Salesforce, Inc. (CRM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar. I'm Cat. I'm the Marketing Director here at Salesforce working with start-ups and scale-up businesses. And I've been working in the growth sector for most of my career, so this is an area that I'm super passionate about. Before I begin, I want to start by acknowledging our traditional owners. I'm coming to you today from Sydney, which is Gadigal Land, and I want to acknowledge the traditional owners on the land in which I am sitting on today. I want to acknowledge their continued connection to the lands, water and culture and acknowledge our leaders out there, past, present and emerging. A little bit of housekeeping before we begin. I want you to know that your screen is completely customizable. So throughout this conversation, if you want to make our videos and our heads bigger because we're talking or you want to make the slides bigger, please know that that's something that you can control out there at home. The webinar will be recorded, and a copy will be sent to the e-mail that you registered with shortly after we wrap up today. There are also some downloadable resources on your screen, so feel free to access those at any time. And finally, in the bottom of your screen, you should see a Q&A box. We are live today. [Operator Instructions] So today, we are going to be talking about lead generation. And I know for a lot of businesses, they're like, "This is really easy. Leads come in and sales work them." But in the current climate, finding business efficiency is more important than ever. Adding headcount isn't always the easiest option anymore, and technology can really be that superpower inside your business to drive efficiency. It can help you know where to focus your team, where to grow your business and ultimately, act like that extra headcount for you. And to illustrate this journey today, I am delighted to be joined by a real business that's doing this: Mat Stokes, the Chief Operating Officer at Kiwi-based scale-up, PaySauce. Mat, did you want to introduce yourself and a little bit about what PaySauce does?

Thanks, Cat. Yes. Look, I'd love to introduce myself. So as Cat said, it's Mat. I'm the Chief Operating Officer of PaySauce. PaySauce is a publicly listed company, but we're quite little. There's 45 of us. I've been here for 4 years, and it's growing quite quickly. So we now look after about half of dairy farmers in New Zealand that employ people. In fact, we look after more than half. And we started really serving customers in about 2017. So we had quite a moonshot journey to get to where we are now.

I know that you've had a pretty epic journey to scale up. You have gone from start-up to scale-up public listed company. Can you talk about what that looks like from an operations standpoint and how you brought everything together to get where you are today?

Yes. Sure. I mean it has been -- you learn more from making mistakes than you do from getting things right the first time, and we've definitely made a couple of mistakes on the way, but we've had an epic journey. So look, when I first started, I came in and our CRM system was people writing things on bits of paper and handing them back and forth, which is also our ticketing system, and a couple of other bits of disparate data. We kind of left it to smart people to do their own thing. And what then happened is we had a whole lot of free or really cheap software, and all that data was starting to get solid across the board, which really when you're growing, growing and growing, that's great. But you eventually hit a point where you stop growing and you can't make truth of that data. And that's when we started to look at what we could do there and what systems we should bring in place rather than those free and premium -- sorry, freemium models.

So I know you talked about some of the issues that you ran into because everyone always brings on really smart people, right? So what was your journey to go, "Okay. Smart people and free systems aren't working for me anymore. I need to start looking around." What did that journey look like for you?

Yes. So that's a great question. So look, it comes to a point where smart people are working really, really long hours to try and do the next best thing or they -- I think the best tool ever created and the best tool ever created is Excel and people starting to pull data into spreadsheets and play around with them and mix and match up and work that way to try and get something. We made a conscious effort that we wanted to build a 30-story -- a business that could scale. We wanted to put those solid foundations in place. And without those solid foundations, we expect that we wouldn't -- we're going to continue to hit these roadblocks as we move on. So we've made that conscious decision to go, okay, what's a solid foundation for us to go forward with rather than use these free models or these freemium-type models. What are we going to put in place that's going to allow the business to go from -- I think probably at that time we might have been 1,500 customers, to today, we're at 7,000. And like I said, we've kind of [ cornered ] our market a little bit. So what's going to allow us to go to 1 million customers after that as well and looking really closely at those foundations. And the obvious one task at the time after looking around pretty extensively as well is Salesforce.

