Revenue reset: Docusign’s CRO on leadership fundamentals

It’s been almost a year since Revenue Brew started its quest to track the discipline of revenue orchestration in its myriad forms. From the growth of GTM engineering to interdepartmental collaboration (or simply evolving with your customer), there’s a lot under this umbrella.

It’s a good time to take a (small) step back and speak with a top-tier chief revenue officer about some key concepts that underpin our work. Docusign CRO Paula Hansen is a revenue leader with years of experience at large multinationals like SAP and Cisco, and most recently data and analytics company Alteryx. It’s always fascinating to speak with a go-to-market leader of this caliber, but especially now as Docusign is evolving into an AI-powered intelligent agreement platform (think of it as an intuitive end-to-end tool that can construct an entire business ecosystem around your agreements).

I spoke with Paula for a reset on some critical themes in revenue leadership at a time of frantic AI-inspired change; here is a peak at the conversation.

The full interview with Paula Hansen will be published on Revenue Brew’s multimedia channels.

The CRO playbook

Setting out on the revenue trail almost a year ago, we had an in-house motto: “There is no CRO playbook.” This affirmation helped establish a core principle: Revenue leadership is a dynamic and ever-changing discipline. We had to be nimble to follow it, and give it the appropriate contours. So, is there a CRO playbook at all?

“It’s really important to understand how a company operates before you put a playbook into motion,” said Hansen. “You need to understand the technology, the buyer, the motions, the maturity of the business, the culture, the organization, the ecosystem. The whole nine yards.”

Ok, so the consensus seems to be there is no obvious copy and paste from role to role, but Hansen said, “there are patterns that exist that you can quickly identify.” She said you first need to know if the application of those practices will actually work for that business.

First things first

Next up: people, process, and technology. The big three if you will. It’s another foundational framework that we discuss with the great and good of the business world—but which should an incoming CRO focus on to drive operational success? More importantly, which one does Paula focus on?

“Process probably comes first to me because that’s the way the business actually operates and functions. Probably today in most revenue organizations, it’s still fraught with a ton of friction,” said Hansen.

Hansen added that you “need to understand how the technology supports that process and, ultimately, if you’ve got the right team of people serving your customers.”

Data is your friend

Data is an integral part of the revenue leader’s toolkit, but what if the organization is not set up to reap its benefits? While analytical shortcomings could provide fertile ground for a CRO to make their mark, it could also mean not having the right foundation to build from. So is analytical maturity a necessity?

“Whether you’re mature or immature, you need to get started immediately. You need to start working with the data that you have today,” said Hansen.

Hansen said analytic maturity comes in with “taking that data and turning it into insights.” She added that this helps “identify where opportunity exists [and] where friction exists.”

Onward

As we continue to capture the changes in the revenue org, we’ll remember that the bias to action CROs are known for can take many different forms. It sometimes means uprooting systems, streamlining workflows, and establishing new processes in the blink of an eye. In other cases, the plan could be to use the tools at hand, while mapping the best route forward; sometimes a healthy mix of the two is the right call. For now the no playbook motto will keep us on our toes.