Good to see you guys. Cameron, I think it's your first time at Goldman Sachs, Communacoopia on Tech.
Maybe.
Yeah? Okay, so welcome.
Thank you.
Henry, you were here last year.
Yeah.
Thanks everybody for attending this session. It's—I think we're at almost the halfway mark for the conference, and it's been a fantastic start. We've had about 200+ companies register, so thank you for registering to attend. About 2,600+ total registrants, that is investors and companies, et cetera. So one of the bigger conferences we've hosted. So Henry, you were here last year, and I asked you this question. It was a different market back then, different market today, but nonetheless, an entrepreneur like you that has this idea for this company, you have a certain vision, and that vision does not really change just because of the economic cycle. Or maybe it, there are some adjustments you've made to that vision.
How do you wish for ZoomInfo to be seen in the next 4-5 years? What are your goals and aspirations for the company?
Yeah, look, I think at the fundamental level, we want to run a really efficient, durable company. And so, I want to continue doing that. I feel good about, you know, that vision and our desire to continue to operate with best-in-class margins, and get back to best-in-class growth rates. I think, when I think about what it is from a product perspective and how our customers get value out of ZoomInfo, that is largely the same, and that is around modernizing how companies go to market.
Mm-hmm.
It is amazing if you go to kinda any company and you take a look at how they acquire customers, how they grow their customers, the mechanisms and systems and data that come together to do that, that whole motion, big, small, software, non-software, is fundamentally broken.
Mm-hmm.
It's not tied together in an incredible way. There are disparate systems, disparate data.
Mm-hmm.
It's not run in an incredibly efficient way either. I mean, if you look at any sort of company, oftentimes, your sales and your marketing spend-
Mm-hmm
... is the biggest line item on your, on your income statement. I think we have an opportunity to really change the way companies go to market.
Mm-hmm.
Not just by telling them who-
Mm-hmm
... but also telling them when and how-
Mm-hmm
... to engage with them. And really, the power of AI comes into our ability to tell them when they should be engaging-
Mm-hmm
... what channel they should be engaging through, how often they should be engaging, with whom they should be engaging.
Mm-hmm.
And so that fundamental change of how companies go to market-
Mm-hmm
... to really drive efficiency and effectiveness for that vision hasn't changed.
Got it. Got it. Okay. So with respect to the core data platform versus the other pillars, you've got an HR product, you've got, which is basically Talent, then you've got Engage, Marketing, et cetera. How do you see these pillars? So given that we've gone through this economic downturn, it's understandable that the other non-data pillars probably are less of a priority for our customers. How do you see these categories coming back in the event we do have a normal economy?
Yeah. So I think, look, I think today, outside of the core SalesOS, there's MarketingOS, there's OperationsOS, and then there's TalentOS.
Mm-hmm.
I think you just kinda take a look at the market, TalentOS last year, it was and in 2021, it was an incredibly tight labor market, and companies needed multiple different ways to engage with talent to bring them on board.
Yeah.
This year we felt that was a little bit different.
Mm-hmm.
When we think about the universe, we're thinking about SalesOS, MarketingOS, our OperationsOS, and Data as a Service. We really think that when you bring sales and marketing people together and you align them-
Mm-hmm
... that you unlock a tremendous amount of value. Marketers don't get credit for anything unless somebody from sales does something with something that gets generated from marketing.
Mm-hmm.
And so the ability to tie those people together to say, "Hey, marketing is gonna go out, they're gonna do advertising-
Yeah
... and demand generation, and webinars, and everything else to this universe of people," and sales has visibility into that, is aligned to that, can drive the next action-
Mm
... based on what marketing is doing, we think is really a fundamental change.
Mm-hmm.
MarketingOS and SalesOS coming together, we're really investing behind. Then the Data as a Service and OperationsOS platform, one of the big changes that we're seeing today is, for the last two decades, on this stage and with customers and in a number of different places, we've been talking, I've been talking about the fact that the data inside of your CRM system is missing an infrastructural element of data accuracy, data quality, data enrichment.
Mm-hmm.
That CRM is this open database where anybody can put data in. It doesn't matter how complete it is, it doesn't matter where it came from. You could go to a webinar, sign up, get sign-ups at an event.
