. Those are like some key things we did that were really important.

00:11:15:21 - 00:11:33:01
Kim Walsh
And then the second thing I do have said was help build that what we call like a faster, more PLG product led business kind of beside HubSpot. So I was like, go build a better, faster HubSpot. I was like, All right, cool. So I did that and I was like, I will do it if it can be global and I'll do it if I can hire my team anywhere.

00:11:33:12 - 00:11:57:12
Kim Walsh
And then they were like, Yes, you can do that. So then on that last five year chunk of time, my team was from all over the world. I had people in Singapore and Australia and Latin America and the UK and Ireland like it was. That team was not so different than the first team and what took me five years to build a $55 million business took me five years to build that $200 million business with a diverse team.

00:11:57:23 - 00:12:13:20
Kim Walsh
So that is cool, right? And then at Apollo, when one key thing that brought me there was just the diversity of the people I met already. And then I just told you, like we have people from all over the world and we'll continue to do that, but just want to tap into like the best talent regardless of where they are.

00:12:13:21 - 00:12:31:19
Patrick Campbell
Well, I think it's really cool too, because not only and I want to get into PLG because I think you're a BAM for PLG. I'll just throw that out there, you personally. But then also, Apollo is really known for it, right. But I think also what's really cool is it seems like the relationship you had with your leadership, particularly Halligan, like you're kind of mentioning, I'm sure are other people you're having these conversations with as well.

00:12:32:05 - 00:12:45:18
Patrick Campbell
They're just like, yeah, okay. Like and they just kind of let you let you run and like being like, Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Or them noticing like, Hey, by the way, like your team looks like they're all from Nantucket or going there this weekend or whatever, like, and all of a sudden you being like, okay.

00:12:45:18 - 00:13:00:13
Patrick Campbell
And I think that that space is really important because when you have someone who's, you know, good, you know, and go getting them wants to have that ambition to do something and then you give them the permission to do it. That's how change happens as how growth happens and all that kind of fun stuff.

00:13:00:13 - 00:13:21:05
Kim Walsh
And I would say the biggest thing, like why keep mentioning some of those like offhanded comments that ultimately the CEO of the company made that are impactful? Is that like radical candor was something that happened all the time, but it was like the feedback, the radical candor, the like, we're all in this together, slash the economy, like let's hire great people and let them do great work.

00:13:21:15 - 00:13:43:10
Kim Walsh
The guy I told people recently at Apollo, like, I haven't been managed in like 11 years, right? Like, and I'm a little entrepreneurial. Like, you don't manage people. You manage tasks and you lead people. That's actually got that from like John McMahon, who helped us, came in as a mentor to Mark, and I benefited from a bunch of these like learning sessions with him.

00:13:43:19 - 00:14:08:21
Kim Walsh
But like, that's fundamental to like the culture of who we were. And I would I love to try and like bring that because people don't want to be told what to do all the time. You want to raise the bar, hire great people, have a diverse team, and like let them be autonomous. Like the amount of creativity that comes from people when you're like, Hey, here's the end goal, here's what we want you to do.

00:14:09:01 - 00:14:18:18
Kim Walsh
I don't really care how you get there. Oh, my God, That's like where the magic happens, in my opinion. But I think that's a little controversial because I'm not sure everyone but everyone would agree with me. But I believe.

00:14:18:18 - 00:14:35:00
Patrick Campbell
That I think what's hard to is, is the radical candor part is also really hard. Mixed with that, I couldn't tell you the VP's at Salesforce or the sea levels at Salesforce over the years. And I was in Boston, so like and I knew some of the folks involved. But it seems like, you know, you just look at the speakers at the conference, right?

00:14:35:08 - 00:14:57:15
Patrick Campbell
You have Halligan, you got Dharmesh, you speaks like ours. Roberts World renowned for it. But you, as you mentioned and maybe doesn't want this public, hadn't done their presales before. HubSpot right you have DC Chris O'Donnell like arguably in the top ten in terms of product leaders like in SaaS, right? You have Katy Burke, you know, one of the top people, people I would argue in SaaS, if not business in general, right?

