Scrappy ABM

Scrappy ABM brings together host Mason Cosby and Yann Sarfati, CEO and Co-founder of Userled, to talk about ABM, AI, field marketing, and events that actually bring the bank. The conversation starts with the problem statement: ABM is a strong buzzword, but finding the accounts you really want to go after is actually the hardest thing. Many teams say they have a narrow ICP and still end up with a list of 10,000 accounts.

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Yann shares how Userled spent almost six months building a list of 1,000 accounts with clear commonality, strong conviction, and ethical belief that life will be better for those accounts. Mason highlights the mental headache and wasted 10 to 20 hours per bad deal when the ICP is wrong. Together they walk through NRR in MarTech, repeatable GTM motion, small events where the persona actually shows up, personalized event invites, and doing things that do not scale to win enterprise deals and keep customers for the long term.

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Yann Sarfati is the CEO and Co-founder of Userled. He started from the ABM problem statement and built a product that generates content with AI for every stage of the funnel, per industry, and per account. Yann is in the trenches with a team of salespeople, cares very little about the growth element compared to NRR in MarTech, and focuses on a strong list of accounts that share similar pain. He spends time at small events where the right persona is present, rolls out the red carpet for key accounts, and does things that do not scale to break into and grow enterprise deals.

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• Starting from the ABM problem statement and why finding the accounts you really want to go after is actually the hardest thing.
• How Userled built a list of 1,000 accounts over almost six months with clear commonality like complementary tech, existing ABM team, enterprise focus, ACV above 500K, CMO sponsorship, and sales already involved.
• Mason’s framing of ethical conviction: looking at each individual account and asking if life will be better because of the work together.
• The time tradeoff between spending 10 to 20 hours per deal in the sales cycle versus 20 minutes per account to make sure the list is right and avoid wasting time on completely irrelevant opportunities.
• The mental headache and frustration of sales when 50% of the pipeline is shit deals, how repeated rejection kills confidence, and why slipping for the right reasons feels different from losing deals you never could have won.
• Why Yann cares very little about the growth element and focuses on NRR in MarTech, renewals, upsell, and building a company that is a no-brainer for clients for the next five years.
• How Userled uses AI-generated content by industry and funnel stage plus small events where the persona from key accounts is present to get the highest conversion of pipeline.
• The event playbook: complementary tech events like Six Sense and Demandbase, max 400 attendees, 15 to 17 hyper relevant conferences, personalized event invite for every single attendee, dynamic calendars, short product tests at the booth, and a quota of at least 10 booked calls per day with ICP.
• Why they do not collect emails, do not rely on badge scans, and instead book calls on the day or lose them, then follow up with recaps and event invites that drive six out of seven attended calls.
• Using per-industry value props, education around AI in ABM, and case studies, plus tracking who reads and shares content inside target accounts.
• Looking at engagement spikes from key accounts, web visits, and contact-level interest as signals for sales outreach instead of waiting for a Cisco-style stakeholder to knock on the door and ask for a demo.
• Lessons learned from doing events like everyone else with vanity metrics, the discrepancy between event spend and pipeline, and the shift to events that help deals get over the line by meeting CMOs and stakeholders in person.
• The power of flying to a place like Naples to meet an executive stakeholder, doing things that do not scale, and why the playing field has leveled up now that everybody has the same data and intent signals.
• Final advice on building an ABM program: not just sorting previous big enterprise wins by deal value, but working with CS to understand what exactly is a perfect account, why referrals and advocates matter, and how profit and NPS change the real definition of best customer.

