Peter Caputa

CEO at Databox

I help the leaders of professional services firms leverage data to get the respect, power and money they deserve -- in that order. (Sorry Lil' Kim, you had it backwards.) 

I have been building systems that help professional services firms get to the next level for nearly 20 years now. As the founder and 9-year leader of the HubSpot Solutions partner program, I helped thousands of marketing agencies increase recurring revenue and margins by teaching them how to sell and deliver a measurable and compounding ROI -- helping many go from their dining room table to multi-million dollar exits. 

As CEO of Databox, my team & I have established a system (software, training, support) that actively helps 1200+ professional services firms use data to acquire, retain and expand their client engagements.

I believe in giving value first. 

So, if you're a leader at a professional services firm, you can start by 

1️⃣ Leveraging us to get the RESPECT you deserve by taking 5 minutes to contribute a quote for some of our upcoming research articles (https://databox.com/become-a-contributor) or inquire with my team about our other free co-marketing programs, 
2️⃣ Leveraging us to get the POWER you deserve by taking our free course on how to leverage benchmark data in your marketing, sales and client services processes, or
3️⃣ Leveraging us to get the MONEY you deserve by taking our free course on how to leverage data to predictably improve your (and your clients') performance. 

Both free courses are here --> https://academy.databox.com/

Of course, if you're ready to explore how we can help you the most, start a trial of our analytics software. More than 1200 professional services firms use us to efficiently monitor, manage, report, benchmark and forecast performance for their clients -->  https://databox.com/analytics-software/agencies

I also write and network a lot on Linkedin. While my inbox is usually overflowing, don't be afraid to ask me for help.

At Databox, I am currently 100% focused on helping marketing agencies automate their reporting. But, thousands of companies have figured out how to use our software on their own. They use it to set numeric marketing and sales goals, auto-track progress by pulling performance data from 100s of other software systems and visualizing it on any device.  The mobile app is slick and we even have a free version that allows you to track performance from up to 3 different apps. www.databox.com

Stay tuned...

My 18 year old son knows more about setting a company & marketing strategy than most CEOs I know. 

Here's an excerpt from one of his college essays...

"Since I was seven, my entrepreneurial mind has been at work: running lemonade stands, e-commerce ventures, and reselling clothes and shoes. Even though most of these only made me a couple dollars, my car detailing venture has been much more successful. 

When my sophomore summer rolled around, I opted out of a normal teenage ice cream shop job. Instead, I started PCV Auto Detailing only partially aware of the challenges that running a business would bring. After my first summer in business, I realized that doing a great job earned me referral business, but not enough if I wanted to grow faster. I started researching how I could reach new customers online.

In the spring before my second summer of running PCV Auto Detailing, I started to post simple before-and-after Instagram posts, but they didn't fully capture my attention to detail, my processes, and the effort I put into every job. To effectively show off my work, I bought Ray-Ban Meta glasses to film a first-person view of myself in action: spraying foam, vacuuming, and polishing. 

The videos helped me establish credibility with my prospective customers. To optimize my social media marketing further, I used AI to draft engaging captions for my videos and launched a booking feature on my website. This approach tripled my video engagement and I started booking jobs while I slept! By the end of the summer, I trained two of my friends to help me fulfill the demand."

What this doesn't explain (since most of these college essays really limit word count) is how thoughtful he was about his target market. For most of the summer, his typical customer was a mother with a minivan with young kids & carpool responsibilities. Their cars were always a mess: kids dropping snacks, jumping in & out with muddy cleats, etc. 

This kept him busy. But, the work he really wanted was high-end sports cars (usually wealthier dudes with a 3rd car.) To get this higher-paying work, he knew he couldn't rely on word of mouth from his current customers. He taught himself new services more relevant to high-end cars and then he got the Meta glasses to show it off. It worked: got paid $1350 for a job! 

Most CEOs I know don't get that they have to narrow down who their ideal customer is, then adapt service offerings/products, marketing, sales approach, etc for that ICP.

I spoke to the CEO of a 20-person marketing agency the other day who said to me, "I don't think there's a way to differentiate an agency. All our business comes from referrals anyways." 

