Stefan Koenig

Is Partner Sourced Revenue the 💎 Holy Grail, or are we missing the bigger picture with hyperscalers? As Cloud GTM evolves, a crucial question emerges: Should we fixate on Hyperscaler Sourced Revenue, or are Partner Influenced deals already major wins? The answer shapes expectations for both sellers and executives. Mike Marzano, Head of Global Cloud Alliances at Contentsquare, shared his insights with us. 🏆 Mike has an exceptional track record in Cloud GTM. Under his leadership, Contentsquare has leaned into #cloud alliances and, over the last two years, achieved incredible traction on cloud marketplaces: ✔️ It won the Microsoft ISV 2023 Partner of the Year Award. ✔️ Amazon Web Services (AWS) just published a case study showcasing Contentsquare's remarkable cloud #marketplace traction. Mike highlighted three non-negotiables for successful co-selling: 1️⃣ Approach hyperscalers with a clear value proposition, robust pipeline, and registered deals. 2️⃣ Position your product as a solution to specific customer challenges, emphasizing how it helps hyperscalers win more deals or sell more first-party services. 3️⃣ Align with strategic cloud technologies. If you can fit your product into AI or co-pilots narrative, showing how you enhance the value of cloud solutions or drive first-party service consumption, you'll stand out. 💡 But here's where it gets interesting. Many companies new to cloud marketplaces aim straight for Partner Sourced deals - the elusive 100/100 hit rate. It's tempting, but is it the right approach? Aim too high, and you risk disillusionment. Aim too low, and you're leaving money on the table. The lucrative sweet spot? Partner Impacted Business. 🥇 Hyperscalers have unique superpowers in co-sell, because they can: Provide insights to your sellers about target customers  Engage directly with customers to drive solutions including your products Assist in selling your product through the marketplace, benefiting the customer, hyperscaler, and you Brainstorm joint solutions that will better fit customer use cases and sell faster 💰 The outcome of this: shorter sales cycles,  increased deal sizes,  closing a higher percentage of deals through the marketplace. As a result hypercalers can influence a significant portion of your pipeline, making the marketplace route highly strategic for your company. So, is Partner Sourced Revenue the end-all-be-all? Or are we overlooking the transformative power of Partner Influenced deals? 💡 Follow for daily insights on Cloud GTM & share this with others Learn top Cloud GTM strategies with my free newsletter: https://lnkd.in/er4haEq2

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Microsoft and Google have been leading a profound shift - 100% partner attach rates on deals. And they aren't alone. Disruptive startups that reached billion-dollar valuations are now completely overhauling their GTM strategies to be partner-centric from the ground up. Why the radical move? Because the data is undeniable: 🔹 Partner-attached deals close faster 🔹 Win rates are 210% higher  🔹 Customer lifetime value increases by 170% There's a multiplier effect when customers are surrounded by a partner ecosystem. The leaders have realized that modern customers don't want to be "sold" to - they want to buy. And they prefer to buy from a curated ecosystem that guides them holistically. As Salesforce, HubSpot and others double down on partner motions, it's clear legacy solo selling models are getting disrupted. This isn't just a fleeting trend - it's the new operating model. Partners are being deeply integrated across all functions: marketing, sales, success, product, enablement, and more. P.S. We've built a state-of-the-art PRM to help high-growth companies accelerate their ecosystem flywheel. Ping me if you'd like a demo! #GMT #PRM #partnerrelationship #channelpartners