00:14:57:20 - 00:15:11:17
Patrick Campbell
You have all these other people who like just kind of converge in this, this Boston, you know, little hub and a lot of them hadn't done it before, you know, But we're scrappy, you know, the best. I'm going to start calling you the best lead never come from marketing greater, by the way. That's just going to be the thing I refer to you as.

00:15:11:17 - 00:15:13:01
Patrick Campbell
But was it that.

00:15:13:01 - 00:15:13:16
Kim Walsh
Space that.

00:15:13:16 - 00:15:30:05
Patrick Campbell
Was given? Was it this bar raising concept that you and I have talked about? Was it the circumstance? Was it that you were all like, really? Go like, what's the little special sauce there? Because this companies have been successful that haven't had this many like All-Stars. Right. And that's that's what's weird to me. And I've never really understood.

00:15:30:05 - 00:15:55:14
Kim Walsh
I think, a question I've been having this conversation actually, like lately. Hopefully Katie doesn't mind me saying this, but I think these stories are interesting. Like when I was helping build the Enterprise sales team, Katie Burke was on the marketing team. I asked her to fill out an RFP. Now look at her. I think that what the culture of HubSpot did was gave an opportunity to people who hadn't done it before.

00:15:55:14 - 00:16:21:11
Kim Walsh
That started from the CEO because Brian would say, I will bet all day long on someone who's ambitious, hungry and wants to do it and try it then experience and someone who's done it before. On a lot of the pieces of HubSpot that wasn't true when, you know, we got to like 100 million in revenue and needed to hire, you know, a chief sales officer Hunter that had like seen the movie before, right?

00:16:21:11 - 00:16:39:04
Kim Walsh
So there are these things where like some key things are like, did you see the movie before? But there were hundreds of people that showed ambition, gumption, like raise their hand to start something or I like people would sometimes say no, but there's this whole ignites and weekends thing too, where I was like, All right, you want to go do it?

00:16:39:05 - 00:17:01:12
Kim Walsh
We're not going to give you tons of resources and support, but good try. And then if you prove it out, we'll invest in you. And that type of thing was, I don't know. I haven't seen that many other companies, but I think it's kind of rare and I think it's rare to give people who don't have experience that chance, like ten out of ten times.

00:17:03:02 - 00:17:10:06
Ben Hillman
Next up, Kim talks about raising the bar within teams.

00:17:10:06 - 00:17:34:12
Patrick Campbell
It's funny because the you kind of bridged both of the arguments there, which is up to a certain point. Give the hungry, ambitious, willing to put in the nights and weekends on it like go for it. There is then a turn where it's like and I don't know if 100 million or not, but then there's like probably like pre IPO that's high but then you kind of need the especially in CFO spot like they've seen it before that type of a thing and it's so hard to kind of pick those spots.

00:17:34:12 - 00:17:52:19
Patrick Campbell
I know what we struggle with but we're a bootstrap business so I think this contributed to this as we would have these young, hungry, ambitious people, mostly, you know, kids for lack of better phrase, and now they're like VP's and all this others and they're amazing. I never want to build a company without them, but it is one of those things too, where I'm like, Maybe we should have hired that person who's seen it before in that particular role.

00:17:52:19 - 00:18:12:14
Patrick Campbell
And I think this gets into bar raising that you've kind of talked about, which is, you know, really like how do you contain that like quality of team and how are you doing this? Apollo Because I'd argue, you know, there's a little bit of luck with the HubSpot. Like everything just kind of came together and in like the funding was right, the market was right, these of thing and then all of the gumption and hustle, like 90% of it I would argue.

00:18:12:22 - 00:18:21:00
Patrick Campbell
But like, you know, you're trying to replicate that and maybe you don't get as lucky, but you still got to do the 90% to get the outcome you want. Like, how are you doing that? Apollo Now.