I tried to point out to him what my 18 year old son knows. I even pointed him to my free course (https://lnkd.in/eScK5VX9) on setting strategy & building plans... that painstakingly shows people how to do this. Not sure it stuck. 

PS. Need your high-end car detailed? Follow Peter Caputa V. Videos: https://lnkd.in/eJ2YZeyi

I am wondering why the growth of my Linkedin followers has slowed down in the last 6 months. In the past few months, I averaged about 30 new followers per weekday, whereas I got around 40 on average in the first few months of the year. (I'll share my follower growth chart in a comment.) 

When I dug into why, I realized that I have had significantly fewer viral posts.  In the chart below, you can see the lack of spikes in impressions the last six months. (Each spike is a post.) In other words, fewer of my posts have gotten loads of impressions. 

I imagine this is impact from an algorithm change. But I generally avoid trying to figure out how to "work the algorithm."  In my experience, the topic of a post is the most important predictor of whether a post will take off. And taking a controversial stand on said topic is the key to it going viral. 

But, I'm reluctant to play that game if a) the topic isn't related to the work I and my team are doing and b) I don't have a perspective that is controversial. In other words, I'm not going to fake it just to get more followers. 

As I've shared before, my focus is just being consistent and spending time having conversations on this platform. Plus, focusing much more on the work that's being done off of Linkedin that impacts our business, and sharing that as we launch it, tweak it, get success with it. For example, I've written a lot about the 5-hour Predictable Scale course we've created, our new OKR and forecast modeling features, sharing customer stories, sharing projects we have internally, sharing content from research surveys we conduct, lessons from guests on our podcast, etc. I see Linkedin more like a diary that helps us stay in sync with our existing community, as much as I do a tool for growing reach.  

And when I look at the graph of comments, it hasn't changed much during that time frame. In other words, comment volume is steady. So, I think what I'm doing is fine. (I'll share this chart in a comment too.) I also have plenty of evidence (from self-reported attribution, plus feedback from customers and partners directly) that my posts get people to check out our software, try out our new features, partner with us, etc. 

But, not gonna lie, it is a bit disappointing to see this graph. And I am very interested in hearing ideas on how to get follower growth back. Should I change something? Maybe I should write more about AI? :-)

Despite the exceptions you see in politics and a handful of megalomaniac celebrity CEOs, most successful people are humble.  

In fact, humility is often a sign of success.  Once you've achieved some level of success, you have less to prove. 

On the flip side, when I run into someone who talks a big game, I usually find that they're struggling. 

If they're dropping names about who they know, talking about how big their clients are or how big their business is going to be in 12 months, they're often compensating for something. 

Nothing too wrong with that. It's not like they're lying. But it's a big tell that they're a bit less successful than they're projecting. 

In my first startup, I remember getting some advice from someone when we were writing our About Us section. The advice was, "Make the company seem bigger than it was."   

That didn't sit right with me. 

It was also quite easy to debunk. I was 1 of 2 full-time team members working out of a small office above a retail store, 26 years old, driving a beat up 10-year-old car to sales calls. 

What worked for me, ultimately, was being humble and focusing on how I could help others. Many people gave me a shot because they saw that I was being genuine and they knew I was motivated. Not because they thought I already made it. 

Of course, I got kicked out of people's offices because we were unproven. Someone once said, "I work with the biggest car dealers in the area. They're not going to take a chance on you." 

A few said, "Call me back once you've proven yourself."   Or "I'll consider you once you're bigger." 

But, for every person like that, there was someone that said, "I like what you're doing. Let me give you a shot." Or, "You should talk to my buddy. I think they could use your services." 

We eventually secured a bunch of clients and once we did a good job for them, we could let our work speak for itself. And those people who gave us a shot: they kept being our evangelists. 

Lesson: be humble no matter how successful you are (or aren't). Let your work and others do the bragging for you.

You can't grow a business anymore just by adding people. 

For years, at HubSpot, our sales org just added reps. Our annual plan started with, "How many sales reps can we add?" And while we knew we needed to generate enough leads to feed those reps, the plan wasn't a whole lot deeper.

