CRUSH 2024 Experience Design Strategy Report by 82 South

The Potential of CRUSH Executive Summary

What follows are insights and analysis based on 19 executive interviews conducted with 23 Avalara Executives who have direct involvement with CRUSH, in order to chart the course for a well informed CRUSH 2024 Event Strategy. In addition to interviews, Experience Design Strategists from B+L Creative and 82 South attended the CRUSH Regional Chicago Event in August. From there, the team issued an 11 question quantitative survey to test assumptions and gather key insights for CRUSH 2024.

Here you will find an audience-centric vision for CRUSH 2024 informed by our research. Design is ever evolving - so we invite you to consider this as a starting point on a road map for a multi-day CRUSH 2024. This report is intended to better define opportunities for Avalara and members of its greater ecosystem, focused on understanding key elements that are critical to charting the course forward into defining business objectives, target audiences, measurement and outcomes.

Key aims for the CRUSH 2024 Experience Strategy Exploration are to explore & find:

• What is the audience mix that Avalara needs to appeal to for CRUSH 2024?

• Do partners or prospects have a role to play in CRUSH 2024?

• What are desired business outcomes for customers and other Avalara stakeholders?

• What is a content approach for CRUSH 2024? What experiences would offer “aha” moments and future forward insights to drive everyone’s success?

CRUSH 2024 is a big opportunity to showcase and embrace Avalara and all of its offerings, as well as reflect on its position as a 20-year market maker. Avalara is one of three SaaS companies to have a CEO that built a business from Zero to a $1 Billion valuation. This is a unique accomplishment in 20 years time, and looking ahead, Avalara remains on an exponential growth path as it positions itself to be part of every tax transaction globally.

Through a combination of vision and serendipitous happenstance, Avalara became the orange tiki light in a sea of button-up accounting stuffiness. Given 2024 marks Avalara’s 20 year anniversary - CRUSH can be a brilliantly orange platform to embrace the “less taxing, more relaxing” nature of Avalara’s culture, growing AvaLove.

The time is right for Avalara to embrace its growth by inviting everyone to be part of it through a well curated, memorable, and fun CRUSH 2024. Our findings are that stakeholders are supportive and engaged with the possibilities for a well planned, strategic CRUSH. Additionally, customers and users are hungry for richer, longer, interactive live event experiences hosted by Avalara.

We’re the size and scale where we are market makers. We can drive new ecosystems.”

— Frank Hanzlik

We decided that we were going to be a SaaS company before SaaS even existed.”

Customers who attended CRUSH Regionals 2023 expressed their want for Avalara hosted events to include hands-on product experiences, education eligible for Continuing Education credits, a look at what’s on the horizon, the inter-state and international regulatory landscape, inspiration, peer to peer networking and learning.

Often, Avalara Users are the singular person in their company or work group focused on Tax Accounting, or part of a small business with unique needs. Due to that dynamic, a necessity arises to tap into a community of peers for solutioning and visioning. Avalara should design a CRUSH 2024 experience that facilitates peer to peer learning in addition to onsite problem solving and addressing customer cases.

Events are our most effective, important, and largest investment of time and dollars. You just have to treat it less as a relationship-only building event to actually helping them execute on the value of the platform. We need to be more outcome based around revenue bookings and success.”

CRUSH is taking place at a moment where Avalara should stake its name to an Annual User Conference that not only reflects but enables momentous growth designed to serve the rich Avalara ecosystem for everyone’s benefit. Users in this context of a CRUSH 2024 include not only customers but also Avalara Partners, tax accounting partners, sales prospects and anyone else who engages with Avalara or would benefit from engagement with Avalara.

Additionally, the event should be an Avalara product launch platform, not just for net new products but also product enhancements, customer experience enhancements and innovations on the horizon. Avalara isn’t just a market influencer - Avalara is a market maker, with an ability to directly influence tax policy and directly impact how tax commerce is conducted. CRUSH can be the platform to evangelize these strengths.

With a User Conference format, and the strategy of widening the net of who is targeted to attend CRUSH, Avalara sets itself up to strengthen relationships and provide an ecosystem of learning and discovery. It is also a foundation for Avalara to better tailor its sales approach to the evolving needs of the customer, performing direct customer service, and providing a platform for upselling and cross-selling so that everyone walks away with growth and insights to strengthen their Tax Automation efforts.

