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Megan Bowen (CEO of Refine Labs) mentioned  on LinkedIn 

"The most important discipline that mid-market and enterprise B2B SaaS companies need to be cultivating is...Change management This is especially true for successful companies that have been around for 1-2 decades, that have been able to more easily manage the recent turbulence in B2B SaaS over the last few years and are still executing an outdated GTM strategy

The relative success of companies at this stage is hiding GTM inefficiencies so many don’t even perceive it’s a problem. This is the biggest risk for these companies - they are not seeing and acknowledging this is a real threat to their long term survival. If companies don’t start to change now, their ability to grow sustainably will degrade with increasing speed"

At Personal ABM, we believe that change goes beyond evolving just the digital marketing strategies and it must include a mindset shift, a measurement shift and changes across the entire GTM strategy and execution. The issue we often see  is that GTM teams retrofit ABM on top of existing sales/marketing processes, content, messaging and experiences. They make it about better targeting vs. changing the account experiences that are delivered. ABM should change...

• How you think about your business
• How you differentiate from competitors
• How you package your solutions
• How you communicate your value
• How you engage buyers across the organization across the buyiong journey and customer lifecycle
• How you structure your GTM teams
• How you win, protect and expand accounts as 1 team
• How you measure success.
• Plus much more...

During this episode, Kristina Jaramillo, Eric Gruber and Joel Harrison (Founder and Editor-at-Large at B2B Marketing) discuss the changes that ABM should bring. 

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In this ABM Done Right Podcast episode, Peter Mollins (a 2X guest on the podcast and CMO of Nooks) joined Eric Gruber to discuss the "signals" that GTM teams should pay attention to that go beyond intent data. 

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On LinkedIn, Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber have been talking a lot about teams not being ABM-ready. They are simply retrofitting ABM on top of existing processes, content, messaging etc -- and they are not making the changes they need to land and expand high-value accounts.  As a result, they struggle with accounts going dark. They struggle with accounts becoming stuck or disengaged,. They struggle with accounts churning. 

Within this podcast, Mark Osborne and Eric Gruber talk about the GTM assessment that needs to be done before you even think about ABM,  

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At Personal ABM, we believe that ABM is not really about accounts. Everyone focuses on tiering, segmentation and prioritization of accounts but ABM is really about improving the interactions that teams have with the human buyers in the accounts we want to win, protect and expand. It's about improving the account experience for these human buyers.

In this podcast, Sal Vilardo at Maverick Solutions talks with Personal ABM CEO (Eric Gruber) on how GTM teams can humanize ABM. You will learn:

1. How ABM programs are going sideways because they focus on the "brand" or the organization (the larger picture) and most GTM teams forget about the people within the account we need to engage. They're missing the human aspect on what the buyers think about, care about, want, need -- and how they interact. If you are not connecting with the people in the right way - you have a great chance of losing despite how aligned you are with the organization.

2. We need to put a stronger focus on "buyer enablement" as teams are losing the internal conversation and it's because teams do not have the right content, messaging, stories or the business case where each buyer sees how the gaps impact them personally, each of the contributors, and the collective business. We need to help buyers evaluate information, prioritize various sources,  quantify trade-offs while helping the buyers come to their own conclusion on why they need you to fix their challenges, fill their gaps, and achieve their strategic objectives. 

3. Teams are not thinking about that month or so where buyers "say" they'll move forward and they are going through legal processes or conversations with the CFO. Too many times, sales and marketing teams go dark during this time or follow up with continual check-ins vs. giving them the resources they need for conversations with the CFO and legal or giving them the resources to help them get things in order for onboarding. Again, it's about enabling the buyers. 

4. Why Sal hates intent and why he says it's a lagging indicator. With all the tools that are pulling intent from different places, everyone is using it. You run off the same information that everyone else has and in many cases, the intent is lagging behind action by the time it gets to us. Because the platforms are capturing intent, it doesn't mean that the process stopped between when it was captured and when it was delivered. Also, if they are showing intent, then they most likely have their short-list selected and they have predefined needs which automatically result in smaller deal sizes. Intent is also not predictive of an account landing and expanding with you. We need to understand the account story and the buyers within that account.

5.  Most GTM teams are not thinking about the cohesiveness of the account experience throughout the buyer's journey and customer lifecycle. We have to think about the cohesive experience that Disney provides that makes every touchpoint and interaction feel magical. Disney understands that the experience that one team delivers that will impact the experiences that the other teams deliver. It's the same thing when it comes to ABM. If sales and marketing teams do not create the right account and buyer experience then customer success teams will have a challenging time trying to retain and expand the accounts. 