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• Userled – Product for ABM plus AI that generates content for bottom of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and end of the funnel per industry and account, and distributes it through sales and ads platforms.
• Six Sense – Complementary tech that organizes events where key ABM personas from target accounts are present.
• Demandbase – Another complementary tech with events that attract the same people again and again from the right ICP.
• Clay – Place to find emails so you do not spend 10 to 60K on an event just to collect addresses at the booth.
• ZoomInfo – Example of a platform where teams can get emails instead of relying on badge scans and generic follow-up.
• Apollo – Another way to find contacts without turning events into email collection exercises.
• HubSpot event – Example of a big conference Yann does not prioritize when he can double down on smaller, hyper relevant events.
• Dreamforce – Another large event that looks attractive on paper but does not match the focused ABM and small-event playbook described in this conversation.
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
• Connect with Mason Cosby on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM.

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Scrappy ABM brings together host Mason Cosby and Erika White Crutchlow from Resolver to walk through an event-focused ABM program that runs on tight alignment with customer success and sales, bold booth visuals, and simple giveaways like branded socks. Mason and Erika revisit a conversation that started at B2BMX in October and trace how a heavy event season turned into a structured approach to account selection, pre-event outreach, and on-site execution.

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Erika explains how Resolver builds event-based target account lists, crawls LinkedIn, and uses historical lists to reach high-value customers and prospects before anyone steps on the trade show floor. She shares how tailored email, LinkedIn, and phone outreach, SDR calls two weeks before the show, and “after-hours” breakfasts, activities, and dinners with customers and prospects create real relationships, qualified accounts, and long-term brand awareness that show up in Salesforce long after the event ends.

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👤 Guest Bio

Erika White Crutchlow from Resolver builds and runs event-focused ABM programs across multiple divisions. She works very closely with customer success and sales to identify high-value customer accounts and prospect accounts, map them to the right events, and align on pre-event outreach, booth strategy, meetings, and after-hours activities. Erika tracks results through Salesforce, leans on historical event lists, and partners with local vendors for “cheap and cheerful” giveaways like popcorn, branded cookies, and socks that keep people coming back to the booth and to Resolver’s team year after year.

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📌 What We Cover

• Building an event-focused ABM program that starts with high-value customer accounts and prospect accounts from customer success and sales.
• Deciding whether to go to events for specific accounts or use events to reach an existing target account list, and leaving room for “moments of serendipity.”
• Using LinkedIn crawling, hashtags, session topics, and historical lists to see which accounts will be attending and to fuel pre-event outreach.
• Running tailored, personalized outreach through email, LinkedIn, and phone calls that invite people to on-site meetings and custom demos tied to new features or products.
• Offering simple incentives like branded socks instead of expensive headphones, and using cost per opportunity and meetings per opportunity to guide budget and meeting targets.
• Training the booth team to ask qualifying questions, filter out swag-only visitors, and focus on people who are ready for a real conversation and demo.
• Comparing sponsored speaking sessions and thought leadership abstracts with booth investments, and why Resolver often prefers the booth over expensive sponsored slots.
• Designing after-hours breakfasts, activities, and dinners that pair target accounts with customers so they can talk about shared problems, risk, and tools without pressure.
• Tracking meetings, follow-up meetings, new leads, qualified accounts, and pipeline in Salesforce, while recognizing that many event touches pay off one or two years later.
• Testing two-week pre-event SDR calls to confirm meetings, ask pre-qualifying questions, and improve show rates with a simple “are we still good” follow-up.
• Partnering with local vendors for popcorn, branded cookies, and city-specific giveaways that reduce shipping costs and create a local connection.
• The ongoing importance of alignment between sales and marketing, rowing in the same direction, and not underestimating the ROI of those off-site, after-hours events.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Resolver
• B2BMX
• Salesforce
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
• Connect with Mason Cosby on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM.

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If you enjoyed today’s episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don’t forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

B2B marketing that makes you want to ram your head through a wall usually has the same pattern: the wrong people in the funnel, a light calendar, and an empty pipeline. On Scrappy ABM, host Mason Cosby calls out six specific reasons most B2B marketing programs are failing and walks through exactly how to fix them.

