We just leaked Jacco's new playbook. Here's what's inside.

We got our hands on Jacco van der Kooij’s latest GTM playbook. 

The one he’s only been sharing behind closed doors at high-ticket, invite-only events. And yes, we’re leaking it. 

This isn’t just a few new tactics. It’s a complete shift in how revenue leaders think about growth. No more chasing leads at all costs. No more funnels that fall apart at scale. Instead, it’s about turning your users into your biggest growth engine. 

We dig into what’s changing, what companies like Notion and Snowflake are doing differently, and why this approach might be the healthiest way to grow in B2B right now.

Never miss a new episode! join our newsletter at revenueformula.substack.com 

• (00:00) - Introduction
• (01:24) - Exploring the New Playbook
• (08:04) - Activating Your User Base
• (23:01) - The tiered users ecosystem
• (29:43) - Cohort-Based Events
• (36:56) - Human-Led Growth: The Power of Real Connections
• (43:21) - The New Playbook: Integrating Sales and Success
• (51:23) - Up next: The SDR Playbook

Creators and Guests

Host

Raul Porojan

Voice of Reason in Revenue / Former Director Sales & CS at Project A

Host

Toni Hohlbein

2x exited CRO | 1x Founder | Podcast Host

What is The Revenue Formula?

This podcast is about scaling tech startups.

Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Raul Porojan, together they look at the full funnel.

With a combined 20 years of experience in B2B SaaS and 3 exits, they discuss growing pains, challenges and opportunities they’ve faced. Whether you're working in RevOps, sales, operations, finance or marketing - if you care about revenue, you'll care about this podcast.

If there’s one thing they hate, it’s talk. We know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron. But execution and focus is the key - that’s why each episode is designed to give 1-2 very concrete takeaways.

TRF - Leaking Jacco's latest playbook
===

Toni: [00:00:00] Today we are going to leak Jacco's new playbook. He's so far only talked about it at expensive and invite only closed-door events. The new playbook is very simple once you see it, which is something that makes it so much more compelling in my view. But it is unfortunately. Not a series of quick fixes that you can just quickly implement.

It's much rather, a change of mindset of the commercial leadership on how to drive revenue. As per usual. Send me your comments and feedback to Tony at AI and make sure to hit subscribe. Those pockets are melting away and they're getting smaller and smaller. Email and spam filters are improving. More and more ads are getting more expensive and being less so actually recognized by people.

There is a desire from people to buy things. How do those two things actually work together now? Well, the way people are purchasing things has changed a little bit.

Raul: Having control over the funnel is something that gives them a lot of comfort. When the shit hits the fan, we'll take one week, we'll just sit down for a week, do [00:01:00] nothing else, and do calls, and then we'll be fine.

Well, now I'm supposed to have the customer bring me new customers. Just is a loss of control. First of all,

Toni: how can you get to the point where you stop thinking about. Deals and customers and start thinking about users instead. So if you have clicked on this episode, you might have fallen victim to clickbait, but still this is gonna be really interesting stuff.

So, uh, I had a conversation with Jocko actually before this piece of content went out. Um, and he sent me his notes and we agreed to do, uh, Raul and I, uh, do basic kind of a, what do you wanna say? Like a commentary. On this new playbook that Jocko is kind of, uh, uh, talking about recently, right? I think there's lots of stuff where we can go in one direction of like, Hey, this is actually new.

And then there's lots of stuff where like, Hey, is this, is this the new playbook? Or what are we talking about here? Right? And I think that's actually what we're gonna dive into today. And we are gonna go through the [00:02:00] playbook, uh, that Jocko's kinda working on. We're gonna show you maybe one or two. Uh, graphs to kind of prove the point.

That stuff you will be able to see on YouTube, by the way, kind of to jump over there to check that out. Um, and then otherwise let's, uh, let's dive into it.

