Shari Johnston

Forget Inbound and Outbound artificial boundaries...and your old-fashioned play(s)/silos by Sales or Marketing in our new "B2B buyer in full control" world. No more spamming, sequences, non-personalised, un-engaging messages please SDR/AEs bombarding me;)... ending up straight into our Junk and Trash WATCH my one-min summary shown (SLIDES AVAILABLE) in June's Revenue Marketing Alliance Product Marketing Alliance ABM summit (watch on demand see link in comment) on https://lnkd.in/e2-4aZXR Thx as always Andrei Zinkevich Vladimir Blagojević Fullfunnel.io too for the usual inspiration, Elena Simou also, lkg fwrd to sharing more soon! It is all about an integrated AllBound, "a la ABM" playbook and even more importantly a GTMOps / RevOps mindset and framework. ABM = GTM: Pure & simple. Not Marketing, not Sales but cross-Product, CS, Sales, Marketing and related teams, all for the full customer journey benefits...from new sales to renewal & expansion (incl Partners) You need to (1) focus on enabling & boosting your Go To Market strategy, which motion(s) or which mix of, PLG, SLG, PLS or whatever.. (2) adapt your ABM playbook, craft your strategy and segmentation as you see here from top to bottom. What are the cohorts, firmographics, attributes, triggers, HubSpot properties, you name it, that are critical to define these cohorts with first, second or third-party data or other... selecting your most promising accounts using predictive AI, scoring, buying intent tactics and MarOps set-up

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As a branding & comms person, I often code switch to a "commercial marketer" so I can hope to gain a perceived (aka better), more strategic seat around the business table. But watching how attribution and GPTs can sanitize brands into oblivion I'm wearing my Storytelling badge with renewed pride. Storytelling is far from a "soft" skill in the business world; it is the essential, and often, missing piece in marketing strategy. This MIT Sloan School of Management article highlights several key benefits that storytelling delivers such as "sustained winning," solidifying its importance in driving business success: 1️⃣ Enhanced Understanding and Engagement: Storytelling makes complex data more accessible and engaging, helping teams and stakeholders understand and retain information better. This improved comprehension leads to more informed decision-making. 2️⃣ Improved Collaboration and Cohesion: Internal storytelling fosters a sense of connection and shared purpose among team members, building cohesion and inspiring cultural change. This unity is crucial for driving collective efforts towards common goals. 3️⃣ Strategic Impact: Combining data with storytelling enhances the strategic impact of marketing efforts. It allows for creating compelling narratives that resonate with target audiences, driving engagement and loyalty. Better yet, stories are easy to re-tell meaning your brand awareness gets a nice bump. The MIT article underscores that storytelling can be a critical component for achieving sustained performance and success in data-driven teams and beyond. #storytelling #brands https://lnkd.in/gBmK88fJ

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So very cool to see how BlackRock has streamlined product operations with Airtable: more than 80 hrs/week saved in productivity for PM and PMM! https://lnkd.in/gW-fb62V #productmarketing #productmanagement

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Our latest survey offers a comprehensive look at the current state of selling, featuring insights from 800 front-line sellers. A standout finding: 3 out of 4 respondents believe they could save at least an hour by eliminating the task of creating personalized emails for prospects. While personalization is essential for connecting with prospects, it’s also incredibly time-consuming. Sellers understand its importance, but those hours quickly add up. We know time is money, and we’re dedicated to providing today’s sellers with the tools they need to personalize efficiently and effectively. Additionally, we asked sellers, “What specific tasks in your role do you think would benefit most from AI and automation?” The top three responses were: 1. Follow-up and engagement tracking 2. Reporting and performance analytics 3. Data entry and CRM updating Our survey uncovers valuable insights into the future of sales. Discover how AI can revolutionize your sales process: https://lnkd.in/gMr_3UNA

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Gong's GTM teams love DealHub! We're geeking out over how Gong, the Revenue Intelligence leaders, are using DealHub.io to, well, rock their sales world! Their Deal Desk, RevOps, and Sales teams are all raving about the platform. Here's why DealHub is a hit at Gong: * Less Busywork, More High Fives: DealHub slashed manual work by 50%, freeing up time for what matters – closing those deals. * Crystal Clear Visibility: Say goodbye to pipeline mysteries! Everyone at Gong has a bird's eye view of the sales process. * Faster Sales Cycles: DealHub helped Gong accelerate their deal cycles, meaning quicker wins and happier customers. * Teamwork Makes the Dream Work: Collaboration is key! DealHub fosters seamless communication between all of Gong's awesome teams. Curious how DealHub can boost your RevOps magic? Check out the full story! https://okt.to/S0b1WB #RevOpsLife #SalesTeamWins #DealHubLove #CustomerSpotlight