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B2B SaaS revenue growth rates have slowed by over 50% in the past 2 years. And CAC Payback periods have skyrocketed by nearly 100% in the same period. These two effects combined put massive pressure on core financial metrics, business profitability, and enterprise value. The root cause of this is Go-To-Market Bloat (GTM Bloat) where B2B companies invest significant money in Sales & Marketing and do not get the appropriate return on investment. Sales & Marketing is by far the largest expense on a B2B company P&L - on average 40%-60% of total revenue; and 2-3X more than they spend on Product Development, Engineering, and R&D combined. GTM Bloat occurs across the entire go-to-market, including People, Programs, Process, and Technology. (1) People - Too many headcount on each GTM team, caused by outdated financial planning models, in addition to the overspecialization of roles on GTM teams (SDR, MDR, Solutions Consultant, AE, Onboarding Manager, CSM, AM, etc.). Or 90-person Marketing team that should actually be 35 people. Average sales quota attainment of ~40% is another clear indicator of headcount bloat. (2) Programs - This mostly happens in the Marketing budget. B2B companies dramatically overspend on large scale events and digital performance marketing - up to 15% of total revenue - and do not get anywhere close to an appropriate measurable ROI on these significant expenses. (3) Processes - Teams, meetings, reporting cadences to support programs that don’t work. SDRs to follow up with “leads” and get a meeting less than 1% of the time. Inefficient processes create significant bloat especially when operated at scale. (4) Technology - Buying an ABM tool for $200k per year and barely using it. So much bloated headcount increases license & seat costs for all SaaS subscriptions by 2-3X. Too many $100k+/year point solutions used by 1 department or team and not integrated or essential to the full GTM. __ Solving GTM Bloat is the #1 opportunity in a B2B company today to increase enterprise value. This is now a CEO, CFO, and Board Level issue. Eliminating GTM expenses that do not provide appropriate ROI could increase EBITDA by 20% or more. Restructuring the existing investments in GTM to deliver the appropriate effectiveness could increase growth rates by up to 2X (e.g. from 18% to 36% YoY). Or more than likely, the solution is a mix of both of these - eliminating low ROI expenses to improve EBITDA and doubling down on strategies that are already working to create breakthroughs in growth rate. #gotomarket #gtm #b2b #cfo *Benchmarks on public SaaS growth rates and CAC payback periods ℅ David Spitz and BenchSights. Shoutout to David for some of the best work in the industry connecting GTM with Business Financial metrics based on actual data (not surveys, anecdotes, or inaccurate aggregated data). **At Passetto, we see similar, yet more amplified trends in our standardized analyses of CRM and Financial Metrics of private B2B companies.

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The #SAAS revolution of ever growth of sales & market cap is not working for most users The impact of unspent licenses and unused tools are becoming an eye sore The use it or lose it philosophy with users are being used for many IT tools by business focussed IT departments I see decommissioning of SAAS tools becoming a trend as many companies see taking out systems that are just protecting old ways of doing work a value driver Those providers that try to arm twist customers into staying may succeed in the very short term, but are well served to remember that SAAS was sold on " pay per drink", rip and replace and their ilk #Salesforce #Microsoft

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What if... data brokers ran the data privacy world? A humorous conference schedule 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘀 (𝗜𝗔𝗦𝗣) 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗮𝗰𝘆 𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁 𝟭𝟬 𝗮𝗺: Keynote: "The Importance of Data Collection: Why You Should Be Sharing More" Sponsored by Acxiom 𝟭𝟭 𝗮𝗺: Panel: "Innovation in Data Harvesting: We've Got Your Number" Sponsored by Epsilon 𝗡𝗼𝗼𝗻: Lunch Break Enjoy a personalized dining experience. We've meticulously analyzed your dietary preferences and prepared a meal we know you'll love. Sponsored by DoorDash 𝟭 𝗽𝗺: Workshop: "De-Anonymization Techniques: Unmasking Identity is Our Passion" Sponsored by Palantir 𝟮 𝗽𝗺: Roundtable: "The Future of Surveillance Capitalism: It's Looking Bright for Us!" Sponsored by AWS 𝟯 𝗽𝗺: Happy Hour Complimentary cocktails, data mining your Bluetooth Conference Badges are included free of charge Sponsored by Clearview Al 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: Prepare to have your mind blown by "The Pixels," an enigmatic trance duo whose music transcends boundaries. Sponsored by Meta, their hypnotic beats and cryptic lyrics seem to morph and adapt, creating a unique sonic experience by tracking each individual listener's movements and biometrics in real-time. Imagine a fusion of pulsating trance energy and Danger Mouse's genre-bending ingenuity, all while the data-driven algorithms of Meta work their magic behind the scenes to deliver a personalized soundtrack unlike anything you've ever experienced. #privacy #databrokers #humor #sorrynotsorry

