How Carabiner Group increased pipeline 30% with Pavilion

When Cliff Simon of Carabiner Group -- the world’s first platform-agnostic RevOps agency -- first joined Pavilion almost three years ago, the foundation was laid for a one-of-a-kind partnership. Through his own involvement as a member and Carabiner Group's eventual sponsorship of Pavilion, the two companies have enjoyed exponential growth - all through the power of community.

Read on to hear about how Cliff's involvement as a member led to amazing results for both organizations.

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How it started

When Cliff Simon joined Pavilion (then Revenue Collective) in late 2020, he was on the hunt for both his next VP of Sales role and the playbooks and templates to succeed in that role. He not only found that through Pavilion; in the three years since he joined, his company Carabiner Group has seen exponential growth come from active engagement in communities — with Pavilion leading the way.

Carabiner Group has become a major sponsor of Pavilion events and a partner in almost all aspects of the community — but the relationship goes much deeper. Cliff and Carabiner Group CEO Seamus Ruiz-Earle believe passionately in the tenets of doing business that are championed by Pavilion CEO Sam Jacobs in his book Kind Folks Finish First: The Considerate Path to Success in Business and Life.

“Show up, lead with empathy, be persistent, don’t be a jerk, and treat others with kindness. Take the time to actually meet people; be active on Slack or wherever you feel comfortable, join courses. Come to events where you can meet your peers.”

- Cliff Simon | CRO, Carabiner Group

Building community

Cliff and Carabiner Group quickly saw ROI through his efforts. After taking a course on Revenue Architecture, the Carabiner Group team switched all of the company’s positioning and messaging to focus on “RevOps as a Service” and invested heavily in deepening their engagement with the Pavilion community. How'd they do this? Cliff didn’t let the responsibilities of a brand new job hold him back from community participation, and throughout 2020, his involvement included:

Involvement

40 to 60 Zoom calls per week and regular attendance at Pavilion’s executive-only Salon dinners.

Community

Founding the Pavilion New Jersey chapter and becoming Chapter Head (member leaders in their regions/cities).

Education

Taking five Pavilion University courses throughout 2021, attending in-person events, and actively participating in community discussions.

“I was the number one most active person in Pavilion’s Executive Slack throughout 2021. I averaged 83 meetings a month, which eventually led to Carabiner Group doing 7 figures in sales our first year. 28% of that logo acquisition can be directly attributed to our involvement and participation in the Pavilion community.”

- Cliff Simon | CRO, Carabiner Group

Five "rules" / big takeaways

1.	What you put in is what you get out: “I really dove in during those first few weeks and months,” Cliff shares. He started with Pavilion University’s flagship Rising Executives Program, and serendipitously landed his role at Carabiner Group two weeks after joining. Cliff’s wealth of knowledge and experience in the B2B SaaS space made his insights especially valuable to fellow Pavilion members. He shares that “I’ve had two decades of mid-market enterprise experience” in companies that range in size from Fortune 20, to three-person startups, and everything in between.
2.	Community is team effort: “The relationship between Pavilion and Carabiner Group hit a new level when [Carabiner CEO] Seamus also became involved in the community,“ Cliff explains. Because Carabiner Group had come to view their growth strategy using a B2C, “community-led” approach for B2B deals, the Pavilion ethos was especially salient to their strategy. “Between the two of us, we have the West Coast (Seamus) and East Coast (Cliff) involvement covered,” Cliff explains.
3.	Participate in multiple ways and channels: Seamus became a founding member of Pavilion’s exclusive CEO community at the end of 2021, where he too became heavily involved — co-leading a California-region Chapter, acting as a Pavilion Ambassador, and attending over 70 Executive dinners. Seamus spoke at Pavilion’s first CEO Summit, and both he and Cliff have participated in webinars, podcast episodes, and attended Pavilion’s in-person Summits. Whether it’s during Pavilion University class sessions, Slack exchanges, or over cocktails at Pavilion’s post-Summit happy hours, both have taken the time to foster true connections.
4.	Leave your sales pitch at home: “I never really told people about myself or Carabiner Group unless they asked. It was never about taking anything, just seeing how helpful we could be,” Cliff shares. Both Carabiner Group and Pavilion operate according to the belief that “through helping others, we help ourselves in ways that will be far greater and more impactful than we ever imagined.” “We don’t pitch at all, or bombard people’s inboxes with information about who we are before or after the events,” Cliff explains. They simply seek ways to be of value.
5.	Know that ROI will come: Currently, around 80% of Carabiner Group’s revenue comes from Pavilion and other communities in which they participate. Of course, none of this happened overnight, and none of it would have happened without Cliff and Seamus’ deep involvement in the Pavilion Community. Cliff explains that this approach requires “building a personal brand, and asking how you make an outsized impact with a not-huge budget” (as Carabiner Group is a bootstrapped business.)

A road to success

The formula that Carabiner Group has uncovered in their partnership with Pavilion, though not easy, is simple, and applies beyond professional partnerships into the realm of human relationships: the good and the help you put into the world will come back to you, many-fold.

As Cliff states, “The best way to get something out of Pavilion is to be in the community, meeting people - whether you do that virtually, or in person. Attend events where you can actually meet your peers in person and start building relationships - that’s the foundational key piece that you must do with empathy. Don't try to sell people; just build authentic relationships and then let that take its course.”

Your journey starts here.

Pavilion is the leading global community for revenue executives. We bring together the brightest minds in sales, marketing, customer success, and revenue operations to learn, connect, and grow. Our mission is to help revenue leaders achieve their full potential and build high-performing organizations.