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These key B2B stats in Forrester's new "Fuel growth with customer-centric B2B marketing alignment" eBook jumped out at me. For complex B2B deals it seems the buyer's journey is evolving and when teams operate in silos, the disjointed buying experience can have a major negative impact on win rates and revenue. Stats and takeaways - More than half of B2B buying interactions are self-directed. Due to this, Forrester recommends rethinking metrics by using KPIs like "Speed of information" that will track the amount of time it takes a buyer to access the self-service resources they need to make a purchase decision. - For complex deals, the average buying cycle includes three considered vendors, four separate departments, and eight buying group members. Completing buyer journey maps for large complex deals and socializing the findings will bring clarity to the complexity of your buyer's journey. - 83% of B2B buyers have expressed dissatisfaction with the winning provider in one or more areas of the purchasing process. - The sequence of steps that buyers follow before they purchase varies and is rarely linear, meaning that marketing's planned stream of tactics and workflows will rarely line up with the buyer's process. - B2B companies that create value for buyers and customers grow revenue 2.5 times faster than companies that do not. - Influence B2B buyers with value-based content by focusing on four value dimensions: Economic value, functional value, experiential value, and symbolic value. #B2B #GrowthMarketing #Pipeline

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>50% of GTM leaders are prioritizing ecosystem-led growth in 2024. This change in focus is increasingly being reflected across the organizational hierarchy, with more emerging roles in partnerships and alliance management, while traditional sales and marketing roles are plateauing. No. This doesn’t mean that your sales organization is any less important. It just means that the nature of selling is evolving with the market. What is causing this shift? 1️⃣ Software buying is emulating retail buying experiences: As a digital-native millennial+ generation assumes more control over buying decisions, they’re looking for the same conveniences of self-serve, rep-free buying in eCommerce to play out in their B2B purchases. 2️⃣ Direct channels are offering diminishing returns: Most solutions are being actively qualified/disqualified much before your sellers get to interact with the prospect. G2 found that mid-market and enterprise buyers are more wary of sales interactions and instead prefer impartial sources (e.g., partner recommendations, marketplaces) of vendor qualification. 3️⃣ Evolution of inclusive channels for software commerce  Traditionally, direct sales, partner-influenced sales, and PLG happened on disparate forums, giving buyers no single means to interact with multiple stakeholders. For vendors, deal mechanics (e.g., contracting, invoicing, billing) also happened across multiple tools. This was a standardization issue that is now being solved by commercial cloud marketplaces. Buyers now have more avenues to qualify vendors across multiple criteria, and sellers spend less time in operations before closing a deal. As the market evolves, deals will be closed on procurement-driven channels — i.e., channels that are equally invested in offering buyers more choices and the ability to evaluate and exercise more control over their spends, than the traditional outbound-focused channels we have all grown up knowing. Your sales organization will need more support than pipeline enablement. They need active participation from partnerships, product, systems integrators … the whole nine yards … to stand out from the noise and “assist” the prospect in making a choice. All of this is already in motion on cloud marketplaces, and we’re here to help you upgrade. Drop me or my team a note if you need help getting started. #partnership #alliance #cloud #marketplace #GTMstrategy #GTM

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My latest article on CMSWire asks CMOs, CEOs, and hiring agencies if industry experience is necessary or overrated. The deeper question I'm getting at here is: are too many great CMO candidates not even getting interviewed because they lack prior industry knowledge? Share your thoughts! Thanks to Sue Keith, Club CMO, Eric Pairitz, James (JD) Dillon, Doug Zarkin and Gaurav Bhatia for being a source! #cmo #marketing #humanresources

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Marketing agencies are a critical part of the CMO's team. I spoke with Drew McLellan of the Agency Management Institute on building the ideal agency-CMO relationship in this podcast, https://lnkd.in/gqcSW9uu. I shared: ► What agencies don’t understand about the CMO role ► Getting out of the competition mindset against other agencies ► What a CMO wants from an agency-CMO relationship ► The difference between an agency that gets recommended by a CMO and ones who don’t ► How AI is changing the world from a CMO’s perspective ► Should agencies be trying to experiment with AI for clients? ► How AI will change the CMO role in the future ► How agencies can help CMOs do their jobs better Eager to here your thoughts. #MarketingAgency #CMO #AIinMarketing GrowthPath Partners

