The Data Flow Method Kiefer Hazaz Uses to Find Hidden Revenue Leaks

Simone Henry: Here is a moment almost every founder between one and ten million dollars has had. sit down to set next quarter's budget, you have a marketing spread, spend a referral pipeline, an in search, maybe a salesperson two, and someone asks the question, which of these is actually making us money? You go to answer, but you can't. Not because you have not been paying attention. The answer is sitting in six different tools were never built to talk to each other. So you make the call the way you always have. You guess and you call it judgment. Our today has built his whole practice around closing that exact gap. The distance the work you're doing ⁓ and your to see what it's producing. Welcome to the Growth Ceiling Podcast. Hi Nate. Hi Kef Keefer.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Stand it here, are you fine?

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Welcome, welcome, Kiefer. yeah, our guest today is Kiefer Kiefer Hazaz. He is the founder of Fruition RevOps. And Kiefer works with companies that have outgrown the setup they started with. It's that moment where the customer relationship system, the billing, and the day-to-day operations were each chosen at a different time for a different reason, and none of them were necessarily built to connect. So he is a HubSpot solution partner. But the more useful way to describe what he does is probably this. Founders come to him frustrated their numbers do not add up, and leave with a clear picture of where the revenue is actually going. He teaches instead of pitches, ⁓ which exactly why I wanted him on the show. Kiefer, before we get into any framework, give me the pattern. What was it when you get pulled into a business where the numbers have stopped adding up, what is the first thing you almost always find?

Simone Henry: Can can I jump in here one thing? First of all, can we do this? Can we define what is RevOps?

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): That's a nice question. Do you have a do you have an do you have another hour? Alright, let's let's define what is what a revops. Okay, so yeah, we can we define what is a revops. It's a very good question. And and RevOps has ⁓ a lot of shifting in the last few years, especially specifically. Let me try as well from what is not. And ⁓ there are a lot of people that will say

Nate Grossman: Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea. Yeah, yeah.

Simone Henry: Give us the the clip notes for

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): That's not correct and there is a lot of debate around that. But RevOP is not VP of sales. RevOp is not someone that is the head of marketing and it's definitely not one of that is r running the customer service or customer support or customer success. He's the one that basically above all of those, but doesn't have to be in terms of supervising them. Is the one that know how the and the data transfer between all of them. Because if they are not connecting, there will be a data leakage. If there is data leakage, there is a revenue leakage. There is a revenue leakage, you lost money. Very simple. You lost money from because you're losing opportunities, you're losing money because some of the client didn't was wasn't very satisfied and they didn't come back, or they haven't renewed. There's a lot of way or churn and so on, or just missing opportunity because someone didn't listen to the question correctly and you know that there is a churn or there is a break in this pipe in this way, or you don't know how to follow up, or the marketing doesn't know which one is the customer. So RevOps is the guy that basically take a look at RevOps. Is the today's company with department of RevOps? Is the RevOps the department above that that see that the SOP of the company fly correctly between all the revenue department and Now, something that evolved in the last few years, I think, is more than just in the marketing sales and customer service is now start to become connecting to the production, to the project management, to the ⁓ manufacturing itself, if you're working with them as manufacturing, or if with the team, the technical team that doing the job at your home in the grass store. Because by the end of the day, if they are not connecting to what happened behind the scene, there is some leakage over there. So that's RevOps, the the guy that the the team that on how the connection and and how to connect all the doors between

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): all the department of the companies and to see that everything fly correctly. if I will try to summarize that in one word, that everyone talking on the same language. MQL, ⁓ know is MQL. When I'm saying sales qualified, everyone knows what is a sales qualified. That's basically the same language that everyone can talk.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Awesome. So when you start working with a business, the first thing that you almost always find?

Simone Henry: Okay. Great, thank you.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): That they don't know what they don't know. That basic they they most of most of the clients that come into us basically think that it's a big project now to change something in their system. That even though they will add more and more systems, it will solve the problem that they have. But sometimes it this is not a problem. If you have a problem to generate more leads, if you have a problem to see that client conversion, you don't know how many convert.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, okay.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): last month, you don't know how much you generate from the ad that you spent twenty thousand dollars last month or even two thousand dollar last month. You don't know how many of them convert into sales, into money, which means that you have a problem in the process. And most of them doesn't even think that they can know that. And that's the thing. it's so easy to to just connect two dots and then you will see them. And I think that's what we found is that when we show that to the client, That there is a flow of data that you need to connect between the system and not just adding more and more systems. Sometimes adding more and more systems does make that make it more harder. And especially today with the AI and agent AI, every two guys with a laptop create more agent and more agent and more agent, and that creates data salary. basically need to be ensure that the data, the language between the department, the language between your team are the same thing. Sometimes even think people think, you know, I have a problem with the marketing. I don't sell enough. I have a problem with the sales. I have a problem with the customer success success. But when they go into the number, they don't know how much converted, how much move from one step to another. They don't see that. And if you don't see how can you take decision, okay, let me cut off the the the ad. Maybe this is your best generating and not this SEO or your sales guy that you thought is the best one is not generate the best revenue or the better profit, the data when it's fly can tell you. Instead of to spend the night and find that or spend the all the weekend to try to find that, it can be really there for you when you need it.