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This is the number 1 mistake 90% of GTM leaders make when trying to scale their Revenue Engine. How many GTM motions are you actively running in your business? 2 weeks ago we discussed during the Revenue Architecture Summit the challenge of adding more GTM motions vs narrow done on 1 or max 2 GTM motions. Choosing the number of GTM motions is a real struggle for many of us leaders. Agree 👍🏼 or disagree 👎🏼 You enter a new rol as Head of Sales, VP Sales or CRO and get the assignment to scale the business. Your board and c-level obviously want to see short term impact from you as a new leader. So what do you do? You are simply adding new GTM motions. The more GTM motions the better, right? ↳ More motions. ↳ More opportunities. ↳ More potential customers. ↳ More potential revenue distribution. 𝗦𝗼 𝗹𝗲𝘁’𝘀 𝗮𝗱𝗱 𝗚𝗧𝗠 𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: ✔️ Let’s add Mid Market on top of SMB. ✔️ Let’s add Outbound on top of Inbound. ✔️ Let’s add a PGL motion next to Inbound. ✔️ Let’s add Enterprise on top of Mid Market. ✔️ Let’s add the Partner channel next to Inbound. According Dave Boyce from Winning by Design we are simply trying to manage too many GTM motions at the same time. Before you scale the business to a new GTM motion, you need to understand your current motion(s) as a Revenue Architect. Don’t experiment with new channels if you havent scaled your first motion. How do you know if a GTM motion works? Use the Data model of Winning By Design and analyse the entire bowtie BUT separate per motion. When moving to your next GTM motion? Rule of thumb according to Dave is at 10M ARR (6M ARR in Europe). You don’t want to add chaos (new experimental GTM motion B) on top of chaos (existing not performing GTM motion A). Before experimenting with a new GTM motion you want to have seen repeatable proof points from your current running GTM motion. Don’t run multiple experiments at the same time. And 1 key tip on how to scale towards new GTM motions if your current has proven successful? When you build your next GTM motion, build it next to your existing one: ✅ When running a SMB motion at 10K ACV, experiment with 15K/20K. ✅ When running a Mid Market motion at 50K ACV, experiment with 75K/100K If the new motion is so far off from your current motion you need to build all processes and systems from scratch. Besides, it will take a significant amount of time and investments before you will see any proof if it is actually working. And you won’t get the time, resources and patience of your board and CEO. So don’t move too fast towards your next GTM motion. How many GTM motions are you actively running?

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🌟 Tackling the Most Common Challenges in Cloud GTM 🌟 Are you struggling to run an effective go-to-market effort with Cloud Providers? You're not alone! Many of our clients face similar challenges, and we're here to help them overcome these obstacles. Common Challenges: 1. Lack of Resources & Know-How The main hurdle our clients encounter is not having the resources or knowledge to run an effective go-to-market effort with Cloud Providers. Setting up a marketplace listing can be a daunting task, especially if you lack technical capability or experience. Companies with fewer than 300 employees often find themselves in a constant scramble. 2. Managed Service Providers (MSPs) Our #1 target market is MSPs providing managed services for software vendors. These MSPs face pressure from ISVs and see the value in a Cloud GTM effort. We step in to support them every step of the way. 3. Preparing for a Successful Listing A significant yet subtle challenge is the misconception that simply having a marketplace listing guarantees success. In reality, over 95% of transactions happen after a thorough sales process, culminating in a marketplace transaction. Without proper preparation, your listing won't achieve the desired success. Our team ensures your sellers are well-equipped and actively promoting the marketplace. 4. Alignment Across Leadership & Lines of Business Aligning leadership and various business lines is crucial for a successful GTM strategy. While this is generally less challenging for smaller companies, it remains a hurdle. We address this by simplifying, streamlining, and automating the process, ensuring smooth alignment and execution. At G3 Coaching, we specialize in guiding companies through these challenges, empowering them to thrive in the Cloud Marketplace. Ready to overcome your obstacles and achieve success? Let's chat! 💬 #CloudGTM #MarketplaceSuccess #MSPs #GoToMarket #G3Coaching #BusinessGrowth #LeadershipAlignment

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Large incumbent tech companies whether MSFT, Oracle, Autodesk, Procore etc etc have always struggled with building ecosystems. During cloud movement, this gave startups the opportunity to build together and build strong ecosystems. Early Salesforce did a good job with AppExchange. AI success for enterprise software companies is going to require building data ecosystems. It will be interesting to see how these ecosystems develop to avoid creating enterprise lock-in.

