GTM Confessions

In this GTM Advice episode, Sam Smith, Technical Advisor at Neighbor Serve, answers a fast round of questions and shares her go-to-market advice with you. 

Check out how Sam 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?

One of the functional areas that have to balance the needs of the entire go-to-market team the most is product. They are constantly trying to achieve their product vision while dealing with countless requests from sales, customer success, the CEO, and more. It’s almost impossible for them to make everyone happy.

That’s why we’re talking with Sam Smith, Technical Advisor at Neighbor Serve. Sam is a technical cofounder and startup veteran who’s spent the last 15+ years turning early-stage ideas into real, revenue-generating products. He’s helped scale multiple SaaS companies from the ground up, including as Co-founder & CTO of Demandwell, CTO at Backstroke, and Chief Architect at Sigstr. Sam thrives in the scrappy, ambiguous early days, where shipping fast, aligning cross-functional teams, and obsessing over customer outcomes matter most.

In this episode, Stephanie and Sam talk about balancing product priorities, what it’s like to be part of a company that’s acquired and one that shuts down operations, the biggest misconceptions about using AI in product development, and so much more. 

In this GTM Advice episode, Lindsay Tjepkema, Founder at Human  Brands Win, answers a fast round of questions and shares her go-to-market advice with you. 

Check out how Lindsay 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?

Every marketer knows the importance of building and investing in a brand, but that’s not usually the case for the rest of the company. Many CEOs, board members, and VCs, often challenge marketing leaders about investing in building a brand especially when the company is first starting. They prefer that all marketing activity be focused on demand generation. This sets up the eternal battle of brand vs demand. 

That’s why we’re talking with Lindsay Tjepkema, founder at Human Brands Win. Lindsay is a 3x founder and visionary B2B marketing leader with 20+ years of experience. She founded venture-backed SaaS startup, Casted, the first podcast and video marketing platform for B2B brands. As CEO, she led the company to rapid growth with clients like IBM, HubSpot, and Salesforce. Now, as the founder of Human Brands Win, she helps founders build authentic, breakthrough brands. A sought-after speaker at SXSW, INBOUND, B2BMX, and more, Lindsay’s insights have been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, NPR, and TechCrunch. She is a Forbes Business Council member, co-leader of the Women of Pavilion Community, and a passionate advocate for founders defining success on their terms. 

In this episode, Stephanie and Lindsay talk about what it takes to create a brand, the constant battle between brand and demand, how to get your CEO and board to understand the value of a brand, and so much more.

Key Takeaways:

1. Brand exists whether or not you invest time and money into it. It’s the summation of how people think about you and your company. 
2. Most start-ups need to think about building a founder brand and a company brand. There will likely be some overlap between the two, but both must exist. 
3. Demand doesn’t exist without a strong brand.
4. There will always be countless feedback about your company’s brand. You need to be extremely picky regarding what feedback you listen to and what you ignore. 
5. Content creation is an integral part of building a strong brand. Most early-stage companies significantly understand the amount of content that needs to be created to establish and grow a brand.
6. Brand can’t be easily measured on a KPI dashboard. Instead, there are anecdotal or qualitative ways to track brand effectiveness such as social media comments about your company, speaking opportunities available to your senior leaders, etc.
7. It’s insane for marketing leaders to explain the importance of a brand to CEOs and VCs. Everyone should already know why it’s critical to invest in a brand and the increase in valuation that a strong brand can bring in an acquisition. 
8. One of the best internal partners to help you advocate for investing in a brand is the sales leader. A sales leader who understands that sales becomes tremendously easier when the company has a strong brand is a marketer’s dream partner. 

In this GTM Advice episode, Connie Glover, GTM Strategist and Master Storyteller at CMarie Marketing Studio, answers a fast round of questions and shares her go-to-market advice with you. 

Check out how Connie 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?

How did we get there? Marketing has gone from being responsible for building brand awareness to now being responsible for almost every interaction from when a prospect first hears about your brand until they are a qualified opportunity and passed along to the sales team. More responsibilities with higher expectations, but rarely a significant increase in resources. 

That’s why we’re talking with Connie Glover, GTM Strategist, at CMarie Marketing Studio. She’s been in the marketing and P.R. game for a long time and brings brands to life through a mix of grassroots efforts and cutting-edge digital practices. 

In this episode, Stephanie and Connie talk about the impossible expectations of marketing in SaaS, what marketing really needs to deliver to sales, why leads are worthless, and so much more. and so much more. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Marketing has evolved tremendously causing marketing teams to be responsible for everything from when a prospect first hears about the brand through qualifying an opportunity for the sales team. 
2. Most CEOs and board members don’t understand the real role of marketing. They tend to focus on the visual aspect of marketing or lead quantity rather than understanding the importance of creating brand awareness. 
3. CEOs will never stop sharing random ideas about marketing. That doesn’t mean you have to implement any of them. 
4. Marketers have to stop falling victim to the reaction rabbit hole where they’re constantly reacting to feedback from countless people in the organization. 
5. MQLs, SQLs, and leads should die. Sales doesn’t really want any of them. They want handraisers who are in the market and ready to evaluate software solutions. Not people who looked at your content, visited your tradeshow booth, etc. 
6. The expectation for speed that companies have related to marketing doesn’t equate with the amount of effort that is required or the reality of how long it takes to drive results. 
7. Demand generation is NOT possible. You can’t create demand because you can’t make people buy when they’re not in the market to buy. Marketing can build a brand that will drive demand when people are in the market for a solution. 

