Dani Hart is the former Head of Growth at GrowthHackers. In this episode Dani gives us a behind the scenes pass to life at GrowthHackers and as she shares her experiences leading their growth team. We discuss: - their growth team’s objectives and goals - the different roles they had - the process and methodology the team used to run their operations - challenges of growing a multi-product business - how growth and marketing worked together - what it was like working with Sean Ellis, GrowthHackers CEO & Godfather of the GrowthHacking movement --- Links: GrowthHackers >> https://growthhackers.com/ Growth Gal >> https://growthgal.com/ Never Split The Difference >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26156469-never-split-the-difference Peak Performance >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31450959-peak-performance Zapier >> https://zapier.com/ --- Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com Follow The Growth Hub on Twitter >> twitter.com/SaaSGrowthHub Follow Edward on Twitter >> twitter.com/NordicEdward

David Cancel knows what it takes to grow a successful SaaS company. Why? He's done it five times. After his fourth company, Performable, was acquired by HubSpot in 2011 he became Chief Product Officer. But in late 2014, with just one month to go until their IPO, David left HubSpot to set up Drift with his co-founder Elias Torres. They didn't have an idea. They didn't have a product. But what they did have, was an obsession to solve problems for their customer. With a contradictory, unconventional, and unscalable approach to growth, David and the Drift team have combined customer-centric strategies with counter-intuitive tactics to unlock hypergrowth and scale from 0-150K customers in just over four years. This episode explains how, including: - Why Drift jumped into a highly commoditised and competitive market - The evolution of SaaS and the three waves of software as a service -- The Edison Wave -- The Henry Ford Wave -- The Procter & Gamble Wave - How to find your wedge and be focused in your early stage - The importance of investing in brand from day one - Why Drift created a brand new category, conversational marketing, and how it’s changing the way marketing & sales teams operate - The unconventional and unscalable things Drift have done to grow their business --- Links Drift >> https://www.drift.com/ Conversational Marketing book >> https://www.drift.com/conversational-marketing-book/ This Won't Scale book >> https://www.drift.com/books/this-wont-scale/ Hypergrowth >> https://hypergrowth.drift.com/ Managing Oneself >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2477223.Managing_Oneself Invision >> https://www.invisionapp.com/ Follow David on Twitter >> https://twitter.com/dcancel --- Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com Follow The Growth Hub on Twitter >> twitter.com/SaaSGrowthHub Follow Edward on Twitter >> twitter.com/NordicEdward

One of the great things about marketing is that it requires you to be both analytical yet creative, and perhaps there are fewer people who know as much about both sides of this coin as Allen Gannett, CSO at Skyword. Allen is Founder and former CEO of TrackMaven, a SaaS marketing analytics platform, and author of The Creative Curve, a book that breaks down the four laws of creativity. In this episode we bring these worlds together as we explore the science behind creativity to understand how we as marketers can create things that are both novel and valuable. With real life examples from J.K. Rowling and Kanye West to Ben & Jerry's and Pixar, Allen challenges stereotypes around creativity and explains the science behind achieving creative success in any field, including B2B growth marketing. This episode covers: - What creativity actually is and how we can learn to become creative - An introduction and breakdown of The Creative Curve, a step-by-step framework that explains the four laws of creativity: Consumption, Imitation, Creative Communities, and Iterations - How we as marketers can become more creative - Creative marketing initiatives Allen and the TrackMaven team have run in the past --- Links Skyword >> https://www.skyword.com/ TrackMaven >> https://trackmaven.com/ The Creative Curve >> https://www.thecreativecurve.com/ Creativity Inc. >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18077903-creativity-inc Content Marketing Institute Blog >> https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/blog/ Ann Handley's Blog & Newsletter >> https://annhandley.com/ Follow Allen on Twitter >> https://twitter.com/Allen --- Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com Follow The Growth Hub on Twitter >> https://twitter.com/SaaSGrowthHub Follow Edward on Twitter >> https://twitter.com/NordicEdward

