Emily Smith's Profile
Emily Smith
Recent Messages
#general - April 15, 2025 at 04:22 PM
We've definitely experienced similar. We had success creating a form for sales people to submit when they had their own reference for a deal. We told them we didn't want to get in the way of their relationships, we just wanted to know what convos were happening so we could track it and make sure we don't burn advocates out. Since it was a pretty low lift ask, most of them were OK filling it out.
Unfortunately, we also got people on board when they started to see the negative effects of their approach. They would burn customers out and wonder why they weren't answering anymore and then come to us to ask for help. It opened the door to a good convo so they understood why we were there to support their deals.
Lastly, we have win slides with AE's talking about deals we set up references for and the impact it had on their deal. Seeing top sellers using our team helped encourage them to do so, too. We also have some key advocates within the sales teams who tell the new hires on their teams about us, how to work with us, etc. I get a lot of new AE's saying "Nory told me to reach out to you" and so it's been great to have key people pushing our message without us having to. Building those strong relationships has been key!
#8-references - April 15, 2025 at 03:52 PM
For sure!
We have different topics for each call dependent on the types of references we're seeing
For an example, we get a lot of prospects wanting to speak about the transition from a competitor. We will start with an intro to the reference and their business. We will ask a couple questions about their experience transitioning, success they've seen since moving to our product and then we open to questions. There is an option to pre-submit questions and we get a lot of those both from the prospects themselves or from their AE. We start with those and then move to open-forum after that
#7-case-studies-stories - April 11, 2025 at 04:34 PM
Does anyone have a slide deck they're able/willing to share that you use when you present co-marketing opportunities to a customer?
#8-references - April 09, 2025 at 03:15 PM
Speed is a BIG thing for our team because we have really fast deal cycles. I share info on how quickly we fulfill references for their teams. On average, we're fulfilling references within 2 business days of the initial request.
I also share influenced CMRR and close rate on deals with references vs without.
#8-references - April 09, 2025 at 03:13 PM
Let's talk about sales! What metrics are you sharing with sales leaders to demonstrate reference impact?
#8-references - April 03, 2025 at 05:50 PM
Are there any great AI prompts or softwares you have been using (outside of the softwares you're already using) to improve/support your reference program? Share which ones and how you're using them in the comments!
#8-references - March 25, 2025 at 03:29 PM
Yes, feel free to use 🙂
#8-references - March 24, 2025 at 09:16 PM
When redesigning our process, we also did a straight survey of all the AE's asking for info on how they use references and got info from that, as well
#8-references - March 24, 2025 at 09:15 PM
We basically just looked at that form to see who was using it the most and then I also ran a report of all opportunities and did a keyword search in any notes fields for reference to see if they were noting usage.
There are some AE's I've never worked with, and others I work with weekly! I also buddied up with all the sales leaders cause they typically had a pretty good idea of who on their team were using references. The game changed for us when we got extreme buy in from sales managers. Once I had reporting to demonstrate deals with references had a 65% close rate, they were sold.
#8-references - March 24, 2025 at 09:00 PM
We tried to implement oppty size but found our smaller deals actually asked for references as much, if not more, than our large deals. We do require a specific stage
Our deal cycles are extremely fast, so our time SLA is 4 business days, but when I was at DocuSign it was 2 weeks. I think base it on a percentage of your deal cycle!
I require AM involvement to schedule (but that likely won't be needed with the champion scheduling component). I actually prefer they don't attend or get too involved unless they're asked for. I know some people opt for them to join the call to make intros, but our customer base doesn't need that.
As far as pilot, I'd recommend creating a transition function for your sales team who has been doing this "themselves". They have relationships etc and in my experience they weren't eager to let it go. We created a form where they could tell us reference calls they were running ahead of us facilitating it at all so we could at least start building the relationship with high reference using sales members and the references they used.
#general - March 24, 2025 at 06:54 PM
We took advantage of groups with our old community. I had one within the platform that was invite-only for my advocate customers. I know they also spun them up for other high-value customer segments, as well. So, definitely agree having it be part of the existing one.
#8-references - March 24, 2025 at 06:53 PM
YAY! That's an amazing win! Congrats!!!!