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Instead of chasing hundreds of thousands of leads and celebrating opt-ins, Mason pushes marketers to focus on targeting a very specific list of best fit customers—people who are super happy, highly profitable, send more friends, and stay for a long time. He shows how to speak the language of leadership by tying every program to named company objectives and real pipeline, and how to get sales to buy in by actually delivering the companies everyone agreed to go after.

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From lack of resources and unclear measurement to broken execution after the company all hands and strategy meeting, Mason lays out a simple way forward: eliminate what is not working, stick to a plan for three to six months, and use account-based marketing to go get the customers you really want.

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📌 What We Cover

• Why a lead generation approach that celebrates opt-ins instead of pipeline keeps you from going after the right people.
• How to define best fit customers (super happy, highly profitable, send more friends, stay for a long time) and use your marketing dollars to get more of them.
• How to stop leadership eyes from glazing over by dropping secret acronym language and tying programs to company initiatives, pipeline, and customers that close and stay.
• Why sales won’t buy in when the calendar is light and the pipeline is empty, and how agreeing on a list of companies and actually delivering those accounts changes everything.
• The lack of resources problem: being bombarded with ideas (email newsletter, event program, podcast, webinar program) and doing all of it poorly instead of a few things well.
• The three options for fixing the resource gap: automate, delegate (or hire), and especially eliminate the things that are not doing anything for the business.
• How to handle programs that are super hard to measure by deciding what success looks like, showcasing impact, and tying everything downstream to pipeline and revenue.
• Why execution falls apart right after the onsite or company all hands, and how eliminating old work, measuring success, and sticking to a new plan for three to six months changes your B2B marketing program.
• The simple fix that pulls everything together: stop trying to get everyone, build a very specific list of companies, and use account-based marketing to get those accounts to engage, enter the pipeline, show up on your website, engage in your email, and book meetings.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Account-based marketing (ABM) – Focusing on a very specific list of companies and best customers instead of general people.
• Channel dedicated to how to build out your ABM program – Content that shows how to build an ABM program that goes after the right people and gets them into your pipeline.
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
• Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM

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If you enjoyed today’s episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don’t forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Subject matter experts are often scientists, coders, founders, or salespeople who never planned to live on camera or spend their days writing, yet the revenue team still needs their stories. On Scrappy ABM, host Mason Cosby and Phil Pilalas, content strategist at Scrappy ABM, get practical about how to create content with people who don’t think of themselves as “content people.”

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Phil walks through how to get buy-in by generating passion and giving confidence, starting from an environment that already feels natural to the founder or SME. They talk about simple ways to record real conversations, give SMEs a strong hand in review, and place each piece of content at the right point in the progression model. From faces associated with brands to “something is better than nothing,” this conversation shows how 30 minutes a week or an hour a month can turn SME time into subject matter expert content that actually moves accounts forward.

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👤 Guest Bio

• Phil Pilalas is a content strategist at Scrappy ABM who helps subject matter experts document why they do the thing, why they want to do the thing, and why it matters. He produces podcasts, creates micro content, and supports social media so ideas are presented in an efficient, confident way. Phil focuses on giving founders and SMEs a natural venue to talk, helping them feel comfortable on camera, and building a regular cadence of subject matter expert content. He is pretty regular on LinkedIn and points people there to find him.

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📌 What We Cover

• Why getting buy-in from subject matter experts is “a big deal,” and why it starts with generating passion and giving confidence around a specific problem, product, or solution.
• How to find the natural setting where a founder or SME already opens up—one-on-one, a small room, or a simple back-and-forth—and then figure out how to record it without throwing them onstage before they’re ready.
• The role of clear expectations: what the content will look like, how it will sound, the purpose of it, and how a strong approval process keeps SMEs from being surprised when someone says, “Hey, I saw you on LinkedIn.”
• Expectation versus reality in content quality, and why “a couple of people sitting in an office having a conversation” is often good enough compared to heavily produced, studio-style content.
• How SME content fits in an account progression model: founder energy at the top of the funnel, technical depth and numbers at the lower, more meaningful engagement parts of the progression.
• Why it matters to have faces associated with brands—because there is no building sitting on a Zoom call, only human beings with eyes, words, and passion about the problem they want to solve.
• Practical time expectations: 30 minutes a week or an hour a month of recording can fuel a full month of micro content when paired with production, outlines, and a focused theme.
• Messy but real ways to communicate success: podcast growth, opportunities where people say they heard the show, DMs from peers, and correlations between regular SME content, engagement, and pipeline.