Raul: So we had an episode, I think it was the second to last episode from now, um, where Jako was hinting at a lot of different things. And we have this, the playbook is dead and now is time for the new playbook story coming up.

Um, and. I think the, what everyone is just so excited about is like, what is the new playbook? What is the new playbook? And I think to some extent, uh, I saw a post by, uh, Stefan Meh yesterday, I think, uh, who, who also quoted us in there. It is, um. Building your own playbook. Uh, it's not that there's necessarily one big new thing coming, but there is some kind of edges to it.

Uh, and I think Jocko is bringing them here. And, um, the, the [00:03:00] main idea here, maybe to kick us off is what's this playbook? Why is everything dead? What's happening? Well. We have this old world kind of to juxtapose this, which is the SaaS world, the growth at all costs idea. And the main idea here is we're thinking in a funnel.

We're bringing in all kinds of different money, uh, through all kinds of different leads. Uh, but mainly at the end of the day, it is bringing a lot of leads in, close them and then get to the end. And we've talked about this on several occasions already. There is. Within the beauty of this model and, and within also, also the growth that this has brought to a lot of companies.

There's just some natural limits to it and, uh, especially if you're really trying to scale. At some point, you will arrive at like incredibly large numbers of leads that you have to bring in to make this model work. So at some point, maybe for the first couple of customers you talk to 20, 30 new people, you can bring in two or three.[00:04:00]

But later when you're trying to bring in 10, 20, 50 million a RR. That probably means thousands and tens of thousands of leads that have to be qualified somehow. And that's just one way that the natural limit doesn't work.

Toni: And I think kind of that linear connection to a degree that's the problem or a problem.

I think this is also where this whole idea of the scur comes. So in the beginning you can maybe acquire those thousands of leads per quarter. Over time, it's gonna get more and more difficult. What I really, you know, in addition to that, there, there's a bunch of other things that I just have become harder.

Um, and I see it for myself. I see it for like other folks I'm advising and it really is, well, the cold calling stuff. Harder to pull off, right? I think there are pockets in, um, in the go-to market where it still works extremely well. So keep on doing that. Um, but there, you know, those pockets are melting away and they're getting smaller and smaller.

We are [00:05:00] seeing that email and spam filters are improving more and more. We are seeing that ads are getting more expensive and being less so actually recognized by people. We are seeing that pages like G two Crowd and so forth, kind of those review sites are getting less and less attention and being less and less used.

So there's, there's, there's one shift that's happening that's making this, this whole linear approach of trying to acquire leads. You know, whatever you wanna call them, uh, really difficult, right? It's making it more and more expensive. It's making it more and more difficult, right? So, but the thing is, people haven't stopped buying things.

People are still buying software and are happily using it. And, uh, actually it budgets are actually increasing, right? Um, that has to do obviously with, uh, the whole AI dream that, uh, you know, people are being sold. But there is a desire from people to buy things. So how does, how do those two things actually work together now if, [00:06:00] if it's harder to acquire them, but people wanna buy stuff?

Well, the way people are purchasing things has changed a little bit. It's going more in a direction of asking, you know, your peers, your colleagues, your friends, and like, Hey, what are you guys using for. I don't know your outreach, what are you using for this? What are you using for your CRM? What are you using for this problem and so forth.

Right. And those kind of conversations happen in communities. They're happening in Facebook groups. They Yes. Facebook groups by the way. Yeah. That's still a thing. Um, it happens, you know, in events that happens on, you know, all, all kinds of different places where people, um, you know, meet peers and basically can, can chat and interact with one another.

Right. And what we are kind of seeing is that, that. That first step of the acquisition of the purchasing, that has just shifted away a little bit, and I would say away from the control of the company, which is, which is a little bit the scary part here. Right. And I think that that kicks [00:07:00] off this problem extremely nicely.

