B2B Revenue Rebels

Today’s episode welcomes Austin Jouett, Full-Cycle Account Executive at Intentify Demand - a provider of demand and lead generation services, specializing in B2B sectors such as SaaS, IT technology, FinTech, Martech and HR Tech. They help businesses connect with their ideal prospects by delivering high quality and meticulously verified data including contacts, companies, firmographics and technographics.

Austin started out in door-to-door sales. There he was trained to never take no for an answer, which led to a lot of aggression from his prospects. This made him appreciate the safety of remote phone sales and gave him a thick skin when it comes to rejection.

His first SDR gig was at Demandbase, where he generated $2.8 million in pipeline becoming their top SDR in 2022. He started off as an inbound SDR, where he used qualified.com and an in-house ABM platform to prospect into deanonymized accounts. Prospects had to go through 3 different passes between differently ranked salespeople, which is not a great customer experience and led to a lot of ghosting.

Austin’s daily workflow for inbound and upsells consisted of taking the users of their ABM platform, analyzing signals within Demandbase and writing pipeline acceleration reports for his prospects. This got him to book a record of 16 meetings in a single month, which was 2.5x his quota. 

Tune into the full episode to learn Austin’s way of generating pipeline!

Connect with Austin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinjouett/

Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/

Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/

• (05:13) - What D2D skills translate to SDR skills?

In case you missed it - today’s episode contains the recording of the June 6th live event with Chris Walker and Alan Zhao about how to implement a signal-based go-to-market approach.

Chris’s new company, Passetto, combines proprietary signal-based analytics technology with expert strategic consulting to help B2B companies create breakthroughs in growth and profitability using data.

Signal-based go-to-market is an evolution of how sales teams identify which prospects have a higher likelihood to buy based on their engagement with vendors. These signals can be anything from a website visit to a “like” on a LinkedIn post. 

By identifying which signals have the highest intent, sales teams can then build a strategy around reaching out to the right accounts at the right time based on data, instead of taking a spray and pray approach to prospecting. 

Check out the recording to learn how to implement a signal-based go-to-market approach!

KEY INSIGHTS:
01:06 Why should we care about Signal-Based GTM?

02:40 Why signal-based selling is trending right now
04:33 Right fit vs right time vs right message
07:27 Signal-based categories and platforms
10:01 The problem with implementing signal-based platforms
11:54 Advantages of having a smaller GTM team
13:27 What are signal-based analytics?
14:53 Scrappiest way to approach signals
15:49 The ideal way to implement signals
20:01 How to track signals 
25:45 Structuring your signal data collection
28:24 Who should implement signal-based GTM?
30:12 How RevOps can pivot to signals
34:55 How to prioritize signals?
36:35 Building a modern GTM motion
40:21 Getting to $1M+ ARR
43:29 How to collect signal data 
46:50 How branding improves sales outcomes
49:32 Choosing marketing channels outside of LinkedIn

Today’s guest is Brian Lawrence, VP of Sales at Clazar - the cloud GTM co-pilot for software businesses of all sizes that recently received their $10 million Series A round.

Brian started his career at Oracle, where he moved up quickly and became one of the youngest managers at the company. When he was climbing up the ranks, a big part of his success was his willingness to learn and having a high level of curiosity. 

His leadership style is centered around building a culture of empathy, trust and collaboration. Brian doesn’t consider someone an A+ player solely based on their numbers. Instead, he looks for candidates that not only carry themselves up, but also those around. His biggest regrets as a sales leader have always come from hiring people who showed immediate red flags. 

Empathy, when displayed towards prospects, is one of the best ways to ensure that they’ll trust you and end up going with your solution when they’re ready to buy. At HelloSign, Brian had to build a strategy on how to sell to developers, who aren’t typically susceptible to aggressive sales tactics. They created content that showed a ton of self awareness and rebuilt their sales motion to cater to their new ICP, which ultimately won them enough business to get acquired by Dropbox down the line.

Tune into the full episode to learn about how to make empathy your ultimate sales superpower!

KEY INSIGHTS:
03:01 How to move up the ranks in sales
04:13 Infusing empathy into your leadership style
06:14 Why a culture of collaborators wins
08:32 Using empathy to win deals
12:01 How to become an expert in your market

Connect with Brian - https://www.linkedin.com/in/briantlawrence/
Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/

The jury is still out on the right way to utilize AI in B2B sales.

One thing is sure - AI and automation powered sales teams that stay lean are winning at a much higher rate than those who have gotten comfy over the last few years and have yet to figure out how to delegate gruntwork to machines.

Today’s guest is a master of sales efficiency. Over 5 ½ years, his team went from $0 - $30 million in ARR with only 4 salespeople using a truly efficient sales process, and now he’s gone all in on AI transformation for B2B sales and go-to-market as a whole.

Ryan Staley is the Founder & CEO of Whale Boss - a consultancy that helps Chief Revenue Officers & Sales Professionals leverage AI to work 10 hours less weekly and 2x their performance. He's also the host of The Scale Up Show - a top 2% podcast where he deconstructs how the top SaaS CEOs in the world grow their companies repeatedly and predictably.

