‘Our company revolutionizes what happens above the funnel and solves the first-mile problem that sales development battles every day’: Jonathan Spier, CEO of Rev

“We’ve created the first Sales Development Platform (SDP) that brings together the data, technology, workflow, and services go-to-market teams need to crush their prospecting numbers.”

Rev is the Sales Development Platform (SDP) that helps you find the right prospects faster. The Rev SDP uses AI to revolutionize the sales and marketing processes that occur above the revenue funnel. The company’s unique approach helps customers find more relevant targets in less time, improve lead quality throughout the pipeline and drive consistent revenue growth, among other benefits.

Rev was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.

Jonathan Spier, CEO of Rev, spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review. Below is an excerpt.

Q. From your perspective, how is the industry you serve currently evolving? And where does Rev stand at the moment?

In the enterprise, the sales development reps (SDRs), demand gen, and marketing own the “first mile” of the sales funnel; they’re responsible for recruiting outbound prospects.

It’s an important job; companies need leads like they need air to breathe, but many SDRs, especially, struggle. They have to prospect without a map. What they need is an ideal customer profile (ICP) that they can adapt and improve over time. They need suggestions for new prospects that match this “living ICP,” a way to prioritize these prospects, and a process to organize their work.

Q. The market is filled with salesforce and marketing automation tools. Haven’t they addressed this already?

Almost all sales and marketing automation companies focus further downstream in the sales funnel. B2B software solutions typically ignore the most important stage—the first mile of sales.

20+ years after Salesforce came on the scene, the technologies available above the funnel—exactly the areas where SDRs are doing their outbound hunting—remain unchanged. We all want to know, “Who will be our next best customer?” But we don’t give SDRs the tools they need to answer that question; the tools that will help them solve the problem above the funnel.

Q. How does Rev help sales and marketing teams find the right prospects?

A new era has arrived for sales and marketing teams. Rev revolutionizes what happens above the funnel and solves the first-mile problem that sales development battles every day. We’ve created the first Sales Development Platform (SDP) that brings together the data, technology, workflow, and services go-to-market teams need to crush their prospecting numbers.

Instead of providing an ICP that sits in a PowerPoint deck, we ingest exegraphics (data) and use AI (technology) to uncover patterns among a company’s best customers. We then create an aiCP—a mathematical model that represents your best customers—and use it to find other prospects that look just like these best customers.

aiCP, Exegraphics? Tell me more.

Rev SDP is powered by the industry’s first and only “exegraphics” engine. We recognized that, in the quest to get the most from their outbound efforts, enterprise teams burrow deep into firmographics—things like “industry” and “number of employees.” But firmographic similarities can be deceiving; just because two companies are similar in size and play in the same market does not mean they will show the same purchase patterns.

The best SDRs are expert detectives. They know that if they can surface the deeper signals about how a company does business, they’ll locate prospects who are more likely to enter the sales funnel. SDRs also seek out technographics, key personnel changes, or other data to identify prospects who look like their ideal customers.

At Rev, we are taking this idea much further with exegraphics: detailed information about how companies execute. Often exegraphics are signals that are not superficially available and can’t be fully analyzed by humans alone.

We’ve proven that exegraphics do a better job of uncovering and prioritizing the right targets for your sales team.

We’ve preloaded Rev SDP with over 500 exegraphic lenses, including:

Early Adopter: To what degree does a company show a willingness to take a chance on something, like technology, that isn’t widespread or popular?

Growth: To what degree does a company staff up? This lens explores the flow of employees in and out of a company.

Tech Centricity: To what degree is a company dependent on technology? Do they throw people at the problem or invest in technology?

Interdepartmental breakdowns: What is the size of each department relative to the total headcount?

Rev’s exegraphics engine uses AI to identify demand signals from millions of data sources about how your customers operate. It then builds mathematical models of a company’s ideal customers and automatically matches them to outbound prospects.

We include firmographic and technographic information but also private data sources. As a living model, the aiCP “learns” over time. Rev automatically delivers new prospects and prioritizes them, so SDRs know whom to target next.

When you use AI to analyze millions of data points to create meaningful exegraphics, you gain the power you need to optimize your outbound prospecting efforts and find the fresh prospects that will become your next best customers. This means you spend less time searching and more time engaging with prospects.

Q. Is any customization available?

We understand that our customers have specific criteria—perhaps uncommon—that their ideal customers share. Not a problem. Customers can use our lens builder and create their lenses. This way, they can hone in on exactly the right prospects for their outbound efforts.

Q. How is Rev different from intent software?

We see it as a yin and yang. Intent software is a game-changer for inbound prospect flow, and Rev is the game-changer for outbound prospecting.

“Inbound” is used to connote someone filling out a contact form. Now, intent providers track who has taken a step forward, whether it is clicking a website, doing a search, or filling out a form. If enough people from a company show the right kind of interest, that company is probably an excellent inbound lead. For the function working on inbound flow, intent is the new “must-have” tool.

Where Rev focuses is the other side of the equation. Regardless of how good a company’s inbound flow is, outbound teams (sales, demand gen, marketing) dig hard to find new prospects. In outbound, companies don’t benefit from knowing anything about intent, so you need something else to help refine targeting efforts. The most important thing is that teams can have an exegraphic fit to an ICP. This is where we need a similar revolution to the outbound prospecting function. Rev is leading that revolution.

Q. Does Rev’s Sales Development Platform work with existing sales and marketing platforms?

Our platform routes leads and prospects to the systems you already use for follow-up, including Outreach, Salesforce, and other popular CRM and ABM systems. We make it easy for SDR Managers or Sales/Rev Ops to configure Rev so that reps can continue to work in the systems they are already used to without interruption. Rev also has AI-powered routing rules so that outbound leads reach the right system automatically.

Q. What does Rev’s SDP enable for your customers?

We give B2B sales development teams a method to understand their markets, prospects, and customers in a way that wasn’t possible without AI. While humans can be overwhelmed by data, AI loves data—the more data, the better. When sales teams understand their market and prospects more deeply, they can focus their time and effort and accelerate outbound prospect discovery.

In turn, when SDRs and DemandGen put better quality leads into the pipeline, the whole sales engine runs more efficiently and spends time on the most promising leads. This drives conversion rates and, in turn, higher revenue.

The Visionary  Leader  at  the  Helm  of  Rev

Jonathan Spier serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Rev. He joined Rev as CEO in 2021. He brings over 20 years of experience building category-leading companies, including two prior successful roles as a venture-backed CEO at NetBase and PLAE.

Mr. Spier holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science with honors from UC Berkeley and an MBA with honors from Harvard Business School. A native San Diegan, he is thrilled to be part of the tech community in his hometown.

“Our SDP is powered by the industry’s first and only exegraphics engine. The exegraphics does a better job of uncovering and prioritizing the right targets for your sales team.”