00:18:21:07 - 00:18:41:20
Kim Walsh
One thing that is was a big piece of me joining Apollo is the humility and the learn at all of the team and the culture. So just real quick to touch on what you we were talking about to kind of like close that loop on that HubSpot stuff was like you bet on people who had necessarily had done it before, had all the experience, but they were learn it all.

00:18:42:07 - 00:19:06:11
Kim Walsh
And we just had this like peer to peer network. These lunch and learns just like so hungry to absorb information from people who have done something better. Apollo Same thing. The CEO Tim is like the biggest learn at all. The entire like VP layer of Apollo is like every there's no ego. Everyone is so hungry and humble to learn and like that is an interesting recipe.

00:19:06:11 - 00:19:35:18
Kim Walsh
So when you think about like the bar raiser of, you know, there's this kind of like flat panel interview concept we have, the scorecards need to be all like, have data and metrics on them because we want to tie everything back. We were trying to everything back to like the key for company goals. And then from there we have this concept of like, are they going to raise the bar and then everyone who reports directly to me, I tasked them all the time with like, hire someone that you think is better than you, smarter than you, more curious than you, and hungrier to learn than you because it will keep you on your toes.

00:19:35:18 - 00:19:52:06
Kim Walsh
And it's really hard to do. But if you can do that, like that's the definition of the bar raiser. So we try and grade that into the operating system. And I of task everyone to do that, because that means it's low ego. It means you look around your team, the bench is arguably better than you, you know, like.

00:19:52:12 - 00:19:53:15
Patrick Campbell
Well, it raises you up to.

00:19:53:15 - 00:20:07:17
Kim Walsh
Oh yeah, of course. Right. Like, there's no bad teams, there's just bad leader. So when you think about you list like if your team is amazing. Yeah, I think that's a recipe for winning. If, like, things are in your control, right? There's so many things that are out of your control and luck plays a part and timing and all that.

00:20:07:17 - 00:20:18:03
Kim Walsh
But like, I don't know, trying to like mitigate the risk of like, where am I going to place my bets like a place them on the people that are humble and like, learn it all all day long.

00:20:18:03 - 00:20:30:15
Patrick Campbell
And I think you guys take it to another level without like saying, I know why you, you were telling me about it, but like you, you not only do like the data and tying it back and everything that you physically have someone in the interview is looking for this, right. Like the raising the bar. Like tell us about that a little bit.

00:20:30:15 - 00:20:51:17
Kim Walsh
Sure. So we dedicate like a bar raiser. So like in the Slate interview panel, there is one individual that is titled the bar raiser, and they literally their only job is to think about the criteria in the scorecard and do they get an A on that? If there is anything that is like a B or a C, that means that they're not going to raise the bar.

00:20:51:18 - 00:20:57:22
Kim Walsh
So we kind of dedicate that one individual tool in the interview process, just like a fundraiser. Yeah, it changes all the time.

00:20:57:22 - 00:21:02:07
Patrick Campbell
And they have veto power. They do? Yeah. No matter who they are, which is kind of really interesting. Okay.

00:21:02:10 - 00:21:08:20
Kim Walsh
Ultimately, the hiring manager, if they felt like they wanted to veto the bar, raise their probably could.

00:21:08:21 - 00:21:11:00
Patrick Campbell
But you guys take it that seriously.

00:21:11:05 - 00:21:20:19
Kim Walsh
That's a bold move. But hey, four bold moves. Like if you're like, you know, I know like, I'm going to take a chance on this person. I think the hiring manager should do that. But, you know, for most.

00:21:23:19 - 00:21:31:17
Ben Hillman
And now we hear all about Kim's thoughts on mastering product led growth.

00:21:31:17 - 00:21:45:09
Patrick Campbell
I want to switch a little bit because you guys are known as the PLG folks or one of the PLG folks. I think you guys are really known, really well known for it. PLG is hot right now. Everyone's like, probably our growth. It's kind of funny how you see this. I you heard about it a few years ago.