When we were trying to figure out how to grow Databox faster a few years ago, I thought the problem might be as simple. We actually had more leads than our sales reps could reach out to. So, I figured adding sales reps would be the trick. We got increased yield out of the leads, but sales efficiency dropped. 

According to our latest podcast guest, Dougie Loan, CRO at SourceWhale, I'm not the only one whose made this mistake, “Founders have 1 or 2 reps doing well & assume, ‘If we had 100 of them, life’s great.’ But that’s not how it works.”

He explained that the increased inputs don't always come with increased outcomes.  

Dougie built a more robust model that starts with 3 core levers, not headcount:

• Qualified Held Meetings
• Close Rate
• Average Deal Value

He then modeled out scenarios based on real data:

• “What happens if we increase just 1 lever by 10%?”
• “What happens if we move all 3?”

This past year, we did something similar at Databox. We modeled: 

• What happens if we increase ARPU?
• What happens if we generate demand from resellers?
• What happens if we grow our ad spend?
• What happens if we leverage data/tech to increase our prospecting activity?

Increasing ARPU, generating demand, implementing prospecting tech and getting yield from ads are not trivial initiatives. They required cross-functional collaboration. Product launches to increase ARPU, product & marketing investments to build out our reseller program, revops work to figure out ad ROI and implement prospecting tech. In fact, we didn't succeed at all of them, especially not at the level we had hoped. But, we were able to increase productivity. 

In Dougie's case, it's not easy to increase deal value, close rate & qualified meetings either. 

But, in both cases, it wasn't as easy as "Add sales reps --> Grow revenue." It probably never really was. When I reflect on my time at HubSpot, we got so much right strategically: 

• Annual ARPU increases with new products/features. 
• Customer/partner success. 
• Fundraising 

So, if you're building next year’s plan & your spreadsheet starts with “X new reps = Y new revenue”… pause for a sec. It's not that simple. 

Instead, invest more in your strategy-setting, annual planning & performance management processes. 

At Databox, we are now using our new OKR software and forecast modeling tools. https://lnkd.in/e4exCAQ7 to do this. To help others, we launched our new course, Predictable Scale. https://lnkd.in/e2vAeNck

Need a bit of inspiration? Listen to Dougie: https://lnkd.in/eV7BKDWc

The old way of sales & marketing alignment doesn’t work anymore. 

Old way: 
- Marketing commits to generating x leads
- Sales agrees to make z attempts within y time frame 
- Unresponsive leads get rotated back to marketing to nurture

With AI killing search traffic, social sites suppressing brand content & advertising getting so competitive, it’s just too difficult for marketing to generate leads alone.  With prospects doing their own diagnosis & evaluations, sales can't control their results if they wait until a prospect raises their hands & says, "I'm ready to buy." 

New way: 
- Marketing & sales work together to come up with campaign topics relevant to a specific segment of prospects
- Marketing designs surveys, events and other offers that invite prospects to engage & contribute
- Sales does outreach to these prospects to invite them to engage
- Marketing enables sales to create social content that highlights what they’ve learned

Manny Jassal 🌶️  from Extra Sauce Agency shared his approach to aligning sales & marketing in our recent research study:

“[What’s worked well to drive sales pipeline is] aligning sales efforts with content efforts. The content speaks to our ICP, [sales does] LinkedIn outbound/social selling to nurture and drive ICP to the realm of influence, and then we do multi-touchpoints including cold calls.” 

This is very similar to how we combine our content marketing + social publishing + prospecting into one process at Databox. 

We start with creating a survey on a hot topic, building an outreach list of prospects who will be interested in getting access to the survey results (or contributing a quote to our report, like Manny was), put on a webinar to share the results, share our report and webinar via our newsletter, podcast, company and team member's social posts, etc. We've even looped in our partners to co-host a webinar or create videos that align with the campaign theme. 

In effect, our sales team is helping us fill the top of our marketing funnel.  Our marketing team is making it easier for sales to engage. 

