Achieving Subscription Growth Goals by Aligning Cross-functional Teams
AMA with Taylor Huttner, GM Product Leader at Audible Premium Plus
Taylor Huttner is the GM of Audible. I am proud to say I have known [him] for almost 20 years....we are in for a treat today folks! Taylor has helped to build a fantastic culture at Audible both before and after the Amazon acquisition. We are going to learn more about his efforts today. Our topic again is achieving subscription growth goals by aligning cross-functional teams
TAYLOR HUTTNER, AUDIBLE
“The rationale is to be as close to the customer and the business as possible - so we're all taking the same language, the same goals, etc. We don't want to be focused on just a feature or one function, it's about the customer journey. ”
Full Transcript
*Questions submitted by community members
Question: How often are you revisiting goals to ensure everyone is working towards a common objective?
Great question. If anyone needs Audible additional context, lmk. But we'll jump right in…Two years ago we got a new CEO and he brought OKRs into our organization. Our corporate objectives are set at the beginning of the year (and have not changed during the year). But we set quarterly OKRs against those objectives. We revisit those every quarter, with multiple check-ins during that quarter. At the end of a quarter, we can change KRs, discard them or carry them over. I also meet with my teams on a bi-weekly basis to track our progress toward those OKRs. We tried weekly but there was not enough time to make progress worthy of a weekly meeting.
Question: Combo question...With all the great data, research, and insights coming from multiple teams, it can be a challenge to disseminate it to everyone that might find it valuable. How has Audible attempted to solve this? Have there been any formal processes set up to share learnings across teams? How do you keep these different teams motivated to achieve the goal if it is somewhat removed from their separate team goals?
For my purposes, which was running the Premium Plus and Plus businesses up until December (and then just Premium Plus after that), I had a series of regular meetings scheduled to measure, track, share progress, etc. I consider these a combo of tell, sell, support, and delegate meetings. Let me explain more…I run a bi-weekly metrics meeting where we deep dive into the data across the customer journey for both products. The meeting is completely product and financial performance related. This is a 90-120 minute meeting and has about 30 attendees, mostly Director level and above. Documents and decks are prepared. They are shared ahead of time. I create the agenda and tell people what I want to review.
Question: How do you keep these different teams motivated to achieve the goal if it is somewhat removed from their separate team goals?
Every other week (off cycle of the metrics meetings), I run an objectives/OKR check-in meeting. This is more support and delegating and the attendees are mostly below the VP level. This is a deep dive into what efforts the teams are conducting to meet their objectives in order for the overall Premium Plus business to reach its objectives. Do they need support, how can I help them, etc. Monthly, we have meetings with my boss, the CPO, and other exec leaders, to pull together product performance at a higher level in order to discuss how the company is meeting its objectives, both business and financial, at the corporate level. This is not my meeting, but I attend and participate. It’s what I consider a sell meeting. Also monthly, I pull together a big cross-functional meeting where we share things with a broader group. This is a large meeting mostly for sharing results and progress. We have a wiki where people go in and make edits prior to. We also share documents and presentations in this meeting - as well as big decisions.
Sounds like you need stadium seating for this one. How many folks attend on average and how many teams are represented roughly?
100+ people are invited. we record and share so attendees are usually 30s or 40s. More than a dozen teams are represented. I don't let people speak in these meetings though, unless they ask me ahead of time. It's all "tell.”
Which is a good segue into the upcoming questions!
Question: Next question....How many teams are you keeping aligned on average?
A lot. Product, tech, Customer Care, Creative, Media, Product marketing, social, acquisition, engagement, retention, content, finance, BI, PR/comms, and probably a few others. And there are non-US and Amazon folks that we align with as well.
How many languages have you learned?
Amazon is a whole other ball of wax that we'll get into later.
Question: Okay, let's really get into the meat of this AMA...How do you align goals across various teams? What does that process look like?
Aligning across various teams is a lot of work. And I have broken down the process as follows:
Translate Company operating plan to tactical business objectives. Example:
Company Goal - make a trillion dollars
Tactical business objective - acquire new customers
Construct a learning agenda to drive cross-functional priorities.