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“2024 is the year of f*cking around and finding out how well GenAI works in production.” 💯 this! Personally I believe GenAI / LLM’s will spurr an iPhone moment, but I have no idea what that will be. I can’t wait for it to arrive. IMHO it sure as shit won’t be the text to sql pattern every data vendor is shoe horning into their data platforms right now. I also think we will find some data use cases that aren’t iPhone moments but still have value. We are doing McSpikeys (research spikes) for some of those use cases, I tend to categorise the results as the Good, the Bad and the outright Ugly. The key worth these spikes are they are experiments. We have a hypothesis of what the value might be, we create the shortest list of steps we can to test the hypothesis and then we execute those steps in the shortest time possible, with the least amount of effort. Or in Joe Reis 🤓 words we f*ck around and see what has value and what doesn’t.

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Our PLG model 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗱 and here are 3 reasons why it did: 1️⃣ 𝗟𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Not many people understood what Sales Triggers to use when building out their GTM motion. 2️⃣ 𝗕𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝗮𝗮𝗦 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘂𝘀 We've been compared to products like ZoomInfo, Apollo & Common Room. These companies are worth over $1b with 1 having raised $500m.. 3️⃣ 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗺𝗶𝘂𝗺 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 What does this mean? Our freemium offering was giving away 2,000 Actions for free per month. For context, this was nearly 2,000 people found via a sales trigger with contact information. Most other providers give you 30 or 50 credits. This was a hard lesson learned for us. We learnt the hard way, PLG can suck if you don't have a simple product. My logic was Clay is PLG and look how hard it is -> In reality it's been around for years and years and has UGC being generated daily. We had demand lots of it which is why I thought PLG would work. So what did we do? we moved to an SLG model and have since closed $1k MRR per month and no sign of slowing down (70% closed won). It's wild what a 30-minute call can do. We will go back to PLG but for now, it's SLG until the product finds its fit. #buildinpublic

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In last 10 days Gartner Published the latest Reports for D&A. It’s a good one and it covers well-known names. Gartner is true to their assessment criterion as they mention that they consider Sales and Marketing maturity as 2 key Criterion _________ Sales Execution/Pricing: Marketing Execution:  _______ Now look at the Brands listed in the Quadrants, all are 10b$+ Companies. They have spent few b$ in building (R&D, Acquisitions) their platforms over the decades. Similar is the pattern in Gartner BI and Analytics quadrant report. But when a customer implement data analytics, then features of both DSML Platform & BI are required and without it customers are struggling with multiple products and multiple environments. Before Gartner report came out, I also created a report to compare Data, Analytics & AI platforms on 13 different segments with 3-4 points each. I chose to compare #BDB with certain platforms and found all of them in Leaders quadrant. I am quite happy that my thought process in understanding the players is quite accurate, the 40 different competitive points make my report is unique and gives comprehensive, mathematical view to Customers. I rate BDB quite high in terms of technical features, #Serviceability, #Pricing and #Flexibility. My comparison has Core Data Engineering and Visualization components too. How do you really compare platforms, are these (in quadrant) the only platforms that can deliver on Simple, Medium and Complex Problems? Is there any platform that can deliver better than them? I think the Simple ones are already moving to direct Gen AI, for Medium & Complex problems, we have beaten every other platform in the POC/MVP stages. I would like to be challenged on a complex problem to be solved using any of these platforms and then compare it with solution solved via BDB on following grounds – 1.       Architecture & Stability of the Solution Developed 2.       Completeness of the Solution - End-to-End 3.       Time to build and overall efforts to build the solution 4.       Total Core Consumption (Infrastructure Consumption) 5.       Customization Capabilities (Flexibility) 6.       Scaling the teams to execute (Ease of Learning and Training) 7.       Total Cost of Ownership I am absolutely confident that BDB delivers. You will be amazed by the capabilities of BDB and how seamlessly it integrates all components of Data Analytics & AI. The platform is designed to be both easy to learn and efficient to execute, making it a remarkable tool for any user. Many customers express surprise that they haven't heard of BDB before. It's important to approach it with an open mind and dispel any preconceived notions that a company without significant funding can't deliver a superior product. Watch the video showcasing the high-level features of BDB9.0 Platform. It is a low-code platform, but it also caters to the needs of top developers exceptionally well!  #gartner #dataplatform https://lnkd.in/gjUR99a9