If you've ever looked at Scot Brinker's MarTech 5000, then you know the B2B SaaS market is extremely crowded. The modern buyer has a vast amount of options when it comes to software that will help them be more successful in their work. And that's great for buyers, but less so for sellers. So how can you stand out and differentiate within noisy, crowded, and competitive markets? Well, the answer is positioning. And to explore this topic in more detail we caught up with April Dunford, an expert on market strategy and positioning in B2B SaaS. Having launched 16 products to market, held multiple executive roles, and secured successful exits, April explains how companies can bring products to market and get them into the hands of customers that are willing to pay for them. In this episode we explore the world of positioning and what it means for B2B SaaS companies, including: - What positioning is and the factors that impact and influence your positioning - A step by step walkthrough of a positioning framework you can use to help ensure you reach the right positioning for your product - How you can use positioning to stand out in noisy, crowded markets - The role of positioning as part of your category strategy - Some real life stories of positioning challenges April has faced throughout her career - A sneak peek into April’s upcoming book on positioning, Obviously Awesome, and what we can expect when it launches Links: April Dunford >> https://aprildunford.com/ Obviously Awesome: How to nail positioning so customers get it, buy it, love it >> https://aprildunford.com/positioning-book/ Positioning: The battle for your mind >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/760025.Positioning The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Startups That Win >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/762542.The_Four_Steps_to_the_Epiphany Sampler >> https://sampler.io/ Level Jump >> https://www.leveljumpsoftware.com/ SparkToro Trending >> https://sparktoro.com/trending Follow April on Twitter >> https://twitter.com/aprildunford --- Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com Follow The Growth Hub on Twitter >> @SaaSGrowthHub Follow Edward on Twitter >> @NordicEdward

Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah launched HubSpot in 2006 and since then the company has grown to a team of over 2000 people across 8 offices around the world, filed for an IPO in 2014, and achieved revenue of $375M in 2017. HubSpot Co-Founder & CEO Brian Halligan was recently in Helsinki and he stopped by the Advance B2B office for a fireside talk where he shared several lessons from his 12+ years in SaaS and building HubSpot, including: - A typical week in the life of HubSpot’s CEO - The 5 growth chapters of HubSpot and the evolution of B2B marketing & sales - The importance of building a gorgeous end to end customer experience and why SaaS is now a platform game - Challenges, mistakes and learnings from building HubSpot and things Brian would do differently now - How HubSpot has shifted from funnel thinking to flywheel thinking - The evolution of marketers and the importance of investing in your people Links HubSpot >> https://www.hubspot.com/ Blitzscaling >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38398157-blitzscaling Platform Leadership >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/323472.Platform_Leadership?from_search=true Shoe Dog >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27220736-shoe-dog?from_search=true Follow Brian on Twitter >> https://twitter.com/bhalligan --- Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com Follow The Growth Hub on Twitter >> @SaaSGrowthHub Follow Edward on Twitter >> @NordicEdward

There are few people who know the worlds of B2B SaaS and B2B marketing as well as Rand Fishkin. Rand has worked in the field for over 15 years and throughout the course of his career he's founded two SaaS companies, Moz & SparkToro, co-founded inbound.org with HubSpot’s Dharmesh Shah, published his book "Lost & Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World", is a renowned keynote speaker, and you might also know him as the star of Moz's ever so popular Whiteboard Friday video series. In this episode we draw on all those years of experience as Rand shares his field guide to B2B SaaS Marketing where we discuss: - The actual purpose of marketing and what it should achieve - The evolution of the SaaS space from 2003 to 2018 and what it means for marketers today - How to balance between long-term growth strategies and short-term growth tactics - How to develop your content marketing strategy and factors you need to consider - The importance for marketers and SaaS companies to be behaviour-driven and not goal-driven - Why Rand started SparkToro and some of the important lessons he learned from building Moz that he’s applied to SparkToro - How Rand’s developing the marketing strategy for SparkToro - The marketing strategies that worked for Rand back in 2003 and that still hold true today Links: SparkToro >> https://sparktoro.com/ Moz >> https://moz.com/ SparkToro Trending >> https://sparktoro.com/trending The Law of Shitty Clickthroughs >> https://andrewchen.co/the-law-of-shitty-clickthroughs/ Lost & Founder >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35957156-lost-and-founder The Billionaire Who Wasn't >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2842145-the-billionaire-who-wasn-t Indie Hackers >> https://www.indiehackers.com/ Typeform >> https://www.typeform.com/ Follow Rand on Twitter >> https://twitter.com/randfish --- Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com Follow The Growth Hub on Twitter >> @SaaSGrowthHub Follow Edward on Twitter >> @NordicEdward