This turns what are typically disjointed inbound, outbound & partner co-marketing efforts into one process: 

→ Our marketing content gets more reach from our sales team’s effort 
→ Sales can start conversations more easily by inviting prospects to contribute to our content
 → Partners can create complimentary content that increases our (and their) reach and gives credibility to our campaign (and them)
→ Our campaign message gets seen multiple times across multiple mediums & channels

This approach also requires a different measurement approach. A lot of a prospect's interactions happen in DMs, email, via our partner's and salespeople’s profiles, etc. Normal website attribution is blind to it.  So, traditional sales & marketing SLAs don't work. 

Lucky for you, we also asked sales & marketing leaders how they’re adapting attribution  in this new world...  (Report below.)

If there's one thing I've gotten better at as I've gotten older, it's avoiding inconsequential debates. 

It's not easy for me. I've always been one to argue. As a teenager, I remember arguing with my mom about whether eating fatty meats made people fatter. She seemed to be arguing that an ounce of fat in the food would result in an ounce of fat on the person. (I am not sure if she was actually saying that, but that's what I remember hearing.) I tried to explain that the body uses fat as energy. I vividly remember her getting visibly frustrated with me. 

Today, I think it's so easy to get sucked into inconsequential arguments. 

We see people arguing about inconsequential things all of the time on the internet. Some people seemingly spend their days seeking out arguments with people who have opposing views as them.

I'm not saying the views people have are invalid. But we all only have so much time and it's critical to focus on the most important things. 

This is especially true at work. 

Yesterday, a few members of the Databox management team were questioning whether or not a tweak to the promotional path for our sales team made sense. I had spent a bunch of time reviewing the plan and giving my blessing. So, when I saw the questions, I shut down the argument because the cost of the change will be inconsequential compared to the time we could spend discussing it. 

Since there's no way I can control everything that gets brought to me, there's no way I can avoid having inconsequential arguments completely. But, people who work with me are used to hearing, "This decision is inconsequential" or "X is the highest priority. This is what we should be discussing." 

I don't love shutting down debates as I don't want to discourage any discussion or dissent.

So, when I catch myself starting to say this a lot, it's a clue that there is probably bigger misalignment. 

That's when I know that we need to step away from the day-to-day or even our monthly execution rhythm and revisit our longer-term strategy and plans.  And I've found that the more time we spend on setting a solid strategy, doing annual and quarterly planning and reviewing results, the fewer times I have to say, "This debate is inconsequential." These processes help our team focus on what's important, or at least on what we decided is important. 

If you don't have processes for these, I just spent 9 months writing down a step-by-step one. It includes 35 exercises, where each one builds upon the last. 

If you find yourself having inconsequential debates at work, grab the workbook and run your team through the free course: https://lnkd.in/eScK5VX9

"That was the best presentation I've ever seen at HubSpot."  

A few years in at HubSpot, Brad Coffey paid me this compliment after a presentation I made to the management team. 

The results were good. But that's not what he was complimenting. 

He was complimenting how I used data to tell the story and how the data led everyone to the same conclusion by the end of the deck. 

As I went through the deck, people kept asking me questions that my next slide answered. By the end of the presentation, people were suggesting the same next steps I already had typed up on my final slide. 

The presentation ended with a quick "yes, approved" and I was off to grow the team, invest more in marketing the program and get resources across the business to help scale it. 

Not all of my presentations were that good. But, this one was. 

As an engineer, I have always been very comfortable with data. And as a top performing salesperson, I was pretty good at making a case. 

But it got me thinking about what others were missing. Was it that hard to put together a solid data-backed presentation? 

Years later, I discovered the answer. 

Most people struggle to tell stories with data. 

Their first challenge: they have trouble putting the right metrics together in the right way. 

So, when I saw Cameron Collin's quarterly business review template, I immediately knew it could help a lot of people.

Cameron is a RevOps Strategist at RevPartners, a top HubSpot partner, and his clients had a clear ask for QBRs: "Show me the full customer journey of marketing 𝘢𝘯𝘥 sales in a single view, over time."

HubSpot’s native reporting couldn't visualize it the way they wanted. 

But, he knew he could build it in Databox...

