Cut 15-20% Off Rev Op’s Time While Making More Accurate Business Decisions

Goal

Create an accurate revenue forecasting model with reporting systems that define future budgets and use historical data to drive smart, strategic decisions.

What if you could understand what’s truly in your pipeline? Or if you had a clear set of data for your revenue forecasts, sell-through rates, and discounts against rate cards? What if you could gain a true understanding of the future without dozens of spreadsheets and complicated systems?

Read on to see how Brian Schneider achieves all this as AssociateDirector of Revenue Strategy & Operations at Morning Brew, aNew York-based media company transforming the business news landscape through approachable, easy-to-access content.

The business grows on the quality of the content, which relies on the people you have to devote to the growth of the business, which depends on accurate forecasting of the revenue—and Boostr is that revenue component.”

Problem

As Morning Brew scaled, a cycle of reactivity, complicated revenue management systems, and a lack of clear data made growing pains difficult to manage.

“We wanted to optimize what we sell,” Brian Schneider said. “We wanted to understand what was working and what wasn’t and to know those things well in advance.” Yet, as Morning Brew grew at a rapid pace—from less than a dozen employees to nearly 500 in less than 5 years—all that data became more difficult to manage. Instead of optimizing, the media company remained reactive, with little insight into the future in terms of forecasting. The Morning Brew team implemented traditional customer relationship management software, but they were unwieldy, inaccurate, and required third party consultants to get anything done. The steep learning curve meant a significant amount of time was lost and the team had little confidence in the data, resulting in less ability to make strategic decisions that truly supported the continued growth of the business.

Strategy

Integrate a user-friendly CRM platform designed just for media businesses in order to proactively understand and manage data, using it to support better decision-making.

• Put more structure and financial strategy in place for more accurate forecasting.
• Quickly integrate Boostr in order to empower a team of 90members to make better decisions from the data.
• More thoroughly use historical data and predictive reporting to make smart decisions around hiring, budgets, and more.

“We’re continuing to grow,” Schneider said, “so the biggest thing is always getting more proactive—more planning, more structure, more strategy.” When Schneider came on to the Morning Brew team four years ago, he saw an opportunity to integrate software that could more thoroughly support rev ops, largely by making the data more accessible and accurate. They chose to work with Boostr because it was designed for media companies like theirs and despite its robust reporting, data management, and “superior technology” remained“very easy to pick up and very ready to go,” as Schneider put it.That, alongside Boostr’s responsive customer service team meant that Morning Brew could customize the platform to work for their needs, while empowering more team members with information that supports their success—driving innovation and keeping them out of a cycle of reactivity.

With Boostr’s forecasting we can understand what’s truly in our pipeline.”

Results

15-20% more revenue operations efficiency combined with greater control over both historical and forecast data that is now used to drive more profitable growth at Morning Brew.

• Centralized data eliminates confusion, saves time, and allows more team members to have a touchpoint with decision-making information.
• Better projections for budgets, hiring, and future outcomes.
• More launched products, more growth, and more confidence.

Schneider predicts that the Revenue & Strategy team at MorningBrew is now 15-20% more efficient thanks to Boostr, saving a full day of work a week. Boostr’s reporting systems are helping revolutionize the way the company organizes their budgets, understands data, and gets insights into their pipeline. “We might not have launched as much, or grown as much as we have without Boostr,” Schneider observed. These days the company runs all revenue reporting through Boostr, and more than 90 people on staff regularly use the system. As the company expands and makes plans for the future based on the new understanding of what’s “truly in [their] pipeline,”Boostr is an integral part of helping them serve their audience better and reach their true potential as a media company. “We make the best content that we’re able to sell,” Schneider said,“we sell it and we use that money to then grow our audience to continue making really, really good content to then sell again. It’sthis awesome flywheel—and Boostr is the revenue portion of that flywheel.”

Boostr saves a day of work a week for my team.”