The Demand Gen Death SpiralWe were recently brought in to do an assessment for a B2B SaaS company, when we looked at their data we quickly realized then were in what I call the "demand gen death spiral." Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? It should—this is a place no company wants to be, yet many end up there.When we recognize this spiral during an assessment, it’s like watching a horror movie where the characters make the choice to go down into the basement. You can see the disaster coming and wonder: why head in this direction?So, what exactly is the demand gen death spiral?The demand gen death spiral happens when companies divert resources from effective strategies to double down on ineffective demand generation tactics. This reallocation causes performance to decline even faster, while marketing teams and agencies cherry-pick positive data points to justify the increased spend. This selective view hides the bigger picture of overall performance decline.Warning Signs You’re in the Demand Gen Death Spiral:- Missing revenue targets- Decline in branded search impressions year over year- Drop in direct traffic year over year- A high percentage of paid search revenue tied to branded search terms- Rising cost per click and overreliance on PMax campaigns- Spending across multiple channels that generates high volumes of low-quality leadsUnfortunately, many B2B SaaS companies are caught in this cycle.How to Escape the Demand Gen Death Spiral:Stop, reassess, and return to marketing fundamentals. Shift your focus to understanding core performance metrics and building a strategy grounded in your brand and true value creation.

The Counterintuitive Way to Build Your B2B Brand

Four years ago, we conducted a marketing assessment for a B2B SaaS company. As always, we started with a competitive analysis. The results were predictable—big brands were dominating the market. But one smaller brand that was a competitor to our client stood out. Founded by industry veterans, they had built a brand and product that resonated deeply with their niche audience. They used their expertise to solve real problems, and it worked. They were growing and taking on industry leaders.Fast forward to today. We were brought back for another assessment. Once again, the big brands were growing. But that smaller brand that had been growing? They were now in decline.What changed?Since our last assessment, they had received private equity funding and they likely felt pressure to grow. Reading their press releases and looking at their marketing it is apparent they chose to dramatically expand the audience they were selling to and rebranded to appeal to that wider audience. In the process, they lost the things that made them differentiated and distinct.The results? Since their pivot and brand update, their share of search has fallen by 47% and they had to lay off almost 20% of their employees. The key takeaways?1. Brand “refreshes” can go terribly wrong - It is always tempting to pull the rebrand lever to drive growth, but is it really necessary?  Building a distinctive brand takes years and you can wipe out your investment in an instant by rebranding. 2. As a B2B challenger brand, it is better to be loved by a smaller audience than just liked by many - When you are a big brand, you can offer an OK product and still grow. But as a smaller brand, you need to realize that buyers are risk averse and won't choose you unless they have a very compelling reason.  Trying to appeal to many can cause a company to lose the aspects of their brand and product that provided that compelling reason to switch.3. Don’t change who you are to open new markets - Opening new markets can drive growth, but not at the expense of your identity. Growth strategies should build on your brand's strengths, not dilute them.

Here’s a story that should be a wake-up call for B2B SaaS CEOs. Even when you think you’re doing everything right, your data might be leading you toward decisions that could undermine your growth.You’re the CEO of a B2B SaaS company focused on driving growth. Your CMO proposes shifting from your traditional inbound sales motion to a product-led growth (PLG) strategy. Being cautious, you decide to run a test rather than jump straight in.Here’s what happened:Q1 Results:Inbound: 582 opportunities, 183 deals, CVR = 31.44%PLG: 140 opportunities, 45 deals, CVR = 32.14%Encouraged by the results, you expand the PLG test in Q2.Q2 Results:Inbound: 48 opportunities, 12 deals, CVR = 25%PLG: 411 opportunities, 104 deals, CVR = 25.30%After two quarters, it seems like a no-brainer: PLG is outperforming inbound. The higher conversion rates suggest PLG is the future, right?Not so fast.When you combine the results from both quarters, the data tells a different story:Combined Results:Inbound (Q1 + Q2): 630 opportunities, 195 deals, CVR = 31%PLG (Q1 + Q2): 551 opportunities, 149 deals, CVR = 27%Suddenly, your traditional inbound motion is performing 15% better than PLG. How can that be?This is Simpson’s Paradox—a statistical phenomenon where trends that appear in separate data sets reverse when you combine them. Though I used a test of PLG to highlight the challenge, Simpson’s Paradox can occur in many areas:- College admissions- Medical treatments- Income distributions- Sports- A/B testing- And many more...In fact, in this example, the data comes from a real-life instance from baseball. In 1995 and 1996, David Justice had a higher batting average than Derek Jeter. But when you combine the two years, Jeter comes out on top. The data flips when looked at holistically.I’ve been hearing lately about how easy it is to use data to guide marketing decisions, but the truth is, even simple tests can lead you astray if you’re not careful. This example might seem straightforward, but that’s the point—even the simplest decisions can be wrong for reasons most people would overlook.The Lesson: What looks like straightforward data can be deceptively misleading. Before making any decisions, ask yourself:- Are we analyzing the data in the right way?- Are we weighing results properly across different cohorts and time periods?- Are we sure that short-term trends won’t reverse when looked at over time?Making the wrong call based on faulty interpretation of data can be costly. Making the right decision might not be easy. Always dig deeper—your growth depends on it.