00:21:45:17 - 00:22:00:04
Patrick Campbell
OpenView did a couple of articles on it and this person wrote a book on it. And now all of a sudden, like every other talk is like product, like growth, product led growth. What is it? What do you guys do? How do you handle it? Go to market like channel conflict. Everyone's concerned about it. Just everything we'll get into.

00:22:00:04 - 00:22:02:05
Patrick Campbell
You don't have to answer all that right now, but we'll get into it here.

00:22:02:05 - 00:22:24:22
Kim Walsh
So I think product led growth in its simplest form is reduce customer friction. And when someone wants to buy or try, let them do it. Don't have like friction in the way of letting them understand the value of your product. And that's to me what's like so powerful. And maybe like if you think about that in its simplest form, like doesn't that just makes so much sense?

00:22:24:22 - 00:22:52:12
Kim Walsh
Like, why do you have to talk to someone? You know, if you want to buy something, why do you have to like, fill out a form? If you want to, like, try something, you know, it's like just get started with the product. And then I think what's really cool about PLG companies is like, you know, you've got these like growth teams that are like super stealthy and super like T-shaped and horizontal across the entire business of like what are the points where we can actually try and serve the user and serve the customer in the best way possible.

00:22:52:19 - 00:23:08:19
Kim Walsh
Then you have these interesting things around like content and academy is in communities like trying to like just serve up all the information at the right time with the right message to the user or the buyer. It kind of feels nice. You know, it's like, Oh, okay, there's not a lot of friction.

00:23:08:19 - 00:23:24:01
Patrick Campbell
Yeah, I know. Some people joke like crack, like growth. Oh, that's just, you know, self-serve of ten years ago, that type of thing. Like why now? Do you think this is kind of like a thing? Is it just because people are ready? You know, the systems are ready, Like any thoughts there?

00:23:24:10 - 00:23:40:12
Kim Walsh
I have a couple of thoughts which I don't know if they're right or not. They're just sort of my thoughts, like I think like like 80% of people that come to learn about your product or service are not ready to buy. Do people want you to take them through your sales process? Like, do you want to do a 30 minute discovery call with me where I dig deep into your pains?

00:23:40:21 - 00:24:01:19
Kim Walsh
Then we do a demo because I've decided your worth my time and you've told me you have deep enough pain points. And then I want to go through like legal and procurement, and then I, you know, and then I want to, like, close when you as a customer and then you want to get handed off to like onboarding and then customers accept like I think there's this concept of like, don't let your or just show to your customer experience.

00:24:01:19 - 00:24:27:05
Kim Walsh
And I think it's really fascinating. So I think it's just like customer hours and buying software. You know, people are getting smarter, like the buyer's in control and you have to figure out how to like, serve the customer. Like you can cancel a contract without talking to someone. Like Netflix is an amazing example or like I've even talked to for like, like you can buy the Tesla online if you can buy a fricking car, you can buy software, right?

00:24:27:05 - 00:24:46:18
Kim Walsh
And then the I don't know, it's just like I think it's the buying process and how much customers are and buyers are just more intelligent today. And the way they want to be served is like changed. And I think what's cool about SaaS and technology is like we're trying to just make it a good experience, but it's not always and it's freaking hard.

00:24:46:18 - 00:25:10:08
Patrick Campbell
When you get in the difficulty in a section, but kind of tie through some of the other stuff we've been talking about. It's a continuation of almost of the amount thesis because used to be, you know, I don't know if Halligan says this metaphor anymore, but I used to kind of give the metaphor of like, you know, someone walking up to you on the street being like, by this, by this, by this, versus like asking you a question, giving you some resources, going away, letting you come back right after they're educated or more qualified.

00:25:10:21 - 00:25:42:16
Patrick Campbell
And it's kind of like you said, like it used to be like you couldn't even really buy the thing, swipe the credit card online. And now you can configure you can do all this stuff in your education because there's so much content out there, the best education, the best content you're going to have is your product. And if you have that product that brings them in either through freemium or low costs, like, you know, low touch kind of experience, and then they can expand like you start to get this like different vibe with that customer who feels like they didn't need to talk to that person who was just interrupting that experience rather than enhancing

00:25:42:16 - 00:25:45:16
Patrick Campbell
it. That makes sense. And so I guess why is it hard?