The learning agenda allows the product leader to take customer feedback, NPS scores, and more, combine those with product priorities (pricing, journey optimization, content and merchandising mix, etc.) and create themes in which all cross-functional programs, promotions, tests, campaigns, and launches should focus.
Set key metrics with which to rally teams and align efforts in a specific period that tie to business objectives and company goals.\nExample: acquire 250M new customers in Q1.
Establish 2-3 inputs for each metric.
Inputs can be owned and managed by a single team or multiple teams, but is better if there is clear individual ownership.
Inputs can be allocated by geography as well.
Inputs are the most impactful drivers of the key metrics
Example - in order to acquire customers, you need x number of impressions, x amount of traffic, x number of app store visits, and x number of app downloads
Create guardrails for each objective.
Guardrails will help you manage the health of the business on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
Example - guardrails for customer acquisition could be bounce rate, app or site visit duration, traffic efficiency, time-bound usage (12-hour usage after sign up, 24-hour usage after sign up, cancels for subscriptions), etc.
Certainly, this is a simplified overview! it's a lot of work.
Very interesting - when do you invite questions, if at all?
I love the wiki idea as a place to bring everything together
I assume you have a BI dashboard to keep everyone updated on KPI performance
Yes, we have a few dashboards and we have a common set of metrics outside of that - that are more like combo metrics, - that i ask to see.
How often are you reviewing these dashboards as a full team?
Some dashboards I review weekly, others monthly. Not usually any on a daily basis.
Okay, my brain has recovered...next question.
Question: When you hit your KPI targets do you celebrate? If so, how?
We do. I'm a big believer in making sure I talk to the person to find out what kind of recognition they like. Some folks just like straight-up cash. Others want a more prominent announcement in a big town hall. And others want to go take a class or get a mentor or something like that. I try to accommodate all, if possible.
Question: Audible was one of the original audiobook platforms. As more music streaming platforms enter the audiobook space and become direct competitors, how do your cross-functional teams communicate the Audible-specific value prop in order to retain legacy members?
Our product positioning, our merchandising, and our product roadmap all focus on putting the right content in front of people at the right time based on what we know about them. That is communicated through product-growth things like the navigation bar, recommendations, search, merchandising carousels, etc. Could also be our Social media, our PR, etc. It also is communicated through our content slate, whether we license, create, or buy something. But it all has our audience, our customers at the center.
Question: Can you tell us about the structure of your teams as they relate to the subscriber journey? e.g. do you have a team responsible for acquisition and another for retention? If so, what's the rationale?
With our entry into a multi-product world in 2020 with the launch of Audible Plus, we are working our way towards a matrixed structure, where there are not only certain people responsible for the overall product but also teams responsible for different areas of the journey. Our product teams are focused on different areas of the journey, like acquisition or engagement, or retention. And focused on the different product areas there, whether it is landing pages or the library. The rationale is to be as close to the customer and the business as possible - so we're all taking the same language, the same goals, etc. We don't want to be focused on just a feature or one function, it's about the customer journey. And it's my job (and my team's) to ensure we look at the end to end.
Great sound byte for this AMA!
Type byte? you get the idea
If one team is underperforming, do you pivot the strategy for that team or keep consistency across the teams?
I like consistency so I push for that. occasionally I am overruled. but i like the teams to have focus. That's the time for getting super involved and asking what else can we do - push the team to keep trying.
This is critical but when the customer journey is divided amongst teams, isn't business-centricity then taking priority over the customer-centricity? Not sure there's a right answer here but always interested in a POV.
You are right. That's why we're moving towards a more matrixed environment. The CX is still a bit choppy in certain areas.
Questions: This is so good...a few questions left. As a proud Audible subscriber since 2006 (wow) I have seen many things change but the quality of your products has always been best in class. How important is quality control when aligning teams for growth? Does it help/hurt to be the major player in the category bar far?
Quality control is very important. We have a rigorous launch process from tech, product, and marketing that involves humans and machines to ensure everything we deliver is of the highest quality. And we do the same with our audio. all rigorously produced and edited to ensure it's awesome. We consistently review customer feedback from all over to ensure we're delivering on that promise. NPS, social sentiment, app reviews, surveys, focus groups, etc.