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2025 Is When... VCs & Boards realize transactional tech vendor leaders cannot execute a Profitable, Efficient, and Growth business model. It's not their fault. They never gained the experience, and their compensation is not aligned to execute this model.

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100% of our opportunities progress when we've demoed Jointflows to them. 100%. This is why: 𝗔) 𝗪𝗲 𝗗𝗢 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀. Buying processes are not linear, so why use linear sales reports (i.e., top-down funnels)? Live deals/opportunities have two statuses. 𝗕) 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗥𝗠 𝗽𝗶𝗽𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘀: 𝗪𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗡𝗼𝗻-𝗪𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗲𝗱. There are two requirements to progress an opportunity in the weighted pipeline: 1 - We are dealing with a champion who has proven POWER and INFLUENCE. 2 - The PAIN STATEMENT is complete. If 1 and 2 are checked, the opportunity's "weight" is calculated by Jointflows based on their buying processes, not our selling processes. 𝗖) 𝗪𝗘 𝗗𝗢 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗦𝗘𝗟𝗟. 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗬 𝗕𝗨𝗬! This is very important. We capture the buying journeys and orchestrate around them. All of them are significantly different. All we do, literally all we do, is provide the environment for this conversation to take place so we can capture it. That's Jointflows. 𝗗) 𝟭𝟬𝟬% 𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗥𝗮𝘁𝗲. 𝟬% 𝗗𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗹𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲. 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲? DM me to find out!

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CT #transparencyreporting update. They published an FAQ today that *sorta* helps provide some questions. The link is in the comments if you need it!

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Sales AI vs Support AI: What is the big deal - ChatGPT for Sales and ChatGPT for Support - both are simply ingesting data and generating results? NO, it's not the same There are big differences between the AI applications doing Support and Sales. In Support AI’s case, the value is in handling the topmost questions. In any support organization, the top 50-60% are frequently asked questions. These tend to be Password reset, refund queries, shipping requests, inviting new members etc. The technical term for taking care of these queries is called deflection. So, if the deflection is between 30-55%, then the AI system is extremely helpful. This enables the support teams to focus on the not-so-obvious support requests. Certainly very valuable. Referring to the graph, X axis is Complexity of queries Y axis is Value that can be realized by Enterprise using Support AI or Sales AI solutions today For support, the value being realized today is in answering the most often-asked questions. In Sales case, though, serving answers for the frequently asked questions is pretty useless for account executives. Imagine questions like ‘do you integrate with Salesforce?’, ‘Are you SOC 2 certified?’, etc. AEs already know all of the vanilla questions. So, the value of most asked questions is close to zero In sales, the top most asked 10% obvious questions don’t have value. The last 10% of super deep, subjective, custom, enterprise solutioning questions - AI isn’t yet able to handle that. So, the real value in Sales AI is in the bell curve in the middle. The value of each individual also depends on the company’s tenure. During onboarding, the value is higher right from the curve’s start. As they get more tenured, the value shifts to the later part of the curve. In sales, big companies might have specialized salespeople. A core team will sell the core product, and overlay teams will sell other products (homegrown or acquired). The core salespeople won’t know the details of add-ons and vice versa. There is huge value in suggesting upsell/cross-sell and giving insights to manage the call, do discovery, and bring in the other salespeople. This is also the primary reason why automated support (aka deflection) was possible even up to 50% with supervised AI (before generative AI) came mainstream. But, there hasn’t been AI for sales. In sales use cases, there have not been amazing AI use cases. Gong, and Chorus did well on voice AI. Clari did well on forecasting AI. Except for these few companies, the sales AI use cases were a super hard nut to crack. As an example, the problem that Docket Inc is solving today (AI Sales Engineer) wasn’t possible to solve at enterprise production quality before GPT 4.0. Would you put your support person to sell? No. Similarly, enterprises shouldn't use Support AI for sales use cases. The answers will be generic, not solution oriented and won't be persuasive. But, there will be some answer; but deal won't close!

