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Areya Dargahi leads mid-market sales at Gainsight, a Series E SaaS company that helps businesses drive efficient growth by unifying the post-sales customer journey. Areya has built out their mid-market sales team from scratch, and now his team is bringing just shy of $10 million ARR.
Gainsight started off as an enterprise-only solution and then moved down to target SMB and mid-market clients. They saw that smaller companies had outgrown the tools available to them and realized there’s a huge opportunity to expand.
Although from a product perspective there weren’t many strong competitors that rivaled Gainsight, their downmarket motion still required quite a bit of competitive intel and strategy to ensure that Gainsight wins those competitive deals.ls. What really helped them was setting up a slack channel where the whole team monitors their competitors and shares their insights - whether they are positioning changes, new content releases or notes from going head to head on a deal.
Areya is a huge proponent of quick response times during the sales process. While features do matter, for upmarket deals there’s always a possibility that a feature gets custom built for that client, but in order to build enough mutual trust for such a big, two-sided commitment, something as simple as quick response times can work wonders when putting prospects at ease during the sales process.
Tune into the full episode to learn why you should improve your sales process by taking a customer success approach!
HIGHLIGHTS:0:00 Intro
2:44 Getting to Sales and Customer Success alignment
3:57 Moving from Enterprise to Mid-Market/SMB
5:13 Building Gainsights competitive intelligence
7:40 The importance of quick response times
11:01 Relationship vs Outcome selling
12:53 Winning the deal is only half of the battle
17:54 Account Executives need product expertise
22:31 How to approach teaching AE’s productConnect with Areya - https://www.linkedin.com/in/areyad/
Connect with Max - https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-greenwald/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/
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Fehlende Folgen?
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Steve Wright leads mid-market sales at Synergis, where they help companies find and retain top talent in technology. After 25 years of primarily serving enterprise clients, Synergis saw an opportunity to expand into mid-market - and the results have been phenomenal.
The magic of mid-market is that it allows you to work directly with decision makers who have strategic, tactical and contract signing abilities all in one. They have less established buying processes, which can be a huge relief if your company doesn’t yet have a fully fleshed out enterprise motion.
In today's softer market, mid-market companies are still big because they don't have the internal resources to do everything in-house. While enterprise clients can often leverage existing teams, mid-market needs external support to drive transformation. This has led to Synergis's mid-market division hitting 107% of plan even as enterprise slows.
For companies looking to expand into mid-market, success requires deep domain expertise and the ability to be advisory rather than just a silver-tongued seller. The best salespeople combine enterprise best practices with consultative selling skills while continuously working on their output metrics.
Tune into the full episode to learn how to build and scale a successful mid-market motion!
HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
1:00 Why mid-market?
3:12 Rewriting the enterprise playbook
8:08 Mid-market vs enterprise in 2024
10:31 Should you start selling into the mid-market?
16:33 Small vendors winning big deals
21:10 Best AI tools in 2024Connect with Steve - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenwwright/
Connect with Max - https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-greenwald/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/
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Ali Schwanke (Founder @ Simple Strat) is an expert in helping companies get better and faster results through mastering HubSpot. Her company is a Diamond Solutions Partner and she’s the host of HubSpot Hacks, the #1 unofficial YouTube channel for HubSpot Tutorials.
Even though HubSpot positions itself as a plug and play solution that’s easy to set up, Ali believes that the best HubSpot strategies start with a whiteboard and a chart. You need an understanding of what exactly is the purpose of your CRM and how it can best integrate with your team's existing workflows.
Intent mapping has proven to be a winning tactic in 2024. With the right tech stack you can start to truly focus your sales efforts towards leads that have the highest likelihood of closing. Ali recommends identifying false signals like existing customer website visits to help make the process more efficient. Automations are a necessity, but over-automating can cause complications down the line, especially as you scale your team.
Tune into the full episode to get a real lesson in RevOps and master your CRM!
HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
1:51 Product-market fit is a must
3:41 Clearbit + HubSpot = Data Enrichment
5:31 How to build better workflows on HubSpot
7:08 Orchestrations in HubSpot
9:11 First steps towards lead scoring
11:50 Lead Gen vs Demand Gen
13:21 HubSpot configuration dream state
16:11 Best HubSpot Hacks
19:17 There is no automation silver bullet
20:52 Top 5 Don’t Do’s in HubSpot
22:37 Max’s bonus Don’t Do
25:05 Top 3 HubSpot DashboardsConnect with Ali - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alischwanke/
Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Connect with Max - https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-greenwald/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/ -
Mike Lander is an expert at handling procurement and helping sales teams increase their win rates in the mid-market and beyond.