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🛫 Just returned from NYC after attending an incredible Goldman Sachs event that brought together CMOs across 30+ portfolio companies. These are best events for learning and networking.  Great venue, speakers, attendees and content.  The event was framed around what makes a strategic CMO from the perspective of the Board, #CEO, #GTM Leaders and Employees.  Some new themes and familiar ones with new wrinkles.  Literally had dozens of worthy topics but tried to extract the key themes here. 📈 Revenue Marketing. Growth Marketing. Intense focus on driving growth. Marketing is a profit center (vs. a cost center) so this mindset is healthy. Discussed tactics - and pitfalls to avoid for delivering growth to earn credibility with the Board and CEO. And the new wrinkle here is the impact of #2….. 🚄 Driving the Go-To-Market Flywheel across Product, Sales, Marketing and CSS.  IMO, this reflects changes in the drivers of growth.  It’s not just Net New.  Its Net Revenue Retention (NRR), Product-Led Growth (PLG) and delivering a great customer experience for retention and upsell. 🗣 Voice of the Customer at Scale. No more focus groups of one. Marketing is the only department to understand customer needs through data, essential for shaping effective go-to-market strategies and product development. I have specific examples to share how we used search data and website visitor data to identify real customer needs. RevOps.  Topic kept coming up.  What is the role of RevOps? Where should RevOps sit? The CEO was a popular answer to ensure neutrality and drive company-wide alignment. Mallory Lee 📺 Video and Company Vision. This one is a bit random. Lots of separate discussion about using video to articulate the CEO’s vision to employees and the markets.  Delivering great EX is another responsibility of the CMO. And that starts with communications. Video is the means to communicate that vision to align employees and the business.  IMO video is one of the most underutilized mediums in B2B right now. Especially given its role in shaping the employee experience. #marketing, #CMO, #growth Ursula Ayrout Paul Albright

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What are the root causes of poor GTM team alignment? Our recent survey sheds some light on what your revenue team Ops peers are saying. These comprehensive reports provide all the information. https://gag.gl/4YHwRD #RevOps #DataQuality #RevTeamAlignment

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BREAKING NEWS! Today, we at Gong are thrilled to introduce you to our latest innovations for boosting reps’ productivity and overall revenue predictability. We’re bringing increased rigor to pipeline management and coaching, with #AI that gives enablement, #RevOps, and frontline managers the trustworthy insights they need: ➡️ AI Methodology Playbooks on Deal Boards help improve forecast accuracy and conversion rates ➡️ AI-Powered Scorecard Suggestions allow you to increase revenue per rep by automatically suggesting answers to scorecard questions ➡️ AI Assessment Tools for Smart Trackers improve data trust by providing benchmarks and visibility into accuracy and hit rates With these three capabilities, we want to help your teams demystify execution so you can pave the way to targeted support, streamlined workflows, and reliable growth. Get the full story about these latest capabilities here: https://lnkd.in/gVUtqzac #RevenueIntelligence

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The past couple of years have been super challenging for B2B SaaS marketers and sellers in building the pipeline to hit sales targets. Unfortunately, those market challenges often bubble up during tense weekly pipeline meetings. #pipelinemeetingpain Dan's post highlights how those S&M challenges compromise company growth rates, make fundraising hard/impossible, and result in headcount reductions to give VC-funded start-ups more time to weather the storm and ramp up their business performance. The post also breaks down how you can proactively turn the tide and take control of your GTM.  Understanding your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) at a deep level can and will enhance your Account-Based Marketing (ABM) performance, guide your content strategy, bolster sales enablement, and significantly increase the productivity of your outbound efforts. Read on to learn more. 

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🎙 B2B company building, AI’s impact, PLG, & more... In episode 75 of #TheGTMPack Show, I catch up with my good friend Mark Roberge who has (literally) written the book on the modern sales motion that so many of us in B2B technology have benefitted from. Not to mention, he was the founding CRO at HubSpot. Today, he invests in high-growth B2B tech startups via Stage 2 Capital, while teaching at Harvard Business School in Cambridge, MA. 👇🏾 Check out the links to the full conversation in the comments below 👇🏾 However, here are a few highlights: ⚡️ Why Mark's excited & says this is a promising time to start a new company The two years following the 2001 & 2008 down markets were exceptional years to start a company; which he lived through at HubSpot. It's harder to get funding during these times so naturally there is less competition. There is a plethora of available talent looking for roles. It's easier to identify if your product is a "must-have" or "nice-to-have". ⚡️ A summary of his talk at SaaStr about AI & its impact on society AI is moving so fast & there is so much unknown. It's easy to get paranoid that what we are building as entrepreneurs today will be irrelevant tomorrow. What's the innovator's dilemma in GTM tech? There is an opportunity to disrupt seat-based pricing models. Entrepreneurs should think of their businesses in phases that include practical scenarios for today but plan for massive AI adoption & rapid advancement. ⚡️ Why Mark's more excited about product-led growth (#PLG) today than ever PLG has settled in & is no longer just a hot trend. PLG is a GTM motion & business model, not a technology innovation. PLG roots your business in a better definition of product-market fit. It's a disruptive business model & can protect against competitors undercutting you. Lots more goodness & insights in the full episode below 👇🏾 #b2b #gtm #saas #ai #artificialintelligence #venturecapital

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Today’s CRO has two main responsibilities: (1) Predictably hit the company’s revenue number every time. (2) Boost the productivity of revenue-impacting employees. AI cuts across both of these responsibilities. Predictive AI unlocks revenue forecasts with pinpoint precision. This enables CROs to hold their team accountable down to the dollar. Generative and Descriptive AI offer critical opportunities to boost productivity. With the right balance of features, reps and leaders can accomplish more than ever. The bottom line: An AI strategy is essential.