#8-references - March 21, 2025 at 06:31 PM
Yes, I'm definitely experiencing that, as well! We have a range of personas needed for references so I still have pretty good penetration, but some of the higher level DMs aren't into it at all. Have to go more speaking opportunities and cab routes with them
#8-references - March 21, 2025 at 04:34 PM
This is such great insight! I definitely hear where you're coming from. There are some people who staunchly believe there should be no reward for the transaction element. While I see that for sure, I also can't help but think about how they're taking time out of their day to sell on our behalf, especially knowing how busy everyone is. I like the balance you've struck! We have something similar. We started a rewards program last year where they get points for participating in certain acts of advocacy and then can trade those points in for swag/discounts etc. It feels like a good middle ground to me because some people never choose to cash in their points, and others have come out of the woodwork to participate because they want the swag and like the competition. So it's definitely given me some new advocates I didn't know about previously.
#8-references - March 21, 2025 at 04:26 PM
To reward or not to reward? Let's do a quick poll!
There's a lot of debate in references about whether to just recognize or reward your references. Which side are you on? Use the below emojis to vote
🎉 - Recognize
🎁 - Reward
And drop your thoughts about why in the chat!
#general - March 19, 2025 at 10:35 PM
#general - March 19, 2025 at 04:07 PM
No, we've been doing it for like 6-7 years now. It was a truck before a tesla. People are very competitive here, so they're into it!
#general - March 19, 2025 at 02:53 PM
We run a competition where whoever refers the most in a year gets a tesla!
#8-references - March 14, 2025 at 08:36 PM
Yep 100%!! My world changed once I was able to grow relationships with the AEs. Even 4 years later I'm still getting reference requests mostly from the AE's I have worked with for a while, or hearing from new AE's "XYZ sent me and told me how to partner best with you" so they become your internal advocates, too!
#8-references - March 13, 2025 at 11:28 PM
I think everything you've outlined there is great! We also surface win slides/quotes etc from successful calls run, or experiences working with our team which is great when you get up and running. Having a central place where they can go for how to work with your team has been great for us, as well. We have a brief learning path through Lessonly for them and then a confluence page with all the expectations/how to's etc that's really helpful for new hires especially. We also join enablement sessions and team syncs to keep our services top of mind for them! I think especially while starting up surfacing new references (use cases, persona, successes etc) helps encourage participation, too. I got a ton of traction when I shared close rates of our top references, as well. We had one who had a 90% close rate for a period of time and everyone wanted him! We also built an easy track references process for sales people who were already using their own book so we could at least have eyes on what was happening and grow the relationship with those references for future usage.
#general - March 13, 2025 at 04:33 PM
We also have started toying with the idea of incentivizing our current members if they refer someone to our program who's a fit for our ENT customers when they're networking
#general - March 13, 2025 at 04:32 PM
I think it also depends on the types of incentives you're offering! Some will resonate for ENT/MM the same way they do for SMB, but a lot will not. I know our ENT customers find more value in our 1:1 product conversations, Product Feedback sessions, and executive engagement opportunities than our webinars/community/rewards program etc.
We've had success doing cold calling sprints to the customers outlining the benefits of the programs. We've also seen success inviting them to a couple of our sessions prior to them joining to give them insight into the program. Meeting them onsite at our field events and user conference has also proved successful. CSM contests haven't worked as well for us on the ENT side. Lastly, we're really fortunate to have execs who understand the value of the program and they speak about it with ENT customers and encourage them to join which supports our recruitment efforts.
#8-references - March 12, 2025 at 09:43 PM
We've currently been spinning them up on an as-needed basis but are partnering with our sales team to put on general ones that we email blast to all prospects to see what that generates. Deals with references in our org close at about a 20-30% higher rate so want to see the best way to spread that goodness around!
#8-references - March 12, 2025 at 09:42 PM
We try to cap it at no more than 5-7 so there's enough time for questions from each attendee
#8-references - March 12, 2025 at 09:14 PM
We also have an industry SME on the call to lead it so it was facilitated, but not from anyone trying to sell them so it feels more intimate/not pushy. It's been received really well fwiw
#8-references - March 12, 2025 at 09:14 PM
Nice! We elected to record and then have our creative team edit out any commentary from prospect attendees so we could share it with prospects who were unable to attend without worrying about any competitive overlap
#8-references - March 12, 2025 at 09:08 PM
How many references were you fielding on a monthly basis?
#8-references - March 12, 2025 at 09:08 PM
Wow! Love that you had a full team supporting this. Definitely jealous. Myself and one other colleague are doing all of the above!