In this GTM Advice episode, Jack Wilson, EVP of North America at amplify5, answers a fast round of questions and shares her go-to-market advice with you. 

Check out how Jack 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?

How do you balance a changing buying process, countless technologies to use, unrealistic expectations, and an extremely crowded market? That’s the challenge facing Chief Revenue Officers (CROs). Not to mention that there seems to be significant debate about what the role of CRO actually entails and where CROs should focus their attention. 

That’s why we’re talking with Jack Wilson, EVP of North America, at amplify5 leveraging his extensive experience in developing strategies, building high-performance teams, and delivering revenue and profitable growth. Jack is an accomplished senior executive, entrepreneur, and advisory board member with more than 25 years of successful executive leadership experience in various industries. He has experience in international market development, closing multi-million dollar deals, and building international sales teams. He’s been a part of six successful exits including an IPO with triple-digit growth with every venture. He’s also an avid runner who has participated in numerous marathons and Ultra Marathons including the Moab 240, and placed in the top 20 in the Ironman.

In this episode, Stephanie and Jack talk about when it’s time to hire your first sales leader, the role of a Chief Revenue Officer, what sales really wants from marketing, dealing with unattainable quotas, and so much more. and so much more. 

Key Takeaways:

1. The CRO role is more than just sales. It should oversee all revenue functional areas including sales, marketing, and customer success. 
2. Executives need to have more open and honest communication with each other. Executive team meetings should be a healthy debate each week to hold each other accountable and bring out the best ideas. 
3. Never hire a sales leader until you have at least three sales reps consistently hitting their quota. A player/coach sales leader will never be successful.
4. Companies need to invest significantly more in marketing. Bringing in an experienced sales leader won’t result in more sales if you have an existing pipeline problem. Invest in marketing and fix your pipeline problem first. 
5. Prospects have become highly sophisticated in the buying process and want clear information from your company available to them. Start with your website and make it easy to understand. 
6. Sales professionals are closers. They don’t want your leads. They want REAL opportunities that need to be worked. 
7. Most sales quotas are spreadsheet exercises based on how much the company theoretically wants to grow rather than how much growth is realistic. Financial targets shouldn’t be created in a vacuum without significant input from your sales, marketing, and customer success leaders. 
8. Don’t underestimate the impact of personal communication such as handwritten thank-you notes.

In this GTM Advice episode, Maureen West, VP of Marketing at Brillion, answers a fast round of questions and shares her go-to-market advice with you. 

Check out how Maureen answered the following questions:

1. What is the biggest go-to-market challenge that exists 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?

Product marketing is one of the most misunderstood roles in SaaS. Most companies avoid hiring the role until they’ve achieved millions in ARR. There is an ongoing debate on where product marketing should lie with the most common answers being product or marketing. Product marketers are often seen as the creators of countless slide decks and old-school sell sheets. It’s an interesting dichotomy because product marketing should actually be at the center of everything a SaaS company does. So, what should the role of product marketing look like?  

That’s why we’re talking with Maureen West, VP of Marketing at Brillion, an accomplished product marketing leader with over 15 years of experience in the B2B SaaS industry. She has a proven track record of driving company growth by developing and executing go-to-market strategies, streamlining product launches, and building strong relationships across teams. Maureen excels at creating integrated marketing campaigns, enabling sales teams, and conducting market analysis to refine product positioning and messaging. She’s also held leadership positions at various companies, including Cytel, Uberflip, 6sense, Conga, and Emarsys. 

In this episode, Stephanie and Maureen talk about why product marketing should report directly to the CEO, the biggest misconceptions around product launches, how to create messaging that resonates with buyers, and so much more. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Product marketing should be the first marketing-related hire. You can’t build demand for a product no one effectively understands. That’s why you need to hire a product marketer first. 
2. Product marketing should report to the CEO. Not product. Not marketing. Directly to the CEO.
3. Brand marketers and product marketing should work collaboratively to build the brand 
4. Use your customer’s language on your website. Stop trying to be creative with words. Talk like your customers. 
5. Stop making slides. Buyers don’t want them. Sales doesn’t love them either. Have a conversation instead. If your product requires slides to explain, then your messaging needs work. 
6. Continuous software deployment can lead to a lack of accountability and challenges with planning product launches. 
7. Product launches should last 90 days and align with your business goals. Don't have a product launch just to have one.