I still remember visiting the production booths in Newark NJ back when we worked together.
How much does the reader matter in these decisions? I would imagine their performance is huge. (having once had to bail on a book because found the reader's voice grating).
Question: Does your effort to align cross-functional teams extend to other Amazon business units? If so, how does that work?
That is an entirely different process, unfortunately. With much longer lead times. Usually, if we want to work with a team on a big project (this does not include doing a pricing promotion with Kindle for Memorial Day) where significant resources are put towards an effort, it starts with a document. The teams need to agree and align on the what. If that is done, then the CEOs of each business (Prime, Alexa, Kindle, Music, etc.) get involved. If they approve, then usually those folks take on a corporate-level goal at Amazon, which is also tracked quarterly. And the same stuff goes into those efforts, i.e., monthly reporting and check-ins, etc.
Question: Does being part of the Amazon family help or hurt in your efforts to align teams around a common goal?
We love being part of the Amazon family for all the greatness it brings from its tech and its audience. But we also get our fair share of “?” emails from Amazon leadership that we must immediately answer. And those can sometimes be distracting from our own priorities. And certainly, Amazon is a big company, and that makes it hard to keep track of everything they do, as well as communicate what we do and our value. So we have to work at both of those things to ensure alignment.
Question: We all have developmental goals that constantly evolve due to a myriad of priorities, turnover, etc. -- what's been the goal you've had in mind but haven't yet been able to achieve?
I am not quite sure what is meant by developmental in this sense. But for me - my own development - one goal I have had is to get outside the business more both to learn and share learnings. And I hope this is a step in the right direction to achieve that. But we all need to get outside our daily worlds more to ensure we have the right perspective on things. And the nature of work changes for all of us as well as we get older. And I want to give back more.
This is one of the key reasons we created this community of Subscription experts across different industries...and of course why we value your time today, Taylor.
Question: So many great insights....thank you for all of that, Taylor. We are in our final stretch now with only 2 more questions. Besides your own product, what is the one subscription that you value the most?
I have a crazy number of subscriptions. I just subscribed to Barkbox for some dog treats to clean my dog's teeth! But as I look at what I use every day…Spotify, Headspace, Audible, and the WSJ. WSJ for news (obviously), Headspace because I meditate every day and Spotify for my music. And yes, I alternate between listening to books (Audible) and music! So here - I am equating value with my daily habits. But that's just my view. Other people may look at value differently. Some people might equate it with brand value and say LinkedIn or something like that. Or something entirely different. I guess I like to keep myself entertained.
Love Barkbox!
We have Will Fergusun (leads Marketing at BarkBox) coming up as an AMA speaker on Sept 13th!
I subscribe to BarkEats and just started on their Dental sub too!
Well, I will have some dog questions for!
Try to start every morning with 10 min of meditation and Headspace is great for that.
And I also meditate to sleep some nights.
Question: Karl Wells, Chief Subscription Officer at Dow Jones will be our next AMA speaker on May 31st at 1pm ET. Karl will be speaking on the benefits of fostering a culture of experimentation. What questions do you have for Karl?
One - I wonder if he sees the skill set of marketers and product people changing over time as experimentation becomes more popular. Moving more towards the quant than what was traditionally qual (creative and brand) IMO. Additionally, I’m wondering what tools they use, either 3P or 1P. And last, how do they share those learnings across such a large org? Should be a fun discussion!
Totally agree....but you are setting a high bar today!
I will make sure those questions get added to the list for Karl and want to thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience with our SubscriptionWorks community.
It was my pleasure. I had such fun. Thank you!
I appreciate your and everyone else's time.
Thank you, Taylor, still digesting all this great content!!
I hope you will stick around and continue to be a part of our group...of course, come back for Karl's AMA on Tuesday, May 31st at 1 PM ET to get those answers.
Huge thanks! Lot's to come back here and digest. I expect these threads will be active for a while
Well, that concludes today's AMA with Taylor Huttner. Thanks to all who joined today and to all of those who will view this at a later time.
So much great stuff here, I'll need that transcript!! Thank you, Taylor!