Carolyn Dilks, CEO and co-founder of Passetto, is a seasoned marketing leader with a focus on unraveling the complexities of GTM strategies. In this discussion, she illuminates the often-overlooked 'pipeline black box' that obscures pre-opportunity activities. Carolyn advocates for a trigger-first approach to sales, emphasizing the need to track engagement metrics like connect rates and time-to-meeting. She also critiques traditional MQLs and encourages marketing leaders to embrace accountability and visibility for more predictable pipeline outcomes.
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insights INSIGHT
Pipeline Black Box Exists
Pipeline creation has a hidden pre-opportunity stage full of untracked activity.
Exposing that 'factory floor' reveals causal patterns that explain pipeline problems.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Measure Triggers, Not Department Credit
Track the actual trigger that made sales start working a prospect, not department credit.
Measure time-to-connect, time-to-meeting, qual and disqual rates to see what truly creates pipeline.
insights INSIGHT
Attribution Is Secondary
Attribution tools alone rarely answer why pipeline is broken.
First measure prospecting efficiency and pre-op signals before layering attribution.
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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.
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