📊 One dashboard. One view. Multiple stories: 

• Sessions, Leads, MQLs 
• Deals, Revenue, Avg Deal Size 
• Funnel conversion rates across stages 

"The power of this visualization is that we’re able to aggregate all of this cross-object reporting into one place,” Cameron said.

Putting all of those metrics on one dashboard makes an amazing scoreboard. 

But, that's not all it does. 

The key is that he can show what changes over time. It allows him to explain what happened. 

That's what helps turn a dashboard into a report. 

🧰 Cameron’s dashboard is now live in Databox as a free template. You can add it to your account or start a free trial and put it to the test.  Grab it here --> 

https://lnkd.in/erfnQSEG

Using our Reports feature, you can also create a slide deck with this dashboard and other live dashboards embedded right into it, so you can tell your full story. Add in slides about what you did and how it worked, so you can suggest doing more or less of it. Or add in explanation about what changed, why it may have changed and what to do about it.  

Need hands-on help? Ping Cameron Collins or the Databox team in-app.

In the last week, I've spoken to two really smart consultants who needed a little help starting more strategic conversations with senior execs. 

They were doubting their ability to help their clients with long-term strategy setting, annual planning and establishing performance management processes. 

Both of them are taking my free, Predictable Scale course, which includes exactly how to do these things: https://lnkd.in/eScK5VX9

They had lots of doubts. They were doubting that their clients would be open to it. They were doubting their ability to sell it. They were doubting it was tangible enough. 

But their doubts are unfounded. 

They just need a way to start the conversation and a bit of a pep talk. 

One of them had already successfully applied the processes detailed in my course for one of her clients. She did an absolutely outstanding job, helping them narrow down their ideal client profile, conducting a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis, coming up with annual objectives, helping them set goals, etc, etc. And she did this in less than a week, all documented in one massive notion doc. Her client was so impressed, they asked her if she could talk to their team and other vendors about it to get everyone on the same page about their new strategy and plan. 

She showed me all of this and then she said, "Now, I'm going to launch a service to build dashboards for my clients." 

I was confused as all heck. 

I said, "Wait. What did you charge for all of this?" Her response, "Nothing." 

She did it all for free just so she could "maybe" sell them a more "tangible" service of setting up dashboards and establishing a reporting process. 

The other consultant I spoke to asked, "Do you think it's smarter to sell my clients on strategy first or should I just sell them on my business intelligence services?"   I explained why selling his clients a process that helps them set their strategy and build an annual plan will help him engage and maintain his relationship with senior executives, putting him in a better position to sell business intelligence services as well as the other services he has to offer. 

He was onboard, but he was unclear how to get the conversation started. He lacked confidence in his ability to have a conversation about the company's strategy. 

On these calls, I gave these super-smart people some encouragement and some coaching. 

But, it made me realize that this is probably an issue for most consultants and professional services firms: they're not confident selling strategy and planning as an engagement. 

So, tomorrow, I'll explain how to start a conversation with a prospect or client to identify and develop the need for these services. 

Every company needs this. Setting a differentiated strategy first is the key to making plans that stick and for getting max yield from execution. 

Follow me and click the bell on my profile if you don't want to miss it.

I cringe when salespeople use the term "trusted advisor." 

Salespeople and sales managers throw it around like they know when they've got it. 

But it's not something most salespeople ever even get closed to. 

Sure, plenty of salespeople are trustworthy. (Most aren't selfish crooks, like many say.) 

And sure, salespeople advise their prospects (and clients) on things in which they're knowledgeable. 

But, when you put these words together, it means something entirely different. 

“Trusted advisor” refers to a relationship in which a client, colleague, or stakeholder consistently turns to you not just for answers, but for judgment, guidance, and strategic thinking. It goes beyond being a service provider or subject-matter expert. You become someone whose perspective they rely on to make important decisions. 

I have a few people in my life that I call when I need some unbiased, seasoned advice who I consider "trusted advisors." 

There are about 50 people who ask me for advice more than once per year.

But if I were still a front-line salesperson, I'd strive to start 50 of these relationships per year. 

But it's not something I try to "accomplish" in my first call or even during my first sales pursuit with someone. 