00:25:45:22 - 00:26:20:20
Kim Walsh
Well, it's hard because as you get bigger, you have to have a team of people running your PLG model, Right? So you've got like the seltzer, which is product led, and then many companies have like that sales assist. So like, yeah, how do you figure out how to enter in a human touch and when do you know that that's like really hard as especially as your company gets bigger to figure out like, hey, how do all the humans fit in to the PLG or sales lead or sales versus like the sales assist side of the bucket is like for us at Apollo and was pretty similar to HubSpot was, is like chat like an inbound

00:26:20:20 - 00:26:54:21
Kim Walsh
chat consult in or out Apollo it's a product advocate. You know I think Atlassian is probably a company product advocates. It's like, okay, well like if someone wants to just talk to a product advocate and then get like send a payment link via chat to buy, that's amazing, right? Or if they're, you know, want to talk to a salesperson like and they see that in the chat, it's pass that over and then that's like a PR Well, right And then there's like a sequel and you know, I think before like this traditional sales model is like, go pound the pavement, go like it.

00:26:54:23 - 00:26:56:06
Patrick Campbell
Stops the clothes.

00:26:56:11 - 00:27:17:09
Kim Walsh
And it's just like there's so much more in between. And why it's hard is because you have a company to build and you have humans running a lot of the process. You have a growth team coming in, being stealthy and iterating on top of a lot of it. You have like a customer support team of product advocates. You have stars and buyers and you have sales reps and then you have onboarding specialists and systems.

00:27:17:15 - 00:27:45:21
Kim Walsh
It's a lot of org chart functionality to serve the customer and you've got like product and design and engineering. Like how does it all come together? How is it unified? That's why when I yeah, I've been at Apollo for almost four months, well, month to, I think month, months to early, but month two we deliver the customer journey and you know, someone like me kind of knew coming in can be super curious and like almost interview the entire org and then come up with our customer journey and launch it and we launch it on stage.

00:27:45:21 - 00:28:02:10
Kim Walsh
And I wore a red dress because like some of our customer in the customer journey, we've got some like angry faces and then hopefully at some company meeting coming up in the near future, I'm going to wear a green dress because we're going to turn the frowns upside down. Right? But like that type of thing, like it's it's fun.

00:28:02:18 - 00:28:09:04
Kim Walsh
But if we were like, you know, the voice of the customer programs and all these things, like, can you really be customer centric?

00:28:09:08 - 00:28:18:06
Patrick Campbell
It's hard in that customer journey. You're you're literally like just mapping each step that someone has to go through to become a customer. As I write or like the different branches.

00:28:18:06 - 00:28:31:07
Kim Walsh
We're mapping the entire customer journey and buyer's journey and branches and then advocacy, and then we're mapping it to our org chart. And it's interesting. You can see how much of our org chart needs to work together to serve the customer along the journey.

00:28:31:10 - 00:28:35:15
Patrick Campbell
Where the unhappy faces like, is that where those merge faults are or what is?

00:28:35:20 - 00:28:43:18
Kim Walsh
There's definitely correlation to the the functions and the handoff right? Because and then you hire people and you give them KPIs based on their own function.

00:28:43:18 - 00:28:47:05
Patrick Campbell
Yeah, this KPI is don't talk to each other. Yeah, I kind of stuck, you.

00:28:47:05 - 00:28:58:07
Kim Walsh
Know, the right hands doing less answering, you know, you just scaled 100 people in the last six months. What are the people doing? And they're all remote. So documentation really matters. How you going to communicate? You know, that's that's.

00:28:58:07 - 00:29:14:20
Patrick Campbell
Hard when you think about that org chart, then it might be hard to give more of a framework versus what you guys are doing. But if you could try that, be awesome. Where are all these people sit, especially as a go to market leader, right? Because if product advocates are sitting under products which might intuitively make sense, they don't historically have numbers.