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Resources:

• Phil Pilalas on LinkedIn: Phil is pretty regular on LinkedIn; he tells listeners to look for “Phil plus Scrappy ABM” to find him and connect around subject matter expert content and podcasts.
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
• Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Scrappy ABM brings together host Mason Cosby and Yadin Porter de León, Director of Customer Stories and thought leadership over at Heroku, which is a part of Salesforce, to talk about going straight to the top of your target accounts without getting blacklisted.

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Instead of getting stuck in email blasts and third-party events that promise “rubbing elbows” with executives, Yadin shares a high-level framework that starts small with relationships your own C-suite already has, then builds proof points through web stories, webinars, podcasts, and thought leadership videos. The conversation walks through going top down from your CEO and bottoms up from directors and senior managers, doing the hard “eat your vegetables” work of segmentation, and mapping LinkedIn so you make it easy for leaders to say yes.

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Through stories from Angel Med Flight, JetBlue, GE Healthcare, NASA Jet Propulsion Labs, Wells Fargo, Michael Dell, and a seven-figure deal, Mason and Yadin show how time and trust, podcasts, and truly helping individuals with their own goals can turn a focused ABM program into a powerful path to the C-suite.

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👤 Guest Bio

• Yadin Porter de León is the Director of Customer Stories and thought leadership over at Heroku, which is a part of Salesforce. He has built ABM programs in multiple organizations, including smaller companies and large brands, and has engaged C-suite leaders such as the CIO of GE Healthcare, the CIO of NASA Jet Propulsion Labs, the CIO of Angel Med Flight, the new CIO at JetBlue, and senior leaders at Wells Fargo, along with conversations that include Michael Dell. Through podcasts, virtual events, and thought leadership videos, he focuses on making executives look good, delivering value to them as individuals, and creating proof points that help highly focused teams reach their most important accounts.

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📌 What We Cover

• Why so many smaller companies feel frustrated when email blasts and third-party events fail to spark any response from the C-suite—and why “don’t be discouraged” matters.
• How to “start small” by finding C-suite peers who are already “bosom buddies” with your CEO or CTO, and turn a simple web story or webinar into a powerful proof point.
• Using your own C-suite’s LinkedIn connections plus account reps’ insights to identify specific executives, line up warm intros, and make it easy for leaders to say yes.
• Combining top-down and bottoms-up ABM: working with your company’s executives while also delivering value to directors and senior managers inside target accounts.
• Treating segmentation and ABM list building as the “eat your vegetables” work that makes it possible to attack a CIO, CEO, or CMO from both sides with focus.
• Real stories of value: a 45-minute podcast with the CIO of Angel Med Flight that led to a virtual event, a news story, an influential innovators list, and a thought leadership video with a Wells Fargo SVP that helped close a seven-figure deal even though it never went live.
• Why helping individuals switch industries, elevate their brand, or grow an audience often matters more than a gift card—and how that mindset builds long-term trust.
• Mason’s example of following CROs as they switch jobs, helping them land their next gig, and then being brought in to develop their new sales teams.
• Yadin’s Seth Godin-inspired lens: instead of using your audience to solve a marketing problem, use marketing to solve their problem, working with the two most precious resources—time and trust.
• How podcasts as a platform give smaller ABM programs a scrappy, accessible way to reach CIOs, CTOs, CEOs, and CMOs, including the JetBlue CIO story where simply offering a podcast sparked the first meeting.
• Common mistakes that create a terrible experience for executives, from treating them like another task on a to-do list to poor communication and rushed preparation.
• The risk of getting blacklisted inside a focused account list, and why it is better to keep a neutral brand perception than create a negative one with a bad interaction.
• Why you should not “boil the ocean” with events, webinars, YouTube, and podcasts all at once—do one thing, do it well, then move on to the next channel.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Yadin Porter de León on LinkedIn — for staying connected with Yadin and his work on customer stories and thought leadership.
• Heroku — The Salesforce platform where Yadin leads Customer Stories and thought leadership.
• LinkedIn — The place Mason and Yadin reference for finding connections, mapping relationships, and reaching the C-suite.
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
• Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM.