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B2B SALES METHODOLOGIES CHEAT SHEET Most companies miss sales forecasts. One of the most effective solutions to achieve more accurate sales forecast is to implement a way to monitor the health of the pipeline. B2B Sales methodologies help there. I've put together a list of most popular sales methodologies, including following observations for each: - sales force training difficulty - time investment needed - typical deal sizes - sales cycles - team size Ask for PDF if you need a version with each methodology on individual page. Implementing a sales methodology and asking your sales people to report their opportunities against that methodology will help with forecast accuracy. However, you still rely on: 1) their interpretation of the conversations 2) manual input into CRMs like Salesforce, Hubspot, MS Dynamics. To help, Epicbrief automatically analyses customer conversations against your current sales methodology & custom qualification criterias and updates your custom CRM fields. This includes drop-downs and multi-selects to streamline reporting and support strategic initiatives with high quality, real-time data. Epicbrief is live. Contact me if you want to see how it can help your business operations. #b2b #sales #crm #meddicc #bant

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These amazing AI tools can transform the way you work across various domains, freeing up your time to focus on the strategic stuff. Let's see how AI can supercharge your workflow: Marketing Maverick: Imagine uncovering hidden customer insights to craft targeted campaigns that drive sales. AI tools like Robin AI, Quicklines.ai | Personalization At ScaleiContact, SmartWriter; can analyze customer behavior, predict trends, and even personalize marketing messages for maximum impact. Chatbot Champion: Tired of answering the same customer service questions repeatedly? AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT, Google Bard, Jasper, ChatSonic; can handle those interactions, freeing you up for more complex inquiries. Design Dynamo: Struggling with design block? AI tools like BlueWillow, DALL-E Open Ai, Leonardo.Ai, Midjourney, Stockimg AI; can generate creative concepts, suggest color palettes, and even prototype your ideas – all in a fraction of the time. Writing Wizard: Overcome writer's block and polish your prose with the help of AI. These tools like diibs, CanIRank, Keyword Tool, Jasper, Pro Rank Tracker, INK, SEO.AI, Surfer, Scalenut; can brainstorm content ideas, suggest improvements to your writing style, and even check for grammar errors. Video Virtuoso: Take your video editing skills to the next level with AI. These tools like Runway, Synthesia, invideo, Pictory, DeepBrainAI, HeyGen; can automatically enhance video quality, add captions, and even generate highlight reels, saving you hours of editing time. Productivity Powerhouse: Free yourself from repetitive tasks! AI tools like Hints, Magical, Alan AI, Noty.ai , Futurepedia, SheetAI App, Beautiful.ai; can automate a variety of processes, from scheduling meetings to generating reports. The question is, which AI tools are YOU most excited to try? Share your experiences and any cool applications you've discovered in the comments below! Credit: Paul Storm __ 👋 Join The AI Journal community! 🚀Subscribe to the newsletter: https://lnkd.in/ex9mu2hM 🔥 ‎Get daily AI updates on WhatsApp: https://lnkd.in/eav_GZ-J 🎤 Get involved in the AI conversations on X: https://lnkd.in/ew6E-ZtP #AIProductivity #FutureofWork #AIforEveryone #WorkSmarterNotHarder #LetsCollaborate