82% of survey respondents indicated “upsell” and “new product and services sign ups” as KPIs to focus on for CRUSH.

— Kim DeoBald

— Scott McFarlane

High Level SWOT

Strengths Weaknesses

• Universal readiness and desire for Avalara to host a multiday CRUSH Conference.

• The CRUSH “Lab” format, where onsite technical account support can be accessed by the customer, is a solid offering that should be continued and evolved to offer opportunities beyond solutioning. This includes opportunities for cross-sell of new products and upsell from assisted models to managed models.

• It’s Avalara’s 20 year anniversary - a strong foundation for widening the net, honoring longtime Avalara customers, partners, and stakeholders. The time is rife for a big brand experience.

• Not a lot of market capital in the Tech Events space. CRUSH isn’t yet a widely recognized tech user event - it needs to be sold as a “brand new” User Conference in 2024.

• Customers can’t be treated as 1 monolith - they must be segmented- by industry or by size to address their immediate needs.

• It’s more difficult for companies to justify sending employees to multiday events both from a “raw cost” and “time investment” perspective.

• Answering the question: “Can Avalara position the right experts to offer the right diversity of knowledge in the room?”

Opportunities Challenges/Threats

• Provide more hands-on learning, peer to peer solutioning , continuing education credits and sandbox experiences.

• To capture and understand the voice of the customer in an effort to manage “CPO Score” and through Avalara Ambassador program sign ups.

• To better engage with Partners regarding the New Partner Program and show that Avalara wants to provide Partners with more relational, contextual events they can benefit from.

• To offer customers Birds of a Feather opportunities to connect and engage with people facing similar tax regulations and challenges.

• To upsell and cross-sell existing customers as they learn about assisted service support opportunities, addons and musthave products.

• Avalara defining and streamlining event follow ups for everyone who attends CRUSH in a timely manner - within 1 business week following the event; by a variety of stakeholders, evolving the practice of channeling opportunities through sales.

• Challenging to define what’s in it for the prospect to attend CRUSH. An Avalara “buy” is typically one small slice of a tech stack pie.

• The current perception of both Avalarians and Customers of Avalara Events are that they are “solutioning/ customer service” spaces. Not everyone will walk in with a problem to be solved, and those who do, may not get their solution due to complexity of the issue.

• Some view that adding partners to CRUSH is a risk that may alienate partners. Primarily if the “What’s In it for Me?” question is not clearly defined. Currently there is no defined journey for partners after sign on.

CRUSH Business Objectives

Business objectives should be defined now and be ambitious, achievable, measurable and written so as to serve as a guiding light in planning Avalara CRUSH 2024. Provided here are event offerings, measurements and guest impressions to support business objectives.

What the Event Can offer:

Product Launches

• The strongest opportunity for CRUSH is for it to become an annual Customer event, serving as the premiere Product Launch event for Avalara’s entire suite of offerings. This event would have the energy and cadence of other large Tech Launch events, and would be an opportunity to showcase new innovations as well as reintroductions/refinements to existing products and services.

• Secondary to this is a platform for better product understanding through educational content that offers certifications.

Solutioning through Ecosystem

• CRUSH is also an opportunity to showcase Avalara’s entire ecosystem of offerings, promoting cross-sell/upsell opportunities as customers (new and current) gain a greater understanding of all that Avalara offers and how it can improve customer profit by streamlining commerce and compliance while avoiding costly mistakes.

Showcase Avalara as a Market Maker

• Avalara is the unabashed industry leader in e-tax and compliance. CRUSH is the premiere way of showcasing that to established and developing customers.

• Under this umbrella - Avalara can offer exclusive insights on future and incoming Tax Regulations both inter state and globally

Celebrate 20 years of Avalara

• Avalara has a proud history that has a number of accomplishments and relationships worth highlighting.

Measurements of Success

• Change in CPO, “Customer Pissed Off” Score

• Change in NPS, “Net Promoter Score”

• Type of Registrants (industry, role in company)

• Number of Registrants

Guest Impressions

• Number of Attendees

• Date of Registration (setting a benchmark for registration pacing for future years)

• Number of Continuing Education Credits Earned

• Participation in the event by areatracked and measured

“Avalara goes the extra mile to make sure our tax functions are automated and running smoothly.”

Event Mission

Consider Updating the current mission to reflect future opportunities in store with CRUSH - embracing an aspirational tone, recognizing Avalara’s vested authority and that will unite a multi functional team toward one vision for CRUSH 2024 and beyond.