Nate Grossman: Mm-mm. So our show here, we we we organize everything around three questions. First off, can can the right people find you? Can you convert them without ⁓ being in the middle of it necessarily? And is the business worth more than the time that put into it, right? So ⁓ it like to me what you're describing lit is almost checks those boxes, really. It's very, very on this along the same lines. But I'd say specially viability, being that layer where the systems either carry the growth or they buckle, right? And first thing that tends to buckle is the the business or the founder's ability to see what is actually going on, just like you said, you know, information silos, invisibility internally in the company, right? all right, so let's let's talk about some of the common ⁓ mis ⁓ the probably the most common misconception. When when a founder tells you that they have a growth problem, do you you they usually think is broken and what is actually broken? I think you said you kind of touched on this a little bit. Yeah, marketing or lead or leads or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): That they need more sales. Yeah. Exactly. But sometimes it's not no sorry, ahead.

Nate Grossman: No, no, I and and and then so what is actually broken then in in your opinion, usually?

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): So it's it's mainly it's not just what broken is that do you do you really know what is the problem? Because most of the time when you think this is the problem, if you don't have solid data to confirm that, y i it's ⁓ it's you know, it's it's a guessing. You don't you don't know really it it happened or not. So what we try to do all the time is that we bring in the real data. Now, sometimes in some of the clients it's very simple. You know, you just connect some two dots and here we go. You see all what happened to you in the last quarter of the last year. And here you go, I saw that I grow in the last six months. I didn't know that I I did so much good in the last six months. And by the way, it did happen to us in one of our clients. So with one of our clients, she she was amazed to see that the the SEO grows so much in the last in the last six months. She didn't even know that. Okay. It's not because she's not in the marketing. She's a a lot of you know, I have a lot of experience in the marketing side. But the thing is that How do you choose exactly what data to see and when from where? And that's when they come into place how you flow the data, the data flow, to fly the data between systems is accurate, it's important and has to be accurate. And think that one of the growth problems is not just what is ⁓ is from it is. So if I'm taking a look on my channels, okay, where are the channels that generate me the most revenue? Okay, in order to do that, I need to see. the customer journey. Now, ⁓ customer journey to see a full customer journey and full touch point was back then only the big companies or the enterprise could do that because was very expensive. Today, ⁓ the market that we have, in the ability to create almost everything very quick, very easy, it's can ⁓ every have to have it. You need to know what is your customer journey. You need to know every touch point of their journey. And when I talk about customer journey, just to be on the same page, I'm not talking, and that's the difference between RevOps and sales. I'm not talking about only about sales. I'm talking about all the journey. He's a client of mine. After six months, he did he click on something, did he open something? When it goes back to the sales, how it goes back to the sale. He was happy, was satisfied from the service after six months, one nine months, year. Why is not log in? Why is not register? Why didn't come to the webinar? How many times you visit our our booth in in the last event and so on and so on. Ever even though it's a customer. one of those touch points are crucial for the success and ⁓ the growth. Sometimes you think about the growth only from the perspective, okay, I bring more leads and more and more and more leads. But sometimes if you will take a look at your database and your customer service, you can find a gold mine over there. If you will do the correct work. And segment the correct people into the right process and you will see their touch point. Now, in order to do that, a lot of systems will claim that they'll do that, but sometimes you need some something between the systems to connect and make the language better. And that's when basically that's what basically connect between the data flow how how you connect the ⁓ between the system. It's called the QDFs. We it's quick data flow that we connect between multiple systems.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): But the idea is a specific data that fly between a system in order to accommodate one specific target. I want to know how many of my clients did A B C D. I want to know I want to push to my sales this amount of leads on the end of every day in real time and so on and so on. That's exactly.

Nate Grossman: Okay, so you you kind of touched on a going a step back there a little bit. You you you started talking about a a real customer. Can you can you give me a ⁓ you can anonymize it if you want to, but give me an example of when you you know were working someone and they had a that was there in plain sight, but nobody nobody caught it because the systems weren't connected.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Yeah, of course. I've I've actually that's one of them one of the main issues for many clients. the relationship between the marketing and sales and customer service. you know, this this data flow is is a lot of time l broken in most of the companies. And I'll give you an example. The the company is basically Mitzha's company or Mitzha's Mitchell's company in and Their sales cycle is a long sales cycle. They have a big client, very big companies. This is their you know B2B. and every sales takes 12, 18 months, nine months, it's a long sales cycle. The marketing claim that they bring a lot of leads to their sales guys. Every time. One of them, the the sales guys work with a Zoho, and and the marketing works with HubSpot. Okay. The relationship between them can be on a sync model. Okay, there is a sync, basic sync.

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): On between Zoro and AppSpot, you can there it's an it's a native integration. But the thing over here is that it's native between the Zoro and the AppSpot. It's not native based on your SOP, based on the company how they work, and that's the gap. So whenever the marketing wants to send something from the HubSpot, they call it MQL. The sales have another name, the sales have their own pipe. Now there is no relationship between both of the sides. So each one of them called it another name. course, the sales control everything. So whatever they say, they everyone try to accommodate that. However, then the marketing doesn't know what is your their customer journey. They don't know how many convert from one to another. So it's become like a ⁓ a glitch between both of the systems and who is correct and who has the data. So the marketing comes and says, listen, I have this amount of lead I brought you. The sales said, I didn't see this lid, I don't know where they are.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ha ha ha.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): I know that I about to got some of them. Some of them are good, some of them are not. But the sale doesn't know that some of those leads that they received received after a touch point, which means that those already were in the system. The marketing did a good job on them. We turned them back to the bracket. So yes, they were in the system. But the marketing, because of their nurturing, because of their engagement, webinar event, brought them back to the sales. But the sale said, it's only me, it's only.