After years of founding companies, running consultancies and scaling teams, Mike took his experience as a buyer and started Piscari to help sellers better understand how buyers think and how to walk away from negotiations with their desired outcomes achieved.
The biggest mistake a seller can make when dealing with procurement is sticking their head in the sand and expecting the deal to go through. There’s a common myth that procurement refuses to work with SME’s - and that is simply not the case, as they value the flexible and entrepreneurial approach that smaller companies bring. To win over procurement, you need to understand what they value and be proactive with your approach.
One thing to always remember is that procurement aren’t the budget holders - they are the guardians of the budget, which means that their interests are aligned with mitigating risk and increasing savings. The best thing you can do is involve them early on - get added to their supplier lists, pass any checks and really introduce yourself so that you’re not starting over when the sales cycle looks to be almost finished.
Tune into the full episode to learn how to handle procurement and win upmarket deals!
HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
3:04 Who are procurement teams and what do they want?
9:51 How to prepare for procurement
13:20 How to quantify ROI
15:49 Challenge procurements thinking
20:36 Who does procurement report to?
23:04 Stop wasting time on unwinnable deals
25:55 The Incumbent wins most of the time
27:27 Winning in competitive bid processes
30:04 Get good at RFP’sConnect with Mike - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikelander/
Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Connect with Max - https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-greenwald/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/
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Alex Newmann (Founder & CEO of Newmann Consulting Group) is an expert at helping founders of B2B companies (either bootstrapped or Series A funded) transition out of founder-led sales, make their first sales hires and build a scalable, repeatable sales process. In this episode, he sits down with Alan Zhao to help change the way you think about making your first sales hires and bring some light to a few strategic mistakes that lead to unsuccessful sales handoffs.
When taking the leap out of founder-led sales, you don’t really need to reinvent the wheel. Alex says that no matter your GTM model - PLG, Enterprise or inbound-led - the playbook already exists and you should use it to structure 80% of your strategy. The rest revolves around your ideal client profile, sales cycle, niche and messaging.
Your first hire is pretty much the most important decision you’ll make when transitioning. Hiring too early will cause a lot of inefficiency and burn out even the brightest sales hire, that’s why you need to achieve product-market fit prior to that. Same goes for hiring a sales leader before you have a sales team assembled, as their expertise won’t be super useful and you’ll be burning money. The founder should start by producing some sales wins alone, then documenting the process, establishing their ICP and dialing in their messaging. After you’ve built your preliminary sales process, make your first hire and scale further by hiring in small groups - that way they’ll have some internal competition to keep things exciting, as well as a peer group that can learn and develop together.
Finding the right fit during the interview process is another strong indicator of a successful, long-term hire. Before hiring, Alex recommends first identifying the technical level of your target buyer and evaluating whether it’s possible to teach someone the ins and outs of the market within a reasonable amount of time. Then, consider your “ideal sales profile” - their industry experience, their stage fit and their personality traits.
Tune into the full episode to learn how to transition out of founder-led sales!
KEY INSIGHTS:
02:21 Picking the right sales playbook
03:15 When do you start delegating sales?
06:46 Don’t bring sales leaders on too early
08:11 Evaluating your first sales candidates
12:19 What answers to look out for
15:16 Fixing the leaky bucket of churn
17:20 The optimal way to acquire sales leadersConnect with Alex - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexnewmann/
Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/ -
Today’s episode welcomes Sahil Patel, CEO of Spiralyze. They help companies grow by providing data-driven performance Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) services.
The point of a great landing page is to lead your potential clients to take action on your offer - whether it’s a demo, a strategy call or a free trial. Sahil mentions that while lead gen gets a bad rap on LinkedIn, it’s still part of a holistic brand strategy and exists as a necessary bridge between prospects liking your brand from afar and prospects actually talking to your team. A great landing page can hook your prospects into taking action, which can ultimately be the difference between you and your competitors getting a chance to make their case that their product is a good fit for the prospect.Sahil considers a double-digit lift in your metric of choice as mission success when optimizing your landing page. Most companies don’t see this level of improvement because their landing pages consist of a huge wall of text that’s boring, their forms are too long and they don’t actually show you the product.
