The Forget The Funnel Podcast

How do you empower your team to make better decisions in their day-to-day work to increase conversions and drive more revenue?Here’s the thing: Most companies claim to be customer-led. They say things like, “We talk to our customers all the time,” “Our CSAT scores are great," and “User testing is part of our DNA.” But actual customer-led growth means mobilizing your entire team around the ideal customer’s experience. Not piecemeal in Product, Marketing or CS.If you’re going to mobilize a truly customer-led team, you need to know which pitfalls to avoid and how to set your team up for success so that they can take customer insight and turn it into revenue-generating outcomes for your business. On this episode of the Forget the Funnel podcast, Georgiana and Claire break down why Customer-Led Growth is such a powerful tool for driving revenue and how it helps your team break down silos and actually align around your ideal customer. They also share the challenges you might encounter when implementing CLG and how to navigate them.Discussed:The benefits of Customer-Led Growth for teams and what it looks like to implement it well.The practicality of a CLG approach and how it helps teams build more relevant, resonant customer experiences to drive conversions, revenue, and all-around smarter decisions.Common traps that teams fall into when trying to implement — from practitioners who “go rogue” to having too many cooks in the kitchen — and how to avoid them.Key moments:1:32 - Georgiana describes what it looks like to implement customer-led growth, why a lot of companies that say they’re “customer-centric” are full of it, and the benefits of being truly customer-led.4:44 - Claire digs into why CLG helps teams feel more connected to the customer and the power of a shared language across different departments. She also describes how it helped one customer to have Jobs-to-Be-Done language in real time.7:00 - Georgiana shares how a CLG approach drives a better, more resonant customer experience, which, in turn, impacts conversion rates, revenue, and your highest-level business goals.9:44 - Claire describes how adding one question to your sign-up form can be a huge win for customer-led growth and trigger more valuable and relevant customer experiences right away.11:23 - The pair talks through some of the traps teams fall into when CLG goes wrong, starting with one person trying to push the project forward on their own without involving other stakeholders — AKA the lone wolf. 17:01 - Claire talks about another challenging dynamic: stakeholders cycling in and out of a project due to turnover. Georgiana offers her take on why it happens and how to navigate it.18:48 - You shouldn’t “lone wolf” customer-led growth, but involving too many stakeholders is a problem, too. Claire and Georgiana explore the challenges of having too many cooks in the CLG kitchen and share their firsthand experiences with it.22:43 - Georgiana ends the episode by sharing practical advice on how to involve the right stakeholders in CLG, like creating a project brief and forming a CLG team at the start of the project.As always, you can learn more about Forget The Funnel here: Read the Forget The Funnel Book Check out Forget the Funnel’s website

We need to talk about voice of customer — because there’s been a misunderstanding.Voice of customer isn’t just for huge companies. It’s also not an abstract, academic concept that’s too broad for teams to use. Done right, insights pulled from the words your customers use are practical and actionable. And they can help your team make better business decisions day in and day out. Best of all, you don’t have to undertake a massive, endless research project to start putting the words of your best customers, aka ‘Voice of Customer', to work for your business. You can tap into both quick-win and in-depth methods to capture and leverage those insights to attract way more great-fit customers.Ready to tap into VoC? Listen to this episode of the Forget the Funnel podcast as Georgiana and Claire dive deep into why the voice of the customer matters, how you can (and should) apply it to your business, and the methods you can use to get started.Discussed:Common misconceptions about voice of customer and how it fits into the foundational understanding of your customers.Methods for capturing voice of customer, including customer interviews, qualitative surveys, signup flows, social listening and other quick-win tactics.Practical applications for voice of customer, from your homepage copy to product positioning and onboarding experiences.Key moments:1:12 - Claire kicks things off by defining voice of customer, and Georgiana explains some of the misconceptions that might hold companies back from capturing and using it.5:16 - Georgiana takes a “then and now” look at the voice of customer concept. She compares how the term was first used in 1993 to how it looks today, with practical daily applications in areas like marketing. 8:38 - Georgiana explains how capturing voice of customer is part of foundational customer understanding. She also describes the output of those conversations: both high-level understanding and actual customer quotes.12:05 - Claire asks Georgiana to share some methods for capturing voice of customer beyond customer interviews.16:21 - Claire offers guidance for which methods to start with when gathering the voice of the customer and the importance of knowing that your insights are coming from your best-fit customers.21:51 - Georgiana speaks to the importance of recording and manually transcribing customer interviews — and why you shouldn’t use AI to transcribe for voice of customer.24:27 - Georgiana and Claire share an example of a customer who gathered the voice of the customer through qualitative surveys. What they learned completely changed their messaging, which led to a 93% increase in product sign-ups.30:39 - Voice of customer is versatile and applicable well beyond your website homepage. Georgiana closes out the episode by sharing the many applications for the voice of customer.As always, you can learn more about Forget The Funnel here: Read the Forget The Funnel Book Check out Forget the Funnel’s website