“To Establish Avalara CRUSH as the world’s premier tax compliance event brand. Wherever in the world you are, Avalara is the authority and most trusted global cloud compliance platform on the planet.”

“I need to be at CRUSH otherwise I will be behind- in products and regulations.”

“Avalara makes my life easier.”

“I appreciated meeting fellow business owners who deal with the same things I do.”

“I can’t wait to bring this new knowledge back to my team and my leadership.”

“I learned things at CRUSH that will protect my business if I am audited.”

Key Interview Findings

Provided here is a longform digestion of Executive Interviews. After each interview concluded, the footage of each interview was scrubbed and tagged for relevant “sound bites”, key themes, and overlapping ideas.

Unique viewpoints were also recorded and are displayed here. This process culminated in a synthesis of all qualitative interviews and recommendations for CRUSH 2024.

• CRUSH 2024 is an opportunity to showcase the uniqueness of Avalara’s culture, as well as highlight its 20 years of success. The event can lean into Avalara’s commanding role in the tax/ compliance space. People know this about Avalara already, it’s okay for Avalara to own it completely.

• CRUSH is an event well suited to capture the voice of customers and receive feedback on what is working, what can be improved, and how Avalara’s ecosystem works to achieve business outcomes. It’s important that Avalara also use these learnings to understand common problems that customers experience and providing this feedback to the appropriate development teams so that, where possible, these areas can be patched.

• Birds of a feather pairings are ideal for CRUSH, where customers can interact and learn from fellow Avalara customers on what works and how problems are solved with Avalara. This was conveyed from the point of view of Avalarians interviewed, as well as relayed directly from customers to Avalarians via surveys and anecdotal evidence.

• CRUSH is a customer focused event that has a strong educational nexus. Not only are customers interested in learning what products Avalara offers and how it can impact their business, but also in troubleshooting and overcoming difficulties. There are also opportunities to help some customers get started and fully utilize the platform, as well as learn how others have used Avalara to fuel business grown and avoid costly compliance mistakes.

• A thoughtful customer segmentation is crucial for CRUSH, as Avalara’s customer base is varied and dynamic. Understanding varying customer segmentation content approaches have been explored in the past; CRUSH 2024 provides a fresh start in charting content and experience offerings by company size, industry or by product usage.

• Avalara is positioned as an tax compliance authority. Not only due to its 20 year history coalescing knowledge into a vaulted database of understanding, but in its technical application of e-commerce. People look to Avalara for the future of e-commerce, including incorporations of Artificial Intelligence, e-invoicing, etc.

• A big opportunity for upsell is to switch customers from assisted servicing to managed for their account servicing needs. The case can be made that a relatively small investment in Assisted Services can save the customer money in the long run by significantly reducing the likelihood of costly (sometimes “business fatal”) compliance mistakes, similar to how hiring a CPA to file taxes is a safer bet than doing it on your own.

• CRUSH is a time for Customers to have some of their problems solved by being able to speak to support directly. While CRUSH should not be seen primarily as a “problem solving conference”, it is clear from feedback that customers greatly enjoy this opportunity.

Exploration of Target Audiences

Central to interviews were explorations of target audiences for CRUSH. In recent years, CRUSH has been seen as a customer focused event, where roles for Partners have been more centered on sponsorships, and the experience journey for Prospects hasn’t been defined. We discussed these three audiences at length and key findings are outlined below.

Customers

• Consider approaching content structure for CRUSH participants by User Level - there is a desire for more advanced user content in addition to entry level user experience content.

• Often, customers are new company contacts who have specific needs and CRUSH is their first time engaging with Avalara.

• Other times, customers are experienced with Avalara but are working in a new company or dealing with new tax issues that involve varying complexity and varying states with unique regulations.

• Use the 20 year anniversary to recognize early and longtime Avalara customers.

Decision makers - those who are Avalara buyers or executives who aren’t Avalara Users:

• Interview subjects consistently assert that decision makers must be appealed to attend CRUSH.

• Decision Makers are the catalyst for upsell, cross-sell and resell opportunities to stick.

• This can take place through Mainstage content.

• Also, consider a possible executive level track, with opportunities to engage with Avalara senior executives blended in.

Customer needs and wants, based on findings are:

• To meet people in similar circumstances as them - desire industry networking, same role.

