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The stats for B2B sales teams hitting quota in 2023 are not great. Many organizations are struggling to hit pipeline goals. Any one in sales is under the microscope. Thankfully, there are folks like Samantha McKenna pushing the boundaries on how to effectively engage the modern buyer. On this week's show, she shared her thoughts on to engage your potential buyers. We discussed: Modern selling Specific social selling tactics How to leverage information online How to write a great outbound email AI and creating efficiencies

You've probably never heard of Klaviyo unless you are a Shopify customer or in the e-commerce space. I didn't know much about them either and totally looked up how to pronounce their name (more on that later.) So what's so special about Klaviyo? Klaviyo filed their S-1 to go public last Friday - As Tomasz Tunguz said in his newsletter "one of the first software companies to do so since the beginning of the economic downturn in late 2022. It’s a marvel of business with strong growth, great efficiency & the potential to reignite interest in SaaS IPOs." I dove into their S-1 to see what all the fuss is about and learn why they achieved such incredible results. What I found was pretty awesome from a go-to-market standpoint. Very cool combination of growth strategies. First before I jump into the learns, here is what they have achieved so far: - Almost $500m in revenue in 2022, growing 60%ish year over year - Profitable as of June 2023The company raised $455m in venture capital, but has used only $15m - Cost of acquisition payback period of only 14 months - 119% Net Dollar Retention - When the company spends $1 in sales & marketing expense, Klaviyo produces $1.03 in gross profit next year. - Lots of strong competitors such as: Adobe, Salesforce, Mailchimp, and Braze but still growing like crazy So how did they do it? I take a deep dive into 7ish go-to-market learnings I found from Klaviyo on this week's GTM News show. Here is summary of the learnings: 1. Great product that has an cute market need (yeah, I get it no brainer but shouldn't be discounted) 2. Growing market & focused on one vertical to start (e-commerce & retail) 3. Demonstrated impact through their version of ROI: Klaviyo at scale (KAV) 4. "Maniacally" focused on easy self service expansion 5. Crushed one GTM motion (PLG) and then went up market naturally (enterprise customers came to them) 6. Strategic Partnership with Shopify: ecosystem growth but didn't rely on Shopify to drive all the growth 7. Partner-led: over 5,000 agencies/consultants referred customers in 2022 (!!) 7.5. A good name is everything? I don't know about that. Can't tell if their name is brilliantly random/unique or it doesn't matter. And oh, they completely made it up. - What a cool company. I love to see companies create a great product, do awesome marketing, and get to profitability without blowing a ton of money along the way. What do you think of Klaviyo? P.s. S-1 and other public information are the only metrics or "benchmarks" I really trust these days. So much of the success metrics and benchmarks are lacking context. By law S-1s have to be overly transparent and share all the negatives and risk factors.

Building strategic partnership isn't a new concept. But one that is so important in 2023. There is so much noise in the market. The average person sees someone between 5,000 and 10,000 ads per day (Forbes) So how do you stand out? One amazing strategy is leverage partnerships with other organizations that serve your same ideal customer. Isaac Morehouse, CMO of Reveal and Co-Founder of PartnerHacker, shares their take on it: Nearbound

As Bob would say, "the time are a changin" B2B buyers behaviors are fast catching up to B2C / consumer behaviors. Buyers don't want friction. They just want it now. ​McKinsey recently came out of report​ that stating about 70 percent of decision makers are prepared to spend up to $500,000 on a single e-commerce transaction. Higher than the report I read last year from them. Also B2B organizations reported their best sales channel was self-service e-commerce vs. in-person, video, phone, etc. This "e-commerce" buying experience is also product-led growth in the B2B world. Could be a self-service freemium, free trial, etc. There is also ways a traditional sales-led (i.e. you have a sales person close the deal) organization can adapt these concepts to improve pipeline & sales velocity Julia Gilinets & I unpacked product-led growth and more in our recent conversation. - Trying something here: Here are some additional top picks & posts I found this week Interesting post from Tyler Pleiss on a ​lunch 'n learn ABM 1:1 strategy​ that I'm going to try soon Comprehensive post from Justin Rowe ​on how to do Linkedin ads right​ (and really any content distribution + advertising) My favorite B2B tech pick of the week on Linkedin ​​​ - P.s what other go-to-market related topics would you like to learn about? Taylor

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)