It’s rough out there in SaaS—everyone’s feeling it. Whether you’re trying to lower your acquisition costs, make the most of organic inbound interest, or better meet the needs of your technical buyers, you might be ready to take a more product-led approach to growth.But if you’re a sales-led organization, the transition to product-led can be bumpy, and the idea of switching probably raises more questions than answers. How do you validate that there’s a real ‘product-led’ opportunity for your SaaS? How do you prevent cannabilizing your sales opportunities?  What would a shift like this mean for your team? What are some low-risk ways to leverage your product for acquisition?If you’ve got questions like those, don't miss this Forget the Funnel podcast episode. Claire and Georgiana dig into all things product-led and share the indications that your SaaS is ready for a product-led approach, how to navigate company culture pitfalls, and the baby steps you can take to get started and validate the transition.Discussed:Key indicators that signal your SaaS is ready for product-led growth.Cultural and team alignment are essentials for a smooth transition to PLG, and marketing, product, and other teams might need to change.Practical starting points for integrating product-led tactics into your current business model. Key moments:2:03—Georgiana breaks down the differences between sales-led and product-led growth and other approaches to growth. 4:01 - Claire asks Georgiana to walk through the signs that a company might need to move toward product-led growth or that it’s time to transition away from founder-led sales. 9:14 - Team culture is critical in shifting to a product-led approach. Claire and Georgiana explore some potential growing pains when moving away from the sales-led structure (and where to focus on overcoming those).13:50—Claire shares the cautionary tale of a company where the CEO wanted to move to a product-led approach but didn’t do the legwork to get buy-in from the rest of the leadership team.15:06 - Georgiana explores how the move to product-led growth might look for different teams  — and how, in particular, the expectations of product and marketing need to shift.19:14—Georgiana explores tangible ways companies can start the transition from a purely sales-led to a product-led approach, including learning from their customers to better leverage their product.20:52 -  Claire and Georgiana break down examples of tactical entry points to PLG, like a video from the CEO when someone books a demo and sandboxes or other low-touch customer experiences.28:38—The pair closes out the episode by emphasizing how important it is to know your customers intimately before you can leverage product-led growth.As always, you can learn more about Forget The Funnel here: Read the Forget The Funnel Book Check out Forget the Funnel’s website