Have you ever worked with a sales rep who "achieves" this kinda "trusted advisor" status during their first call?

No freaking way. 

That doesn't mean that salespeople shouldn't try to achieve it. 

But, most don't achieve it because to be considered a trusted advisor, salespeople need to embrace a few things that most don't: 

1. They need to ask questions that seek true understanding of a prospect's situation-- questions that most salespeople are afraid to ask. 
   
2. They need to ask questions that may not seem relevant to a sale, but will determine whether someone is likely to be successful with the salesperson's product or service. 
   
3. They have to anticipate potential issues and tell prospects why they may not be successful with their product/service or even with their project overall. 
   
4. They have to turn prospects away if they know they're not going to be successful. 
   
5. They have to stay in touch with clients, to ensure their successful, even if they have nothing new to sell them. 

If a salesperson does all of these things, they're showing that their prospect's best interests is more important to them than their own. If they do this, some of their prospects will start to think of them as trusted advisors. Approaching sales this way can help a sales rep establish a relationship where a client consistently turns to the salesperson for guidance for all kinds of important decisions. 

But I haven't seen many salespeople who have established themselves as a trusted advisor like this on a consistent basis.  Have you?

Most companies screw up goal-setting before the year even starts. They try to land on one number that’s both realistic and ambitious.

What they end up with is: 
→ A number that feels safe… but uninspiring. 
→ Or one that looks bold… but collapses by Q2.

During our live discussion on annual planning with Lift Enablement's Dr. V Boykin  and Doug Davidoff and ShipBob CRO, Jeetu Mahtani, I shared why this hybrid approach fails.

The teams that perform best build two models:

1. A realistic model — based on historical data and investments in doing more of what works.
2. A stretch model — that forces bets: new products, new channels, major investments in sales and marketing. 
   
You need both. One grounds your execution. The other drives innovation. When you confuse the two, you're compromising and either setting the bar too high (and demotivating your team) or setting it too low (and not reaching your potential.)

📘 Our latest research on this topic, The State of Annual Planning & Modeling Report, is live.  https://lnkd.in/eiRBDvDQ It shows how 100+ companies across industries are approaching goal setting, modeling, and annual planning — and what’s changing in how they prepare for the year ahead. A lot of the findings validated what I’ve seen firsthand.

How are you setting goals for 2026?

Why is it that in most SaaS companies, the hardest data to access is usually your own data?

For most SaaS firms, the ultimate source of truth is usually in databases like Oracle MySQL, PostgresSQL or MongoDB or data warehouses like Snowflake, Google BigQuery or Amazon Redshift. 

Getting access to data from SaaS tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, Ahrefs, Meta Ads, Stripe, Quickbooks, etc: not so hard. 

Getting data from your own database: requires a developor and an analyst?!?

Unless you’re technical (or willing to wait for someone else to help you), you’re not really able to pull the data, analyze it or report on it. 

As more and more SaaS companies started choosing Databox as their business intelligence, reporting and performance management tool, we realized we’re in a unique position to help solve this. 

So, last year, we made it a priority to launch integrations with the most common cloud databases and warehouses. With our simple-to-setup integrations, backend data from databases and data warehouses can flow directly into Databox without scripts, middleware, or guesswork.

Once a database (or warehouse) is connected, it’s also easy to merge and filter data, then create and calculate metrics. Once metrics are created, they can be visualized in dashboards, added to reports, used to track performance to goal, used in forecast models or tracked as a key result in our new Objectives and Key results (OKR) feature. 

By launching these integrations, we've made it easier for SaaS teams to access numbers from their databases (or their data warehouse), for things like:  
→ Product usage 
→ Operational trends 
→ Financial performance

Because metrics, dashboards, reports and goals can be setup without any knowledge of SQL, business users can use it without the need for a developer or an analyst, which speeds up time to insight. 

If you’re already using Databox, all of the connections below are available now. 

Just login to Data Manager (https://lnkd.in/eKrV4b5z) and hit “New Data Source.”

Don't see yours on the list? Leave a comment.

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Peter Caputa

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The Battle

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