00:29:14:20 - 00:29:29:06
Patrick Campbell
We've added this scale or maybe pixels depending on you look at it and all of a sudden they're optimizing for long term. You're like, I need a little short, medium term here. Like, like how does that org chart like shake out more in general? That's a good or we don't know yet. We do four months.

00:29:29:08 - 00:29:52:07
Kim Walsh
Yeah we don't know yet but I think there's there's two things that I think are super important. One is segmentation. So how are you serving each segment of your market and does everyone in the company know each segment? Who's the persona and the ideal ICP in those segments? How well are we doing against them? And then three is like clear roles and responsibilities so important.

00:29:52:10 - 00:30:17:23
Kim Walsh
And then how are we aligned to a customer metric or usability metric of, you know, percentage of people getting to aha moment by a certain date? Like everyone has to be aligned to the incentives in the behaviors we want around the customer experience. I mean, I'm definitely find if anyone has any advice, I'm all ears. I think it's like I think it's hard to try and figure that out.

00:30:17:23 - 00:30:24:03
Ben Hillman
Next step, The three buckets that drive revenue.

00:30:24:03 - 00:30:34:11
Patrick Campbell
Where do you find not the most conflict but the most like conversations need to happen? Is it between product and sales? Is it between marketing and say, like, Yeah, I guess I'll just leave that open ended.

00:30:34:11 - 00:30:42:20
Kim Walsh
I think it's product growth, specifically marketing sales, supporting customers experience. I think it's everyone but ops.

00:30:43:01 - 00:30:43:21
Patrick Campbell
Like operations.

00:30:43:23 - 00:31:12:19
Kim Walsh
And then they're the most important people will be like, that's the most important piece is like the systems and the data lake or the customer data file. Like all of that, the foundation needs to be 100% solid in a PLG motion because how do you then serve up the right data, the right propensity scoring? How do you know who in your free user base and pay your user base to go after?

00:31:13:06 - 00:31:32:00
Kim Walsh
Do you want the sales team to focus on getting new logos or do you want your entire plug motion and self-serve motion to get new logos? If you have a really solid demotion at some and depending on your total addressable market, at some point your plug motion is going to dry up if you like. It depends, right? So then it's like, what do you do with the free users?

00:31:32:09 - 00:31:52:05
Kim Walsh
How do you know if they're ready to buy more or not less scoring? And then, yeah, what do you do with the paid users who are maybe using like one account or two account? Maybe the conversation looks a little bit like, Hey, we're using your free tool today. We want to buy for our team. And then it's like maybe the human conversation is like, Great.

00:31:52:10 - 00:32:18:00
Kim Walsh
Do you have anyone else in your organization that would like to use free as opposed to like, let me try and sell you more at this moment in time because that will exceed and grow and land and expand in a PLG model like just fuels your growth and then all the things around the customer journey and customer experience, you know, your gross revenue retention, your NDR, your net revenue retention, like all of these become the the single most important levers of growth.

00:32:18:06 - 00:32:19:07
Kim Walsh
So you don't believe your bucket.

00:32:19:10 - 00:32:47:23
Patrick Campbell
This might be like a super obvious question. You need to get buy in from your team like the whole exact team, let's say in this particular case, hey, you know, this model that we've been studying in SaaS for like ten years, those elements of that that we're going to take, but we need to just start from almost scratch because what I'm hearing is where the most conflict is, is when we're taking an old model or an old mindset of like, oh, they download the e-book, let's send the outbound or the inbound cadence to them.

00:32:48:08 - 00:32:56:02
Patrick Campbell
It's almost like taking that instinct and being like, wait a minute, we have to like, rethink all of these connection points. Is that like a fair, like statement you think, for someone trying to get in?

00:32:56:02 - 00:33:12:13
Kim Walsh
I think so. Maybe I'll ask you this question because I know I haven't been a CEO, but I've worked with a few so many of them. I'm like, If you could just start over and create a faster, better version of the company that it is today, the answer is everyone wants to do that, but then you can't, right?