“We don’t need customer research; we already know our customers.” “Research takes too long.” “Is qualitative research even valuable enough?” These objections to customer research are super common—every day, founders and teams use these excuses (and oh so many more) not to learn more from their customers. Maybe you’re wrestling with these objections yourself or trying to move others past them to get internal buy-in for customer research. Either way, here’s the bottom line: There’s no better way to gain the intel you need to grow your SaaS and improve conversions than by getting inside your customers' heads.In this episode of the Forget the Funnel podcast, Claire and Georgiana break down the four most common myths about customer research they’ve encountered. They talk through where they come from, how to get past them, and why foundational customer understanding is critical for every business decision you make.Discussed:The top four customer research objections.The importance of building a foundational customer understanding based on 10 to 12 conversations with recent, paying, and happy customers—and why you don’t need to spend endless months and tens of thousands of dollars on research.How do changes in your customers, market, product, and team make customer research all the more urgent? Key moments:1:32 — Claire sets the stage for the episode by outlining the four most common objections to customer research.3:18—Georgiana discusses the most common research objection: “We already know our customers.” Claire explains why founders often feel this way and the problem with leaning on early-stage intuition long-term.6:22 — Georgiana speaks to the similar objection that customer success or product teams frequently research or interviews with customers and why this misses the forest for the trees.10:42 — Claire shares the second most common customer research objection: “Research takes too much time.” Georgiana breaks down where this objection comes from. (Hint: It’s usually prior experiences with research projects on a massive scale.)13:18 — Georgiana explains what it can look like to gain foundational customer understanding with 10 to 12 customer interviews, along with quicker wins like running a qualitative customer survey or adding a question to your sign-up form.18:49 — Georgiana introduces the third objection, which shows up when people think 10 interviews couldn’t possibly be enough or want quantitative proof. Claire breaks down the context you need when running customer interviews and the importance of pattern saturation, which you can get from 10 to 12 interviews.25:01 —  The fourth and final objection comes when a product moves into a new market, and the team doesn’t think they can learn from their current customer base. Georgiana explains why this objection has become more common in recent years.33:54 — The pair ends the episode by pointing to other episodes of the podcast and resources that explore these topics and objections more in-depth.As always, you can learn more about Forget The Funnel here: Read the Forget The Funnel Book Check out Forget the Funnel’s website

From competitive analysis to NPS surveys to UX research, research can help you grow your business and revenue. But you're wasting your time if you jump into those research types without a foundational understanding of your ideal customer and what they’re trying to accomplish. You’ll end up down unhelpful or misleading paths that leave you with more questions than answers. As they say, you’ll be ‘missing the forest for the trees’.Starting with qualitative customer interviews—conversations with your best customers about what led them to your solution in the first place and the value you’re driving for them now–is the gold standard for a reason.  Customer interviews are how you reverse engineer their experience to find and acquire more customers like them. In this episode of the Forget the Funnel podcast, Claire and Georgiana get super tactical about the art of interviewing customers. They explain what it takes to interview well, the critical elements of a Jobs-to-Be-Done interview, and the pitfalls to avoid when you’re new to customer research.Discussed:How to pick the right customers to interview and the skills that make someone a great customer interviewer so you can choose the right team member to run them.The elements of an effective Jobs-to-Be-Done style interview and questions to ask.Mistakes you should avoid in customer research, how a question script can help, and how bringing in an outside expert can be an advantage for deeper learning with the added benefit to the team.Key Moments:1:32—Georgiana asks Claire to clarify why you would choose customer interviews over other customer research methods. Claire shares how learning from your ideal customers is the foundational research that helps you make strategic decisions.5:02—Claire explains how one client with a broad customer base chose the right customers to interview: They started with a survey to gather key data points and identify who had embedded a critical feature into their workflow.9:27 - Claire explains the “unfair advantage” some of your team members may have for customer interviews: a knack for active listening and navigating unpredictability without getting flustered. 10:10 - Georgiana asks Claire to break down the elements of a Jobs-to-Be-Done-style interview, and Claire shares about guiding the customer to explain what their life looked like before they “hired” your solution.  17:21 - Claire breaks down the pitfalls to avoid if your team is new to customer research. She recommends having a question script (one you adapt as you go) or outsourcing customer interviews to an expert. 19:22—Georgiana talks about why sensing a customer’s energy makes interviewing a task that AI won’t be able to take over for humans anytime soon.22:20—The pair finishes out the episode with their advice to founders about outsourcing customer interviews: You get the benefit of external expertise, and someone from your team can ride sidecar to upskill and do it themselves in the future.As always, you can learn more about Forget The Funnel here: Read the Forget The Funnel Book Check out Forget the Funnel’s website