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How do you market and sell to CTOs and CIOs in USA? Lets consider that you are the CMO of a company which sells an enterprise AI-Powered Workforce Management Solution (ACV > 100000 USD) to CTOs/CIOs in USA. If you have a traditional marketing team, here's what they will likely do for tactical lead generation - Prepare a nice looking whitepaper on a trending topic which they believe will cut ice with the CTO and CIO - Run multiple lead gen campaigns on email and LinkedIn to drive registrations for download - Once they start getting leads from such campaigns, they will share it with the sales team who will most likely shun them completely as they demonstrate zero buying intent. - The disgruntled sales team will give up on marketing and will start an aggressive outreach campaign using a sequence of 8-10 emails and tele calling cadences spread over a period of 1-2 months. - They might be able to get a few conversations through this activity but would have ruined any future possibility of engagement due to the nuisance value created due to the constant "push" based selling process. Not long before, I have been doing the same thing and I have realized that it no longer works...especially if you want to build sustainable engagement with your target audience which consists of CXOs. However, if my client is willing to invest and is not looking for immediate gratification, I would rather go the following route. - Map out the buying committee for each company which is in my target list - Use a platform like Apollo.io, ZoomInfo, or Clay to understand intent around my solution/similar solutions and also map out the technologies used by the company - In case I am replacing an existing workforce management solution, I can make a cluster of companies using competitive solutions and come up with a custom elevator pitch. This requires extensive collaboration between marketing and sales to develop battle cards against each competitor. - I will invite my prospects to join webinars and podcasts highlighting their pain points experienced about the competition's product they are using. (For eg, during research, if I realize that most competitive products lack a particular integration/feature/use case which is a genuine pain point, I will talk about that). - I will also orient my sales team to start talking about these pain points through their own LinkedIn profiles and outreach communication. - I will create a Slack community of prospects who are willing to discuss their challenges and discuss solutions. If you do even some of the aforementioned activities right, you will see a meaningful increase in engagement with your prospects. This will definitely require buy in and patience from your client which is a herculean effort in itself. Do let me know your successful strategies in engaging with US based CXOs as comments on this post. #b2bsaas #b2bmarketing #b2bsales #b2bmarketingstrategy #b2bsalesstrategy #linkedinmarketing #b2bcontentmarketing

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B2B sales is changing faster than any other GTM function. But sales leaders aren't changing as quickly. The issues: 30 years ago, most sellers found, nurtured, and closed deals from start to finish. That worked, so that's how we defined sales role, skill sets, quotas, and compensation. Sellers no longer do all of that, but the role profiles and comp models have largely stayed the same. The tough reality: 𝗕𝘂𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹 SaaS decentralized business buying. It's no longer about a single buyer but about cross-functional buying group members. They drive outcomes. Let go of getting individual leads to find a champion with purchasing authority who is ready to buy now. Sellers have to become buying experts. 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺𝘀𝗲𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀 Buyers value integrated ecosystems (indirect sales), self-service tools (resources and transactions), and hybrid experiences (a mix of digital and personal). Buyers qualify themselves in channels they value. All opportunities do not flow through our direct reps. Sell where and how buyers buy. 𝗤𝘂𝗼𝘁𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗳𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Quotas are seldom based on opportunity size, closing likelihood, or customer fit in a territory. Often, they are not synced with demand goals, marketing budgets, or prioritized segments. Some quotas are not even tied to revenue goals! Just a big peanut butter spread divided among reps. 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗵𝘂𝗿𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘀 Buying and selling don't work the way they used to. Most reps know this but they are stuck with unrealistic expectations and have less influence on sales outcomes. Sales leaders who preserve the status quo or protect sellers end up hurting reps. The result is income and employment insecurity. 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 Demand gen, SDRs, and sales engineers significantly contribute to deal advancement and closings. And customers don't always need to talk to reps to move forward. And yet we still pay the rep the commission at the end. Some of the payment was for work they didn't do and didn't influence. These underlying issues have slowly evolved over time, not directly caused by reps or sales leaders. But inaction causes new problems, and it's one of the reasons CEOs are turning to newer CRO models to drive GTM and revenue success. It's time to connect the dots with revenue process transformation. I've gone from rep to CRO, and I have led every GTM function. I deeply appreciate the role of sellers and want to make them as successful as possible. I also want to make customers as successful as possible. Like many of you, I love winning deals, increasing revenue, and growing companies. To continue to do that well, we have to improve our game. This is the B2B sales imperative.

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