During his early days as a sales leader, Ryan received quite a bit of flack for not having the right processes and systems in place to build a repeatable and scalable sales process. When opportunity struck and Ryan moved upmarket, he was determined to not make the same mistake again. His first a-ha moment came when he realized that most SaaS sales leaders don’t analyze their deal metrics enough to niche down and achieve efficient growth.

Ryan then started looking at the patterns between the biggest deals they closed and took a data-driven approach to the top 40 deals the company had closed. He noticed that certain verticals had better outcomes than others, and the real kicker was that a few of these verticals weren’t a focus point. His team then narrowed down on the few niche profiles that received the most value from their product and made it their full focus.

Tune into the full episode to learn more on how to become an efficient and effective sales org!

KEY INSIGHTS:
04:01 Going from 0 - 30$ Million with 4 Salespeople
06:22 How to find your true ideal client profile (ICP)
09:04 Which metrics should you track?
11:34 Why sales methodologies are flawed
13:57 Building a team of efficient sellers
15:47 Systemising your referral stream
17:03 How to utilize AI in B2B
20:29 Approaching AI the right way
22:29 Finding your personal AI use case

Connect with Ryan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-staley/

Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/

Many people don’t realize this but quite a few of your favorite platforms, including LinkedIn and Cameo, have implemented a product-led sales (PLS) motion a long time ago.

In short, product-led sales is a go-to-market approach that relies on existing users of the product to drive revenue.

Here’s the problem - if your PLS motion is implemented without a strategic approach to customer experience and enablement, you’ll end up in a worse position than if you gated the platform from the get-go. 

Today’s episode welcomes Karen Chi - Founder of Karen Chi Consulting and former GTM leader of LinkedIn and Cameo. She’s also the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of inVest Ventures - a Community VC fund investing in LinkedIn alumni founders building great companies.

There’s a common theme between signal-based GTM and product-led selling - interpreting data and predicting behaviors. Even though the concept of signal-based sales and product-led platforms started making waves recently, the concepts have been around for a long time. Karen recently attended the PLGTM conference and she’s ecstatic to see that there’s a passionate community around product-led companies.

Building a successful product-led sales motion requires a huge paradigm shift in how you think about your go-to-market. Karen says that you can’t expect your product-led motion to carry the weight throughout the whole sales process. Instead, you need to approach it with the mindset of “how do I build my product so our customers can get from 0-1 themselves” and then sales can take them from 1-100. The self-service experience can’t be just a glorified lead generation tool, as you end up creating a situation where your potential client lowers their expectations of the value of the platform effectively disqualifying themselves early in the process.

Check out the full episode to learn more about product-led go-to-market!

Connect with Karen - https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenychi/ 
Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/
Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/

• (05:32) - Starting a Venture Capital fund

B2B Influencer marketing is booming right now. According to Forbes 94% of B2B marketers say influencer marketing is a profitable strategy, yet if you ask around you’re bound to find skilled marketers or founders who invested heavily in creator partnerships and ended up seeing less than desirable results. 

Here’s the thing - unlike investing in safe, mature and refined marketing methods like ads or SEO, the influencer marketing route requires you to have a strong understanding of a few key aspects that might seem logical to a social media native person, but can blindsight you if you only got your first iphone after finishing college.

Today’s guest is Morgan J. Ingram, Founder of AMP -  a GTM production company that helps businesses drive sales through account-based content. Rather than traditional marketing, they create engaging video content and events tailored to key accounts. This earns trust and boosts sales by connecting with target customers in an impactful way.

Morgan segments creators into 3 categories - brand ambassadors, who typically talk about the brand they're associated with, influencers who are classic content creators with a large following and subject matter experts (SME’s) who are highly esteemed thought leaders in a particular niche. Knowing which creator category is best for your goals is going to make all the difference between a profitable and an unprofitable creator partnership.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to navigate the landscape of B2B influencers and build profitable partnerships with the right people!

KEY INSIGHTS:
03:36 The 3 tiers of B2B influencers
05:35 How to choose a brand ambassador 
06:27 Building a brand ambassador strategy
08:26 Structuring the right offer
10:16 B2B influencer outreach
11:57 Picking the person with the right content
14:20 Building up internal creators
16:52 How to identify the creators category
18:29 Aligning the incentives 
21:15 Structuring a deal with an influencer
24:25 B2B Influencer marketing attribution
26:05 Structuring a deal with a SME

Connect with Morgan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/morganjingram/

Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/

Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/

Today’s episode welcomes Aditya Vempaty, VP of Marketing at MoEngage - an insights-led customer engagement platform that can analyze customer behavior and engage them with personalized communication across the web, mobile, and email. MoEngage is a full-stack solution consisting of powerful customer analytics, AI-powered customer journey orchestration, and personalization - in one dashboard.

Positioning is an evergreen B2B marketing topic. Technical founders often go down the route of marketing their product based on the features and benefits without taking into account what matters most - the customer's voice. 