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): It's already mine. I don't know it's not a new lead. And when you don't create this cast so you know the you know there's a friend that said that if if it's a win the sales will take it, if it's a lose, the marketing is is on that. So that's market is dubl so so ⁓ in in that case what we did is that we create a C D H S which is a centralized data app system between those systems, is the brain and the spine that talk between those systems and know how to

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Right. Right. Marketing is to blame, yeah. Yeah.

Simone Henry: Mm.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Convert the language from the marketing and the sales. So yes, the seller wants to work with Zorro, fine, even though there is an amazing sales hub, but they work with the Zoro for the last 10 years. We don't ask from the companies ever to change their system. If they want, of course, we will help them, we'll find them a good system, but we don't force them. They can use the system as it is today. This is their SOP. So basically, what we create is the language between them. So the CDHS in the middle know how to language.

Nate Grossman: You mean

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): So the marketing has the full customer journey now. They know exactly all the touch point and the sales know what is lead, what is deal, what is the opportunity per se what they want. So every one of the sides up, and then basically we have numbers. So the VPO of marketing and the VPO of sales and the RevOps can know how many use how many leads convert into every one of them based on new lead, based on retouch point, or those that came in only from the exhibition.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. And and and everybody's agreeing on what is what there. That's okay. Yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Yeah, exactly. They if they wanna have whatever they want, you know. You don't force anyone to walk with someone else.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. I like that. So you don't you don't come in, you don't you don't Go ahead.

Simone Henry: So you ⁓ basically create a you create a translation program between the between the

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Correct. Yes, correct. Correct. That's exact that's exactly what the CDS is doing. It it translates between department. I can give another example from the production environment. Okay. Think about it if you have a production in China, okay? we found in one of our clients that the production team working on the spreadsheet. That's how they manage their products. Okay. But they have their own language. Not only Chinese Mandarin. They their own language in terms of the called the the product, the stage, the life cycle.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): The marketing, the sales, and the customer service over here in the US, they have their own language. They try all the time to connect between okay, you will let's use this one, let's use this name. And they work with Monday. We are a partner as well with Monday.com and we partner with many, many companies and Network as well. And what we did over there is that we connect all the data, all the all the system together, five systems together into the centralized, like we call it correctly, the translator. we take what the production work as they want to have, okay. And we take what the marketing and sales and the customer service, each one of them they want on the shipping, logistics, each one of them work on their own system, but there is one system in the middle that knows how to translate between them. I don't need to force the production talking the names like the customer service talk, or vice versa, because you know by the end of the day they need to do on a daily basis, that's what they work with. So yes, it's it's translation between systems in order to make it easy. For the data to fly. So yeah.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. All right, good. I think like speaking of date data, there seem there's seems to be like a belief that oftentimes we we're gonna we're gonna fix this by having more data, right? we need we need more dashboards, we need more reporting. But it sounds like to me, and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're saying that you're kind of saying the opposite, that it's not necessarily about having more data. It's Being able to make sense of it. Does that make sense? Is that more accurate? Okay.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Yeah, it's very ⁓ yeah, it's it's very accurate but say yeah, it's super accurate. It's like, you know, people come and say, Okay, I want to add I will add another customer service system, ⁓ customer or sell or customer service or by by app spot. I will add I will take money.com now for my system so it will manage my product or trailer. Not all the time that you're adding more and more system will help you to manage better. That's not the case. Yes, you might need it.

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): But it might be that you don't really have the ability to convert the knowledge from one system to another. So if you are working with Salesforce on the sales part, okay, and you want the marketing on the app spot, that's fine. But if you're now adding another marketing tool like a Go High Level or I don't know, Brevo for for a marketing email, if you don't connect it correctly and there is ⁓ one source of truth, then no matter how much report you will create, you will have a conflict all the time. And eventually your VP and eventually your executive will find themselves at night sitting and trying to find where the hell is my data, where the hell is my numbers from last month. Because they need to dig in all of the all of the system because each system says different things. So not all the time to adding more and more

Nate Grossman: Yeah, right. Yeah. ⁓

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Not all the not all the time adding more and more system or more and more dashboard or more and more properties or more and more data will contribute to your knowledge, sometimes even make it for you. you need to connect the properties between them. We need you need to ensure that you talk the same language between all the systems. That's the main cause.

Nate Grossman: Mm mm. Nice. All right. So let's get into the framework here and how you actually put this into practice. So can you walk me through your approach from moment you you s you meet with the business, where do you start and why do you start there?

