Welcome to Season 3 of 10/10 GTM: The Podcast for Revenue Leaders!
Our guest for Episode 38 is Stevie Case, CRO at Vanta. Before joining Vanta, Stevie held leadership roles at Twilio and Visa. She brings more than 20 years of experience to the conversation.
In this episode, Ross and Stevie discuss the importance of inspecting what you expect, establishing clear ownership, and why creating a culture of problem solvers drives accountability and better outcomes.
Listen to the episode here, and get the key takeaways from our conversation below.
Inspecting what you expect
As a leader, you get out what you put in. This means you can’t expect results without oversight. Your job is to set the standard for what good looks like, communicate your expectations to your team, and lead by example.
“When you’re building a revenue team, what you’re trying to build is a learning machine,” says Stevie. “For example, when you’re building a rock solid forecast cadence, you want it to be reliable, consistent, and ever-evolving. To do this, you need to pull people together on a regular basis and create a place where the expectation is not perfection or performance — it’s accuracy and questioning.”
When Stevie brings her team together for a forecast call or deal inspection, she doesn’t expect them to have all the answers. Instead, she expects her reps to respond thoughtfully, providing detailed insights that expose the strengths and weaknesses of the forecast or deal. This approach allows the group to collectively assess potential risks and work together to find solutions in a structured, proactive manner.
“Everyone works together, taking action on opportunities and risks, and improving week over week,” explains Stevie. “When you build that kind of machine, it’s hard to lose. It will keep getting better, revenue will keep growing, and you’ll always be uncovering the next thing — whether it’s something positive to double down on or a risk that needs addressing.”
Establishing clear ownership
One of the costliest mistakes a company can make is failing to establish clear lines of ownership. Your reps need to know exactly what’s expected of them and what they’re responsible for; otherwise, the most important priorities are more likely to fall through the cracks.
“When it’s everyone's job, it’s no one's job,” says Stevie. “It’s important to have clean lines of ownership and reward. When you ask people in your revenue org to juggle multiple responsibilities, it leads to confusion and poor outcomes. If too many people share ownership of a metric or project, it often gets neglected because everyone prioritizes their own tasks. I’ve seen leaders frustrated by the lack of progress, not realizing that the root issue is unclear ownership. As your organization grows, it becomes crucial to assign clear ownership to what matters most. When someone is focused solely on a key outcome, and you set up the right incentives, things can change overnight.”
Stevie’s main takeaway? Simply assigning a task to a person or team doesn’t guarantee it will get done. Competing priorities and mixed incentives can create confusion, so it’s crucial to establish clear incentive plans tied to specific targets. These will serve as your team’s marching orders.
Creating a culture of problem solvers
Every organization faces factors outside of its control that impact performance, such as market shifts, pipeline issues, or team members on leave. However, where challenges exist, so do solutions — like creating a culture that discourages complaining and instead asks, “What do I have control over in this situation?”
“Things are going to go wrong. There are going to be things not delivering. You’re going to have stuff that you don’t have control over,” says Stevie. “But if you come back to the central question of ‘What can I control?’ and ‘What can I do in this situation to create my own success?’ There is always an answer, and I'm looking to build a team where every individual asks that question for themselves and for their team and for their business.”
One of the things Stevie loves most about sales is the sense of control over your own destiny. By building a culture where everyone feels like the boss of their own business, you empower your team to take ownership and drive better outcomes.
About Stevie
Stevie is the CRO at Vanta, where she leads the company’s growth and customer acquisition strategy. With over 20 years of experience in tech, she has held various roles across domains, from gaming to payment startups. Fun fact: she’s also the world’s first female pro gamer!
