What are the tactical items on the minds of top revenue leaders in both marketing and sales? Last week, portfolio companies and advisors met for the “How We Scaled This” conference conference hosted by Scale Venture Partners. The day began with attendees joining workshop sessions. Lisa Horner, Kristina McMillan, and I led a group of marketing and sales leaders in a discussion about pipeline. We started our workshop by asking about the hot topics and obstacles facing the attendees' organizations. These were the priority topics shared by the attending sales and marketing leaders: -Creating a differentiated message and articulating a clear value proposition. -Ensuring the right Ideal Customer Profile and its (positive) impact on pipeline. -Using digital signals to prioritize pipeline. -Progressing slow-moving opportunities. -Team composition – from building the right team to helping inbound reps move to outbound motions. Creating a culture of accountability. -Moving up-market and excelling in an enterprise go-to-market motion. -Global GTM challenges, especially consistency in creating demand across regions. -Voice of the customer, cross-sell, and customer retention. -Making sense of it all – i.e., attribution. Why make this post? If this is what you're facing you aren't alone. And if you have other big topics, what did this group miss? Interesting to me, AI wasn't on the list or priority issues. Anything else missing?
Alex Gammelgard
2mo
I think in booming markets, people get away with being bad at the basics, or skipping the fundamentals. Now that the market is… let’s say weird… I think there is fervent desire to get “back on top of things.” This can look like reevaluating ICPs (are we going after the right market, are we going after too big/small of a market) reconnecting with customers (why are they churning, are we offering the right product?) and making sure you even have the team in place to get things done (who is checked out, is everyone doing their part, do we have the right talent for the new jobs that we need done?) I think once people get their affairs in order, AI will be a huge amplifier and efficiency driver, but if you apply it to a bad process and unexamined strategy, you’ll just get more of the same. That said, AI can help people with all of the above, but many companies are too overwhelmed and lack the in-house skills to approach it. I think the responsibility is on AI companies to help businesses with a roadmap for AI that integrates these capabilities into solving thebig problems they are dealing with now, rather than making AI this third secret extra thing to deal with.
Wayne Middleton
2mo
Sounds like a great conference. For me, so many companies still struggle to understand the value in building their brand. I come across tons of companies big and small where the brand is not important and so far down the funnel compared to immediate business goals its no surprise that they struggle to grow. Is brand awareness and brand consistency hard to do and pull data on? Yes, does it take time and dedication? sure, but there are so many examples of companies who are hugely successful because at the core of their service, product etc is their brand, Apple, Microsoft, Virgin, Disney etc create a brand that provokes a feeling or emotional reaction in their audience and religiously adhere and refine their brand based on those foundational elements, that they continue to grow and reap the rewards and will for years to come. Bear in mind they were small businesses first but built the foundation of their business on their brand.
Chris Frank
2mo
Like your list. I’m really focused on scaling for hyper growth, and creating paths for both the optimization of existing working channels and rapid experimentation with others. Creating the structure and process for individual channel managers to have some extreme ownership over their areas and creating a repeatable blueprint for success is also top of mind.
Patricia Dowling
2mo
Love this! I would add strategic partnerships in scaling resources & expertise to address all these challenges. Co-selling, access to new markets, and amplified value propositions...
Jeremy C.
2mo
What predictive metrics in demand gen are tied to revenue in b2b?
Such great insights and I just love these events! 😍
Rik Walters
2mo
This is great! Did you all come to a consensus and possibly an outcome report or findings you could share from this meeting?
Thank you for leading this session Kristina McMillan and Lisa Horner. It was a very engaged and passionate group around the table sharing ideas and helping each other crack the pipeline growth code.
David Dulany
2mo
Awesome conference
B2B GTM Strategic Advisor
2moFor B2B organizations, I'd add 'building advocates' as a top priority.