So talk to me then about what that foundation looks like, talk to me about the perfect -- well, probably not perfect, but what the world looks like that exists now. What's the first thing you do when you come in to work?

Well, yes, totally, nothing's ever perfect, and there's lots of stuff to work on. But like, I'm a real -- look, I love using data to drive the business and to go forward and to do things, to test hypotheses out and to see where we're going. So like one of the coolest things -- and this is me being a data geek. So I'm saying coolest and a lot of people out there might be rolling their eyes. But one of the coolest things that I love to come in and look at in the morning is our dashboards and what are our leads, what are our opportunities, where is that going. Now this might be relatively easy in like -- in one of those freemium products as well -- freemium products. But the fact that we're seasonal and comparing stuff year-on-year and then being able to really dig into some of that data, the dashboards are just -- like that's what sets me up for my day. In fact, I'm probably sitting at the coffee table, the kids are getting ready for school and I'm scrolling the dashboard on my phone just to see what the day is -- what yesterday was like and what today is going to be, which makes me happy.

So you're truly looking at things in real time at the breakfast table with your kids.

Yes, yes and...

So talk to me about what some of those -- so what are the differences that's made to your business, being able to see that data in real time? How has that changed how PaySauce works?

Yes. So seeing the data in real time has allowed us to respond to customers in real time. Now we're a slightly traditional business in the best sense in that we [indiscernible] we work so hard to get those opportunities and leads and getting them converted into paying customers is one of the key metrics that we look at. So if I can see yesterday, historically, was really slow but it looks like today is going to be really, really busy, I can switch people and teams to do things or switch context or put out [ EEMs ] to partners and things like that, all being able to be proactive on that kind of thing rather than reactive, which is what was the journey beforehand. Spotting those trends is -- allows us -- allows me to set the team leaders up for the rest of the day really.

I mean that's such a great thing to be able to use data to know where the right places to look at. So we're going to dig in a little bit more of that because we do want to talk about lead acquisition and how you manage that. How are you at PaySauce actually getting the leads that drive your business?

Yes. Look, so we've got 2 channels -- 2 main channels for PaySauce. So we've got a large partner network. So we have a lot of accountants, payroll bureaus and other business specialists that are referring customers to PaySauce. So that's channel one, and treating that channel completely differently to the second channel, which is direct referrals. So in the industry that we're in, people -- it's literally leading over the fence or [ many of the pubs ] saying, have you tried PaySauce? So it's different journeys depending on where those customers have entered into the funnel for us. And actually, being able to identify that, recognize that and tailor those journeys as we go along as well is really, really important. One of the cool things we're looking to do in the future is -- we've tailored it into 2, and then we'll split that a little bit more -- getting more and more personalized on those journeys and A/B testing what's successful and what's not. And we're starting to do that on demographics like age and other characteristics now as well.

Can you talk to me in a little more detail? I know that when we were prepping for this webinar, you were talking through one of the Federation places where you've got some of your -- where you are getting some of your leads and actually understanding that customer a little bit better through some of the trends that you saw in the data. Do you want to talk through that example a little bit more?

Yes. So we partner with Federated Farmers, the farming organization in New Zealand that represents farmers to the government, that do some cool things for farmers. And we partner with them to provide their contracts and other things across. So they recommend PaySauce as a compliant payroll solution to their members, which is really, really cool. But their members are a lot older than what we'd see through a typical direct customer experience. Now we have a really strong tone of voice. But with an older, more conservative farmer, possibly using things like contractions or just a more casual tone of voice didn't go down so well. So just being able to change that path and that tone and explain things kind of more formal manner, exactly the same sentence but being able to change that language, we actually got an uptake and people coming through on that side of things, which we're able to measure and see that significant move up. And the cool thing about it was the A/B testing and then putting that formal language in place for some of the more direct -- tech-savvy people that are coming through directly from the iPhone, that just didn't work. So we're like, "Okay. Great. We can start to play with that and what that looks like." And like I said, we really want to start to personalize that down, not just the channel that you come through, but as in terms of partners, but -- was it coming through on your phone? Was it coming through on a laptop? What browser were you using? What kind of a country were you from? Or when we start to go internationally and offer in Australia, changing some of the language there and stuff as well, it's super cool.

