Mark Walker’s Post

Few hot takes from the excellent Pavilion GTM Summit's first day. Content is king - educate your market! So many amazing talks covering this...if you're not investing in content and building a media machine, its likely you'll lose out to your competitors. Relatedly, you pay for lack of investment in brand with buyer indifference. Being too focussed on short-term goals will kill you eventually.   AI is genuinely driving efficient and effective outcomes for those GTM teams who are embracing it, helping them achieve incredible things at speed and with smaller headcounts. Lots of excitement around ecosystem-led growth and partnerships as a key pillar to successful GTM motions. Innovation and creativity are emerging from the pipeline crisis...the next 12-18 months I think will be super exciting for those who embrace the need to change (and it'll be miserable for those who insist on executing the same old playbooks). #b2b #saas #gtm p.s. thank you James Ski for a signed copy of your new book, looking forward to reading it!

It's odd the milestone moments you remember in a growing business. Some are obviously meaningful: a landmark customer, revenue breakthroughs, funding rounds, key team members joining... Others are much less obvious, like ordering your first merch or attending your first event as an exhibitor - but they stick with you anyway! So huge thanks to Joshua Smith, Tamara McMillen & CRO Connected for sharing this particular milestone with me and RevvedUp. It was a privilege to be amongst great vendors like Gerry Hill 🚀 from ConnectAndSell, Inc, Aurelien Mottier from memoryBlue and Tom Happé Trueleads. And wonderful to meet so many new faces and reconnect with old friends. One key theme that cropped up through the sessions is that GTM models have to change, particularly when it comes to new customer acquisition... 97% of buyers are not in market at any given time, so throwing more and more undifferentiated scale at the 3% who are in market, is a recipe for disaster. Its a surefire way to burn through your TAM (and erode your brand). But no one is quite sure how to change, and what the alternative is. We believe one viable alternative is to take a more educational, value-added approach to outreach (and inbound!) Thanks for sharing the journey with us!

Slightly random question to all your outbound aficionados (who use multiple email engagement platforms). Are you much lower open and engagement rates on Apollo than other platforms? 🤔 Want to check if it's just me! Thanks 🙏 #b2b #sales #saas #revenue #outbound

There’s a question raging on LinkedIn right now - is outbound dead? The consensus is that ‘bad’ outbound is dead…but what does that mean exactly? And how do you do good outbound? The fundamental problem everyone faces is that maybe 1-5% of the market you want to reach, are actually looking for a solution at any given time (known as being ‘in market’). So far, I’ve seen three approaches to trying to tackle this issue: Option 1: Crack a nut with a sledgehammer (the volume approach) Option 2: Only prospect those in-market (signal/intent approach) Option 3: Abandon ship and stop outbound (go inbound only) I've written a post detailing why I think each of these have fundamental flaws, and why there's a much more appealing alternative... Option 4: Educational Outbound (Insight-Led Sales) Instead of abandoning outbound, why not adjust it to the reality that >95% of folks you reach out to simply aren’t ready to buy yet? Rather than trying to relentlessly force direct conversions and replies from <70 word emails sent (hundreds of) thousands of times, offer prospects some value instead. Focus on educating your potential customers! Will they respond immediately with a ‘buy it now’ type of urgency? Maybe not. It depends where they are on their own buyer awareness and readiness journey. But I think every company should make more Deposits than Withdrawals if they want to maintain long-term growth and success in a market. One of the best ways to do this is to improve the quality and relevance of their outbound prospecting. Instead of tens of thousands of spammy emails that act as a withdrawal, offer some value to every prospect instead, making a deposit for the future. Whilst 97% aren’t ready to buy yet, they’ll file it away for later…and you’ll be front-of-mind when they are ready to take the next steps. If that resonates, check out the full post below! #b2b #sales #prospecting #outbound

LinkedIn is full of 'outbound is dead' posts...and an equal number saying hell no its not (you're just doing it wrong). One thing that doesn't seem to be debated is that roughly 1-5% of your total addressable market is likely to be 'in market' i.e. looking for solutions at any given time. So I'm curious, when you're prospecting and know that 95-99% of everyone you reach out to isn't ready to buy...how often are you taking the opportunity to educate them or share insights? Especially ones that are tailored e.g. here's the most relevant points from this webinar; or I wanted to highlight x from y report given your [reasoning based on research] #b2b #saas #prospecting #outbound #sales #marketing