One study found that 70% of people who sign up for a product log in once… and then never again. That’s why customer-led KPIs aren’t just about measuring when someone becomes a “customer” — they’re about measuring the critical customer outcomes that lead to high retention. To do that, you must focus on genuine customer value: getting them from their first moment of value to value realization, continued value and beyond. So, how do you define your own customer-led KPIs? You need to know what “job” your customers are hiring your solution to solve for them. You need to understand what matters to them to map that value to the specific parts of your product that deliver that value.In this episode of the Forget the Funnel Podcast — the second of two episodes on customer-led KPIs — Claire and Georgiana share how to build your KPIs around moments of value for your customers. They explain how to map the customer experience, share examples of customer-led KPIs, and explore how to rally your team around your new KPIs.Discussed:What your customer journey map isn’t telling you and how the three phases of the customer experience will help you operationalize growth.The critical importance of getting the evaluation phase KPIs right and how to leverage Jobs-to-be-Done to measure value realization.How to rally your team around customer-led KPIs and maximize their impact on growth.Key Moments:1:47 - Claire and Georgiana explore the difference between customer journey mapping and customer experience mapping.3:31 - Georgiana shares why the evaluation phase of the customer experience is critical for setting customer-led KPIs — and how many teams get it wrong. She also breaks down the importance of first value and value realization at this stage.7:09 - Claire asks Georgiana to talk through examples of customer-led KPIs, and Georgiana walks through a hypothetical example of how to tie a particular product feature to a moment of value.9:52 - Georgiana defines value realization (AKA reaching true product engagement) and what a corresponding KPI looks like.11:10 - Before your customers get to value realization, your only job is to help them hit those value-focused KPIs — so you shouldn’t be throwing every possible feature at them. Georgiana explains that once they’ve hit value realization, you can shift to helping them get additional value through additional features or expanding to other team members.14:06 - Claire asks Georgiana to speak about how to rally people around customer-led KPIs instead of letting those metrics sit on the shelf. (Hint: Customer-led KPIs are way more motivating than transactional measures of success.)16:27 - Another way to embed customer-led KPIs for your team? Evaluate your current customer experience and figure out what’s misaligned with your new KPIs, which will open new opportunities. 17:48 - Claire finishes the episode by sharing advice for more mature and nimble companies to gather data to implement and track customer-led KPIs.As always, you can learn more about Forget The Funnel here: Read the Forget The Funnel Book Check out Forget the Funnel’s website

Learn why focusing on customer-led KPIs is crucial for driving growth. Discover how measuring moments of value instead of transactions can motivate and incentivize your team. Understand the importance of knowing which parts of your product drive customer value.

Not all customers are created equal.Increasing conversions with the right message to the right person at the right time is a pipe dream for most teams. The problem is that you haven't figured out how to meaningfully segment your customers to do it yet.We got you. In this episode of the Forget The Funnel Podcast, Claire and Georgiana deep dive into the de facto segmentation tools that have so many teams tripping over themselves – Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP), Personas & Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD). Walking through real-world examples, we break down when it's mission-critical to get segmentation right; your founder's intuition won't scale, your marketing and messaging are falling flat, and your product-led experiences need to pull their weight - AKA when you need to grow. Discussed:The differences between ICPs, Personas and JBTD - and when to leverage each in your decision-making. Why founder intuition doesn't scale and how a systematic understanding of customer segments is necessary for scale. How the promise of 'right message, right person, right time' is achievable and will help you grow more efficiently across marketing, sales and product.  Key Moments:1:58 - Claire and Georgiana outline some of the questions that are being asked at the executive-level around the use of customer segmentation tools like personas, ICPs and Jobs-to-be-Done.3:06 - Georgiana clarifies that no one customer segmentation tool is necessarily better than another; they all have their uses in different contexts. But getting a clear understanding on what these tools mean for your business is key. 5:38 - Claire and Georgiana share their definition of customer segmentation and give a real-world example of what this means in the context of a Forget The Funnel customer, SparkToro. They then break down their definitions of ICP and personas.9:37 - Georgiana asks Claire to unpack the nuance between the customer research done by teams using personas versus the customer research done using Jobs-to-be-Done.15:02 - Georgiana unpacks in what situations ICPs are the most useful tool for SaaS product and marketing teams, and when personas make more sense. 18:25 - Claire share one of the main takeaways from the episode - that founder intuition does not scale. You can intuit your way to getting the right person, at the right time, with the right message in the early days, but eventually you hit the point of diminishing returns - where you’ll then need to look at customer segmentation tools to unlock the next stage of growth. Claire shares the example of Attune to illustrate this.25:55 - The pair finish the episode by talking about the opportunity cost of failing to understand the different segments your product services - even during an economic downturn. As always, you can learn more about Forget The Funnel here: Read the Forget The Funnel Book Check out Forget the Funnel’s website