When asked about examples of great landing pages in SaaS, Sahil refers to Service Fusion and Record360. The strategy of showing your product on your landing page is what Sahil calls the “shiny car in the parking lot” - when you see it and you want it.
A big part of becoming a shiny car is credibility. While building brand credibility happens outside of the landing page, you still have real estate within the page to place exceptional testimonials from those clients that have the biggest brand and best match your ICP. A great testimonial should have a simple message that roughly translates to: “I bought the product and it worked”:.
Tune into the full episode to learn more on how to build a high performance B2B landing page.
KEY INSIGHTS:
02:06 Increasing your landing page conversions
06:05 Examples of great landing pages
08:19 The point of a landing page
11:25 Differentiating intent
13:27 Mapping your visitors by intent
19:02 Adding credibility to a landing page
24:04 Optimizing for low-intent visitors
25:25 How to measure visitor intentConnect with Sahil - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sahilanamipatel/
Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/
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Today’s episode welcomes Austin Jouett, Full-Cycle Account Executive at Intentify Demand - a provider of demand and lead generation services, specializing in B2B sectors such as SaaS, IT technology, FinTech, Martech and HR Tech. They help businesses connect with their ideal prospects by delivering high quality and meticulously verified data including contacts, companies, firmographics and technographics.
Austin started out in door-to-door sales. There he was trained to never take no for an answer, which led to a lot of aggression from his prospects. This made him appreciate the safety of remote phone sales and gave him a thick skin when it comes to rejection.
His first SDR gig was at Demandbase, where he generated $2.8 million in pipeline becoming their top SDR in 2022. He started off as an inbound SDR, where he used qualified.com and an in-house ABM platform to prospect into deanonymized accounts. Prospects had to go through 3 different passes between differently ranked salespeople, which is not a great customer experience and led to a lot of ghosting.
Austin’s daily workflow for inbound and upsells consisted of taking the users of their ABM platform, analyzing signals within Demandbase and writing pipeline acceleration reports for his prospects. This got him to book a record of 16 meetings in a single month, which was 2.5x his quota.
Tune into the full episode to learn Austin’s way of generating pipeline!
Connect with Austin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinjouett/
Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/
(05:13) - What D2D skills translate to SDR skills?(07:25) - Human-level prospecting(08:20) - How Demandbase SDR’s prospected (10:33) - Stop passing around prospects(15:28) - Prospecting into net new accounts(21:22) - Turning prospects from cold to warm(24:25) - What signals work best during outreach?(27:02) - How to improve your signal-based selling approach -
In case you missed it - today’s episode contains the recording of the June 6th live event with Chris Walker and Alan Zhao about how to implement a signal-based go-to-market approach.
Chris’s new company, Passetto, combines proprietary signal-based analytics technology with expert strategic consulting to help B2B companies create breakthroughs in growth and profitability using data.
Signal-based go-to-market is an evolution of how sales teams identify which prospects have a higher likelihood to buy based on their engagement with vendors. These signals can be anything from a website visit to a “like” on a LinkedIn post.
By identifying which signals have the highest intent, sales teams can then build a strategy around reaching out to the right accounts at the right time based on data, instead of taking a spray and pray approach to prospecting.
Check out the recording to learn how to implement a signal-based go-to-market approach!
KEY INSIGHTS:
01:06 Why should we care about Signal-Based GTM?02:40 Why signal-based selling is trending right now
04:33 Right fit vs right time vs right message
07:27 Signal-based categories and platforms
10:01 The problem with implementing signal-based platforms
11:54 Advantages of having a smaller GTM team
13:27 What are signal-based analytics?
14:53 Scrappiest way to approach signals
15:49 The ideal way to implement signals
20:01 How to track signals
25:45 Structuring your signal data collection
28:24 Who should implement signal-based GTM?
30:12 How RevOps can pivot to signals
34:55 How to prioritize signals?
36:35 Building a modern GTM motion
40:21 Getting to $1M+ ARR
43:29 How to collect signal data
46:50 How branding improves sales outcomes
49:32 Choosing marketing channels outside of LinkedIn -
Today’s guest is Brian Lawrence, VP of Sales at Clazar - the cloud GTM co-pilot for software businesses of all sizes that recently received their $10 million Series A round.
