GTM Confessions

In this GTM Advice episode, David Galante, Senior Director of Product Management for Channels at ActiveCampaig, answers a fast round of questions and shares her go-to-market advice with you. 

Check out how David answered the following questions:

1. What is the biggest go-to-market challenge today? How would you tackle this challenge?
2. Where would you focus your efforts if you had limited resources and had to drive immediate results?
3. How do you ensure there is alignment across all go-to-market functional teams? (i.e. sales, marketing, product, and customer success)
4. What’s the one “dirty little secret” in go-to-market that nobody talks about, but everyone needs to know? 
5. What do you think is the biggest misconception about having a career in go-to-market? 
6. What is one skill that all GTM professionals need to have mastered to be successful? 
7. What is one thing you wish you knew sooner? 
8. What is one piece of advice you would give to someone looking to grow their career in go-to-market?

Whether or not we’d like to admit it, software has become more commoditized in the last five years than ever before. It’s extremely easy for a competitor to quickly steal your market share by offering only a portion of your functionality at a significantly cheaper cost. Plus, every software company seems to be using convoluted messaging that doesn’t clearly articulate what their product actually does. Combine that with the challenges and opportunities that AI brings and it becomes more critical than ever before for your product management and product marketing teams to be top-notch.

That’s why we’re talking with David Galante, Senior Director of Product Management for Channels at ActiveCampaign. He and his team manage AC’s channel products which include SMS, transactional email (Postmark) and new marketing platforms such as WhatsApp. The team is focused on the delivery of new products and features to empower ActiveCampaign customers to grow their digital presence. He has more than 20 years of product management and software development experience from past roles at Motorola, ExactTarget, Salesforce, Oracle, and App Annie/data.ai. 

In this episode, Stephanie and David talk about the challenges of product management, misconceptions around product MVPs, the role of product marketing, and so much more. 

Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of ActiveCampaign.

In this GTM Advice episode, Rachel Elsts Downey, Founder and CEO at Share Your Genius, answers a fast round of questions and shares her go-to-market advice with you. 

Check out how Rachel answered the following questions:

1. What is the biggest go-to-market challenge today? How would you tackle this challenge?
2. Where would you focus your efforts if you had limited resources and had to drive immediate results?
3. How do you ensure there is alignment across all go-to-market functional teams? (i.e. sales, marketing, product, and customer success)
4. What’s the one “dirty little secret” in go-to-market that nobody talks about, but everyone needs to know? 
5. What do you think is the biggest misconception about having a career in go-to-market? 
6. What is one skill that all GTM professionals need to have mastered to be successful? 
7. What is one thing you wish you knew sooner? 
8. What is one piece of advice you would give to someone looking to grow their career in go-to-market?

It seems like every B2B company has a podcast…but that’s not actually the case. Podcasting is still a blue ocean and only a fraction of podcasts exist compared to blogs. So, how do you know if it makes sense for your company to launch a podcast? What does it entail? How should you think about measuring podcast effectiveness? Should you consider a podcast for your personal brand? 

That’s why we’re talking with Rachel Elsts Downey, Founder and CEO at Share Your Genius. She’s been in podcasting for almost a decade and helps major B2B brands launch, produce, and optimize their podcasting strategies. She’s also an experienced content marketer who believes it’s never just a podcast and believes every episode should fuel your content engine to build trust, create impact, and drive measurable growth. 

In this episode, Stephanie and Rachel chat about the purpose of podcasting, how to know if a podcast makes sense for your business or personal brand, how to get started and measure effectiveness, and so much more. 

In this GTM Advice episode, Ryan O’Hara, Founder and CEO at Pitchfire, answers a fast round of questions and shares her go-to-market advice with you. 

Check out how Ryan answered the following questions:

1. What is the biggest go-to-market challenge today? How would you tackle this challenge?
2. Where would you focus your efforts if you had limited resources and had to drive immediate results?
3. How do you ensure there is alignment across all go-to-market functional teams? (i.e. sales, marketing, product, and customer success)
4. What’s the one “dirty little secret” in go-to-market that nobody talks about, but everyone needs to know? 
5. What do you think is the biggest misconception about having a career in go-to-market? 
6. What is one skill that all GTM professionals need to have mastered to be successful? 
7. What is one thing you wish you knew sooner? 
8. What is one piece of advice you would give to someone looking to grow their career in go-to-market?