Before I kind of kick it over to your role again, um. There was one really interesting piece in the paper, uh, basically saying, well, more users should actually generate more growth, right? You have more people talking about you. You have, uh, uh, ideally more people, uh. Sitting in those forums and saying that, Hey, this is the great tool, or we using this tool and so forth, but why isn't this the case?

You know, why is more users, more customers, more companies higher A IR? Why is this not translating into more growth for organizations? Right? Where, where's this disconnect? Why is it happening? And I think that is giving everyone a little bit of an idea of like, okay. If we were to solve that, does that unlock things right?

And I think that that's a trajectory. I think we're gonna, we're [00:08:00] gonna be spending a little bit of time on today.

Raul: Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. And, uh, to a lot of people who are really in this revenue sphere, the having control over the funnel is something that gives them a lot of comfort. So, yeah, control, as in, I know that at any given time, in theory, at least, uh, I can pick up the phone or my team can pick up the phone and we can get 50 new leads, uh, or 500 and we sort of roughly have an idea of how many calls that's gonna take.

So when the shit hits the fan. We'll take one week. We'll just sit down for a week, do nothing else, and do calls, and then we'll be fine. Yeah, and this kind of gives them a lot of comfort. That's the world that a lot of rev revenue leaders come from. This idea of, well, now I'm supposed to have the customer bring me new customers, just.

Is a loss of control, first of all. But also there is a lot of steps and a lot of ways that you can, you can kind of have to interact with them and a lot of things that you have to do, uh, to increase the odds of that [00:09:00] happening. Um, yeah. I would however say that overall, and Jocko also stresses this very strongly, uh, there's actually not that many different ones, is just that there's a lot of ways to do it, namely.

As dumb as it is, the main thing you should be doing is delivering value to the customer and as many of those customers as possible. Jocko even says it's not about the customer, it's about the user. So within a given company, there's maybe 10, 15 different users, and it's about delivering value to those users again and again and again, which is the main.

Requirement for any of that user-driven growth to happen. Yes. And that makes a lot of sense, obviously, right? So make your product good. Duh. But it is a different view than just sell that thing and then make sure that, uh, things don't break.

Toni: I think, and I've been simmering on this, you know, I'm not sure if it's a reation, [00:10:00] uh, or anything like this, or an evolution or revolution.

Um. I've been, I've been thinking about this a little bit and I have to admit, while it is so obvious and, you know, new, new cool things usually have this effect where it's like, once you know and think about it, it's like, oh, it's so obvious. Why didn't we do this before? But there was this war cry also from, uh, from JAO and, and all the revenue architecture folks, it's like, hey, you know, recurring, um, revenue comes from recurring impact.

Kind of remember that, you know, if you put this on LinkedIn, everyone is liking like crazy. Um, but, but now it kind of goes one step further in the, you know, breaking it down to, you know, the physics of it. Well, recurring impact for boom specifically. Right. That's, that's now that actually the next question, and it's not for the company.

When you sell a software product to, I don't know, EC Corp, it's not recurring impact for EC Corp. It's recurring impact for the users of [00:11:00] Corp that are using your product. That's actually what this is about. Right? And the, the, the thought experiment trickier, and for me it's almost like a, uh, like a love child of the go-to market that Ro and I, you and I are kind of a very much used to kind of, let's make more calls, let's kind of get those deals in.

Um, and the PLG side of things that we kind of know, but we are like a little bit more distant to, right. And I think what this is now achieving is trying to marry those two things together. Right? And one main piece for me, you know, before we go into the tactics of how can you actually get to this point, right?

How can you get to the point where you stop thinking about deals and customers and start thinking about users instead and start thinking about how you can get those users to get you more. Leads or whatever. There was one, uh, one graphic, and maybe Bart can pull this up. Um, that I really kind of like that makes this case [00:12:00] extremely or proves this case extremely well.

I. So in the past, previously, we were always thinking about, okay, if we want to grow, you know, what does that mean? Um, we need to, in a very simplified scenario, we need to month over month, quarter over quarter, we need to generate more leads, more opportunities, more pipeline, so we can then in the same timeframe, close that stuff and add more customers to the customer base, which then generates more and more growth for us.