When it comes to hiring, we're all looking for 'drivers' v 'passengers' Those special folks who really did the things, not just observed them They figured out how to sell around the objection They came up with a differentiated approach to building pipeline They created and executed the strategy to stand out in a noisy market They implemented new processes to cut out inefficiencies They spotted the opportunity to increase conversions by x% But how do you find those folks? Everyone says they were the top performer Everyone lays claim to the successes Farnam Street has some great ideas, in their post on 'Experts v Imitators' These are all great ways to probe deeper during the interview process -> Imitators can’t answer questions at a deeper level A great interview technique when given an answer, is to ask them all the other options they considered, and why they discounted them. What was their process and rationale. This helps you to see if they really thought it through...or just saw the outcomes. -> Imitators can’t adapt their vocabulary Ask them to explain something again, but 'dumbed down' for you, like you're a primary school pupil. If they struggle, there's a chance they're repeating more technical terms they don't really understand. -> Imitators get frustrated when you say you don’t understand Ask them to explain again (and again)...do they see this an opportunity to educate you; or do they get defensive because they hit their level already. -> Experts can tell you all the ways they’ve failed Do they feed you a total BS answer where they didn't really fail? Or can they share a real tangible example of something that didn't work out (and what lessons they took from it). **** Check out the article in the comments below (its short and worth a read). #b2b #revenue #saas #sales #marketing

The dials are set back to 0...welcome to Q3! So, how are you going to hit your number this quarter? We're forever being told x is dead or This is the way you MUST do it to be successful But the reality is, there are multiple paths to success in sales You have to choose the one that best suits you and your mindset Because if you're not comfortable with an approach, it won't stick Sales is tough... It's even harder when you're not being yourself Here are 3 different mindsets I've seen work really well for different personalities: 🔬 Scientific ⚖ > Focus on marginal gains > A/B test everything > Every interaction is a chance to learn and grow > Always looking for next repeatable competitive advantage 💪 Methodical 🔄 > Be ok that sales is a numbers game > Abundance thinking > The next action could be the one that lands the meeting > Inputs > Outputs 💡 Creative 🎨 > Acts more like a mad scientist > Innovation and creativity underpin their approach > Strive to stand out, go against the grain > Asks for forgiveness not permission What's your approach? Any others you've seen work well? #b2b #sales #revenue #sales #marketing

What's one of the most damaging misconceptions in startups? It's got to be that you need to have confidence in the outcome of something before you take any action. "If only we had more data..." (Weeks/months of delays ensue) "I think we should workshop it first to build consensus" (Nothing happens, apart from the next follow-up meeting gets scheduled) "But what if it doesn't work?" (Cool idea gets buried) "Who else is going this?" (Sure-fire way to be average) It's the wrong way round... You've got to do stuff and take action to build confidence! This is the essence of Strategy through Action 💪 And its how we want to help founders discover their Message-Market Fit. Rather than locking ourselves up in a windowless conference room for a day and theorizing... We want to take your message to the market, and see what works. Which variations get opened more? Which drive responses? What lands you a meeting? Is it with the right qualified opportunity? Is it repeatable? Can it be optimised? Which ICP does it resonate with most? You can only answer these by doing. If that sounds like your kind of thing, DM me or Guy Chiswick to learn more or check out the outline (in the comments below).

Across every business I've worked for, successes and failures have ultimately been down to this core thing: How we communicate our understanding of a prospect's challenges, and how our value proposition uniquely solves them. Without this, you could have the best product; biggest budgets; most talented team...and go nowhere. Imagine being in front of a starving crowd, and you know where a rich buffet is located not far away...but you don't speak their language! So nobody listens. This is why Message-Market Fit is so critical - without it you can't even give away food to a starving crowd. Which is why I’m delighted to be teaming up with Guy Chiswick to offer a strictly limited programme for finding Message-Market Fit to 5 early-stage founders. It’ll be on a first-come, first-served basis for this inaugural cohort, and we’re super excited to work with founders to help you build your Strategy through Action. There’ll be a mix of training, drop-in workshops and fully managed prospecting to test messaging in the real world…with response rates, CTRs and meetings booked guiding a series of 2-week sprints. Want to know if you’re a good fit and apply? More details in the comments below!

Yesterday I was at the excellent Notion Capital Growth Summit. There were lots of excellent panels and discussions, but Ryan Lieber's Q&A on the early stages of growth at Snowflake were super interesting. For those who might struggle to see the actual content on the slide below, you could summarise much of the early journey as: Steps 1-3 learn a whole lot about what messaging resonates with which segments of the market. Then as they narrowed this down and got better at it... Step 4 was 'double down' on those learnings with a major focus on 'messaging, alignment, consistency'. Now when that approach works for a storied SaaS business who've grown like a weed (to over £3bn in revenue currently!) it's worth paying attention to. How are you testing and evolving your Message-Market Fit right now? Is it producing repeatable, scalable results? Would love to hear if it's a part of your growth playbook! #b2b #saas #revenue #sales #marketing