• To gain advance knowledge on upcoming tax regulations.

• To better understand Avalara’s offerings and how those offerings can improve their company’s tax operations.

• To be inspired, to have fun, to have an adventure with Avalara.

Partners

Interview subjects offered varying points of view on how to sufficiently engage Partners in a CRUSH format as a value add to their business or to their relationship with Avalara.

A senior leader involved with Partner Marketing emphasized their trepidation in engaging partners at CRUSH specifically due to there not being a prescribed “relationship” journey for Partners with Avalara after referral and sign on of their customers. They aren’t certain Avalara can define what’s in it (CRUSH) for the Partner and the current state of the New Partner Program does not define relationships beyond monetary gain.

Others consistently stated that as a Partner first organization, Avalara needs their partners to be in the room for a CRUSH format. Partners drive the Go Live strategy for Avalara, so the idea is they must have a role at CRUSH.

Ideas provided for engaging with Partners at CRUSH:

• CRUSH provides them access to the full Avalara Ecosystem; the powerhouse in Tax Accounting.

• Enable Partners to understand customers - who they are, what they do with Avalara and how to better sell.

• Certified Implementation Partners could provide case studies and training sessions at CRUSH.

• Certain Partners with customer success stories could co-present case studies or thought leadership.

• A Partner showcase opportunitywalking the line of avoiding preferential treatment to partners and avoiding Partner selling at CRUSH- but also highlighting Avalara’s connectivity with Partner integrations.

• A possible Partner Executive Track offering dedicated content that advances the New Partner Program. This could appeal to Partners not attending FUSE and for FUSE off years.

Partner needs and wants, based on findings, could be:

• To be a better salesperson for Avalara- to gain understanding of all that Avalara offers in the context of Face to Face engagement.

• To see their customers, to bring them to CRUSH.

• To showcase their success with Avalara.

While traditionally Partners join CRUSH in a sponsor role- it is not recommended to proceed in that manner in the future.

• Asking partners to sponsor CRUSH offers the perception that Avalara needs Partners to fund their hosted experiences, a misalignment with Avalara’s business interests with Partners.

• However, there may be a manner of Partners showcasing their connectivity with Avalara through showcasing or in content.

— Jeff Roth

Prospects

• Interview subjects, generally, were less specific on ideas for engaging with prospects and more cautious about how to adequately engage with this audience.

• Interviewees advised that prospects may see Avalara as one piece of a larger tech stack; possibly not a large enough share of their solution stack to really care about or be swayed by an Avalara CRUSH experience.

• On the other hand, there is value in allowing Prospects access to a CRUSH experience that relays the might, influence and fun brand of Avalara and its offerings.

• However engaged, Prospects would need to be accompanied by their Partners- so the WIFM case would be twofold to get one prospect to attend - What’s in it for the Partner and What’s in it for the Prospect. Both would need to exceed the cost to attend.

• Bottom of funnel prospects are the best targets for CRUSH, but vision remains undefined on how to accomplish bringing them in and what outcomes that could drive.

• The most relevant solution could be to treat current customers as prospects for an upsell movement.

Prospect needs and wants, based on findings, could be:

• Clarity to prospects new to investing in their tax automation.

• To better understand how they can avoid audit and amplify their business with Avalara.

• To humanize Avalara as not just a SaaS offering, but a company of experts who make things less taxing and more relaxing.

“We have a lot of back log with Go Lives at Avalara and one of the ideas to get some of the customers who have purchased our products but are stuck in Go Live is to have partners help them.”

Content Ideation

Keynotes

The “new” Avalara - a key theme - through customer experience, through tech and through front line regulations.

Customer Experience - Liz Ambreuster is helping to improve known pain points in customer experience. By late 2024, there will be meaningful updates to improved customer experience from end to end.

Efficiency (role of technology)- Customers + businesses tightening purse strings; looking for ways to become more efficient- Automate Taxes.

AI innovations - Impact on tax compliance, increases efficiency

• Tax complexity as a thing of the past - AI allows for smarter, better faster, more affordable, more accurate, and more reliable solutions.

• Avalara has an unrivaled dataset to feed an AI model.

• Technology innovations - chatGPT sales tax information.

Legislative + upcoming policy

• Sales Tax and upcoming policies.

• Global Tax transactional landscape and how Avalara solves for functions such as VAT Taxes and E-Invoicing.

• The future of tax.