As a B2B SaaS CEO, just acquiring a few more customers is not the goal —you’re building something that solves a pain so well that it drives its own growth. That’s where product-market fit to scale comes into play.

So, what is product-market fit really?Product-market fit (PMF) occurs when a company's product successfully satisfies a strong market demand. Marc Andreessen, who coined the term, describes it as "being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market."

But here’s the next level:

Product-market fit to scale means your product is so strong that growth starts to happen organically.

This is the inflection point where customer acquisition costs (CAC) drop, word of mouth accelerates, and the business grows without an over-reliance on aggressive marketing.

We always hear about scaling stories from giants like Apple, Amazon, or Tesla, but product-market fit to scale often happens much earlier.

Here’s how to evaluate your readiness to scale:

The key to product-market to scale is maintaining customer focus. Understand their needs, why they love your product, focus on those use cases, and give them reasons to talk about it.

Start small, nail the solution for a targeted audience, and let their love for your product drive organic growth. Scaling without excessive spend on customer acquisition? That’s the goal.

Think about brands like:- ChatGPT- Google - Zapier- Trader Joe’s- Costco- Zara- ZapposThese are large brands today, but they started by doing something so remarkable that word spread organically. Whether it was exceptional customer service, incredible value, unique experiences, or standout product features, they each found their "something incredible."We’ve worked with companies who did the same:Netcraft - They focused on being the best in the world at website takedowns. Offensive Security - They built a passionate community by offering training and certifications so intense customers were excited to share they passed the certification. Highway.ai - They built a product on mortgage industry knowledge and guidance that was unmatched. PenFed - Offered rates so low that the word spread organically from the military community they served to the broader world. What enabled this wasn't unique talent or massive resources. What they had was a vision to do something incredible.Yet, very few companies tap into this powerful growth lever. Why?They focus too much on their own idea. Founders and CEOs often believe their vision is the ‘incredible thing,’ but this mindset can stop them from identifying smaller, quicker wins that can still be transformative.They get stuck on what customers say they need. Gathering customer insights is crucial, but those insights should focus on identifying the problem, not dictating how to solve it. Companies can miss the chance to deliver something exceptional by just following customer instructions rather than addressing their real needs.They’re too distracted by what the competition is doing. Feature parity is the arch-nemesis of doing something incredible. Too many companies become preoccupied with matching competitors, instead of finding what they can be the best at and standing out.So, how do you find that "something incredible"?Set out to do something amazing - Understand that your company is capable of doing something incredible and move away from the “good enough” mindset.Narrow your focus - Identify a specific area where competitors are failing to meet a need or where you can over-deliver value and focus there. Build what customers actually need—not just what they say they need.Leverage your strengths - Assess what your team or product does/can do better than anyone else and double down on it.Doing something incredible is a growth strategy almost any company can use. It just takes the will to make it happen.

Building a distinctive brand is crucial for being easily identifiable to customers and prospects. But there's some misguided advice out there about how to do it.

The common advice is that we need distinctive brand assets (DBAs). But our goal shouldn't be to build distinctive assets - it should be to build a distinctive brand.

Here's the reality: B2B brands rarely achieve individual distinctive brand assets. Research from the B2B Institute shows that in the CRM category, only Microsoft's logo qualifies as a distinctive brand asset. Not even Salesforce or HubSpot have managed this feat.

In their research, the only B2B brands that have created truly distinctive individual assets are Google, Microsoft, and Amazon - giants that are also consumer brands.

Research: https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/brand-assets-are-important-in-b2b-marketing/?

The Truth About Brand Distinctiveness

As Nick Liddell points out in his terrific LinkedIn article:

"...it’s much more helpful and realistic to think about how your brand elements work collectively to create fame and uniqueness, rather than obsessing about wringing as much fame or uniqueness as possible from each individual element."