Brian started his career at Oracle, where he moved up quickly and became one of the youngest managers at the company. When he was climbing up the ranks, a big part of his success was his willingness to learn and having a high level of curiosity.
His leadership style is centered around building a culture of empathy, trust and collaboration. Brian doesn’t consider someone an A+ player solely based on their numbers. Instead, he looks for candidates that not only carry themselves up, but also those around. His biggest regrets as a sales leader have always come from hiring people who showed immediate red flags.
Empathy, when displayed towards prospects, is one of the best ways to ensure that they’ll trust you and end up going with your solution when they’re ready to buy. At HelloSign, Brian had to build a strategy on how to sell to developers, who aren’t typically susceptible to aggressive sales tactics. They created content that showed a ton of self awareness and rebuilt their sales motion to cater to their new ICP, which ultimately won them enough business to get acquired by Dropbox down the line.
Tune into the full episode to learn about how to make empathy your ultimate sales superpower!
KEY INSIGHTS:
03:01 How to move up the ranks in sales
04:13 Infusing empathy into your leadership style
06:14 Why a culture of collaborators wins
08:32 Using empathy to win deals
12:01 How to become an expert in your marketConnect with Brian - https://www.linkedin.com/in/briantlawrence/
Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/ -
The jury is still out on the right way to utilize AI in B2B sales.
One thing is sure - AI and automation powered sales teams that stay lean are winning at a much higher rate than those who have gotten comfy over the last few years and have yet to figure out how to delegate gruntwork to machines.
Today’s guest is a master of sales efficiency. Over 5 ½ years, his team went from $0 - $30 million in ARR with only 4 salespeople using a truly efficient sales process, and now he’s gone all in on AI transformation for B2B sales and go-to-market as a whole.
Ryan Staley is the Founder & CEO of Whale Boss - a consultancy that helps Chief Revenue Officers & Sales Professionals leverage AI to work 10 hours less weekly and 2x their performance. He's also the host of The Scale Up Show - a top 2% podcast where he deconstructs how the top SaaS CEOs in the world grow their companies repeatedly and predictably.
During his early days as a sales leader, Ryan received quite a bit of flack for not having the right processes and systems in place to build a repeatable and scalable sales process. When opportunity struck and Ryan moved upmarket, he was determined to not make the same mistake again. His first a-ha moment came when he realized that most SaaS sales leaders don’t analyze their deal metrics enough to niche down and achieve efficient growth.
Ryan then started looking at the patterns between the biggest deals they closed and took a data-driven approach to the top 40 deals the company had closed. He noticed that certain verticals had better outcomes than others, and the real kicker was that a few of these verticals weren’t a focus point. His team then narrowed down on the few niche profiles that received the most value from their product and made it their full focus.
Tune into the full episode to learn more on how to become an efficient and effective sales org!
KEY INSIGHTS:
04:01 Going from 0 - 30$ Million with 4 Salespeople
06:22 How to find your true ideal client profile (ICP)
09:04 Which metrics should you track?
11:34 Why sales methodologies are flawed
13:57 Building a team of efficient sellers
15:47 Systemising your referral stream
17:03 How to utilize AI in B2B
20:29 Approaching AI the right way
22:29 Finding your personal AI use caseConnect with Ryan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-staley/
Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/ -
Many people don’t realize this but quite a few of your favorite platforms, including LinkedIn and Cameo, have implemented a product-led sales (PLS) motion a long time ago.
In short, product-led sales is a go-to-market approach that relies on existing users of the product to drive revenue.
Here’s the problem - if your PLS motion is implemented without a strategic approach to customer experience and enablement, you’ll end up in a worse position than if you gated the platform from the get-go.
Today’s episode welcomes Karen Chi - Founder of Karen Chi Consulting and former GTM leader of LinkedIn and Cameo. She’s also the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of inVest Ventures - a Community VC fund investing in LinkedIn alumni founders building great companies.
There’s a common theme between signal-based GTM and product-led selling - interpreting data and predicting behaviors. Even though the concept of signal-based sales and product-led platforms started making waves recently, the concepts have been around for a long time. Karen recently attended the PLGTM conference and she’s ecstatic to see that there’s a passionate community around product-led companies.