Product Launch or Product Enhancements

• Avalara Innovations: AI and AvaGPT

• New products being launched.

• Reintroduction of products recently launched.

• Announcements of refinements and “usability” enhancements.

• A clearer description of Avalara’s ecosystem and how products work together.

Creative Presentation of material is critical - to really elevate Avalara as a User Conference from the Mainstage - Avalara should invest in stand out media opportunities such as celebrity speakers to provide inspiration and invest in media and tech that engages all senses to further messaging.

Thought Leadership + Topical Offerings

Regulatory Landscape:

• What is happening with Tax? Not just now but future forward.

• Inter state regulations and special cases.

Global Reach:

• Products: E-Invoicing.

• How Avalara is poised to be a part of every tax interaction in the world.

Thought leadership for partners:

• How partners can know about Avalara Products and Services to advance their business and gain new revenue streams.

• New Partner Program information.

Executive Level Content:

• There is a need to offer panels and materials aimed at executive and senior director level people to entice attendance. Decision makers in attendance will facilitate quicker up sell and cross-sell.

• Reporting and insights by financial authorities.

Additional topical offerings:

• Balancing roadmap with international growth while maintaining strong business investment in North America.

• Use CRUSH as a platform for customizing solutions with a team of Avalarians diverse enough to distill complex problems into simple solutions.

• Offer partner opportunities to lead panels and engage in thought leadership content.

• Hands on Lab experiences - expand Lab offerings beyond solutioning and addressing cases to a “sandbox lab” model, facilitating hands-on learning and creation.

Avalara’s future, is going to be the global SaaS platform for compliance.”

- Scott McFarlane

Educational Content

Product Launches

• Avalara Innovations such as AI and Chat GPT

• Launchpad for New Products or Avalara Portfolio enhancements, new regions and new capabilities.

• What do you get when you buy Avalara?

Session content tailored for an upsell:

• For customers using a tax calculation product; introducing products to address compliance gaps, better automation of process, staying ahead of the curve.

• Case Studies should be impact driven. What are patterns and best practices that clients use when bundling?

“To me it’s show me, don’t talk to me. If I walked into an event as a customer and I was approached by my CAM and they said “It’s so good to see you. Earlier we talked about this pain point that you had, and we’re thinking about releasing this feature, we want to show it to you and get your thoughts on it.”

-Kristin Mauck

Education

• Education on Featured Products - CAMS offer training that drives the upsell, filling in gaps in user needs.

• Professional Continuing Education Credits

• Access to Tax Consulting by Taxation Experts

Customer Panels

• Impactful to have customers share experiences and solutioning.

• Customers want to hear from their own peers about best practices and overcoming challenges.

Customer pitched content sessions

• Customer Led conversations supported by employees. It’s recommended to offer customer opportunities to pitch content sessions in advance of the event - and format the content sessions selected as Peer-led sessions as a series of break outs or smaller round table style sessions.

User Conference Landscape

The appetite for in-person experiences is there among Avalara and its users. In fact, a recent trends report by global event company, Freeman, found that in-person events are the most trustworthy source of information, more so than academic institutions and media outlets. That tells us that our audiences are primed and ready for a slate of in-person event engagements that are meaningful, authentic and deliver culture, now.

Brands are also poised to use this datapoint to craft messaging that is strategic to their business objectives. Events are an important part of the brand, product and business strategy as they are the sole immersive venue to engage with Avalara, at an intersection between culture and the transactional nature of commerce.

As Avalara invests in a multi- day CRUSH 2024 User Conference targeted to the larger ecosystem it fuels, it is positioned to enter the mainstage of culture driven signature tech conferences.

Many of these conferences have similar offerings to what the CRUSH 2024 roadmap will include in a User Conference format in that they:

• Target to all audiences the company serves.

• Offer a variety of tracks for people in a variety of business functions; from developers to users to partners to executives.

• Offer a platform for product launches and enhancements.

• Invest heavily in inspiring, big name keynote speakers.

• Have a unique event culture for their event brand to shine through.

What follows is a brief glance at notable user conferences mentioned in research.