#8-references - March 12, 2025 at 09:07 PM
Are you planning to record the 1:Many's and repurpose for other content?
#8-references - March 12, 2025 at 09:07 PM
Yes! Our team runs 1:Many calls and they've been really successful. We've seen the most success for them for our upsell product suites. Customers appreciate the networking with fellow users as well as the reference
#8-references - March 12, 2025 at 08:55 PM
@channel I know a lot of us are mighty teams of 1 or 2. Let's talk scale! What are you doing to scale your reference program? And what has been most successful?
#general - March 12, 2025 at 04:45 PM
Same as Gabrielle! Would love to watch a recording
#general - March 11, 2025 at 10:02 PM
@Brittany Burgess
#general - March 11, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Yes!!
#8-references - March 10, 2025 at 03:02 PM
About a year ago we implemented a form for AE's to fill out if they already had a reference in mind. That way we could check if they had been asked something too recently or had a case open etc. It didn't stop them from reaching out, it just allowed us to be able to at least track it and flag if there was anything they might have missed to help us all be on the same page. It's gone over pretty well! There are still some who don't follow it, but they like knowing they can still maintain the relationship so long as we can track the ask.
#8-references - March 10, 2025 at 03:01 PM
Yep, definitely a problem we have as well. We mainly lean on Onboarding and CSMs to provide us with qualified advocates. Sales will provide us customers who have agreed to marketing clauses in their contracts, but we haven't had success with them delivering really quality references since the relationship they have with the DM isn't usually who implements the product and would be the reference in our experience.
#8-references - March 10, 2025 at 02:59 PM
Christine raised a great point! Anyone have any tips they can share on how they get sales to stop "back pocketing" references?
#8-references - March 04, 2025 at 09:46 PM
A lot of times I will surface requests in our community groups and newsletters to get volunteers. It is helpful when they self-nominate and has introduced me to references who are extremely solid I hadn't selected in the past! It's also quick and our sales team loves knowing they've specifically volunteered/signed up for this request based on their expertise. I've created some campaigns in the past encouraging participation (12 days of Torch was one I did) and some of the most frequent participants were people I'd never personally worked with since our advocate network is so large and helped create a great relationship for future ref usage.
#8-references - March 04, 2025 at 05:23 PM
So sorry for the drag here! Was OOO, thanks for getting it started, Mary!
#announcements - February 25, 2025 at 07:29 PM
happy to help with references!
#jobs - February 21, 2025 at 05:42 PM
New role opened at ServiceTitan for Canada!
Check it out and lmk if you have any questions 🙂
#reviews - October 28, 2024 at 06:26 PM
We have 3 brands managed under the umbrella so I don't know what the breakdown is per brand but with all 3 I think our last renewal was around 12k
#reviews - October 28, 2024 at 06:20 PM
We use Birdeye, as well. It does what you're outlining above, but I will call out that you're only able to respond to Google reviews directly in platform. G2, Trustpilot etc require you still going directly to the site to respond. If that's not a concern for you then no worries! But it was something we really needed and they told us they could do it during the sales cycle so we were a little thrown off by the bait and switch in the sales cycle.
#general - July 23, 2024 at 07:30 PM
Thank you!!
#general - July 23, 2024 at 06:45 PM
Same ^^ got one put on my cal this morning i'm so bummed 😔
#discussions - July 22, 2024 at 05:15 PM
I run mine all internally on SFDC! I was not the original person who built it so I don't have the project plan, unfortunately, but I'm more than happy to hop on a call and walk through it with you!
#general - June 25, 2024 at 02:48 PM
We did this last year at our conference for the first time, but a little differently. We had a "wall of fame" essentially where we had about 10 different customers who were recognized for their different areas of participation (Torch Network Member of the Year, involved in customer trainings, most involved in community, most referrals, etc) and had a brief bio about their participation. It was a huge hit with the customers who won, as well as good buzz for people who wanted to be "on the wall". It gave us great justification and allowed us to have an easy conversation this year when we asked to transition it into a more formal 'award' on the main stage.
#discussions - June 25, 2024 at 02:44 PM
This is great, thank you so much @Megan Donaldson at Zoom
#discussions - June 24, 2024 at 06:27 PM
Makes sense. Thank you!
#discussions - June 24, 2024 at 06:26 PM
Our advocacy team is me and one other person so we're trying to gauge how much work this is going to add on us to see if we need to request more help