Building a successful product-led sales motion requires a huge paradigm shift in how you think about your go-to-market. Karen says that you can’t expect your product-led motion to carry the weight throughout the whole sales process. Instead, you need to approach it with the mindset of “how do I build my product so our customers can get from 0-1 themselves” and then sales can take them from 1-100. The self-service experience can’t be just a glorified lead generation tool, as you end up creating a situation where your potential client lowers their expectations of the value of the platform effectively disqualifying themselves early in the process.
Check out the full episode to learn more about product-led go-to-market!
Connect with Karen - https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenychi/
(05:32) - Starting a Venture Capital fund (08:32) - What is Product-Led Selling & Signal-Based GTM(10:31) - How to set up your PLG/PLS motion(14:05) - When to involve salespeople into your PLS motion(16:33) - How to educate your users (20:46) - Using the right channels to convert clients(22:57) - How to serve your free tier users(25:51) - Growing Cameo's PLS motion(31:10) - How to become a great PLS sales rep
Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/ -
B2B Influencer marketing is booming right now. According to Forbes 94% of B2B marketers say influencer marketing is a profitable strategy, yet if you ask around you’re bound to find skilled marketers or founders who invested heavily in creator partnerships and ended up seeing less than desirable results.
Here’s the thing - unlike investing in safe, mature and refined marketing methods like ads or SEO, the influencer marketing route requires you to have a strong understanding of a few key aspects that might seem logical to a social media native person, but can blindsight you if you only got your first iphone after finishing college.
Today’s guest is Morgan J. Ingram, Founder of AMP - a GTM production company that helps businesses drive sales through account-based content. Rather than traditional marketing, they create engaging video content and events tailored to key accounts. This earns trust and boosts sales by connecting with target customers in an impactful way.
Morgan segments creators into 3 categories - brand ambassadors, who typically talk about the brand they're associated with, influencers who are classic content creators with a large following and subject matter experts (SME’s) who are highly esteemed thought leaders in a particular niche. Knowing which creator category is best for your goals is going to make all the difference between a profitable and an unprofitable creator partnership.
Tune into the full episode to learn how to navigate the landscape of B2B influencers and build profitable partnerships with the right people!
KEY INSIGHTS:
03:36 The 3 tiers of B2B influencers
05:35 How to choose a brand ambassador
06:27 Building a brand ambassador strategy
08:26 Structuring the right offer
10:16 B2B influencer outreach
11:57 Picking the person with the right content
14:20 Building up internal creators
16:52 How to identify the creators category
18:29 Aligning the incentives
21:15 Structuring a deal with an influencer
24:25 B2B Influencer marketing attribution
26:05 Structuring a deal with a SMEConnect with Morgan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/morganjingram/
Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/
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Today’s episode welcomes Aditya Vempaty, VP of Marketing at MoEngage - an insights-led customer engagement platform that can analyze customer behavior and engage them with personalized communication across the web, mobile, and email. MoEngage is a full-stack solution consisting of powerful customer analytics, AI-powered customer journey orchestration, and personalization - in one dashboard.
Positioning is an evergreen B2B marketing topic. Technical founders often go down the route of marketing their product based on the features and benefits without taking into account what matters most - the customer's voice.
The best way to hear the customer's voice is surveying. In the most recent surveys at MoEngage, Aditya has been focusing on figuring out what channels they use most in cross-channel marketing and which channels are truly effective for his clients. He recommends always to ask about effectiveness, as that will typically be the north star that you can use to cater your messaging around.
An omnichannel approach is great in theory, but with the maturity of online platforms people expect to consume content that is catered to them. Before creating, you need to put in some serious time into understanding where your customers natively reside, what formats they prefer and what a truly native experience feels like. Aditya recommends that you figure out a few platforms and formats that are your best bets and then focus on how to drive customer engagement.
Tune into the full episode to learn how to master positioning!
Connect with Aditya - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adityavempaty/
Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/
(01:47) - Aditya Vempaty’s Background(05:34) - How to approach product positioning(08:24) - Building B2B marketing surveys(12:35) - Identifying the true level of pain(15:28) - How to develop converting B2B content(18:48) - Building your B2B content funnel(22:07) - B2B Content distribution(23:49) - The value of B2B influencers -
This episode continues the conversation with Chris Walker - Executive Chairman of Refine Labs and CEO of Pasetto - a GTM Strategy Consultancy that helps B2B Executives identify and execute against their highest priority growth levers with confidence and clarity. He’s also the host of B2B Revenue Vitals - one of the most beloved podcasts in the B2B revenue ethos.
