The Exit Five CMO Podcast (Hosted by Dave Gerhardt)

Beyond the SaaS Playbook: How Non-SaaS Teams Drive Pipeline with Sandra Rand

16 snips

Jul 17, 2025

Sandra Rand, a fractional head of marketing focused on early-stage, non-SaaS B2B companies, shares her insights on how these teams can thrive without traditional SaaS strategies. She discusses the power of events, referrals, and word-of-mouth in driving growth on a limited budget. Sandra emphasizes creative approaches like gifting and relationship-building, along with the importance of brand trust. She also highlights the need for a supportive community for non-SaaS marketers to share innovative strategies and elevate their impact in the B2B space.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Non-SaaS Marketing Diversity Insight

Non-SaaS marketing lacks a unified playbook and represents a long tail of diverse approaches.
Marketers in non-SaaS sectors rely more on brand and trust than high lead volume funnels common in SaaS.

ADVICE

Align Marketing Closely With Sales

Embed yourself deeply in sales conversations to align messaging and strategy.
Leverage events and build credibility creatively since non-SaaS lacks freemium or demo funnels for lead nurturing.

ADVICE

Intimate Events Build Trust

Prioritize intimate and meaningful event formats over large expos for deeper relationship building.
Know your attendees' personal preferences to create authentic ongoing connections beyond events.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

#265 Non-SaaS Marketing | In this episode, Matt sits down with Sandra Rand, a fractional head of marketing who works with early-stage, non-SaaS B2B companies. She’s led marketing for PE-backed, self-funded, and services-based businesses, where big budgets and SaaS-style playbooks aren’t the norm. She’s also building the Non-SaaS Marketers subgroup inside Exit Five to support others facing the same challenges.

Matt and Sandra cover:

How non-SaaS teams drive growth without demos, PLG, or huge lead volume
Why events, word of mouth, and referrals often outperform funnels in these orgs
Tactical ideas for gifting, partnerships, and pipeline-building on a lean budget

Whether you work in SaaS or not, you’ll walk away with creative, scrappy strategies to build trust and drive results in B2B.

Timestamps

(00:00) - – Intro
(03:04) - – Why Exit Five launched the Non-SaaS group
(08:24) - – What makes non-SaaS marketing different
(11:44) - – Budgets, sales cycles, and team structure
(16:34) - – Why brand and trust matter more
(18:44) - – Events > funnels in non-SaaS
(28:40) - – How to build brand on a budget
(34:10) - – Word-of-mouth and referral tactics
(38:50) - – Gifting and relationship-driven growth
(44:50) - – Scrappy, creative plays that actually work
(50:20) - – What’s next for the Non-SaaS community

Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.com
Join the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Check out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/
Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership

***

Today’s episode is brought to you by Zuddl.

We’re halfway through 2025, and one thing’s clear: events continue to be one of the highest performing marketing channels. Niche meetups, conferences, curated dinners, networking - you name it. Everyone’s leaning in.

Events are a core part of our playbook this year at Exit Five. So far, we’ve hosted two virtual sessions each month, one large virtual event, one in-person meetup, and we’re deep in the weeds planning our Drive conference coming back to Vermont this September.

Zuddl helps us run a smarter event strategy - from driving registrations, managing invites, automating comms, reminders, analytics, tracking. Their Salesforce integration also makes it simple to report on pipeline and revenue from events without pulling in ops.

On top of that, the differentiator with Zuddl is how their team is insanely good at supporting us. They always go above and beyond for us - and that’s how we’ve been able to keep the momentum going with 12+ events already this year, with plenty more to come.

If events are part of your marketing strategy, you need to look at Zuddl to see how companies like Zillow, CrowdStrike, and Iterable are using the top event platform for Business events in 2025.

Head over to zuddl.com/exitfive to learn more.