Mm-hmm.
A sales rep can put that data in, and it's not complete, and it's not accurate, and it changes.
Mm-hmm.
You know, all of this data is constantly changing. People are getting promoted, they're leaving their companies, companies are growing and shrinking and doing M&A, and none of that is being organically reflected in your CRM, your first-party data, your system of record.
Mm-hmm.
And so the data in those systems is really inaccurate.
Mm-hmm.
But where a spotlight is being put on this today is that the C-suite is coming down into sales and marketing and saying, "Hey, I want to do something with generative AI. Show me what you're doing with generative AI from a go-to-market perspective. I think we should be using it for outreach. I think we should be using it to engage with our customers. Show me how you're using it." And what do the sales or marketing executives do? They go look at their first-party data, their CRM system-
Mm-hmm.
-that has all of this kind of randomly assorted data, and they go, "Well, I can't really leverage this-
Mm.
for what you want, because the output won't be accurate.
Mm-hmm.
We'll be talking to enterprise customers the way we should be talking to SMBs. We'll be talking to a healthcare company the way we should be talking to a software company, and it'll be a mess.
Mm-hmm.
So all of a sudden, we're seeing companies come to us and say, "Oh, yeah, we really do need to clean the data-
Mm
in our first-party systems
Mm
-in order to leverage Generative AI in the downstream activities.
Mm-hmm. Okay.
That's our DaaS product that does that.
Yeah. The what product?
The Data as a Service product.
Data as a Service.
Our OperationsOS product.
Got it. Got it. Excellent, excellent. One for you, Cameron. As you look at the scale of the business longer term, the company had been running very profitably, even while growing very rapidly. So in this coming out of this, if there was something called a recovery, how should we look at the growth versus the margin trade-off for the company if you do find opportunities to reaccelerate the top line?
Yeah, so we're still very focused on driving a very efficient business, maintaining margins. You know, for this year, we expect those to be, you know, around 40% on an adjusted operating business, just like an operating basis. Going forward, you know, we very much expect that we will be able to continue to drive operating leverage in the business. And, you know, I don't think we're ever going to, you know, drive massively higher margins, but certainly, you know, margin improvement through operating leverage would be our goal. And I think when we decouple that a little, whenever I think about margins, I think about sales and marketing, and the sales and marketing efficiency that we can drive. And certainly, in the current economic environment, it's been tougher to make sales, and therefore, sales and marketing efficiency has come down.
But as we, you know, hopefully see stabilization in buyer behavior and the economic environment out in the future, an improvement in that sales and marketing efficiency will enable us to, you know, reaccelerate growth, but also realize some of the natural operating leverage that we'd be able to drive. And certainly, on the, you know, non-sales and marketing side, whether that's, you know, cost of service or R&D or G&A, we do feel that there is some natural operating leverage-
Yeah.
where we're gonna continue to really invest into R&D
Yeah
... but probably, you know, realize some of the operating leverage in the other parts. So we actually expect that as the environment normalizes, we will be able to, you know, get back to, you know, better growth levels and, you know, probably deliver a little bit of operating leverage with that.
So you're anticipating a recovery in overall? It has to happen, right? So-
Yeah.
I mean-
That's how cycles work.
Yeah.
I don't know when it's gonna happen-
Yeah
... or how long we're gonna be in a-
Yeah, yeah
... in a depressed state, but at some point, yeah, there will be a normalization in buying behavior that-
Yep
... you know, will help us.
It makes sense to bifurcate this in our business, too. In non-software, our non-software business, which is 65% of our business-
Mm
... so think of it like $800 million of revenue, is growing north of 20% year-over-year.
Mm-hmm.
Our software business, 35%, is actually this year has shrunk, where historically it is growing 40% year-over-year, north of 40% year-over-year. And so as this cycle normalizes, and even as software just stabilizes, we're, you know, we have a lot of confidence and conviction that we're gonna get back to those same levels of growth, not, maybe not the same levels of growth in 2021, but best-in-class levels of growth for the business. I think what we see happening in software is, like, the software businesses were going down the road at 90 miles an hour, and then someone pulled the handbrake.