6. Marketing needs to be able to provide thought processes and insights to allow other teams to further cast the buying vision with target accounts and their buyers. This is where account insights and understanding the account story is important. It's about giving content for specific sales conversations and internal conversations. It's about providing the account POV so teams can come to each buyer interactions with a POV about their business. It's about sharing how we need to reframe the specific thoughts and ideas of specific buyers to get the a-ha moment.

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David Keene, the European CMO for Wipro, recently joined Eric Gruber (CEO of Personal ABM) on the ABM Done Right Podcast to discuss his ABM hot takes including:

1. How ABM shouldn't replace demand gen and brand marketing pillars.

2. How we shouldn't think so much about MQLs or even MQAs and how we need a narrow view of the funnel where we are focused on accounts that have a very low chance of losing and a very high chance of moving to revenue at a high ACV 

3. How 1:1 ABM is about the people inside the accounts we want to land and expand so it's important to incorporate personality-based marketing into your ABM program.

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Honni Marks (1:1 Strategic ABM Lead at Red Hat) joined Eric Gruber on the ABM Done Right Podcast to discuss:

1. What it means to take a strategic 1:1 ABM approach.
2. The role 1:1 ABM should play in an account-based GTM program and how it should be used to expand key accounts.
3. The executive engagement that's needed for a 1:1 ABM program and how we should enable executive engagement teams.
4. How to leverage data to tell the account story
5. The 1:1 ABM content that's needed.


 

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Intent should not be your biggest factor when it comes to account selection for ABM. In fact, intent-qualified leads tend to result in lower deal sizes as everyone is reacting to the same signals and predefined needs to the point that it becomes a cost-based decision for buyers. 

By focusing on the ICP, you can identify those accounts that are a best fit, match your business problem profile and are most likely ready for your solution even though they may not be showing intent. With these accounts, you can create the need and greenfield opportunity that leads to larger deal sizes.

Adam Schoenfeld (CEO of Keyplay.io) joins Eric Gruber on the ABM Done Right Podcast to talk about:

1. Intent leads vs.  ICP opportunities -- what is better
2. How teams are ineffectively defining their ICP
3. How the ICP should be operationalized across the organization
4. How we should engage the ICP

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Last time on the ABM Done Right Podcast, when he was at Clari, Tyler Pleiss shared why he was taking a 1:1 ABM approach to penetrate 3 markets that were years behind when it came to RevOps. 

Now, Tyler is at Movable Ink and is shifting the perspective on ABM and the triangle. Listen to the podcast to see how the ABM triangle is no longer relevant. 


 

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Most of the ABM content and insights being shared on LinkedIn, on podcasts and in webinars are redundant so we challenged Lindsay Baggett (ABM leader at Tanium) to address some hot takes that others haven't thought about. 

The ABM hot takes that Lindsay and I talk about are:

1. Most organizations are not ABM-ready when they launch their ABM pilot.

2. ABM is not about better marketing. It's about taking a different approach. What are we doing differently with ABM that other functions can't because they are forced to do things at scale?

3. Your buyers are the drivers -- and GTM teams are the pit crew helping buyers get across the finish line. But too many customers are being left hanging half-way through their journey. 

4. We have to score our GTM teams that will benefit from ABM  just like we need to score the accounts we put into the program.

5. If you're talking about campaigns and plays then you're doing random acts of ABM. 

6. Alignment is not enough - we need integration. We can align on the ICP, account lists, activities etc -- but if we do not have the integration then accounts are likely to go dark. We need to work together to create the account experience that buyers desire so we can speed up sales cycles, increase deal size sizes and drive more closed/wons.  

7. Marketing is often reactive once accounts are in the pipeline -- we need to be proactively equipping sellers and GTM teams to move buyers in their journey and keep them from stalling. We need to think about what buyers need right now to get them to the next stage. This is what Lindsay calls ABM-as-a-Service and what we at Personal ABM call account-based enablement.

8.  ABM teams need to understand sales approaches and methodology like Challenger. If you do not know how sales plays the game -- how can you help them win.

9. If you're letting intent data dictate your account selection process and your ABM program, then you're not ready for ABM.

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When you hit the core with the right content and messaging, that's when you'll see win rates jump, deal sizes go higher and the greatest lifetime value increases from your future and existing customers. But most GTM teams do not have a clear understanding of who their core is and why. 

Most ICPs suck as GTM teams do not dig deep enough so that the ICP is predictive of the accounts that will most likely move forward and deliver the greatest revenue growth. As a result, GTM teams are always guessing who to talk to next.

In this ABM Done Right Podcast episode, Jonathan Spier (CEO of Rev Inc) discusses with Eric Gruber (CEO of Personal ABM) how to get the ICP right.