When did B2B marketing get so boring? It seems like every company is using the same old tactics with the same messaging structure making it impossible for anyone to stand out. In fact, creativity and marketing and sales tactics are often frowned upon by some companies. Every go-to-market professional seems to have a story about when they were told to not use a specific word, change or take down their LinkedIn post, or asked why they thought it was a good idea to use humor in their outreach. 

That’s why we’re talking with Ryan O’Hara, founder and CEO at Pitchfire, who has been breaking the marketing norms with his creative social media strategy and marketing tactics. He was the first BDR at Dyn and helped build their client lists to the thousands while doing sales training there from 3-100+ reps. They were acquired by Oracle in 2016 for north of $600m. He loves startups and has a soft spot in his heart for them. After Dyn, Ryan was the first business hire at LeadIQ, where he led go-to-market, scaling the company from 4-8 figures in revenue.

In this episode, Stephanie and Ryan talk about the lack of creativity in B2B marketing, why people need to stand out more on social media, the major challenges in prospecting, and so much more.

In this GTM Advice episode, Kara Smith Brown, CEO at Lead Coverage, answers a fast round of questions and shares her go-to-market advice with you. 

Check out how Kara answered the following questions:

1. What is the biggest go-to-market challenge today? How would you tackle this challenge?
2. Where would you focus your efforts if you had limited resources and had to drive immediate results?
3. How do you ensure there is alignment across all go-to-market functional teams? (i.e. sales, marketing, product, and customer success)
4. What’s the one “dirty little secret” in go-to-market that nobody talks about, but everyone needs to know? 
5. What do you think is the biggest misconception about having a career in go-to-market? 
6. What is one skill that all GTM professionals need to have mastered to be successful? 
7. What is one thing you wish you knew sooner? 
8. What is one piece of advice you would give to someone looking to grow their career in go-to-market?

Go-to-market strategy. Everyone talks about its importance. It’s typically a key portion of every all-hands call, board meeting, etc. But what does it take to really craft a go-to-market strategy that can work for your business? Who do you need to get on board with you with GTM strategy? What should your ICP look like? When do you chase “whales”? Where does intent data fit in? Should you mimic what your competitors are doing or try to stand out? What can you learn from the GTM strategies in other industries? And the list goes on and on. 

That’s why we’re talking with Kara Smith Brown, CEO and Founder at LeadCoverage, and a recognized supply chain, logistics, and technology thought leader. Her book, The Revenue Engine: Fueling a B2B High Octane Pipeline, is an Amazon Bestseller and offers readers effective revenue-generating strategies. 

In this episode, Stephanie and Kara discuss why companies struggle with their go-to-market strategy, the importance of having an ideal customer profile that looks like your existing customers, how to effectively use intent data, and so much more.

In this GTM Advice episode, Leslie Greenwood, Co-founder at Wednesday Women, answers a fast round of questions and shares her go-to-market advice with you. 

Check out how Leslie answered the following questions:

1. What is the biggest go-to-market challenge today? How would you tackle this challenge?
2. Where would you focus your efforts if you had limited resources and had to drive immediate results?
3. How do you ensure there is alignment across all go-to-market functional teams? (i.e. sales, marketing, product, and customer success)
4. What’s the one “dirty little secret” in go-to-market that nobody talks about, but everyone needs to know? 
5. What do you think is the biggest misconception about having a career in go-to-market? 
6. What is one skill that all GTM professionals need to have mastered to be successful? 
7. What is one thing you wish you knew sooner? 
8. What is one piece of advice you would give to someone looking to grow their career in go-to-market?

What does it take to build an engaged community? It seems simple enough initially. Bring people together with similar interests and provide them with a way to engage with each other. If only it were that simple. In fact, community creation and long-term management are far from simple. It’s highly complex and takes significantly more resources than most companies expect. 

That’s why we're talking with Leslie Greenwood, co-founder of Wednesday Women, on this week’s episode of GTM Confessions. Leslie has extensive experience in building and managing effective global communities. 

In this episode, Stephanie and Leslie discuss what it really takes to create a community, how to know if your company is ready to build one, the level of investment involved, and so much more.