00:33:12:13 - 00:33:14:13
Kim Walsh
So it's like, how do you innovate on that?

00:33:14:13 - 00:33:31:03
Patrick Campbell
Well, that was my next question around basically, obviously, we're not going to do that completely. And there's probably a stage where we'd be bold enough to do it. My question there was as you coming in and go to market, kind of where are you starting? Like, is are you picking a segment and being like, this is the segment we're going to worry about right now?

00:33:31:07 - 00:33:46:23
Patrick Campbell
We know we're going to figure out all this other stuff about this segment and we're going to make this good, then we'll move on and that. So is it like that or are you picking a part of the business like and you're basically figuring out that step and letting the other steps burn? Where where are you kind of starting from, I guess?

00:33:47:07 - 00:34:11:10
Kim Walsh
Well, I always seek for Apollo specifically because in a PLG motion, like, let's say a PLG motion or self-serve, we'll get you to like 10 million, maybe some companies, I'll get you to 30 million. And OpenView just had this, like, really great blog article that came out yesterday on this. When do you insert the sales side, the sales assist, the rep driven business, And that's what I came in to see.

00:34:11:10 - 00:34:32:06
Kim Walsh
So like for Apollo specifically, we got to a certain point on 100% what I would call a reactive motion. Then you have to think about like the proactive motion. So what are we going to do as opposed to I don't love the word order take, but we'll call like a reactive motion or the evolution of inbound where it's like, okay, these leads are just here waiting, ready to buy, right?

00:34:32:06 - 00:34:55:04
Kim Walsh
It's like, how, how would you do with that reactive motion when you have big ambitions and you want to grow double and triple every year, you have to have a proactive go to market motion against a reactive motion. That is a massive shift because you've hired people. They've been at your company for six months, 12 months. They are enjoying the reactive motion because who doesn't?

00:34:55:05 - 00:34:57:00
Patrick Campbell
Because they're going to pay and they're out there working.

00:34:57:00 - 00:35:24:23
Kim Walsh
The number, but they know about this winning locker room of 80% of your people heading for based on a reactive motion, how do you turn it into like a proactive motion? How do you understand the data on your four users? How do you understand the data on your paid accounts? Do you even do target accounts? Like, you know, we at the beginning I sold office equipment like this outbound motion today in software is like nothing like I've experienced, you know, So it's like, how do you tie all those things together?

00:35:24:23 - 00:35:41:12
Kim Walsh
Arguably, I think the way you look at it. So like, you know, I kind of came in, I was like, all right, we've got this reactive motion that gets us to a certain point. Good for us, but we're not going to rest on our loyal laurels. We need to be proactive. And what are the key plays we need to do to be proactive and who's going to be proactive?

00:35:41:20 - 00:36:04:10
Kim Walsh
It's not just sales that's proactive. It's onboarding that's proactive. It's customer success that's proactive, it's growth that's proactive. It's running experiments with pricing and packaging that's proactive. It's like the entire company goes to like this proactive mindset. That's what we've done recently. That's a mindset for sure, because you've hired people and you're changing things.

00:36:04:21 - 00:36:19:23
Patrick Campbell
It's a big shift, it's new and there's not a ton of companies that have done this phenomenally well yet there's tons of companies who have elements of it. And I have so many more questions and answers, which I think means we're in we're in a good spot with product led growth. Right. And this newness, what does good look like to you right now?

00:36:20:02 - 00:36:27:20
Patrick Campbell
Like, have you established that for Apollo? Like maybe not specifically, like in context, but like, what does good look like, North Star, that type of thing for you guys?

00:36:28:04 - 00:36:38:05
Kim Walsh
Well, I think that is kind of like a SEO question, which is I ask that question because I think that's important, right? Because and as the CEO, you kind of dictate the vision of the company. And it.

00:36:38:05 - 00:36:38:20
Patrick Campbell
Should be you.