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): You know, it's funny because when a client came to us and said, I want to connect this one to that one. Let's put an API or native integration. How do I see this data here and that's it? And then my question all the time is on, ⁓ you're now need another room in your home or you're building a new home, do you just jump in and start to build that? Or are you building first a floor plan? You all the time will build a floor plan. You will know what you want to do, what are the materials. How to create it correctly, how to do it correctly. So, what we're doing basically at the beginning, we're building basically the map. It's called the SAE map. It's a system automation engagement map, which basically flows about your SOP. And that's I think one of the most important things. People intend to think that if they will hire two developers, with all my respectful two developers, I work with a lot of them. If they will have to developers to build their API, it will work. Sometimes it will not. Not because they are not doing a good job, it's because they build technology between two systems, but they didn't lean that your SOP. Your how you're doing business is crucial for the data to fly. If I'm basically want to move my customer journey, it will be totally different from G G H D to do your own customer journey. Because this is how you're doing business. This is how your business structure and this is how your founder basically creates that, which is great. That's what that's what makes it happen, work. We don't need because of the system to change our SOP. We need that the system would work based on our SOP. So the first thing first that we're doing is basically create the SAE map. The SAE map is bas mapping all of the system on your process. I can tell you that one of my clients, ⁓

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): It's a big government company company that works with government. you know, tens of millions of dollars of contracts and hundreds of millions of dollar contracts, and they doing everything manually. Manually, literally, everything. They hire people manually. It's insane. It's insane to see that. When I built the map over there, it was like 90% 85% of the process was manual, manual, manual, manual, manual. We implemented one QDF.

Nate Grossman: Mm. I believe it. I believe it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Only one from the 15 that they are going to do with us in the next nine months, QDF, and it's already saved ⁓ of a position of a person. That's what it's saved, only because of that. Not because it's a main, it's because the QDF that was built of that is building over there, it's saving a specific problem based on this company knowledge, how they're doing business. And the process is based on him.

Simone Henry: So ⁓ so is is this process mostly about you know, the software and the automation tools that they're using or is it bigger?

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): It's on software system and the main thing is how do you do your business? How your relationship and how you transfer the process between all of your department. How you get the leads, what are the sources, where they go, how they go, how the how do the leads go? Who click over there? Where they click. Okay, how the sales going? What are the pipelines that the sales have? How the marketing worked before that? Is there is it is there is a marketing engagement, nurturing, is there is exhibition. What is the source of all of those sales? Is there is a touch point? Then after a customer, then when there is a sales, a closing deal, how the customers have service get it? What is the handshake over there? Do you just send them an email or them a slack? That's a lot of things. I send them a slack. Okay, where who who get it? How is the handshake there? And after that, how the customers, if there is a problem, how it's go back to the production. Do you send them another Slack and then it's in among thousands of notes on the Slack? Or do you open a ticket and the ticket connect to the ID of the customer that you know and the salesman knows as well because when he will come to renewal, he will need to know that. When we're building this map, we show all of those to points of handshake, system, or how the how they fly between ⁓ the data fly between all of those departments. Once we have all of that, then you see all the problem. And you know, in that place,

Nate Grossman: Mm, yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Sometimes we describe ourselves as a plumber. I'm plumber for data. I see pipes, a lot of the big, big, big, big pipes, and I know to find where is the where is the leakage. And where there is a leakage, we come and fix it. With keyboard, of course, not with hand, but keyboard. come and fix it and and the data can fly there. So a lot of pipes think about the data need fly, the number, the name, the company. I know I had a client that the contact name, the comp the client name.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): He had three clients' names on three systems, different systems. The same the same client. Okay? The same client. Now think about it. I want to know how many clients I have. Which system I will go to find? Which system is the correct? Which system do you want to trust on? Exactly. Single source of truth. So that's the first stage.

Simone Henry: Mm. Mm. I was thinking that before.

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Simone Henry: Like what's that single source of truth?

Nate Grossman: So from can c correct me if I'm wrong, Kiefer, but I believe that you organize your work around four parts. So the process, the platform, people, and insight. Does that sound correct? All right. And think most founders will jump straight into the platform, which is I think what you're saying, like, especially like the different teams, even, right? and they assume oftentimes that the answer is just ha getting a better tool. So ⁓

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Correct. Correct.

Nate Grossman: why do you think that process come before the platform?

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Because every system has their own feature. Every system has their own module. If you will buy another system with another module, is that it wasn't for you. You know, App Spot service hub, it's a huge service hub. Okay, there is a plenty of feature over there. It doesn't mean that you need it. Maybe just a quick, you know, basic a service tool can serve what you need. Maybe for what you need, it's basic it's better to go with Zendex because they have this type of solution. You know, Mandy.com has a very powerful of CRM, but not all the time this CRM will fit to any client. Some client need a really CRM, you know, other to the sales, which they need the cadence and the email and other some top tools inside. So the sales inside Money.com will not work for you. So just to go and buy that. Most of the time will not serve you because it's not connect to your process. You need to take that to say look what the feature are on this system. Try to see maybe you can have something much, much, you know, less expensive, even and can sell that. maybe one of the other systems can serve that. You know, most of the clients and most of the companies don't know that there is a what's called an app spot custom object. Custom object on AppSpot is that you can ⁓ build. Your own environment per any type of a process that you want. Okay? That's with one of the clients that we did. We they the shipping, the logistic team, working with Shipwell. A very powerful tool, amazing tool for logistics. But I don't want that myself, I don't want my customer service, I don't want my production team, I don't want my the developer will go to the logistics. They don't care what they do there, they don't have anything to do there. I don't need to teach them and I don't want to train them. So what we did is that we connected into the custom object on the app spot and the app spot get all the information that we need. So now the customer service needs to go, they go to the custom object on the app spot and see all the data in real time coming to there. The other option is, you know, what will what will any other company will do? We'll go and give a license to all of their teams to go to the shipping logistic team. And that starts to cause a lot of question and again to system. One of them in the shipping and one of them is the absolute, who is correct. Once you push the data from one to another, everything in one is the source of truth.