Yeah.
And so you have these companies who... You know, I have an example that I recently talked about. They had 40 salespeople. They're growing 40%-50% year-over-year.
It's a real company?
Huh?
It's a real company.
Real company.
Yeah.
They had received almost $500 million in outside funding.
Mm.
40 salespeople growing 40-50% a year, so they had visibility to 100 salespeople. They bought 100 licenses. They turned the corner on 2022, and their investors— Oh, this was a business that was burning money.
Mm-hmm.
The investors showed up, and they said, "Hey, look, we know that you're growing 40, 50% a year, but what we really want is for you to grow 10% a year, and we want you to be at 40% EBITDA margins, because that's the way we're gonna get back to our valuation-
Yeah
... from 2021.
Mm.
And we want you to do that in a quarter." And so all of a sudden, this company that had this aspiration to be 100 licenses is actually taking their sales team of 75 down to 20.
Mm-hmm.
You're seeing a similar story over and over inside of the software cohort, particularly in that mid-market-
Mm-hmm
... tech space.
Mm-hmm.
And so we're, you know, we're managing through that the best way that we can.
So, Cameron, question for you: When do you reach the comparable quarter of when this attrition starts to really bottom out for you guys? I think you mentioned something like Q1 of 2024 on your earnings conference call, but is it really as simplistic as the software industry went through a bunch of layoffs in Q1, so you're gonna wait till Q1 of next year?
And certainly, we're seeing that, you know, the renewal cycle that we're currently in, we're kind of entering the second, you know, phase of that. We started to see some pressure, you know, at the end of Q2 last year, and we're seeing that those renewals, particularly in those kind of higher growth tech companies where we, you know, realized some level of pressure last year are actually renewing at, you know, worse rates this year. So we do feel we need to get through the cycle of renewals.
Mm-hmm.
and kind of, in my mind, lapped peak negativity. So I think when we talk to a lot of our customers
Yep.
you know, peak negativity probably occurred in the February or March timeframe of, you know, 2023.
Yep.
And so, you know, getting through the cycle of renewals to lap those, I think the, the core assumption there is that there's not another peak of negativity that we're gonna see. But I think most of the signs that you'd look at right now would say-
February of 2024 is-
February 2024 would be when we lap that-
Yep
... and then have a more solid base to build-
Yep
with those customers going forward.
Yep. And the key here is, if software companies outside of ZoomInfo wanna grow and accelerate their top line, they're gonna have to use more licenses. So it's stunning that that segment of the business, which was the fastest growing, is now shrinking, but it cannot stay that way. If it does, then I'll be out of a job. I think what do we need software for?
Fundamentally, you see these, like, panic-driven decisions.
Yeah.
They don't know what to do.
Yeah. Yeah.
They're just cutting whatever they can-
Yeah
... figure out.
Yeah.
And then eventually, they're gonna get to a place, like you're saying, Kash, where they go, "I need to grow.
Yeah. Yeah.
Growth becomes important to the business.
Yeah. Yep
... again, versus just cutting, which is what a lot of the software companies are fundamentally focused on today.
Yeah. Yeah.
When they get to that point, we're the most obvious investment to make to grow.
Yeah, yeah. That's what I've been telling clients, that I don't know when it's gonna turn, but the most leveraged company to this potential turn in the software industry is, is you guys.
Yeah.
And, I know that it's very different, 0% rates in 2021 is, was crazy, free cost of capital. But let's say rates stabilize at where they are. I think, Jerry, you and I were talking about 5%, or maybe another conversation, 5% return on cash is actually pretty damn good, right? But when you, when you look at 2024 as being potentially stable, let's say rates are where they are, maybe they come down just a little bit, how does the buyer behavior change in that, in that way? Because what we've been through the last 18 months is absolutely unusual, rates going up as much as they did, 525 basis points. That's not happened many times. So let's say we stabilize. Are we overreacting, looking backwards, and not entertaining a view of the world which is a bit more stable?
In that stable view of the world, how do your customers set budgets, and how do they prioritize you guys in hiring? How quickly can things be better next year?