00:36:38:20 - 00:37:02:14
Kim Walsh
Should be hopefully. Right. Like it should be great. People should be buying in. I think when you think about two years out and you think about your PLG business and you think about those three buckets I just said self-serve sales assist rep driven. What's the percentage of revenue that comes from all three of those buckets? The answer to that matters because if the CEO of the business says 100% self-serve, that's okay.

00:37:02:21 - 00:37:23:23
Kim Walsh
But that's a different business than a sales assist bucket and a rep driven bucket. If it's like 40% self-serve, 20% sales assist, 40% human led or like rep driven. Okay, great. Let's do a three year financial plan and let's actually map the org chart and the humans to the ratios and build that out. Like that's where I'm at is like, okay, cool.

00:37:23:23 - 00:37:41:20
Kim Walsh
Like what's our two year, what's our one year plan? What's our two year plan? What's our three year plan? What's the percentage of revenue that comes from each one of these buckets? What's the almost looking at them as three separate businesses you do? I'll ask you to click on each one. There's segments of each one, and then you're like, okay, I have an answer because now I know that it's 40, 20, 40.

00:37:42:04 - 00:37:51:05
Kim Walsh
Okay, cool. We're good, we're aligned. But I think that one other quick thing is like, I think the self-serve bucket needs to be growing faster than every other bucket.

00:37:51:08 - 00:37:52:20
Patrick Campbell
Because it's got to support the other buckets.

00:37:52:20 - 00:37:59:02
Kim Walsh
Exactly. Because if it's not, then you're going to be back to a sales driven business, which is not bad, but it's a decision.

00:37:59:06 - 00:38:04:10
Patrick Campbell
Yeah, exactly. It's a decision. It's a way up the mountain. And if you're setting yourself up to be not that you don't want that.

00:38:04:13 - 00:38:23:06
Kim Walsh
So so the leading indicator is like, are we hitting all of our self-serve metrics are weekly active users are daily active users. Our percentage of people hitting on our aha moment. What's the definition of that aha moment? I would also say an apology model like documentation, a glossary of terms like this is all new for so many of us.

00:38:23:06 - 00:38:27:02
Kim Walsh
Like, yeah, all matters are real. Saying the same thing.

00:38:27:02 - 00:38:45:21
Patrick Campbell
That's great. This is good. This is going to screw with my mind next couple of days, which I'm really enjoying. That's great. We're kind of in a similar situation where we I think we have to kind of pick those segments, especially after this this merger acquisition. And so it's like trying to figure out because there's there's a way our business grows through this sheer emotion and with profit.

00:38:45:21 - 00:39:00:12
Patrick Campbell
Well, specifically, like that's what we did freemium all these types of things, paddles a little bit different. And so but there's also a play where we're like, you know, of market to come down, which I know a lot of people here at SaaS are trying to do. So this is fantastic. Thank you for this. Anything I want to plug?

00:39:00:12 - 00:39:01:07
Patrick Campbell
Where can people find you?

00:39:01:08 - 00:39:03:18
Kim Walsh
Kim at Apollo Dot IO and.

00:39:03:19 - 00:39:04:22
Patrick Campbell
Prepare for lots of emails.

00:39:04:22 - 00:39:05:11
Kim Walsh
They're hiring.

00:39:06:13 - 00:39:12:05
Patrick Campbell
They're younger. You want a job, you wanna get into this or help figure this out? Now an email cam. So awesome. Thanks.

00:39:12:05 - 00:39:12:15
Kim Walsh
Thank you.

00:39:14:10 - 00:39:41:07
Ben Hillman
A massive shout out to Kim for doing this podcast. Now. You have what it takes to reduce friction for your customers. Today we talked about setting up high quality operators for success, how to crush excuses when hiring. Raising the bar within teams. How to master product led growth and the three buckets that drive revenue. Make sure to give or take the hassle of five star review and tell us what lesson Kim taught you from today's episode.

00:39:41:16 - 00:39:53:06
Ben Hillman
Thanks for listening. Make sure you subscribe to and tell your friends about Protect the Hustle, a podcast from Paddle Studios, the Media network dedicated to helping you build better SaaS.