So you're actually using a lot of the technology to do that personalized lead nurturing rather than giving it all to your sales reps?

Yes. Look, my sales reps are amazing. And what technology allows them to do is be more amazing at the things that they can add direct value to. The technology allows consistency in that, and it allows easy training. And it allows me to scale the team as well. It means I can go from one amazing sales rep and I don't have to train all the mundane tasks to the rest of the sales reps. The system starts to take care of that kind of thing. And we have consistency in it, and you cut out all those [ mistakes ]. So I'd rather scale the system and bring in more amazing people than train people for weeks or months to get it 100% right, which is an unrealistic expectation anyway.

Yes, I love that. It's like you let the sales reps do what they're born to do, like bring [ like their nuance spring ], the human touch and you let the tech take care of the mundane tasks for you that they probably hate doing anyway.

Yes. And it's -- if you get something wrong in a mundane task, there's no upside, right? Like that's not cool. But if you get something wrong and it's a [ human-centered ] task, you can really -- you can turn that into [ a win ] as well. So it's a cool system and it's a cool place to be.

That's cool. So you did touch on that, that you guys are expanding outside of New Zealand into Australia. I know you've got big plans. Do you want to talk us through a little bit about how the future looks for PaySauce?

Sure. So I'm publicly listed, so -- and we haven't sent our annual results out yet. But you are seeing -- well, so I can only disclose so much, but it's been pretty exciting. We've got a pretty exciting few years, and this year is not going to be any different. Capturing the market share in New Zealand as quickly as we did was a typical first world problem. It means we're having to expand pretty quickly and look at other markets overseas. And one of the big points about bringing in Salesforce since the start was the ability for us to scale. So if we didn't have Salesforce in place, scaling into overseas markets would be, I imagine, more of a nightmare, trying to get disparate systems to talk to each other and stuff like that. So our next big goal is to launch in Australia in September. So we've been over there a couple of times, have started to build up some preregistrations, some buildups and partnerships, all of which is going into Salesforce as well. So hopefully, we can hit the ground running, and then we'll do some A/B testing with customers over there. And then after Australia, I don't know if you can see it behind me, but there's a [ tape board ] that says we're going to conquer the world. So that's basically the plan.

I love that. I actually love that. And are you going to stay based in Wellington for the back end of your operation?

Yes. Look, we don't -- the cool thing about having Salesforce in place is that we don't need to expand the team globally as well. We can put people in Australia for those face-to-face relationships. But the back end of the team, we can continue to work in Wellington. We love being a Wellington-based company. Well, I'm going to say in Wellington, it's really [ lower ] -- and we've made -- we're not going to move from here. And being able to use a piece of software that grows with us, that means we don't have to grow the back-end team and outsource things is perfect. So yes, we're planning on staying.

Right. I love the fact that we're able to do that because there is -- I know that for a lot of our customers, there's a quality of life thing, right, being able to stay in New Zealand or in Australia while you do a global expansion.

Yes. Look, I've worked in big cities, and I like the fact that it takes me 15 minutes to get to the office at the moment. And as much as I love Sydney and I love the harbor, the traffic kills me. So I'm quite pleased that's enabled us to do that.

Awesome. Well, I'm going to move to our Q&A now. So I know that there's a lot of customers, a lot of prospects, a lot of people on the line who do have a lot of questions about your experience and what you've done. [Operator Instructions] But the first one I've got is, what was the biggest challenge that you had convincing your stakeholders to invest in a single system? As a start-up, we struggle with money. We struggle to commit the team to spend. How did you do it?