Chris brings up the statistic that 50% of revenue is typically budgeted towards your go-to-market motion, which most of the time leads to about 1/5th of that being recouped in ARR. This shouldn’t be the case, as without a constant stream of venture capital this model is unsustainable. His solution is to opt in for signal based go-to-market - a new category that looks at capturing buying signals, which allows you to identify who's in-market (or who's about to be), prioritize accordingly, and take action with context.
The Go-To-Market paradigm shift that Chris recommends is a pretty simple concept - stop your sales team from talking to people who are never going to buy. The idea of signal analytics and signal-based go-to-market as a whole is to have accurate data that indicates the probability of someone buying your product without wasting sales resources, and reducing your dependency on the skill of the salesperson.
Chris’s new company, Passetto, is creating a new category - signal analytics. They’re focused on figuring out which signals are worth using to trigger different events in the funnel and dissecting data to achieve a higher level of go-to-market efficiency. Their core focus right now is to make sure you’re aware of the things that are NOT working and to battle B2B data survivorship biases, which have led profitable companies to overspend on inefficient aspects of their GTM motion.
Tune into the full episode to learn more about signal-based go-to-market!
Connect with Chris - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriswalker171/
Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/
(01:22) - Getting to profitable, efficient growth(02:56) - Signal-based Go-To-Market(05:20) - Categorizing B2B signals(06:31) - Figuring out the right signals(09:51) - How to implement signal-based GTM(12:38) - The problem with Account-Based Marketing (ABM)(14:31) - The adoption problem(18:36) - The road to appropriate GTM ROI (20:56) - Why Chris started Passetto (00:00) - Chapter 10 -
B2B has recently been obsessed with the word “dead”.
Cold calling. Email marketing. Blogs. Interview based podcasts. You name it - someone’s made a case on a LinkedIn post that it’s dead and discouraged many from strategies that have worked for seemingly forever.
Truth is - in 2024, the word “dead” is more relevant than ever when used to refer to methodologies that were once defining the B2B revenue landscape.
Between the downfall of free venture capital, the steady rise of AI and the macroeconomical state of the world, what worked yesterday no longer works today. Or possibly it never worked in the first place - you just didn’t need to pay attention when the times were good.
Today’s guest is Chris Walker - Executive Chairman of Refine Labs and CEO of Pasetto - a GTM Strategy Consultancy that helps B2B Executives identify and execute against their highest priority growth levers with confidence and clarity. He’s also the host of B2B Revenue Vitals - one of the most beloved podcasts in the B2B revenue ethos.
For the last few years, Chris has been one of the rare voices in B2B that’s called out companies on their ineffective spending habits and tried to push the market towards data-driven thinking. He challenges B2B companies to make transformational changes to their go-to-market motion instead of trying to incrementally improve outdated models that simply don’t work.
Tune into the full episode to learn how to build a modern B2B go-to-market playbook!
Connect with Chris - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriswalker171/
Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/
(02:14) - The Chris Walker method of revenue(04:41) - How to find the right accounts to sell to(06:52) - How B2B buyers make decisions (10:04) - The right way to sell B2B (11:57) - Demand creation vs demand capture(13:24) - The modern B2B sales motion(14:27) - Predictable revenue is dead(17:35) - Why your GTM budget is wrong -
Whether you know it or not, your business has a Nearbound sales strategy.
Here’s the secret nobody told you - this type of partner revenue is exactly what drives most of the growth for high performing SaaS companies that take over the market seemingly out of nowhere.
So what is nearbound? In simple sales terms, those are the deals that close quickly because the prospect already trusts you before the conversation even begins, as they trust the people that recommended you in the first place. This doesn’t have to be a random occurrence though.
Today’s guest is Jared Fuller - Co-Founder and CEO of nearbound.com, and your best source to learn how to build a Nearbound strategy that helps you successfully market with people that your buyers already trust.
Jared has always been a serial entrepreneur. He likes to say that his early career is a graveyard of dead startups - but between his early losses you can see huge career highlights like helping grow PandaDoc and Drift into unicorns.
For smaller startups, Jared recommends building a list of your best customers and asking them about the vendors they use and trust. The top relationships on this list are the ones that control the mindshare of your buyer, meaning you should find a meaningful way to interact and partner with these companies to become part of their ecosystem. He recommends figuring out a way to collaborate on content that has you doing all of the grunt work and letting your collaborator become the hero at the lowest possible investment.