Nate Grossman: Perfect. right. So let's to make this a little concrete for our listeners out there. Let's say that we have a business that's doing like two to three million dollars. and maybe they have a team of about twelve people, they have customer relationship system in place, in one place anyway, and then the billing is in another, maybe a different platforms, right? What what are the first two or three moves that you would make in that case?

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): What system they have today, if I may ask? What is the for your example? What I said, the system for ⁓ whatever. Okay, yeah. So the first thing first, I will basically will build the map. Let's see how they work together between the marketing sales, customer service, production, if they are production, developer or you know, manufacturing, or technician on on on ground. and ⁓

Nate Grossman: ⁓ w yeah, it could be whatever, yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): After we have the map, then we can see which one of those systems that they have today can accommodate what they need in order to see all the data. Now, my first question over there will be your in terms of the data. Do you know what is your customer journey? That's basically how you can test it. Do you know how many touch points your customer have in order to close a deal? Do you know how many touch points your customer had in the last 12 months? regardless only sells or not sells in in all customer journey. Do you know how many revenue which one of your channels today generate the best revenue to your company? Okay. Do you know if which one of the systems has the all information? If I want to know one attribute that is the most important for you. Okay, I want to know how many revenue I'm getting from this channel. Which one of the system we will go if you tell me that I'm going to A and B, you have a problem.

Nate Grossman: and B. Yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Exactly. Because I don't know where is the data. I will need to check the hubspot and I will need to check the cell spot. And let me see, for example, on the the A and the Brevo, and I will come back to the snow. Many, many systems, and every one of them you have a piece of data, which means you don't have a single source of truth. So the first thing that you need to do, build a map. Take a look how your data build based on your SOP, how do you work? How do you move the information and the knowledge? between all the department. What are the end shake between each one of those team and department? How they move the data. don't please on Slack to move those ones. Because Slack amazing, amazing from communication. I worship what they think communication tool, but they are not project management. You you cannot manage project there.

Nate Grossman: Ha ha.

Simone Henry: Assisti.

Nate Grossman: All right. good. All right. So that's great. So w once you've once you've brought all these systems together, how much the the desired result comes from automation versus simply getting into the to to go to the right place?

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): good question. I think that it's it's it's a combination of both. You need automation in order to know the data. You need automation to go behind the scene in the QDF or through the C DHS. if it's a shared C DHS or it's a dedicated CDH, we have clients with those and we have clients with that. That we build it only for them, and there are clients that work in on our shared environment of C DHS. it depends of of it's a combination of both because sometimes I need need automation I need some automated the stuff behind the scene in order to see this data, in order to see that correctly in the right spot. And one thing that we are all the time, you know, we put this as one of our main things that we're doing when you're doing the job is that we don't want to change the way that you're doing business. So we don't want to force your employees to go now every day to the app spot, even though they are in the production or manufacturing. If they are manufacturing, let them work on their side. We will push the data behind the scene for them. So based on your question, it's depend of what system they have, depend of where is the single source of truth. And it's basically depend on how many action there are behind the scene that the system needs to do in order to create this flow of data to the right person.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Okay. do you think that sometimes automation is, you know, used a little bit too much? ⁓ people see it as a solution for everything? Yeah. ⁓

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Mm. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll tell you why I will tell you why. You know, automation can be ⁓ very powerful, but if again I think that automation, if you're not control that make it correctly based on your marketing work, it will break very, very fast. The company that I told you before about the Zoe and App Spo, they have the sync for like a few years. But One of the new new members came in to add another column on the pipeline. One of them created another on the hub spot. And then you have failed of syncs, fail of that one. This data is not correct. that's it, you're done. You you you cannot lean on this data because it's not accurate. It's not only an outlier anymore. It's it's really a failure of data. So it depends on what type of automation you create. The automation is not just because I want to create a workflow.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): or what we call workflow absorption automation is because I need to move the data from one to another and make it behind the scene. That's the reason I need the automation. Now when I'm doing that, I'm saving a lot of time on my employees. I saving a lot of time on my my department and basically they don't need to do that manually all the time.

Simone Henry: I would like to use the analogy of like the the your automation because some people are afraid of automation. ⁓ automation is really just that system, it's the train. You put the data on it and it and it'll that data to you know to the different departments or wherever it needs to go. But

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Yes.

Simone Henry: If the data is wrong, it's either because it was input wrong or some somehow it got tweaked wrong, but the automation is not what's making the data wrong. You know, I talk about like using using automation for like, you know, sending out emails and d and th different things like that. and people say, ⁓ well I don't wanna be ⁓ I don't wanna impersonal or or sound robotic or anything. I don't want to use automation to make me sound like that. I said, Well, if your messages sound robotic, it's because you wrote it that way. It's not because the automation made it that way, right?

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Mm-hmm.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Correct, yeah. You're correct. The automation didn't do that, yeah. you're correct. Yeah, it's super correct. Automation automation I'm sorry, go ahead. Go on.

Nate Grossman: I mean well I was gonna say I I mean it is it is possible that the automation could have AI in there writing it for you, which in that case then ⁓ all bets are off, but ⁓ there you go. Okay. Yeah.

