GTM News by Taylor Wells

In 2023, on average only 1 in 3 sales reps are hitting quota in the B2B world. Sales outreach (email, cold calling, etc.) has seen dramatic diminishing returns. To add to it, sales tech stacks have only gotten more bloated, confusing, and unhelpful. Can AI help solve the outreach challenges and improve sales performance overall? In this week's episode of GTM News, Jake Dunlap shares his expertise on how B2B sales has evolved, reimagining sales tools, and how AI can potentially how solve many of the challenges above. ​​ Here are a couple of takeaways I got from our conversation: I learned that tools were designed for personalized outreach but were later misused for mass automation, leading to a neglect of quality in favor of quantity. The main takeaway is that B2B sales should evolve by combining human interaction with technology and AI, adapting to changing customer preferences, and focusing on delivering value quickly. The key is to use technology to quickly turn insights into action for revenue growth through frequent short-term iterations rather than long delays. I discovered that the conventional outbound sales approach lacks effectiveness, and it's essential to use AI for customized communication and value addition to achieving successful sales results. The critical lesson is that scalability and automation aren't the same; depending only on automation, without personalization, can reduce sales effectiveness.

Why aren't your customers choosing you? Unraveling the magic of marketing starts with understanding human behavior. Each decision we make is a revealing dance of emotions, experiences, and influences. ​ ​ In this week's episode, Purna Virji, Principle Consultant at LinkedIn and author of the new book High-Impact Content Marketing, shared her thoughts on engaging your audience through content. With the proper understanding, marketers can choreograph this dance, turning potential customers into brand loyalists. Here are a few insights I gained from our discussion: ​ What I learned in this episode was that many of the things that make content marketing work have been discovered for hundreds of years. It's about getting back to the basics of human behavior and adult learning. ​ ​ AI kind of sucks right now for many content marketing tasks but this is the worst it will ever be. Start investing in it now and down the road the payoff could be big. ​ ​ The Power of Surprise: We all know surprise and delight. But you can also have delight and disgust. Make sure you are doing the latter and not the former!

Community-led growth is a buzz word and a very hot topic in the world of B2B go-to-market. But what is it really and how can your organization leverage this go-to-market strategy? There isn't just one size fits all and there are many different approaches to community-led growth. Kathleen Booth, SVP of Marketing & Member Experience at Pavilion on this week's show shared her insights from how Pavilion has grown their community. Couple of things I learned during our conversation: There are three main approaches to community-led growth (build your own, engage and sponsor another community) Gating (through charging a fee or making it exclusive) your community creates a premium experience Trust is at the heart of community-led growths (the goal is to build relationships) What’s community led growth & why now? Marketing & sales returns are diminishing across the board. Community-led growth can be a very efficient GTM strategy

You don’t have a marketing problem. You don’t have a sales problem. You don’t have product problem. You don’t have a customer success problem. You have a go-to-market problem. On this week's show, Sangram Vajre, co-founder and CEO of GTM Partners, shares his wealth of insights around go-to-market and how every grow challenge you are facing ties back to an overarching GTM problem. Couple of takeaways for me: Net Revenue Retention: Double your revenue every 5 years without adding a single new customer Number #1 GTM Challenge: Relying on Heroic Sales Efforts Who owns GTM in your org? Spoiler: Your CEO

Many organizations are struggling to hit pipeline and new revenue targets in 2023. This is why demand generation is such an important topic right now. Janelle Amos, Founder & Demand Gen Consultant shares her perspective on full funnel demand generation and how to unit your entire organizations around driving demand for your product.

(this is a recording from a live event from June 2023) Getting new B2B customers in 2023 is tough. Consider these stats: - 85% of buyer's journey happens before they talk to sales (Forester) - 95% of your target market isn't in market (Forester) - Customers see 5000+ ads daily (Forbes) But don't lose hope! Listen to a recording of a recent webinar I did on all things B2B marketing. Learn how to efficiently grow to $10mm ARR and beyond. Gain insights from my decade of B2B marketing experience; failures included. Topics covered: - Selfless Advantage mindset - Position yourself as the obvious choice - Fundamentals of generating opportunities (Partnerships, Customers, Outbound, Paid Media, and Content)

We talk a lot about go-to-market strategies in marketing, sales, and customer success on this show. But all of that wouldn't work if we don't have a great products that customers love. Great marketing/sales/CS can't save a bad product. Dr. Else van der Berg and I discuss in this week's show how to build a B2B products or services that customers LOVE. Couple of take aways for me: Marketing/sales can’t save a bad product Competitive differentiation is not a marketing only problem Validate your assumptions around your ideal customer profile, etc It’s counterintuitive to validate & we have to work hard to counteract this

This is probably my favorite topic we've done on the GTM.news show (sorry to the rest of my guests 😅) Because marketing and sales can be the most self-focused & inward departments in an organization: "My leads" - "My quota" - "Our revenue" Not only can this mindset suck the life out of you as a practitioner but the mindset DOESN'T WORK to actually drive impact for customers and your organizations. This is why an Outward Mindset is so important. Watch/listen to my conversation with Aaron Hill, SVP Growth Strategy at the Arbinger Institute. Couple of takeaways: Don't weaponize empathy: This is what psychopaths and expert criminals do. They use the super power of empathy to manipulate people. You will suck your soul dry of joy in your work and also not succeed long-term. Inward mindset is very counter-productive: If you are focused on your goals and objectives, you will miss the mark for how to serve and impact others. Customers are savvy and can smell this approach a mile away and you won't build rapport or trust with your ideal customer. Make your success their success: It seems simple but to true win for the customer and the organization, it has to win for everyone. This is the great balance we should all strive to achieve.

No one likes to be "nurtured" or in a "sales process" Buyers have way more control of their buying experience now and according to Forester 85% of the buyers journey happens before a buyer ever talks to sales person. 🤯 This is why demand generation is so important. It focuses on the entire buyers journey and how you can optimize it to drive better experiences for your buyers and more revenue for your company. Let's agree that generating crummy leads for sales isn't working the greatest. In this conversation with Graceanne & Liam from Storybook, we unpack what is demand generation, how is it different from lead generation, and so much more. Key take aways: 1️⃣ What is demand generation: it's a go-to-market strategy to move people towards considering you as a solution. It's about reaching your audience where they are, delivering a strategic message through your content, and then providing a really low friction way for them to enter into a sales conversation with you when they're ready. 2️⃣ Brand awareness is not a destination, there is a “Demand Curve’ to it - What does good brand awareness look like? A lot of organic inbound requests. 3️⃣ Breaking down your marketing: On-ramps and off-ramps. On-ramps: how do you reach your audience (where are they spending their time) and off-ramps: how they actually entering a sales conversation. 4️⃣ We’ve made lead generation & demand generation way more complicated than it has to be because of misaligned incentives (marketing is focused on generating leads and not qualified pipeline) and we’ve built these crazy tech stacks that aren't always helpful. Listen to the whole conversation HERE --- Until next week, Taylor P.s. Know of anyone that might find this show helpful? Pass it along!

In this conversation we cover topics of how to systemize your B2B go-to-market and marketing through simple frameworks, processes and more. Get your organization pointing int the same direction to maximize efficiencies and accomplish your business objectives. Peter Mahoney is the co-author of "The Next CMO: A Guide to Operational Marketing Excellence" and is a self-described marketing nerd.