Right. In this other approach that we're kind of discussing now, it's actually, well, you add more users to your customer base, but you know, those users might have a. I'm not sure if we wanna call it a, a conversion rate or virality rate or something like this. It's a little bit from the two thousands, uh, you know, B2C playbook.

But basically those users have a propensity to potentially, if they're happy and if they're being activated to acquire new leads for you. Right. New, new, new [00:13:00] companies basically. Right. Which then means as you add more to your reservoir of users, those, you know, this ever growing set of users will actually.

In a fraction, like a one per or 2% conversion rate, so to speak, per quarter, will generate more leads for you. That then kind of feeds into the reservoir again, right? So instead of needing to acquire, you know, ever more leads over time in order to grow, you can actually, you know, as you are, I don't know, reaching 10, 20, 30, 50 million of revenue, that user reservoir, that user base.

We'll probably take over and be a predominant pipeline generator if you do it well. If you do it right. Right. And the crazy thing is that you obviously for that part of the pipe gen, you will, you know, presumably pay a lot less than you would otherwise. And what also is extremely interesting here is that that kind of approach currently fits the buyer [00:14:00] behavior.

Buyer behavior again, right? Yes. There are pockets where, you know, the old playbook still works and you know, you can't just throw it out and be like, oh, you know, let's, you know, yes, we are using those, those words, but you can't completely burn it because there's still truth in it. But the new user or buyer behavior is to listen to your peers and other folks, and, and ideally those folks are people that really like your product.

Uh, and ideally those talk to them, and that's how you basically kind of feed into this. Into this new way of people purchasing things, and I just wanted to kind of make sure that this is, this is kind of the core that needs to be understood. Right. Rahul, I'm, I'm not sure what your take on this is, um, if you're calling BS on this potentially, but I think this is the quote unquote idea, right?

Um, that the new playbooks basically being centered around,

Raul: no, I'm not calling bs. I would however say I'm not sure that this is actually a new playbook. But who even knows what a playbook is and what it isn't. But there's a lot [00:15:00] of, uh, good ideas there. And then. There's maybe an execution of those ideas, and that's probably a good thing for companies.

So I welcome that. Right? Uh, the problem that I see with many people I've worked with who they're not dumb people. So the idea of, hey, uh, satisfy your customers and that's probably good for your business. Uh, that's not a new idea to people. The problem is that yes, buyers are changing. And buyer behavior is changing.

People are talking more about recommendations with each other and maybe less to the companies directly, and they prefer to go to events and interact online in, uh, communities and all that kind of stuff. So that's all great. The problem is that a lot of founders I've seen and speaking to about this topic are scared to lose control.

So it's great that maybe Tony is going to an event in Copenhagen and maybe is talking to someone about the problems that he's solving with my software solution that he's been using for a couple years. [00:16:00] But also, he might be lazy and he might never go to any event, and so that's great, but he's just lazy and he's not very useful for me acquisition wise, and maybe he's just not very good at.

Uh, convincing people in general, and that's just Tony in, in in himself. But then maybe also, how do I influence him to do that? Because he might not just do kind of stuff from, from his own goodwill, uh, or we might just depend on him. Luckily bumping into someone looking for this kind of solution, how can I actually leverage him?

So I think the. The main idea, it's not very contentious. It's not like it's, it's a contentious idea to satisfy customers and that will bring you new customers. Hopefully it is. How the hell do I execute on that? And I think this is where Jocko just has some, some examples and some, some real life ideas of, okay, well how do you bring those user generated leads in there?

Right. Um, obviously none of this is like new and, and none of that necessarily, and this is also by the way, [00:17:00] where AI will come in has necessarily to do with ai, but in this new world we're moving towards, there is some new possibilities and some things that AI can give you that maybe make this part much easier.

