In this episode of GTM Live, Carolyn joins the Growth Activated Podcast as a guest to unpack one of the biggest blind spots in GTM today: what actually happens before an opportunity is created.
99% of GTM teams still can’t see this stage clearly. It’s the “grey area” where SDRs and BDRs are grinding—sending emails, making calls, chasing signals, running sequences—all in the hope of booking a meeting that turns into pipeline.
The problem? None of this activity is tracked in a clear, causal way. Leaders only see pipeline “sources” (marketing, sales, SDR), which hides the bigger story. Pipeline isn’t a source—it’s a chain reaction. A trigger sparks sales work, a series of events unfolds, and only some of those reliably convert to opportunities. Most of it? Invisible. That’s why pipeline creation still feels like guesswork.
Carolyn explains why source-based reporting and last-touch attribution keep teams stuck, and how to instrument the pre-opportunity “factory floor” with simple metrics that expose what’s really working.
Key Topics in this Episode:
- [00:10] Carolyn’s journey: 4x Head of Marketing → CEO of Passetto
- [07:30] The Pipeline Black Box: why pre-opp activity is invisible
- [09:20] Using triggers to understand what really starts sales work
- [14:00] Inside the factory: connect rate, time-to-meeting, qual rate, DQs
- [22:40] Client insight: MQLs drain resources
- [27:50] KPIs to rethink: drop department-source, own pipeline as a system
- [30:45] For marketing leaders: accountability over defense
- [41:55] Annual planning: fight inertia, build visibility first
- [44:50] Where to find Carolyn & learn more about Passetto
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This episode is powered by Passetto, a GTM advisory and instrumentation software company with a solution that eliminates the Pipeline Black Box™, the critical data hidden inside every GTM engine where leaders are flying blind when it matters most.