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If you enjoyed today’s episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don’t forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Scrappy targeting, small segments, and extreme empathy for the audience sit at the center of this conversation on Scrappy ABM. Host Mason Cosby sits down with Tyler Lessard, CMO at Technology Advice, to move from a broad “B2B marketing leaders or demand gen leaders” ICP to focused clusters of accounts where the team can win day after day.

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Tyler walks through breaking a market into specific industry subsegments like cybersecurity software vendors and HR tech vendors, backing those choices with win rates, average deal size, and field-level sales feedback. The discussion follows how in-person activations at industry conferences, niche newsletters, and original buyer insights research become “reasons to reach out” for sales and SDR teams. Along the way, Mason and Tyler highlight small, specific ABM programs with one rep and a handful of target accounts, measuring success by whether the right people at the right accounts show up, engage, ask questions, and move into real conversations.

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👤 Guest Bio

• Tyler Lessard is the CMO at Technology Advice, a marketing leader who has built ABM in a couple of different organizations and worked with clients that have ABM use cases. In his role as CMO at Technology Advice, he focuses on B2B software, working with segments like cybersecurity software vendors and HR tech vendors. Tyler has spent a lot of time as a head of marketing running different ABM programs, partnering with sales reps, CROs, and CEOs, and helping companies across the board activate their ABM programs by reaching audience members across an ecosystem.

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📌 What We Cover

• Moving from a broad target market of “B2B marketing leaders or demand gen leaders” to specific industry subsegments inside B2B software.
• Using data on where you win—like cybersecurity software vendors and HR tech vendors—to pick two or three segments and identify the top accounts to start with.
• Bringing a focused ICP story to the CRO and CEO with clear context, tactics, and programs instead of just saying, “We want to focus here.”
• Getting buy-in from field-level sales reps by asking them to poke holes in the strategy, combining their anecdotal feedback with quantitative data.
• Building an efficiency story using win rates, average deal sizes, ACV, and the idea that “if we spend a dollar here, the ROI will be higher.”
• Finding channels that actually get in front of the right people when attention is harder than ever, including in-person activations and local events.
• Treating original thought leadership and primary research as genuine value, not “lipstick on a pig,” and using it as an anchor for ABM programs.
• Creating a micro program of “reasons to reach out” so marketing intentionally gives sales and SDRs multiple touchpoints tied to research, webinars, and events.
• Using an in-person happy hour at RSA as a scrappy way to meet marketing leaders from cybersecurity vendors without buying a big conference sponsorship.
• Thinking in terms of watering holes, niche influencers, and newsletters like The Hustle instead of only chasing massive reach.
• Building an annual buyer insights report from first-party data and survey-based data to become a trusted source of market and buyer trends.
• Slicing research by segments like SMB to run smaller, niche activations where even 5–20 of the right people is a clear win.
• Repurposing research into webinars, blog posts, social posts with infographic-style images, on-demand content, and PR-style outreach to other media and podcasts.
• Measuring ABM programs by asking, “Did we reach the right people?” and looking at who opened emails, engaged with content, attended webinars, and asked questions.
• Using a qualitative lens alongside downloads, registrants, and pipeline to diagnose issues in targeting, messaging, value, or brand awareness.
• Applying a simple framework around data, distribution, destination, and direction to understand when an activation works or breaks down.
• Starting ABM small and specific by partnering with a single sales rep like “Sarah” and two or three accounts with a clear commonality, such as financial services accounts.
• Embracing constraints so a small ABM program becomes a creative process instead of trying to “do it all” on day one.
• Keeping the number of accounts small so it is easier to stay close to the data and see when 10 people from one target account register for a webinar.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Technology Advice: Mentioned as the company where Tyler is CMO and as a partner that helps companies across the board activate their ABM programs by reaching audience members across an ecosystem.
• solutions.technologyadvice.com: The place Tyler points listeners to learn more about how Technology Advice helps companies activate their ABM programs.
• RSA Conference: The cybersecurity conference where Technology Advice hosted a marketers’ happy hour as an ancillary in-person activation to meet target accounts and build one-to-one relationships.
• The Hustle newsletter: A large newsletter example contrasted with more niche communities and newsletters for reaching specific audiences.
• LinkedIn: Called out as the best place to follow and connect with Tyler Lessard and as the platform where Mason Cosby invites conversations about ABM.
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
• Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM

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If you enjoyed today’s episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don’t forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Scrappy ABM brings practical playbooks that don’t break the bank to B2B teams who want more pipeline and revenue without wasting time and budget. In this conversation, host Mason Cosby sits down with Briana Manrique, head of marketing at Bench Prep, to walk through how a very small marketing team went from casting a wide net to getting more niche and seeing more impact.

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Briana shares how seven years at Bench Prep created space to take a hard, long look at who they serve and where they find success. The team moved away from trying to work with training companies and enterprise software companies and chose to go all in on nonprofit associations and credentialing organizations that serve professional learners with high-stakes learning and exam preparation.

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From doing completely away with paid ads to doubling down on webinars and conferences, Briana explains how channel mix, content, ABM, and brand awareness all had to shift. She talks about the mindset shift from quantity to quality, the slow burn of long sales cycles, the time it really takes to run one-to-one ABM, and why every piece of content now needs a defined objective, audience, and CTA.

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👤 Guest Bio

Briana Manrique is the head of marketing at Bench Prep, where she has stayed for almost seven years and seen the evolution of casting a wide net and then getting a little bit more niche year over year. Leading a very small marketing team, she focuses on nonprofit associations and credentialing organizations that serve professional learners with high-stakes certification and exam preparation.

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A former demand gen marketer, Briana leans into one-to-one ABM, brand, and content that is created with intention and tied to clear objectives, pipeline, and revenue. She is always happy to talk about marketing strategy or ABM and loves learning from others. Connect with Briana on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianamanrique/

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📌 What We Cover

• How Briana’s seven years at Bench Prep led from casting a wide net to getting more niche with nonprofit associations and credentialing organizations that serve professional learners with high stakes learning.
• The mindset shift required to niche down, intentionally work with fewer kinds of people, and focus on quality over quantity so the juice is worth the squeeze.
• Why Bench Prep decided to do completely away with paid search and paid social, then double down on webinars and an evolving conferences channel as one of their best performing channels.
• How an inflection point with new and exciting features and use cases outside of just exam prep is pushing the team to reconsider brand awareness channels and re-explore programs that didn’t work in the past.
• The importance of setting expectations that ABM and brand are a slow burn, especially with six- to eighteen-month sales cycles, seasonality, and buyers who may not even know you exist yet.
• How Briana measures success beyond pipeline and revenue, tracking engagement, responses, LinkedIn activity, and any type of win week over week to show traction.
• What it really takes to run one-to-one ABM: the surprising time commitment for account and contact research, ongoing content creation, daily engagement, and why weeks with less time invested lead to slower results.
• Lessons from the first pilot ABM campaign, including why 100 accounts was way too many for a one-to-one approach, how they filtered down to about 50 accounts, and how ABM tactics are now influencing more account based selling on the outbound side.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Bench Prep – Exam preparation software for nonprofit associations and credentialing organizations that serve professional learners with high-stakes certification and licenses.
• Connect with Briana on LinkedIn – Briana welcomes connection requests and is always happy to talk about marketing strategy or ABM.
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
• Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM.