Toni: And, and I'm just talking from my CRO past, right? If I'm really super, frankly honest. Uh, I didn't think like this about generating new revenue. I didn't, I was like, how can I get more leads, get more customers, and make sure they don't leave? Like, hon? Honestly, if I, if I'm really straight with this, that, that, that's how I've been thinking about this.

What this new thing here is trying to prompt users or, uh, uh, people that try and apply this to do. Is to really take it and be like more purposeful around your customer base. Uh, and I actually think less about it as a customer base and more as a user base. Right? I think that's what it's trying to achieve, and I even feel to a degree it creates a different.

Uh, clarity and understanding and a purpose for what an [00:18:00] ICP miss, right? Kind of. And, and previously we were like, oh, ICPs are easier, you know, cheaper to acquire. They kind of stick with you for longer and, and that kind of stuff. Um, for me it's almost like, well, if I acquire the right user and I really make them happy, like, you know, I acquire the user that actually is happy with my product.

The propensity of that user to help me acquire the next user is way up. Versus I acquire some customer that is paying me some money that I'm really happy about, but they are, um, unlikely to be really happy with the product because, you know, it's kind of a, it is a, it is a medium fit. So the, the propensity of that user base to generate me more leads.

Probably zero, right? Because you need to, you need to cross a certain threshold, I feel of, uh, someone being amazed by what you do before they start talking to other people about you. Right.

Raul: Just to jump in there, 'cause there is, there's [00:19:00] one more thing that I think is a little underlooked about this area.

Um, it is not just about like, okay, is that. Is it likely that the user is going to be happy, but also there's a new quality coming in where every customer is not the same? If Tony is someone who's maybe very well connected, very active in the startup ecosphere, which might be my ICP for my tool, for example, the contract with Tony.

Is much more influential to this kind of growth than it might be the contract with Raul who just stays home and is just a one man army and doesn't talk to anybody. So in itself, uh, that kind of shifts also, not just making customers happy, but also which kind of customers and at the end of the day, which users, uh, do I have access to?

I would like to add one more thing because really. To, to, to add, to kind of like, okay, how do you execute this? And, and how does this really get me moving towards my goal? Um. 11 years ago, story time, [00:20:00] I worked at a company called Service Partner one, and, and that company there was maybe 40, 50 salespeople.

And the CRO, that was my, in my first year of my career by the way. And the CRO asked me to do sales trainings with the salespeople who were 10, 20 years more experienced than me. And, um, that actually did work out to some extent. Uh, but the main thing that. I was able to do is just understand really well what the good salespeople were doing.

Not so much coming best practices for me, but just seeing what the good salespeople were doing and then finding ways to distribute that into the others. And after probably. 11 years, and maybe by now working with half a thousand, so maybe like 500 salespeople in general, it remains the same kind of idea that propels people to be top performers and, uh, especially in like earlier stages of the, of the reach out or, or like SDR account, executive process, uh, as compared to like [00:21:00] medium performers and it's, it was two 11 years ago.

It's still true right now if I'm gonna spend two hours of sales training with someone. There's always one thing that I want them to get away with, and, uh, that thing was 11 years ago and still now get them to ask for referrals. That is the one thing that is criminally underused by salespeople is the people you're already talking to either and that's why I was so vague about it can be a lead you just cold called, who you have a nice conversation with, but then tells you, oh, but this is not for me.

Well ask them, Hey Tony, no problem. This was a great talk, by the way. Hey, you're really well connected. Do you know anyone else who might be, and even if they just give you a name, you can still call that company and reference Tony and the talk you had with them. It doesn't have to be a warm introduction, it can just be, oh, hey, hey Mario.

Uh, Tony just told me that you might be interested. I think you guys met somewhere. Um, just so you know. Whatever, this is my reach out on LinkedIn much better than just going in cold. And this goes down the whole funnel, including your [00:22:00] customers. You will be amazed how many salespeople don't even ask, and I think this is now the new version where the main thing you should do is ask in the first place.