Simone Henry: In which case you didn't train your AI properly.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): ⁓ you didn't try and correct you, yeah, correct. You can use an AI and we have a lot of clients that use an AI, of course, but AI can you know help us in some level. In some level it's very risky to use that. ⁓ even with with automation today, AI can create that, but I tell you from my experience until now we haven't found any AI that really can help us to build the QDF without really the SOP of the company. Because the how to business on your company, I think this is one of the most important things for your any automation that you're doing. Like you said, for example, on the email, it's correct. Because if I want to send an email, my how do I treat my client, what type of my client, it's very hard to just put you know in another sequence of email. You need to exactly understand how you're doing that. And when to send it, what it will not disturb them, what will be good for them and so on. So yep.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. I just saw, speaking of you know, using AI, I just saw where Ford Motor Company just hired back a bunch of engineers that they had fired when they started decided they were going to use ⁓ They found that the AI would miss in in the QA the QA or the QC portion that engineers would just, you know, it would be like second nature to them, right? ⁓

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): I saw it as well, yeah. Sick sick in life, yeah.

Nate Grossman: But so they were like, ⁓ my gosh, we gotta hire these guys back. And apparently since they've been started hig since they have started hiring them back with bonuses, by the way, just because they had to coax them back, but they've saved a whole like hundreds of millions of dollars, so on on like, know, recalls and things like that. So ⁓ anyway.

Simone Henry: Yeah. Absolutely.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Ha ha ha Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can tell you that one of the thing one of the things on our side is that back then and like six, nine months ago when the coding started to go into the AI, we were afraid of that and I'm so glad that we didn't took the the the leap that companies we had a client that came and said, ⁓ I have some developer that do everything in AI. You can do it in one third of your price and said that's fine, but if you have a problem, who will review the code? One you will never be able to review the code. It will take you tens of hours, if not hundreds of hours, just to review to find the bug in this code. So yes, you can explain the process, but do you know what you wrote over there? Do you know exactly how it was? So it's not easy. Okay, let's put it in the cloud and it will give me all the the the the application. That's it. It's very, very risky. And we see client coming back now and said, I built that one with AI. Why I have a bug, I don't know even where to start to fix that and this is become more expensive than creating all the system on the back end on the stuff. Exactly. just looks like

Nate Grossman: It's ⁓ it's it's job security, right? I mean that for you, like that's great. ⁓

Simone Henry: interesting is that I've heard I heard from this guy. He calls himself like a he's a a happiness a happiness guy, but he talks about like how how people in especially like ⁓ a lot of C suite executives at these companies, they're only looking at the bottom line. And so because they're only looking at the bottom line, they forget that they forget the human element in ⁓ in their businesses and their processes. And so they're thinking, ⁓ well, okay, let's bottom line it. the AI is gonna take a lot less time it's always gonna be working and never goes to the bathroom and never needs to take a break. It's never in a bad mood or anything, you know, so we'll just get rid of the humans, we'll go for the AI, and our bottom line looks great. Wow, yay, more profit. But they forget that, you know, AI really needs human it artificial only works great with human intelligence, you know, it.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Yeah.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Great great great message. AI can work amazing with ⁓ human intelligence. You know, we we have a client that's very funny about automation. They try for many, many years to connect. They they are in the healthcare their system basically one of the system in I think one of the last system in the world don't have an API. Close guarded, nothing. You cannot go in, you cannot go out. Even though it's a HIPAA compliance and everything, you cannot go in, you cannot go out, nothing. So their secretary, the admin at the at the at the ⁓ the at the place, they have like a you know, tens of the small business company, therapists, they have like a thirty therapist, holy therapist. And every week she went to the system, ⁓ the spreadsheet and went one by one as customer to see who get money and who revenue and what he's doing. She doing that back that and she said like it's a twelve hours. To do that every week only to review all of this data. And with the QDF, basically we solved that very simple today. But the idea that sometimes, and that's and what I'm trying to say over here, is that sometimes small business think that ⁓ automation going to cost me t hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't have the budget for that and I don't have the time for that. It will cost you much more if you not try to Find the QDF per specific thing that you need. This client, this company need only one thing. They need to be able to download the spreadsheet, a system, CDH basically, take this from the spreadsheet and put it on the app spot. That's it. All the rest happen behind the scene. So instead of her to go one by one and create and all of those stuff with a very QDF, very simple QDF, we basically succeed to convert everything into the app spot and then when it's an app spot. you have a single source of truth. So sometimes business, small business, think that it's a lot of money, and like you said, correct, is the automation sound robust and what do I need it? Sometimes automation and sometimes if you flow the data correctly can expedite your business and by the end of the day, this is how you grow. If I need to have more ⁓ 30 ⁓ therapists now and I need more employees to do that, that will not grow. That will cost me more money. That's the idea.

Nate Grossman: Hm. Yeah. All right.

Simone Henry: is that balance that you we have to strike, right, between, you know, ⁓ that automation and and and the humans.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Exactly.

Nate Grossman: Yeah. So so we you can you you can go ahead and get all the data, you know, connected together, all the systems ⁓ and data is perfect and everything like that. But the data itself does not necessarily decide anything, right? So what in the inside the business, what needs to be true, such as for example the strategy.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Yep, correct.

Nate Grossman: the offer, the way that they are the way that they're converting for that visibility that you're creating to eventually turn into revenue. So what what needs to be true in the business in those regards?