Comparison of User Conferences

Qualtrics X4 Summit

Link: X4 Summit Homepage

Dates + Location: March 7-9, 2023, Salt Lake City, Utah

Fee to attend: $1,799

Format: 3 day

What’s notable:

• Notable Speakers: Ryan Reynolds, Chip and Joanna Gaines

• Qualtrix has a “dream team” behind the scenes, engaging with user driven content and offering responsiveness to topics and issues brought forward live in event

Cisco Live

Link: Cisco Live Homepage

Dates + Location: June 4 - 8, 2023, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, NV

Fee(s) to attend:

June 2-6, 2024, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, NV

Package Standard Onsite

Full Conference $2,795 $2,995

IT Leadership $3,195 $3,395

Explorer $795 $825

Next Gen Explorer $845 $875

Format: 5 day

What’s notable:

• The event will also have a global broadcast, but if you miss out, users will have free access to the on-demand library.

• Big Event - customer centric, estimated at 20,000 in person pax

Workday Rising

Link: Workday Rising Homepage

Dates + Location: September 26–29, 2023, Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA

Fee to attend: $2,195

Format: 4 day

Google Cloud Next 23

Link: Product Launches 2023 Google Cloud Next

Link: Registration Launchpad for 2023 Conference

Dates + Location: August 29-31, 2023, Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco, CA

April 9-11, 2024, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, NV

Fee to attend: Early Bird $899 to Standard at $1,599

Format: 3 day

Also Mentioned:

• AWS re:Invent | Nov 27 - Dec 1, 2023 | Las Vegas, NV | $2,099

• Hubspot Inbound Conference | Sept 18- 20, 2024 | Boston, MA |

Early Bird $675.00 to standard $1,499.00

• Sage Transform | February 26-29, 2024, MGM Grand, Las Vegas, NV | Early Bird $1,199 to Standard $1,699

Next Steps

The experience design exploration for CRUSH 2024 is a fruitful investment in establishing a solid foundation for a truly valuable experience. It allowed a wide net of Avalarians behind the business strategy to offer their views, both candid and considered, into how CRUSH can be reinvigorated, with an event mission of Avalara CRUSH stepping in as a player in the world of tech user conferences. Brands are an embodiment of a business and people and if Avalara allows for its uniquely fun, different by design culture to shine through alongside its dominance as the leading global tax automation authority, CRUSH will have found a winning format.

This report shows there is a desire for a new approach, using the 20 year benchmark as a moment to not only reflect back but to lunge forward into continued exponential growth for Avalara. Everyone is aligned in the opportunities and possibilities for a strengthened, renewed, game changing CRUSH 2024.

The findings in this report largely focused on areas of consensus, but there is still work to be done to develop widespread, departmental cohesion on how CRUSH can be maximized for the opportunity it offers. We note that all of our interview subjects shared a point of view of curiosity and exploration during the qualitative interviews covered here, but when presented with the quantitative survey, responses tended to fall back on the ways of the past. It can be understood that the Qualitative interviews reflect the aspirational future of CRUSH, while the Quantitative survey is a snapshot of the past and present. Survey results can be found in the appendix section of this report.

It is now time to assemble a team representing each stakeholder work group interviewed and from there, identify the business units core to charting the course from concept to execution from a business perspective, audience acquisition point of view and most importantly- a content and culture driven conference. There needs to be a stakeholder group to serve in steering the ship but also a well oiled taskforce centered on designing a content journey charted to target audiences.

Recommended Action Items

• Align Product Launch, Product and Service Enhancements calendar in 2024 and beyond to culminate at CRUSH.

• Always bear in mind that destination is a driver for attendee acquisition.

• Define the role of Partners in CRUSH, in particular noting that some partners will have just attended FUSE and some partners will not have had that experience.

• Define Labs - currently they are solutioning spaces… but can they also be “sandboxes” of learning/discovery? Should there be more than one in lieu of traditional expositions?

• Develop communication strategy for how to discuss the Avalara 20 year anniversary.

• Explore the idea of Partner or Customer Recognition and how the 20 year anniversary can drive that experiment.

• Develop task force to make sure communication within departments is smooth (a few standouts from interviews are Kim DeoBald, Bobby Sands, Jayme Fishman and Bubba Lange).

• Develop a clear and defined followup “playbook” so that attendees of CRUSH have a meaningful follow up. Ideally follow ups are personalized, specific, and happen within a week of the event, and should be handled by whichever department personnel are right matched to serve the specific customer interest, desire or need.