Tanja Törnroos is Brand Manager at Zervant, a Helsinki-based SaaS company where she joined as employee number three over five years ago. A central theme on this podcast is growth and growth should be the true north for every SaaS company and every SaaS marketer. In this episode we look at growth from a personal perspective and explore how you can adopt a growth mindset, including: - Why we need to adopt a growth mindset - The importance of having a growth mindset in marketing - Tanja's three-step framework to adopt a growth mindset 1. Think like an entrepreneur 2. Explore like a pioneer 3. Grow on your own terms - Examples from Tanja's professional and personal life - The Magic 20 Framework, an exercise to help you adopt a true growth mindset Links: Zervant >> https://www.zervant.com/en/ Marie Forleo >> https://www.marieforleo.com/ Marie Forleo: How to get anything you want >> https://www.marieforleo.com/how-to-get-anything-you-want/y/ Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24453082-big-magic Teachable >> https://teachable.com/ Connect with Tanja on LinkedIn >> https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanjatornroos/ --- Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com Follow The Growth Hub on Twitter >> twitter.com/SaaSGrowthHub Follow Edward on Twitter >> twitter.com/NordicEdward

When Gia Laudi joined Unbounce she was the first hire in the marketing team. From the early startup days where she dug into all areas of marketing right through to becoming VP where she led a team of 35 marketers, Gia has seen first hand what it takes to build a high-performing marketing team in B2B SaaS. In this episode Gia shares the story of how the Unbounce marketing team grew, including: - what kind of person founders should look for in their first marketing hire - how to evangelise the role of marketing in product and tech led SaaS companies - skills and core-competencies marketing teams need as they scale - the benefits of hiring generalists and specialists and when to look for them - how your skill set and mentality needs to adapt as you transition from a marketing ops role to a marketing leadership role - key reasons why the Unbounce marketing team performed at such a high-level and achieved the results they did - the future skills B2B SaaS marketers and marketing teams will need Links: Unbounce >> https://unbounce.com/ Forget The Funnel >> https://forgetthefunnel.com/ A Better CX >> https://abettercx.com/ April Dunford's book, Obviously Awesome: How to nail product positioning so customers get it, buy it, love it >> https://aprildunford.com/positioning-book/ Gia's recommended resources >> http://www.valgeisler.com/ https://nicholeelizabethdemere.com/ https://aprildunford.com/ https://getuplift.co/ https://copyhackers.com/ https://www.reforge.com/brief/ Follow Gia on Twitter >> https://twitter.com/ggiiaa --- Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com Follow The Growth Hub on Twitter >> twitter.com/SaaSGrowthHub Follow Edward on Twitter >> twitter.com/NordicEdward

Marketing Mary. Developer Dave. Consultant Carol... We've all built "buyer personas", but can we truly say that we understand our customers? Claire Suellentrop of userlist.io and Forget The Funnel is super passionate about this topic, so I caught up with her to explore the world of customer research and uncover how marketers can better understand their customers. In this episode we hear about: - what it really means to be customer-centric - how you should go about building buyer personas - the jobs-to-be-done framework and how marketers can use it to conduct customer research - questions to ask in customer interviews - how to apply your findings in your marketing Links: User List >> https://userlist.io/ Forget The Funnel >> https://forgetthefunnel.com/ Claire's JTBD Interview template >> https://docs.google.com/document/d/183PzYjQi2vsIRlPMUrtzRwZF1VdnZWNDAZsrJ4MRT4Q/edit When Coffee & Kale Compete >> http://www.whencoffeeandkalecompete.com/ Alan Klement's post on Copy Hackers about jobs to be done >> https://copyhackers.com/2014/11/jobs-to-be-done-copywriting/ Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6570502-switch Claire's recommended resources >> https://sixteenventures.com/ https://copyhackers.com/ http://www.valgeisler.com/blog/ Follow Claire on Twitter >> https://twitter.com/ClaireSuellen --- Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com Follow The Growth Hub on Twitter >> twitter.com/SaaSGrowthHub Follow Edward on Twitter >> twitter.com/NordicEdward

Sangram Vajre, Co-founder & Chief Evangelist at Terminus, shares the story of the #FlipMyFunnel movement and discusses topics such as account-based marketing, building communities instead of commodities, and dominating existing categories. Learn how to start a movement in marketing and market like a category leader.