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): I think at once of the thing is to be able to understand your journey your customer journey. If your data is in the right spot, you will be able to understand where is your churn, where do you lose client, or where is your main most broken pipe. Because that's for example, we had a client back then that one of his more his main problem is that not on the customer, not on the marketing and sales, but on the customer service. He's losing a lot of clients over there because the service how you're dealing with those customers. He the the his customer success manager didn't know how to find and understand what they're talking with the clients and didn't bring them back to the sales. So they're losing a lot of revenue. We almost doubled the revenue over there once we put the QDF inside, and because You don't just again customer success is one of the best places to grow. If you know how to do that, every time that you take away the client, there is an opportunity over there to return it back to the sales. But if you don't return it back to the sales correctly, it will fall between the cracks. This is a data this is a revenue leakage. This is how the revenue is breaking over there.

Nate Grossman: And and just for just for everybody listening, define QDF for us if you don't

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Quick data flow. A data flow between two systems or more than two systems that basically solve one specific one specific SOP. I want to move it between my my marketing and my sales, no matter what source I receive, but I want that the sales will receive it in their own way. I another example. I need specific product that I develop. Every time that the sales close the deal, automatically it will create a monthly board.

Nate Grossman: Telephone.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): assigned to the right production, the production can start to work and then the circle back to the customer service when it's done. This SOP, it's one flow in your business company, how they're doing the job. The data fly corrected based on your SOP. That's a PDF.

Nate Grossman: Okay. even ⁓ a owner connects all their data correctly, if there's underlying structure, right, the whole thing falls apart anyway, correct? Yeah. Okay. ⁓

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Correct. Native integration can be great. Native integration can be correct. But if it's not based again on on your ⁓ on your how the data fly and how you need to grow and the flexibility of the data to flow correctly, and that's another thing basically when we adding into all of this equation, because you know, businesses change. You have new product, you have new solution, you need now to change a channel. You work on on this, you have now with working with partners. Those changing of business that happen all the time need to be reflecting very quick, very easy in your data flow. Otherwise we'll break. Because now I'm working more with partners, then with sales. So my my SOP change. I have now more business outside US and not in US. How do I do that? So when you do when you're building your data flow, when you're building your report, when you're building your a customer journey, you need to ensure that everything is very flexible and easy to change. based on your grow and growth and based on your change in the business.

Nate Grossman: Nice. Okay, so let's get into multiplier effect here. when so ⁓ what when everything is working correctly and you you've worked with the business, you've helped them to figure out how data is flowing and connecting the data everybody's on the same page. what is the What tends to be the first decision that is made differently when maybe the founder or whoever's in charge, when they can finally see that this is actually ⁓ paying off?

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): focus on another channel. We had a client that basically changes channel marketing what he thought that is the generate to another one because it generates better. So it be on the marketing side you find that your channel is not what you thought it generates. Yeah you spend $25,000 per month on this channel but ⁓ hold on this is not my main my generate yes but lead that you generate that's not the best one actually My exhibition generates much better, much better leads, even though it looks like not the same like Google, and like we know all Google likes to say this is mine, this is mine, this is mine, declare that everything is bare by their success. But sometimes the exhibition generates better than that. So they change the focus of the channel. That's one. Another story is about how the production works. Because when when you're building the the the flow of data and you see the numbers.

Nate Grossman: Right.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): You see that they're spending a lot of time on something that you don't need. One of our clients found that he spent about his generate the invoice to their client the finance team. It takes her between th three to four hours a week to generate the invoice. Something that can take two minutes ⁓ the system. No and by the way, no one no one knows that.

Nate Grossman: Wow. Wow.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Not because they don't care, because she did the job and it's not fine, that's the process. But when you come in, say she you come into the SAE map, you find that she's doing seven times the same number in a four different places. And another special, by the way, that manage another special, that manages another special. So in order to to get that now, this is a company of back then was about seventy or eighty employees, okay?

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): And you know, if this is a finance team, someone in the finance, you're doing the job, everything is good, everyone is happy. But then you found out that she can save about four hours per week, regardless, you know, mistakes or overlapping. Let's move aside, even that one. So sometimes what we you know we discussed at the beginning that they don't know what they don't know. This is exactly the point. When you start to see the data fly, when you start to see the data in in the right spot, you find a lot of places that you can save time.

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): And you can save a lot of hours from your employees. And when you grow, don't need to add another employee. You just grow. One of my clients today saving, like I said before, on the government side, half of his director of HR, half of his time. Not because only you know, because he's better now, or because now you wake up early in the morning. It's because 90% what you need to do can be automated behind the scenes. So simple. And he saved 50% of his time. And he said 50 by the way, he didn't know that it can save so much time. On the same time, by the way, he didn't know that to generate one opportunity take to his BDR 20 hours per one opportunity to generate. And when he saw his number, 20 hours per opportunity, yes, because he did the analyzing, he did that, hey, the all of that stuff. By the way, 90% of that can be automated behind the scene with the system with the CDHS. So

Nate Grossman: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): When we say they they don't know what they didn't know, this is exactly the point. You show the numbers, you show how the data fly, what is converted and what is not, where are the leakage, and then you can start to fix. And then it will open you the option to to grow. Because now bring other 50 employees, bring other two products, bring other two next five million dollar ⁓ deal. You are able and capable to hold them and manage them.

Nate Grossman: Nice. right. very very good. Let's get into our rapid round here. So just, you know, give me your short answers ⁓ and good takeaways for the listeners here. Simone, you wanna it away?

Simone Henry: Sure. right. So what one question every founder should ask about their data this month?