Appendix

Methodology

Research for Avalara CRUSH 2024 took place in July and August of 2023. Our research primarily involved interviews with 23 key stakeholders from Avalara who have a vested interest in CRUSH. In total, 19 qualitative interviews were conducted via a 30-45 minute Zoom format. Interviews were recorded and centered around the same core 6 questions, listed below. Interviews involved Luke McKibben and Bianca Ferrer from 82 South, and were open-ended in nature. Questions were presented more as discussion prompts, and the ensuing conversation ventured in the direction of the subject expert’s area of focus.

Notes were taken during the interview, and the videos were later tagged and key themes identified. From these key themes, an 11 question quantitative survey was developed to test our key findings along the broader group.

On August 15th 2023, Luke McKibben and Bianca Ferrer visited the Crush Regional event in Chicago IL, to conduct an onsite assessment to understand CRUSH first hand. At this event, a number of informal interviews were collected, “person on the street” style.

Key Stakeholders

Avalara Formal Interview Subjects

Liz Armbruester

Frank Hanzlik

Kristin Mauck

EVP

of Customer Compliance and Operations

Terri Arndt

Senior Director, Customer Insights & Strategic Programs

Scott Blum

Vice President of Marketing

Kimberly Deobald

EVP/Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)

Karine Elsen

VP of Global Partner Marketing

Jayme Fishman

EVP and GM Indirect Tax

Sean Flynn

SVP of Global Sales

Vice President & General Manager of Partner Development

Satish Kumar

Vice President of Product Marketing

Bubba Lange

Senior Vice President of Solution Engineering

Jay Lee

Chief Marketing Officer

Susan Mango

Director of Net Promoter Score Strategy & Enablement

Susan Maravetz

Enterprise Customer Success Manager

Herve Marzio

VP of Professional Services

Chief of Staff to the President & COO

Scott McFarlane

CEO and Founder

Tommy Morgan

Senior Manager, Public Relations

Melody Pang

Director of Cross-sell Marketing

Jeff Roth

Vice President of Strategic Alliances

Bobby Sands

Vice President of Customer Excellence

Adam Staelin

Senior Manager of Existing Sales

Qualitative Interview Questions

As noted, our qualitative interviews were conducted loosely following the conversation prompts below. We allowed the conversation to venture naturally toward the key stakeholder’s area of expertise of interest.

• What would you like to see accomplished in a multi-day Crush North America Event in 2024 (That would be in one location)?

• Which demographics (Customer, partner, prospect. Do you see getting value out of this event?

• How can we improve Avalove? Loyalty?

• Customer = loyalty

• Partner = partner first

• What are business outcomes we need from CRUSH?

• Creative - any value driven activation or must haves to drive value for your attendees?

• What have you seen at other partner events or in past roles that has been successful and would be worth Avalara to implement?

We refined certain questions to prod further by individual based on their area o focus… for example:

• C-Suite - ROI, revenue and business outcomes

• What ROI do you want to see?

• What makes Crush Valuable to customer c-suiters

• Customer Marketing - Crosssell, upsell, advocacy, loyalty, NPS?

• What are other ROI outcomes?

• Prospects - bottom of funnel conversion - is this an opportunity?

• Voice of Customer - Value through Customer lens

• Product - launches, roadmaps, existing products

• Partner Integration - determine viability to drive shared customer success

• Brand Amplification - media opportunities? Social Opportunities?

Quantitative Results

The findings below represent 11 respondants out of 23 surveys distributed.

5 Point Likert Scale Questions

In the future, CRUSH is an ideal venue for customers to have their problems with Avalara resolved.

(1 = Strongly Disagree to 5 = Strongly Agree)

CRUSH should be an annual Launch event for new Avalara products. (1 = Strongly Disagree to 5 = Strongly Agree)

Multiple Choice

What do you think customers value the most when coming to CRUSH? (Select 2):

• Networking Opportunities

• The ability to have their problems solved directly

• Learning about new products + new features

• Thought leadership and Educational opportunities

• Access to Avalara Employees (this selection yielded no responses)

Ability

New products + new features 55%

Networking Opportunities

What type of prospects do you think should be included?

(Check all that apply):

• Prospects not yet in the pipeline

• Engaged Customers for upsell opportunities

• Bottom of Funnel prospects

• Prospects should not be actively encouraged to attend CRUSH (this selection yielded no responses)

Engaged Customers for Upsell Opportunities

Bottom of funnel prospects

Prospects not yet in pipeline

When considering ROI for CRUSH, what KPIs do you think we should focus on?

