GTM 115: Lessons from CS to CRO and How Customer Stories are Your Most Powerful Growth Lever with Allison Metcalfe

A transformational leader who specializes in data driven GTM, Allison Metcalfe has had a non-traditional path to the C Suite - starting in Account Management, and being a leader in the evolution of Customer Success, Allison has held a variety of leadership roles across sales and operations in some of Silicon Valley’s most successful companies including Jigsaw (acquired by Salesforce), Demandbase, Quotient (NYSE: QUOT) and Liveramp (NYSE: RAMP), which went from $30M to $500M in revenue and IPO under her tenure.Discussed in this Episode:

• Allison's non-traditional journey from customer success to CRO.
• The importance of building a strong post-sales function early on.
• Balancing product-led growth with an enterprise sales motion.
• The qualities that make an effective modern CRO.
• Leveraging customer stories as a powerful growth lever.
• Lessons learned from LiveRamp's explosive growth and acquisition by Acxiom.

Highlights:(2:13) Choosing companies based on people and gut instinct.(7:40) The transition from purely product-led growth to supporting an enterprise sales motion.(11:52) The risk of neglecting your core customers during growth.(16:31) Operationalizing the transition from self-service to enterprise.(23:55) Lessons learned from LiveRamp's acquisition by Acxiom.(28:14) Overcoming the desire to be liked as a leader.(35:25) Beyoncé's "Sasha Fierce" persona as a leadership tool.(39:16) The role and skills required of a modern CRO.(45:18) The importance of separating new logo sales from account management.(48:29) The power of word-of-mouth and focusing on customer outcomes.

Guest Speaker Links (Allison Metcalfe):LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonmetcalfe/Host Speaker Links (Scott Barker):LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/Newsletter: thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/

Sponsors:

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The GTM Podcast Features conversations with the top 1% of tech executives, VCs, and founders - the experts who have ‘been there, done that’ to build some of the fastest-growing software companies. Every week, a guest joins Scott Barker to dissect their stories - revealing what worked, what didn’t, and how things actually went down.This podcast is produced by GTMnow, the media brand of VC firm GTMfund. Visit gtmnow.com to see more content and subscribe.