Toni: I think the, you know, whether it's asking or not, I mean, it's, I think what the, the, the Jocko's new playbook is about is. Deliberately trying to activate your user base. Right. And he pulled up a, a couple of different examples from hands down, clearly very successful companies, whether or not they were successful because of it.

Like, hey, let's debate that. Right. But it's good examples. Um, and he's basically. I think, I think level zero is go and ask for a referral, by the way. Right? Like totally, totally do that. Um, but then there are a couple of other ways. So you can try and build up that user base and build it up to a point where they actually are feeling, uh, you know, empowered to, to generate those, uh, those referrals for you without someone necessarily asking.

[00:23:00] Right. So let's kind of start with the first one. Creation of tiered user ecosystems, right? So. What this kind of means is, hey, put your users into different tiers. Um, the idea is that your best, most valuable users, they don't just wanna have access, they want to recognition, right? And just reading this and kinda saying like, Hey, you know, the users that you recognize the most, and you give them some status and you know, they're now an ambassador or there's something like that, um, that by themselves, you know, will, will give, will give this.

Uh, you know, oh, okay. You know, I, I'm speaking for the brand and blah, blah, blah. There, there will be some impact here. But reading this out loud, like immediately here, this is, uh, literally, uh, those are tricks that are a hundred years old. Uh, you know, the, the, the main example that comes to mind for me is, you know, the Visa, MasterCard, platinum card, like you are, you are in the checkout.

You pull out [00:24:00] your, I don't know, black, super heavy sapphire whatever card. This is a form of status, right? And as you kind of use the status card, kind of that, um, you know, makes yourself a, you know, more, um, valued, recognized user, but might also kind of prompt other people like, oh, this is fucking cool.

Kind of how can I, you know, how can I have that same thing right? There's a, there's a little bit of a human connection here that, that isn't totally new, but I think some companies have reinvented this also in the age of software and AI and are using this, um, you know, in a completely different way.

Notion is having kind of this ambassador, uh, program, uh, I know that cursor, which are also gonna feature later on also as an ambassador program. Uh, Airtable has, you know, power user spotlights. Um, and, and Webflow has customer driven social threats, right? Kind of that they're basically kind of using in order to, uh, give recognition to those, to those strong users and put them on a pedestal, put [00:25:00] them on a platform, um, but also give them the recognition that they may be want to have as a very strong user, um, to, uh, you know, in, in addition to just using the tool.

Right? And I think that's kind of the first. The first piece here role from your perspective is this. H how, how would you see this come to life in some of the companies you're working with, or, you know, what, what's the, what's, what's the trick here from, from your perspective that you're, that you're seeing?

Raul: The, the challenge here is if it's only about recognition, it's it, depending on how you architecture that is a limited resource. So if it has to be, for example, uh, we have a, I don't know, let's say we have some kind of software ai and then we have a, a user of the month. Well, there's only that many users, uh, sorry, only that many months that you can have, right?

So at some point you're gonna run into problems with that. Or if it is. [00:26:00] We have per big city in Europe, we have kind of like a chapter hat or something like that, right? There's only so many berlins and munichs and hamburgs in Germany. And then multiply that by the countries. So, uh, and I'm saying this because specifically I've seen programs like that not succeed because of this.

They reach kind of a natural limit very quickly and, um. It's kind of, uh, well, everyone wants to be a chapter head then Everyone wants to be kind of on a website and a user of the month. Right. And it also tracks a certain kind of people. The question is, is this necessarily the person who wants to be user of the month on your website or in the highlight video that you do once a week on YouTube?

Is that necessarily the person that you want to have kind of as an ambassador? Those are different questions. I'm not saying no, but I've seen these as problems so far. Yeah. What I've seen work much better. Is where that resource is not so much a naturally limited resource, but it is a more flee free flowing thing.