(Select 2):

• New Bookings onsite (this selection yielded no responses)

• Leads

• Event Satisfaction survey

• Avalara’s product Launch + Roadmap

• Understanding of features + uses of current products

• Upsell Opportunities - new product + services sign ups

Opportunities 72% 72%

Event Satisfaction Survey 45%

New product + Services sign ups Upsell

I think our customers would pay an entry fee to CRUSH in the amount of: (Select 1):

• $150-$250

• $600-$900

• $1,000+

$1000+ 18% 27% 46% 9%

$350

- $500

$600

CRUSH would be most impactful to the Avalara Ecosystem if it occurred in frequency of: (Select 1):

• Annual - once every year

• Bi-annual - once every other year

How do you foresee partners being a part of CRUSH? (Check all that apply):

• Sponsorships of CRUSH

• Solutioning in “Labs”

• Hosting “breakfast”, “dinner” and “happy hour” type events during CRUSH (this selection yielded one response)

• Hosting Thought Leadership + Success on Mainstage or Breakouts

• Special “Partner Labs” or showcases

• No special role - Attending as part of Crush participant mix

Short Answer

Specify which departments (Avalara employees) you feel would benefit from participating in CRUSH?

Feel Free to share additional thoughts, recommendations, or risks you have in mind for CRUSH 2024.

Additional Commentary:

“In person, customer events help to drive 45% of new Ambassadors -- who create customer evidence (e.g., videos, case studies, reference calls, testimonials, etc.) -limiting to 1x/year reduces the opportunity to engage more Ambassadors.”

“Customers enjoyed having localized events, less cost and less time out of the office - 1 program requiring travel may negatively impact attendance. Interactions and asks of customers need to be coordinated. Need to avoid multiple video crews, research asks, etc.”

“Historically customers felt coming to CRUSH is how they get access to Avalara to solve their problems. We have to look at other avenues to solve for this, instead drive towards Thought Leadership, Product & Customer Advisory boards, driving Advocacy programs and giving a platform for Partners to voice their thoughts and be part of the solution. Also customer segment related topics and themes.”

“Tax thought leadership connected with a changing technology landscape (AI)”

“CRUSH should be a fun and interesting event, feedback directly from customers is recommended to make the event more relevant.”

Chicago CRUSH Regional Interviews

August 15, 2023

Austyn with Partner Accounting Firm, RSM

• Partner accounting firm rep

• Vertex user or customer conferenceexample as good experience through Product launches, breakouts a lot of open time

• Right ppl in the room. Valuable session. Tech and product staggered

• Late November

• Great memories from CRUSH Huntington Beach… Let’s go back to the beach

Ryan V, Avalara Customer

• Attended out of curiosity, new Avalara User

• First time CRUSH attendee

• Wanted to stay on top of innovations

• Interested to know new tax changes across states

• Interested to learn software tips and tricks

• Wants to find like minded people who are in similar role

• Uses net suite

• Accounting pro for a high end bike component company

• Uses: ECM, VAT, tax returns

• Global company

• Attends webinars, went to crush 2019

• Likes todays format- got every stamp in passport - looked for every opportunity to engage

• Works closely with her SAP partner and her customer account person

• Would consider attending if the region and content makes sense. Global company so they could send someone regionally in lieu of Ina.

Ina M, Avalara Customer, Accounting Department

Bradley M, Avalara Customer

• Advanced Avalara User - very comfortable with tech stack and how to use, not looking for instruction on use of Avalara

• First time CRUSH attendee

• Interested, desires more forecasting and less reactive based learning

• Heat map- loves it, wishes it was more responsive and more current

• Enjoyed CRUSH, “It was good”

• Wouldn’t come back again if more of the same

• Enjoyed Silent Disco presentations but would like to practice what’s happening, with more hands on while presentations. A Sandbox of learning

• Would like to see CRUSH Multi day- for more seminars and live tax regulatory updates

• All Topics were interesting so, had to choose - if multi day, has a sense he could see it all

• He is the only person who functions in accounting at his company

• Wants to network by industry in format of round tables and social events

• Interested in open topic sessions facilitated by Avalara to field questions and find aha moments amongst participants

• “I like high tech but I’m more high touch” in events and the same applies to how I approach accounting

• Out of state / Interstate tax regulation - did not find anyone informed about this topic, he came with a desire to engage with specifics as it’s a NA conference, regionally based, so expected regional/interstate knowledge share