I mean, first, to get like a feel for what a stable environment looks like, I look back to, you know, pre-pandemic, 2020, 2019-
Uh-huh
... 2018, 2017. And this was a, you know... And, and then I think about the fundamentals of the business then. Still high margin, still high growth-
Mm-hmm.
and much higher net retention
Mm-hmm
... rates than what you're seeing-
Mm-hmm
... today. You know, I think 100% net retention-
Mm-hmm
... north of 100% net retention throughout those years. And so I take that kind of stable environment, and I go, "Okay, that's how I think about the future.
Mm-hmm.
And when I think about the future with, you know, high net, much improved net retention rates, growth back, back to best-in-class rates-
Mm-hmm
... 'cause the universe hasn't changed dramatically-
Mm
... from 2019 to, or the go-to-market universe hasn't changed dramatically from 2019 to 2023.
Mm-hmm.
Those same problems that existed for businesses in 2019 still exist.
Sure, yeah
... today. You're not seeing, like, all of a sudden everybody's-
Yep
... have, like, a robot doing-
Yep
... all of their outreach or all of their go-to-market efforts, or the systems are just perfectly tied together-
Mm-hmm
... or they're really driving an efficient motion. That hasn't changed, and so those problems are out there. The market is still there-
Mm
... for us to go get.
Mm-hmm.
We feel really good about our ability to go back in there and-
Mm-hmm
... and get back to that.
Mm-hmm. Great, and, with respect to the go-to-market, I know you mentioned on the call that, you're still not happy with sales efficiencies and where they need to be. Regardless of the cycle, are there some structural changes that you're contemplating to improve sales productivity? It's ironic that your sales force is all about empowering salespeople to go sell better, that you've found some opportunities to improve efficiencies. What have you-
Yeah
... uncovered there?
I think the biggest thing is, we've spent this year investing behind a PLG motion, a product-led growth motion. There's 700,000 plus businesses that can be customers of ZoomInfo, and we're not gonna be able to touch every single one of them with one of our account executives. And so we've been building out our capability to drive a product-led motion. We also have a website that's in the top, kinda, 2,000 visited websites, trafficked websites in the world.
Mm-hmm.
And so we can monetize that traffic better if we have the foundation of product-led growth.
Mm-hmm.
And so we've invested in our ability to take payment over our platform, simply to upgrade users, simply to connect all of that to our back end from a billing and revenue perspective. We feel really good about our ability to really put that into place in 2024 and see upside. It's out there today.
Mm-hmm
... and we're seeing really great, early indicators of that being a really successful motion. Obviously, a PLG motion with no salespeople is even more efficient than our current-
Mm
... motion, that we feel really proud of, today. And then on the other end of that spectrum-
Mm-hmm
... we continue to invest in our enterprise sales motion, where we think the biggest opportunity in our business lies, is with our enterprise customers, where we're very lightly penetrated and see a big opportunity to sell all of those platforms in.
Mm-hmm.
You can see, like, in our million-dollar cohort, year-over-year, that cohort grew 40%-
Mm-hmm
... year-over-year, and so that motion is getting momentum. And we feel like we can continue to invest there and see outsized returns.
How much is software in the million-dollar cohort? Is it-
You know, it's actually a decent size of that cohort.
Really? Okay.
And the reason is, if you think about like a large software company, IBM or Oracle, Salesforce, Adobe-
Mm-hmm.
any of these sort of large companies, they weren't like that 40-person company growing to 100, now back down to 20.
Okay. Yeah.
They kind of weather-
Yeah
These cycles pretty well.
Mm-hmm.
And so those companies in the enterprise, they continue to grow with us.
Hmm.
In the enterprise cohort, they continue to be a meaningful portion of our million-dollar cohort customers.
Mm-hmm.
But you also see textile rental firms in that cohort. You see media firms in that cohort. You see transportation and logistics-
Mm-hmm
... financial services in that cohort. And so that million-dollar cohort is very diverse-
Mm-hmm
But it probably looks more like the core business, where kind of 35%-40% is software.
Got it. Okay, that's, that's a useful data point, definitely. Shifting to... I said, actually, I said I will not use the terms shifting gears, drilling, double-click, clichéd, hackneyed terms of. We just promised that we're gonna use natural language, English. So forget, forget that I said, drilling into whatever. Let's talk about generative AI.