Article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/brand-strategists-toolkit-25-distinctive-assets-grid-nick-liddell/

Despite this reality, thinking about distinctive brand assets remains valuable. B2B brands often suffer from being too safe and similar. Approaching asset development with the idea that we want to create assets that could be famous and unique will push you to be bolder and more distinct.

One final note (and a piece of constructive feedback for Haris): always include your brand name. Distinctiveness makes your brand recognizable, but if people don’t associate it with your company, it won’t drive business. When I went to write this post, I remembered Haris's brand but not his name—it took effort to find him. Prospects won't do that.

The Challenge of Individual Distinctive Assets
Thinking About DBAs Is Still ValuableHow to Build a Distinctive B2B BrandA Real-World ExampleThe best B2B distinctiveness example isn't from a company, but an individual. Haris Spahić is known on LinkedIn for his distinctive brand which includes:One Final, Important Note

Distinctiveness.Distinctiveness is making your brand easily identifiable by customers.There is a fair amount of recent discussion about distinctiveness, but it is far from a new concept. Mac Martin wrote the passage below in his book ‘Advertising Campaigns’ from 1917.  The language and list are almost identical to what some of the biggest names in marketing use today.Martin wrote,‘Advertisers use many different ways to make their advertising distinctive and immediately identifiable.Among them are the following :1. The name2. The trade -mark3. A typical character4. A slogan5. Borders6. Backgrounds7. Styles of type faces8. Styles of type composition9. Technique of illustrations10. Style of copy11. Uniform proportions12. Color13. Position in the publication .’These elements, when done correctly, become distinctive brand assets. They work together to make your brand easily identifiable. But how do you measure if your assets are truly distinctive?Jenni Romaniuk’s Brand Asset Grid provides a way to quantify distinctiveness through two key metrics:Asset Recognition – How many people recognize the assetBrand Attribution – How many people can attribute the asset to the correct brandHere is what Peter Weinberg said about the B2B Institute’s research on distinctive brand assets in B2B,“But in B2B, we found almost no distinctive assets, in any category, for any brand. Instead, B2B brands are all drowning in a sea of sameness. Every brand is blue, every brand is saying the same things in the same way. “https://lnkd.in/ejnaPXeRWhy does it matter?Distinctive brand assets alone won’t make your brand successful, but there are three important reasons to focus on building them:Brand- Without distinctive assets, our marketing won’t be associated with our brand. Customers- Lack of distinctive assets makes it harder for your customers and prospects to find your brand.Competitors- A lack of distinctiveness may cause your prospects and customers to associate your marketing with your competitors. Why don’t B2B companies have distinctive brands?CEOs, you may not care, but you need to because many forces within your company are aligned against distinctiveness. - The new CMO wants to "refresh" the brand- The board is tired of seeing the same look- Your product team doesn’t have time to incorporate your brand assets into the product- You are worried about doing something too bold like creating a character- The marketing team thinks it is too "salesy" to strongly incorporate your brand in contentThe good news is that, if you are willing, your company will be alone in being distinctive.  It is much better to play where there is no competition, then to sit still among the others.

A Company That Hasn’t Struggled...After working with many different companies, we’ve seen a wide range of situations:- Those that took 20 years to find success.- Those that fought tooth and nail to grow.- Those that nearly failed.- And a rare few that seemed to grow without facing any real challenges.The hardest to work with?The ones that haven’t faced real struggles.Why? - They're slow to recognize challenges.- They think they already have all the answers.- They haven’t had to define who they truly are.But when the challenges come (and they always do), when they are tested, they don't know what to do. They double down on their existing playbook or act rashly.  Neither approach will help them pull through the struggle. If I were an investor, I’d look for companies that have been tested and overcome adversity. These are the ones that will succeed. They know they don’t have all the answers. They remain humble in victories and resilient in tough times.It's tough out there for many companies, not just startups. We've seen the same challenges with mid-sized businesses as well. But out of those struggles lies the potential for growth and success.That said, being tested doesn’t guarantee success. Here's what the resilient companies we’ve worked with did to turn challenges into growth:--> They knew who they were and why they existed – staying committed to their vision and customers.--> They learned – from successes, failures, peers, and best practices.--> They focused on the fundamentals – both the hard (financials) and the soft (execution).--> They were honest – recognizing challenges early and communicating clearly with their teams.If your company makes it through adversity, you emerge stronger—not despite the challenges, but because of them.