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Zach Diamond discussed the value of an executive briefing center on the B2Boring podcast. While companies like Microsoft and AWS naturally attract attention, smaller companies are making their mark by demonstrating thought leadership in innovation and collaboration. Growing fast and sharing valuable insights is key. How do you showcase your expertise in your industry?

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When it comes to professional services sales… you need face-time with client-side execs and buyers. BUT stories of bumping into the right person ✈️ on a flight 👩‍💼 at an event are far and few between - they’re chance driven. So how else can you initiate these types of relationships? Personalised cold outbound. I’ve seen too many real-life examples of highly personalised, recipient-centric cold messages converting to coffee chats, functioning professional relationships, and even sales / partnerships. Now you’re probably thinking: “Ejaaz, personalised cold outbound isn’t easy… It requires research, drafting, fine-tuning and time I don’t have.” I get it - there’s a lot of upfront investment required before you see any results. Our job, at DealVizier, is to cut that upfront investment by 99%. How? By equipping you with the research and outreach tools that speed up prospecting + personalised messaging + organisation. Ultimately though, this all means nothing if we can’t fill your diary with more coffee chats. To that end, we’ve just launched our waiting list and are rolling out early beta access to the first 20 sign ups - 1st month free 🎁 Check out our package for individuals and sign up here 👉 https://lnkd.in/emdvh57y

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If you're on the fence about taking a Revenue Architecture course, either in-person in Santa Cruz June 3-4 (see comments) or remote (see our website), please read what CEOs, RevOps Leaders, GTM Strategists, CMOs, Chief Customer Success Officers, and others have to say about this program: “THAT. WAS. AWESOME. 👏” “WOW. This course blew my mind.” “The "funnel" was turned on it's side.... literally....” “I wish I had taken this course years ago, but I'm so glad to have this information in my brain now.” “📜 This course has been an absolute game-changer, equipping me with the essential models for sustainable growth that constitute the Recurring Revenue Operating Model.” “This course is simply outstanding!” “World class instructor and the course content. It was fresh, appropriate for today's realities and most importantly - tangible". "You learn it and tomorrow use it”. “I highly recommend this course as it's super relevant for revenue leaders looking to add more science and data to their recurring revenue operations”. “Anyone wanting to deepening knowledge of how to drive growth and success with a company or division should absolutely take the Revenue Architecture class” “While I thought I had an amazing understanding of SaaS and Revenue models from years of building models, board decks and working with revenue teams and leaders...not to mention my MBA classes and focus in data analytics… I learned a ton!” “I can't say enough good things about this program." "I'm really fortunate to have had the opportunity to sharpen our tools and thinking." “Highly recommend it to every revenue & marketing operations professional out there!” “This course has given me a deeper understanding of the specific, proven models and frameworks to consistently achieve revenue goals 📈” “Incredible instruction! I can’t wait to elevate what I’ve always done with the teachings from this course! 💪🏻” “The methodology taught in this course allows you to architect your revenue in a way that achieves sustainable growth by understanding the fundamental principles of recurring revenue and the specific frameworks to apply across your GTM team.” “This course has been a game-changer for me. It was an incredibly insightful journey that taught me the fundamental models for sustainable growth that make up the Recurring Revenue Operating Model and provided a wealth of practical tools and resources. Honestly, it's one of the best courses I've taken professionally! 💯” “What a great course by Winning by Design on understanding the ins and outs of recurring revenue business 📈” "This will enable you to do the right thing at the right time to maximize success 🚀” “The Revenue Architecture course was an incredible course. I learned ways to increase growth by making some minor improvements, look at GTM motions and make sure they align with my business, and take the "right" action at different inflection points on the growth curve so my company doesn't flame out.”

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One of my top tips for avoiding firing as a CMO is to support drafting a revenue handbook shared across the GTM teams. Many people asked for the template, so I'm sharing it here. This is a service-level agreement between marketing, sales, CS, and others. This can also be called a sales handbook. Align on segmentation, pricing/packaging, follow-up, feedback loops, etc.

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