Tune into the full episode to learn how to build your nearbound strategy!
Connect with Jared - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredfuller/Check out Jared’s bestseller - https://www.amazon.com/Nearbound-Rise-Economy-Jared-Fuller-ebook/dp/B0CW2WPBS6
Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
(01:47) - From partnerships to nearbound(03:34) - What is nearbound?(06:11) - The B2B Who economy(09:12) - Building your first Nearbound strategy(14:20) - The lowest hanging nearbound fruit(18:24) - How to partner with B2B influencers(22:51) - Creating a B2B marketing movement(26:18) - The nearbound sales blueprint
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/ -
Today’s episode welcomes Phil Carpenter, CMO at ALICE Technologies - the world's first artificial intelligence platform that understands construction. ALICE enhances your construction planning and scheduling abilities to help keep crews flowing on any size project – so you can build faster and cheaper.
Everybody wants to be a category creator - until they realize exactly how difficult and time consuming it is. Trying to define something new and communicating it to an unaware audience at the level where they not only remember the message but also take action requires a ton of mental work.
Even though category creation became a popular term in B2B recently, the concept has existed for a long time. Phil mentions that while there are certainly some pretty significant differences in category creation when comparing B2B and B2C, the tools and methodologies are quite similar. During Phil’s time creating a new category in travel search engines, he leveraged journalists - the original influencers - to generate a bunch of noise and create a movement in the consumer travel space.
In his current role at ALICE technologies, he uses a lot of visualization to showcase the workflows that ultimately close clients. The problem they solve is that most construction projects are over budget or executed untimely in around 80% of the cases, and the ALICE platform helps battle that through automations, workflow integrations and forecasting. To drum up noise about this revolutionary tech, they’ve been heavily utilizing both influencers and niche, traditional media sources.
Tune into the full episode to find out more about category creation!
Connect with Phil - https://www.linkedin.com/in/philcarpenter/Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/
(04:03) - How to approach category creation(08:51) - B2B vs B2C Category creation(12:11) - How Phil approaches category creation at ALICE(14:40) - You need to spark interest(15:45) - Forming the category vision(17:17) - Building a category creation marketing team(23:42) - The right tools for category creation -
Stale marketing is like stale bread.
People will bite - but only if they’re desperate enough.
When you’re going to market with a new product in a well-established, saturated space that consists of top-heavy key players with billion dollar evaluations, stale won’t cut it.
Today’s guest is Melissa Rosentha - CMO at Insight Timer, and ex. Chief Creative Officer at ClickUp, where she built a world-class marketing engine and helped the company go from Series A to the brand that we all know and love today.
Melissa's understanding of how to create a sticky brand online started with her tenure at Buzzfeed, where she built and led a team of 100+ creatives back in the early 2010’s. She took the same playbook of viral, troll-esque content, adjusted it for B2B and created some of the most legendary marketing campaigns of the post-COVID era, achieving mind-boggling engagement on online media platforms.
ClickUp took a chance on Melissa when they allocated a big part of their Series A budget towards building an in-house creative agency. Ultimately it paid off, as it allowed them to create a content engine that capitalizes on relevant news, consistently stays top of mind for their ICP and completely abides by their creative vision.
Melissa speaks on how the secret to creating humorous and viral content that also converts is to always keep your ICP’s pain points in mind and do a ton of research on online forums like Reddit to find out what they’re thinking. Purely chasing virality is a losing strategy, but if you pair it with a relatable message and tie it back to the product, you’ll see a positive ROI.
Tune into the full episode to learn how to build a brand like ClickUp!
Connect with Melissa - https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissarosenthal5/Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/
(00:00) - Chapter 1(03:04) - The idea behind ClickUp’s marketing engine(04:45) - How to build a unique, recognisable B2B brand(09:21) - How to build an effective B2B creative strategy(11:41) - Creating B2B content that converts(14:45) - How to generate B2B content ideas(17:09) - Building a B2B production crew(21:25) - Getting your competitors involved(26:32) - What matters most when creating content -
Season 1 is officially over.
Huge thank you to everyone who tuned in and the amazing guests that joined us over the last few months - we appreciate you!
This new season will feature more highly effective, creative and courageous revenue professionals who have taken their unique strategies to market, succeeded, and now have tactical insights and strategies to share with you.
We're looking forward to continuing this journey!
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