You operate in a crowded market. How are you going to stand out? That's what Claire and Georgiana discuss on this week's episode of the Forget The Funnel podcast.Differentiation is essential in helping cut through the noise and bring in more best-fit customers. Yet, many SaaS companies try to compete by obsessing over their competitors' strategies and messaging. We can tell you from experience… it never works. Drawing on real-world examples from their work with "landscaping.io" and "hiring.io", Claire and Georgiana share practical advice on how to switch from being competitor-obsessed to customer-obsessed and unlock the differentiated value you can offer your customers. Discussed:What are the challenges of building a SaaS company in crowded and commoditized markets, especially regarding "me too" messaging and positioning?How two SaaS teams went deep with their best-fit customers to uncover their differentiated value.How did this new understanding impact their product messaging and acquisition strategies to stand out from competitors and win customers? Key Moments:[2:07] Georgiana and Clare discuss how SaaS businesses often struggle to cut through the noise.[5:10] Claire shares responses to a survey from Peep Leja, which showed that Saas businesses often have difficulty with differentiation.[6:26] Claire talks through the example of a landscaping business that Forget The Funnel is currently working with, which was looking to redevelop its messaging while not risking a small window of seasonal sales opportunity. [16:02] Georgiana speaks about the importance of focusing on what your customers want instead of what your competitors are doing.[18:58] Claire shares another example of an international hiring company running an outbound sales strategy that looked the same as their competitors - and how they got close to their customers to understand that professional services were a key differentiator.[31:23] Both Georgiana and Claire wrap up this episode by saying SaaS companies need clarification by thinking that developing robust and differentiated messaging is a marketing exercise when it's not. As always, you can learn more about Forget The Funnel here: Read the Forget The Funnel Book Check out Forget the Funnel’s website

The numbers are in: SaaS growth is flat or down. Cost to acquire customers is up.Global startup investment over the last twelve months reached $285 billion — a 38% decline year over year, according to Crunchbase*.  Gone are the days of ‘move fast and break things’. SaaS leaders are being forced to think about efficiency or risk running out of runway.And we think this is a really good thing.Why?Finally, rather than spending more on the ‘top of the funnel’, founders are looking more closely at their positioning, messaging, onboarding and early product experience as the powerful growth levers they are. Also, more than ever before, it’s not just mature SaaS companies leveraging customer marketing for post-acquisition expansion strategies.In this episode, Georgiana Laudi & Claire Suellentrop dig into building resilience to the top of funnel challenges facing SaaS right now - from tactics to help lower the cost of acquiring new customers, to growing revenue by focusing on expanding your existing customers. Discussed:Why it’s now more complicated than ever to acquire new customers in SaaS - and the missed opportunity in successfully finding ways to expand revenue from existing ones.How to lower CAC and increase efficiency across the ‘funnel’ - from getting ridiculously close to the customer through research to building scalable customer experiences and programmatic communications. Key Moments: [4:44] Georgiana and Claire outline the reality facing many SaaS companies right now - a focus on profitability, slowed growth, and diminishing returns on once-reliable growth tactics. [8:20] The pair discuss why the evolution of customer expectations has led to the skillsets of SaaS teams becoming outdated in an era where net dollar retention is down across the board YoY - and the role leaders play in exacerbating this problem. [12:44] Georgiana unpacks how investing in an existing customer base by expanding on the value you already provide can unlock new opportunities for growth - and some of the ways you can practically do this. [19:01] The pair share their recommendations on how to address lowering the cost of acquisition and increasing efficiency across the board, from optimizing the customer experience for new sign-ups to getting ahead of customer attrition and expanding your existing customer base. [26:40] Georgiana covers the importance of focusing on the buyer champion across marketing and messaging and the danger of trying to talk to too many personas simultaneously - especially in enterprise sales. [30:50] The pair shares practical tips on how to better program reactive and proactive email marketing campaigns to attract new customers and retain/expand old ones. --*Source: https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/global-funding-data-analysis-ai-eoy-2023/As always, you can learn more about Forget The Funnel here: Read the Forget The Funnel Book Check out Forget the Funnel’s website