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If you enjoyed today’s episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don’t forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Scrappy ABM brings together host Mason Cosby and Jess Martin, head of demand gen and former head of marketing at Metaphor Data, a new data catalog on the block. At a tiny seed round company trying to punch above its weight, ABM was not a nice-to-have; it was the go-to-market strategy to secure specific logos and move on to the next level.

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Jess walks through how she built a really lean but scrappy program focused on hyper-targeted accounts from a reverse-engineered ICP, account prioritization, and a tightly validated target account list. The conversation covers personalized outreach, founder-led thought-leadership ads, tiny virtual events, cold calling, surveys, and a buying-committee-first approach. Mason and Jess highlight account penetration, alternative lists, and the idea that less is more, especially at an early stage. They close with “scrappy does not necessarily mean cheap,” testing, and using founder branding as a powerful part of ABM.

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👤 Guest Bio

Jess Martin is the head of demand gen who stepped in as head of marketing for Metaphor Data, a new data catalog on the block. She built a really lean but scrappy ABM program for a tiny seed round company trying to punch above its weight, where ABM was the go-to-market strategy to lock down more customers and get the right logos on the site. Jess focuses on hyper-targeted accounts from the ICP, personalized outreach, tiny virtual events, surveys, cold calling, and thought leadership ads. She loves early stage, demand gen, and ABM, and invites people, especially in early stage, to hit her up on LinkedIn to talk demand gen and ABM.

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📌 What We Cover

• How a tiny seed round company made ABM the go-to-market strategy to get specific logos on the site and secure a Series A round.
• Reverse engineering the ICP by looking at who they win with, who they lose to, and who they never want to waste time on again.
• Using Keyplay, Apollo, Sales Nav, and BuiltWith to build and enrich a two-tier target account list of about 170 accounts, plus internal validation with initials from sales and product.
• Setting tier one at 20 “white glove” accounts and tier two from 21 through roughly 150, and aligning this with limited headcount and bandwidth.
• Minimum viable list size thinking for LinkedIn and Meta audiences, and aiming for three to five contacts per account on the buying committee.
• Running thought leadership ads on LinkedIn with founders, focusing on impression share, awareness, branding, and targeted air cover rather than driving clicks.
• Tiny virtual events and round tables for specific verticals, using timely issues like compliance and new laws to pull three highly valuable attendees from the target account list.
• Filling the outbound gap by having marketing do cold calling with a simple Google Form survey, branding the company, complimenting senior data leaders, and proving the need for an SDR.
• Creating a custom ChatGPT “BDR” prompt to scan 10-K reports, press releases, and news for each account and generate study guides and personalized messaging for every member of the buying committee.
• Measuring success with account penetration, website visits, engagement with thought leadership ads, and swapping in an alternate list when accounts stay dark or become customers.
• Lessons learned: scrappy does not necessarily mean cheap, budget and time are both crucial, less is more on accounts and AEs, and founder branding can be more valuable than company branding for a long time.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Keyplay – Used to get a little bit of intent-driven insight and account prioritization when building the target account list.
• Apollo – Main tool for getting actual contact information for the buying committee, building outbound lists, and cold calling from the survey.
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator (“Sales Nav”) – Used alongside Apollo to identify the right roles and understand how job titles differ across org sizes.
• BuiltWith – Helpful to figure out whether target accounts had the right tech stack before spending time on them.
• LinkedIn Thought Leadership Ads – Founder-led, face-first ads to warm up the buying committee, drive awareness, and deliver targeted air cover before company ads and CTAs.
• Meta / Facebook Audiences – Referenced list minimums to guide the number of matched contacts needed for paid campaigns.
• Google Forms / Survey – Simple Google form survey used for cold calling outreach to senior data leaders, gathering input on X, Y, and Z in the industry.
• ChatGPT / Custom GPT BDR – A GPT of a BDR that reads 10-K reports, press releases, and company news, then explains why the product is a perfect fit and generates two-paragraph breakdowns for each role in the buying committee.
• Metaphor Data – Described as a new data catalog on the block and the company context for this first ABM program.
• LinkedIn (for Jess) – Jess Martin invites people, especially in the early stages, to hit her up on LinkedIn to talk demand gen and ABM.
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies.
• Connect with Mason Cosby on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM.