Yeah.
Let's talk about generative AI. There is a school of thought, and I'm sure that it has little validity, that somebody can start a data-as-a-service company and build an LLM that can go scour the web and look at LinkedIn, create a database of professionals and start a competing business. What are your thoughts on it? People said the same thing about Intuit tax, or I can create an LLM that can do your taxes. It's just as simple as that.
Yeah. I think the big thing here is the parts of our platform that are put together from scouring the web, they're value additive, but they're not the core pieces of value that we provide our customers. And so your ability to go gather a bunch of company information from the web and put it into an LLM, we've been doing that, and we've been powering that with AI for the last decade.
Mm-hmm.
There's a huge AI engine that underlies all of ZoomInfo, where data from a number of sources comes in-
Mm-hmm
... and the AI makes sense of it, makes sense of what to publish and what not to publish.
Mm-hmm.
We've been investing in those in that capability for years. Now, does that drive the major value of the ZoomInfo platform? No, of course, it doesn't. It's just sort of surrounding the core value-
Mm-hmm
... which is our ability not only to tell you-
Mm-hmm
... which companies, who at those companies to engage with-
Mm-hmm
... how to engage with them, but also when a company is in market for your products and services. And all of that additional sort of core data is all driven by proprietary data.
Mm-hmm
... that we gather through contributory networks, our Community Edition, where, you know, panels of people share data with us that we make sense of and then publish.
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
We have the most robust IP-to-Company Graph, which powers our ability to tell you when a company is on your website before they fill out a form.
Mm-hmm.
and then mirroring that to workflow is super important. Hey, I don't just wanna know who all the 100 million companies I could sell to are, and all the 300 million people who work at those companies that I could potentially reach out to. I wanna know which ones of those 100 million companies are in market right now for my products and services-
Mm-hmm
... which ones are visiting my website, who are the exact people at those companies I should be engaging with?
Mm-hmm.
How should I be engaging with them? Is it email? Is it phone? Is it Facebook ad or display ad? Is it a marketing automation campaign to invite them to a webinar?
Mm-hmm.
Tying all of that together with the workflow layer-
Mm-hmm
... that's what companies really want, and you're not gonna get that from an LLM.
Yeah. That's fairly compelling, yeah. Where do you stand with some of the new marketing automation companies that have sprung up around you? 'Cause I know that you've done a pretty good job sizing up who's good and who's not, and buying these assets. It looks like there's a never-ending supply of marketing automation companies. So, anything that you look at and say, "You know, that could be a very interesting company?
Well, first, we integrate with dozens of different-
Yes
... systems, including all of the marketing automation players. I think the way that we think about what we do relative to what a marketing automation provider does is, marketing automation gives you an incredible amount of signals on your first-party data.
Mm-hmm.
If somebody clicks an email you send or fills out a form on your website, or you already know who they are, you've cookied them or whatever, you can get a lot of insight and signal from that. But all of that signal lives on the four corners of your website.
Mm-hmm.
We believe there's this whole other universe, or there is, this whole other universe of signals that you should be collecting to let you know when to engage with-
Mm-hmm
... companies who haven't clicked an email you've sent, haven't been to your website and filled out a form. These are companies who are researching your products and solutions on the web. These are companies that have just hired a new executive, who makes purchasing decisions around yours. These are companies that just hired one of your super users or your former customers-
Yeah
... into their business.
Yeah.
How do you build a workflow around all of that universe of signal?
Mm-hmm.
Because marketing automation has done a nice job of letting you build workflows.
Yeah
... around the signal of, the signals you receive on your website.
Yeah.
But the minute you step away from your website, all that signal has been dark-
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm
... to marketers and salespeople.
Yeah.
We're really shining a light on that, and then letting you build workflow across that.
Yeah.
So I think marketing automation will obviously continue to have a place as a universe to get signals from your first-party assets, but everything else is where we continue to be focused on.
Got it. Got it, got it. Do you—what do you think of the copilots? We're gonna have more copilots than pilots?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
I think copilots are super compelling.