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Do I know all of my customer journey touch points?

Simone Henry: Good one. a founder has never connected their systems, what the single first step that does not cost them anything?

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): I don't know if they don't cost them anything, cost them from their side as well. They can sit down, they can sit down and build their SOP. Understand how the end checks work between the department. They don't need you know companies are outsourcing companies on that. If they want, we'll be more than welcome to have them. But they can do it by themselves. Sit down, your SAE map, system automation engagement map, see how the data fly between your system. How the handshake between your department, once you're doing that, you will see a lot of revenue leakage.

Simone Henry: Yeah. talked about the that that that connective tissue before. ⁓ What is one report or number that founders over rely on that tells them less than they think it does?

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Yep. Yeah, exactly. My closing deal from last month doesn't say anything. It's overrated. How many deals I closed last month doesn't say anything. might have a great deal that's coming from somewhere. ⁓ I closed the deal. That doesn't say anything. Because in two months you don't have any any any new lead that's coming in. So then what? That doesn't say anything. You need to see a conversion. You need to see how the conversion on every step.

Nate Grossman: Ha ha.

Simone Henry: Yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Not and that's one of the things that a lot of a lot of ⁓ small business doing. I received twenty five new deals, new leads this month and I convert three of them. That's not a number. That is out something you can you cannot lean on that. How many of those twenty will client? How many of them of them are MQL, how many of them are SQL, and how many of them are eventually clo CQL, which is a closing? And how many of them close and how many of them really generate you revenue? And what is the revenue? When you will do that one, then you can tell me, yeah, I know how much revenue I generate.

Simone Henry: goodness. Talk about getting granular. Okay. What the fastest sign? What is the fastest sign that revenue is leaking somewhere that a can't currently see?

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Ha ha ha. Customer service. You're losing a lot of deal on customer service. Do you think that once you close the deal, you you are can go to the beast. No, you're not. This is only the beginning of the work. When you're closing the deal, this is where you start the process and this is where you generate more revenue on your customer journey post sale, ⁓ pre-sale.

Simone Henry: That is so true. That transition point, that's where that's where ⁓ there's a there's a lot of ⁓ it's not the the exact first impression, but it is like one of the first impressions. After I hand you my money, what what's next? ⁓ you go to the beach, ⁓ no. ⁓ now I'm feeling buyer's remorse.

Nate Grossman: Okay.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Yep. Correct. Yes, definitely. Yeah. And if you look and and the good founders, if they working on those customer journey and if they will know those customer process after the after the closing, they can find new product, new product line, new service that they can add more and create more add-on, create more add-on, create more revenue, and you go you find another revenue channel. Which you didn't even think, by the way, this is RevOps work.

Nate Grossman: Right, right.

Simone Henry: Mm.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): When we talk about revels, that is a revops war.

Simone Henry: Yeah. And really getting to know that that client really well and knowing like what's what's that next step for them, you know, after you get them you get them a result or they've completed some milestones, what's next?

Nate Grossman: Yeah, yeah.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Exactly. Exactly. That is the next step. Yes. Correct? Correct.

Nate Grossman: And and and maybe more importantly, how how can I, you know, capitalize on this and increase the revenue ⁓ that I have from this client so I don't need to necessarily go out and find new clients, you know. I'm maximizing the lifetime value of this client. Yeah, it's perfect, perfect. okay, we'll get wrap up here a little bit. Here's here's what I take from this.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Yeah, exactly. Yeah, super important.

Nate Grossman: People out there listening, many founders don't have a marketing problem often or a problem with the amount of effort that they're putting into the business and what they're doing. Oftentimes it tends to be a visibility And as we've here, visibility is internal in the company in this case. Visibility is a systems question ⁓ It's a strategy question, necessarily. And Kiefer's doing is right that starts, ⁓ getting getting your business to a place where it can finally tell you the truth about what's going on. So yeah. if if you like what Kiefer had to say here today and it's resonated with you, the place to start with him is the free data flow that his team runs. And we're going to include the link in the show notes you can ⁓ connect with him there. He will look at how your systems are connected and show you where the revenue is leaking before you ever spend a dollar with him. If you are running on HubSpot or thinking about it, he happens to be a HubSpot solution partner. So, natural fit, you can go to fruition revops.com to to meet with him and to ⁓ find out more.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Yeah. Thank you so much.

Simone Henry: Absolutely. if this conversation made you realize that you are not sure ⁓ your biggest growth constraint actually is.

Nate Grossman: Yeah.

Simone Henry: That is what we dig into every week. Subscribe to our newsletter at thegrowthsealing.com and subscribe to this podcast you haven't subscribed yet. Each we talk about one real growth constraint and how to spot it in your own business, whether that is data and systems or something else entirely. So, subscribe to this wherever you listen, and if this episode helped you to see something differently. Send it to a founder, share it, have help them ⁓ to out next whether next budget's quarter's budget is a guess or you know what they're doing, going on in their business. ⁓ Help them out with that.

Nate Grossman: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Simone Henry: and if you learned something today, put it in the comments. Yeah, let know. What's your biggest takeaway? What's your biggest aha moment? ⁓ We'd to know what you're learning. ⁓ Thank for being here with us today. We had a beautiful holiday birthday.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): How they grow.

Nate Grossman: Exactly. All right, thanks.

Kiefer (Fruition RevOps): Thank you so much for.