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If you enjoyed today’s episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don’t forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!

Scrappy ABM returns with host Mason Cosby and guest Liam MacCormack, founder and solopreneur at Growth by Liam, breaking down how real account-based marketing gets built when the ACV is high, the deals are complex, and shortcuts fail. Liam starts at the only place that matters: historical closed won accounts, not guesses. He walks through a massive breakdown of who books demos, who joins calls, who gets added into the product in PLG motions, and how that activity builds a clear picture of the buying group.

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The conversation moves into where those personas actually spend time, why LinkedIn audience assumptions fall apart, how Reddit and niche communities come into play, and why talking directly to happy customers beats any ad platform pitch. Mason and Liam press into problem content versus solution content, high-intent measurement signals beyond revenue alone, and the scrappy, manual, “pain in the ass” direct mail and gifting-style plays that stand out in a world of ignored cold emails and identical ads.

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Liam MacCormack is the founder and solopreneur at Growth by Liam, partnering with early and growth-stage companies on growth programs across channels. In this conversation, he shares firsthand experience building account-based motions for enterprise and high-ACV deals, grounded in closed won data, buying group behavior, and real-world engagement signals from digital and offline channels.

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• How Liam starts ABM and targeting with a massive breakdown of closed won accounts, demo bookers, call participants, and product users.
• Why PLG signals—like who opens free trials, who gets added to the account, and when executives show up—reveal real buying committees and conversion windows.
• The ACV reality check: when a $10K deal should not trigger a heavy ABM program and why enterprise and high-ACV motions justify one-to-one or one-to-few plays.
• Using Sales Navigator, posting activity, and real behavior to confirm if target personas are actually active on LinkedIn instead of trusting audience estimates.
• Talking directly to customers and target personas to learn where they discover solutions, including subreddits and niche communities that never show up in generic targeting.
• Balancing problem content and solution content so target accounts recognize their pain, see new ways to solve it, and understand specific use cases by industry and persona.
• Early indicators that ABM is working: target accounts visiting the site, consuming content, booking demos, and moving into real sales conversations long before deals close.
• The challenge of digital ad fatigue, ignored cold outreach, and how thoughtful direct mail-style plays and personalized touches create excitement, word-of-mouth, and executive-level association.
• The biggest miss Liam sees: teams skipping deep upfront research, failing to map each member of the buying group, and only speaking to the initial contact instead of every decision-maker.

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• Mason Cosby on LinkedIn
• Liam MacCormack on LinkedIn
• Growth by Liam website: mentioned as Liam’s site for learning more about his work
• LinkedIn & Sales Navigator: for building and validating target account lists and activity
• Reddit & subreddits: as real communities where specific personas learn and share
• Direct mail-style campaigns and custom postcards: tactile plays to stand out with target accounts
• Scrappy ABM: Visit for more ABM tips and strategies
• Connect with Mason on LinkedIn for a conversation about ABM

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If you enjoyed today's episode and found valuable insights for your business, be sure to subscribe to the Scrappy ABM podcast for more expert discussions. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with your team or fellow marketers!