Yeah.
We're building our own at ZoomInfo-
Yeah
... copilots for account executives and account managers and SDRs, which are out there scouring the data inside of ZoomInfo, scouring the data inside of your CRM, and showing up to you and saying, "Hey, here are-
Makes the usability of the system better.
The usability of the system, yeah. And Gen AI, I think of in two ways: one, usability of the system. Huge advantages when you leverage generative AI from a UX and a UI perspective.
Mm-hmm.
And then on the other side, I think of it as proprietary data-
Yeah
... really makes these models successful.
Yeah.
And so for us, we already have places in the platform that would've taken you 37 clicks to initiate.
Mm-hmm
... that with Gen AI, we've brought down to three or four clicks.
Oh, yeah. And, how are these products being priced, and when are they gonna be available?
Yeah, so great question. Today, today these are just going out to our customers-
Yeah
... and we're getting a feel for where are they adding the most amount of value, and then ultimately, we'll have different pricing SKUs for an AI-enabled version of the platform.
What are you gonna call it?
We have it undecided.
Okay.
It'll be AI something.
Yeah. Yeah. Are you gonna use Copilot or-
We like the Copilot word. Yes. Yeah.
Some people have come up with other ideas to call these things. But so do you think the market has an appetite to pay more for Generative AI products? 'Cause every software company has been, including Microsoft, has priced their Copilot at $30 per user per month. I think ServiceNow is talking about Pro Plus as being a 60%+ premium. Where do you stand? Some of the companies, like Workday, have not been really committed. Their view is that it's a lot of it is gonna be available on the platform, and if there's a brand-new product, we'll charge for that, but it's gonna be a part of the platform. And so-
Yeah
... it's a useful retention tool, maybe upselling. How are you thinking about Generative AI? Do you really think it can be priced as a separate SKU, and will customers be able to justify the budgets for something like this?
Yeah, look, I think to the point we were just making is, there are places where Generative AI is gonna drive usability of the thing you already built. And so we have this platform, it's designed to help sales reps get in front of sales and marketing reps get in front of the right customers at the right time. It's very oftentimes much more laborious to do that without Generative AI than it is with Generative AI.
Mm-hmm.
Are we gonna, like, charge you to make the experience easier for you? No.
Mm-hmm.
We're not gonna charge you for that.
Mm-hmm.
But if there's a new capability-
Mm-hmm
... that we're able to launch and, you know, or a new functionality, a new feature that we're able to launch because of Generative AI, that would be, we would think of that in a different SKU.
Yeah. Yeah.
But to let you do what you fundamentally came to ZoomInfo to do in a more simple way-
Mm-hmm
... that doesn't make sense to charge for.
Got it. Cameron, one for you. When you look at the growth algorithm for a software company, at least the way I look at it, retention-
Mm-hmm
... and upsell/downsell, and new sub-adds, right? Where are we in the process of bottoming out with all these three variables? Are they bottoming out simultaneously, or is one ahead of the other? How do you map this recovery?
I mean, the way I think about it is certainly in the current environment, you know, we are facing a retention headwind that we hadn't faced in the past. A lot of that is working out some of the overbuying that, you know, occurred historically and, you know, frankly, shifting from a, you know, zero interest rate with tons of free money coming from venture companies and whatever else to, you know, a world where money's not free and people need to think more about, you know, what they're buying. So, you know, that's the biggest headwind right now. It is resulting in, you know, somewhat lower, you know, gross retention or somewhat higher churn.
But the bigger issue is really the kind of net upsell has, you know, really come down and, you know, at this point, you know, might be, you know, close to flat. And so that's where I think we need to get through this renewal cycle.
Mm-hmm.
You know, as we were talking about before, kind of, and once we start lapping that peak negativity point-
Mm-hmm
... give us the opportunity to grow. On the new sales side, while it is harder, it is a harder environment to, to sell things than it had been historically, the, the efficiency of our team, while down a little, isn't down significantly. And I feel like there's such a big opportunity out there that we're, you know, continuing to build our capacity-
Mm-hmm
... so that we're able to take advantage of that, particularly as, you know, the environment stabilizes a little bit more, and, you know, we'll be able to continue to drive growth there.