The best way to hear the customer's voice is surveying. In the most recent surveys at MoEngage, Aditya has been focusing on figuring out what channels they use most in cross-channel marketing and which channels are truly effective for his clients. He recommends always to ask about effectiveness, as that will typically be the north star that you can use to cater your messaging around. 

An omnichannel approach is great in theory, but with the maturity of online platforms people expect to consume content that is catered to them. Before creating, you need to put in some serious time into understanding where your customers natively reside, what formats they prefer and what a truly native experience feels like. Aditya recommends that you figure out a few platforms and formats that are your best bets and then focus on how to drive customer engagement.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to master positioning!

Connect with Aditya - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adityavempaty/

Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/

Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/

• (01:47) - Aditya Vempaty’s Background

This episode continues the conversation with Chris Walker -  Executive Chairman of Refine Labs and CEO of Pasetto - a GTM Strategy Consultancy that helps B2B Executives identify and execute against their highest priority growth levers with confidence and clarity. He’s also the host of B2B Revenue Vitals - one of the most beloved podcasts in the B2B revenue ethos.

Chris brings up the statistic that 50% of revenue is typically budgeted towards your go-to-market motion, which most of the time leads to about 1/5th of that being recouped in ARR. This shouldn’t be the case, as without a constant stream of venture capital this model is unsustainable. His solution is to opt in for signal based go-to-market - a new category that looks at capturing buying signals, which allows you to identify who's in-market (or who's about to be), prioritize accordingly, and take action with context.

The Go-To-Market paradigm shift that Chris recommends is a pretty simple concept - stop your sales team from talking to people who are never going to buy. The idea of signal analytics and signal-based go-to-market as a whole is to have accurate data that indicates the probability of someone buying your product without wasting sales resources, and reducing your dependency  on the skill of the salesperson.

Chris’s new company, Passetto, is creating a new category - signal analytics. They’re focused on figuring out which signals are worth using to trigger different events in the funnel and dissecting data to achieve a higher level of go-to-market efficiency. Their core focus right now is to make sure you’re aware of the things that are NOT working and to battle B2B data survivorship biases, which have led profitable companies to overspend on inefficient aspects of their GTM motion.

Tune into the full episode to learn more about signal-based go-to-market!

Connect with Chris - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriswalker171/

Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/

Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/

• (01:22) - Getting to profitable, efficient growth

B2B has recently been obsessed with the word “dead”.

Cold calling. Email marketing. Blogs. Interview based podcasts. You name it - someone’s made a case on a LinkedIn post that it’s dead and discouraged many from strategies that have worked for seemingly forever.

Truth is - in 2024, the word “dead” is more relevant than ever when used to refer to methodologies that were once defining the B2B revenue landscape.

Between the downfall of free venture capital, the steady rise of AI and the macroeconomical state of the world, what worked yesterday no longer works today. Or possibly it never worked in the first place - you just didn’t need to pay attention when the times were good.

Today’s guest is Chris Walker - Executive Chairman of Refine Labs and CEO of Pasetto - a GTM Strategy Consultancy that helps B2B Executives identify and execute against their highest priority growth levers with confidence and clarity. He’s also the host of B2B Revenue Vitals - one of the most beloved podcasts in the B2B revenue ethos.

For the last few years, Chris has been one of the rare voices in B2B that’s called out companies on their ineffective spending habits and tried to push the market towards data-driven thinking. He challenges B2B companies to make transformational changes to their go-to-market motion instead of trying to incrementally improve outdated models that simply don’t work.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to build a modern B2B go-to-market playbook!

Connect with Chris - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriswalker171/

Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/

Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/

• (02:14) - The Chris Walker method of revenue

Whether you know it or not, your business has a Nearbound sales strategy.

Here’s the secret nobody told you - this type of partner revenue is exactly what drives most of the growth for high performing SaaS companies that take over the market seemingly out of nowhere.

So what is nearbound? In simple sales terms, those are the deals that close quickly because the prospect already trusts you before the conversation even begins, as they trust the people that recommended you in the first place. This doesn’t have to be a random occurrence though.

Today’s guest is Jared Fuller - Co-Founder and CEO of nearbound.com, and your best source to learn how to build a Nearbound strategy that helps you successfully market with people that your buyers already trust.

Jared has always been a serial entrepreneur. He likes to say that his early career is a graveyard of dead startups - but between his early losses you can see huge career highlights like helping grow PandaDoc and Drift into unicorns.

For smaller startups, Jared recommends building a list of your best customers and asking them about the vendors they use and trust. The top relationships on this list are the ones that control the mindshare of your buyer, meaning you should find a meaningful way to interact and partner with these companies to become part of their ecosystem. He recommends figuring out a way to collaborate on content that has you doing all of the grunt work and letting your collaborator become the hero at the lowest possible investment.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to build your nearbound strategy!

Connect with Jared - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredfuller/

Check out Jared’s bestseller - https://www.amazon.com/Nearbound-Rise-Economy-Jared-Fuller-ebook/dp/B0CW2WPBS6

Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/

Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/

• (01:47) - From partnerships to nearbound