So given that, we're going through this downturn, how are customers dealing with choices that may be tactically cheaper than ZoomInfo? And what are you doing to counter that switch away from the gold standard, which is you guys?
Yeah, look, I think number one, people appreciate that ZoomInfo's data quality is second to none, and that that data quality drives better outcomes for their business. I think the work that we've done in the last year to pull a full platform together, that brings together the marketing teams, that brings together conversation intelligence-
Mm-hmm
... and sales automation, and Data as a Service, that is our, that, we're gonna lean on that to bring our customers-
Mm-hmm.
To keep our customers with us.
Mm-hmm.
Once we get them using that workflow-
Mm-hmm
... and tying all of those systems together, that's where it becomes incredibly sticky, because it's not just data and company information-
Mm-hmm
... and contact information, it's plugged into a workflow. It's signals. It's bringing in signals from your Conversation Intelligence and your-
Mm-hmm
... sales automation. We think that from a practicality perspective, from a value perspective-
Mm-hmm.
that drives a tremendous amount of value for our customers.
Got it. I wanna do a pulse check and see if anybody has any questions. If you just have a question, just raise your hand. Yeah, go ahead. There's a question up front here. Thank you.
So you recently announced a large buyback, and you have historically been using capital for M&A. How do you think about, you know, using capital today for buyback versus M&A?
I think the best company to buy right now is ZoomInfo, so we're gonna use our capital to buy the best M&A we can do, which is our own company. And so, like, today we announced a $100 million buyback, then we announced an additional $500 million. We feel really good about continuing to deploy that, and we're gonna be really good capital allocators at ZoomInfo.
Any other questions? I hope that at some point, those three variables that drive your growth, what would be the leading indicator of a... Let's say the environment's starting to improve, where would you see the improvement? Would it be in retention or upsell or new ads?
Yeah, and we, we very much focus on the sales efficiency around those things.
Yeah.
But I do feel like the biggest indicator is going to be in that net upsell. That's obviously where we're feeling-
Net upsell
the most, most pressure.
Existing customers buying more seats or adding, upgrading the application?
Yeah, well, and net upsell also means existing customers not, you know, looking to downgrade as well.
Okay.
So, I think between the, you know, downgrade pressure that we're seeing and in the lack of upsell, not complete lack, but obviously, you know, less than it had been in the past, yeah, I think that's the area that we're really focusing on. You know, ultimately, when the sales efficiency around that starts to improve-
Yeah
... that's a, that's a good signal.
Got it. My final question for you: as you talk to your customers, what is their take on calendar 2024 budgets? At this point, nobody knows what it is, but how are they leaning towards... Are they saying, "You know, I'm gonna grow my budgets, or I'm gonna keep it flat because I don't know why?
Yeah, look, I think, it's a mixed bag, but there's a lot of optimism baked into-
Hmm
... 2024-
Okay
When I talk to our customers.
Why is that?
This feels like a year where they're rebuilding. Every customer I talk to feels like this is the year that they're rebuilding the way that they think about how they go to market, how they acquire new customers. It feels to me like, for all of them, they're getting into a place where 2024 is a lift-off point for them.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Where this year they're rebuilding, but next year they're gonna be... They'll have finished their rebuilding.
Yeah. Isn't it amazing the most positive thing is, was absolutely towards the end as we reach the ... So we could start this conversation all over again and drill into, like, part two of ZoomInfo and why Henry feels like 2024 could be a good year. I hope you're right, because we've gone through this 18-20-month correction cycle, and our chief economist, like I said, he's been calling for a peak in rates and that our house is calling for a cut in the second half of 2024. It seems unthinkable, but he's been dead right so far.
Okay.
And so the stasis we've seen in decision-making, hopefully it comes to a point where things start to open up a little bit, and we can get back to running a growth business.
Yep.
'Cause it's more fun running a growth company than buying back stock.
A higher growth company.
Buying back stocks. How boring is that? Yeah. Let's go growth.
It's a great company to buy.
Yeah, I know, Henry.
We agree.
Right now, yeah, yeah. But let's go growth. Yeah, thank you so much, Henry and Cameron.