So as an example, using community, which is basically unlimited [00:27:00] as a, as a factor. And then within that community, people who can become leaders and who can become, uh, bigger actors in that. Who's really, really good at this, and I think we can take a lot from that, is just B2C in general. So if you, if you're into gaming, if you've looked at Twitch for example, um, which is a gaming platform where I can watch my whatever kind of professional gamers play, uh, and there is leaderboards for fans, there is engagement, uh, points for things.

There is ways that you can kind of rise up in the ranks. As a moderator, this is nothing new. Anyone who has ever been on the internet knows these things, right? The question is, uh, how can you kind of like take these things from these ecospheres and what works really well, and I'm saying this again, is community.

Salesforce started with this, um, with. Whatever trailhead, if you're, if you're, uh, familiar with that, which is their basically learning and teaching community where the whole ecosystem is about answering questions, kind of collecting like karma in a way, and then like collecting recognition, [00:28:00] building courses for other people, but then most of all.

Being certified. So in the Salesforce world, however weird that world is the badge of, Hey, I'm eight x certified. That's something people still put in their LinkedIn. Imagine how crazy it is that you have now whatever kind of software you have, and your startup is 1-year-old. Imagine that maybe 10 years from now, people will be using the fact that they have 10 different certifications with your software as their LinkedIn header.

That is crazy to me. Right. So that is kind of the world that I would like to be thinking in, right? Maybe try to go away from the user of the month and think more, and how do I get people to be proud of the fact that they're really good with my tool?

Toni: Yeah, and I think another, um, another approach here is as you tier your users and as you have those special brackets.

Um, figure out what you can do with them, right? For example, um, maybe give them access to early features or kind of call them in and be like, Hey, you know, we're thinking about this. [00:29:00] What is, what is it you're thinking about? Um, you can, uh, obviously kind of do the, uh, very, you know, straightforward, let's do a customer case story, but you can also do a user case story, actually kind of what is the story behind that person and maybe make it more of a social post.

Then an necessarily needs to be a high gloss, you know, PDF on, on your website and so forth, right? Um, and, and there there are so many ways how you can try and, you know, pull people in and, and put them on the pedestal. And I think that's really, that's really one of the first steps, how you can, um, how you can, uh, try and elevate that user that then ideally.

Uh, has a higher propensity to speak openly about you and then also be positive about you and, you know, recommend you to other folks. Right. Let's move on to the next category here, and maybe, maybe you take this role, but it's basically cohort based events.

Raul: Cohort based events. Let's. Dissect that. The idea is that depending on where you're at in your journey or in your customer journey as a user, there is [00:30:00] different ways that the company's going to interact with you.

Again, that's nothing new, but putting a lot more automation and a lot more thought into that, it's kind of a new thing. So, as an example, right, uh, depending on my product usage, uh, I'm being separated into different. Cohorts, uh uh, for example, within my cohort, I'm the top 10% of users within the first week.

And that means that I'll be given access or I'll be invited to some kind of gated community or even an event, for example, right? Uh, or I will be shared some kind of content way earlier on because there's a good likelihood that I might be more interested in engaging with that kind of thing. So maybe. In the CRM, kind of the male CRM, uh, I'll be recommended to my YouTube channel depending on where I am in that user's journey as compared to maybe someone who.

I don't know. I'm, uh, I'm a bottom 10% user within the first couple of weeks, and maybe I'll be, uh, more interacted with based on, Hey, do you understand this [00:31:00] and this about the tool? Hey, did you know we have this and that feature? Right? Yeah. Which is as simple as it sounds, executionally. It is still quite rare that this is actually being done.

So really differentiating people on the customer journey based on their interactions with tools, and there's a lot of reasons for that. So obviously the first one that comes to mind is you need a lot of to do it exactly that way. A lot of understanding about what your customer is doing with that tool and, and where they're at in their journey.

And that is just a product analytics problem that a lot of people just are not ready to face yet.

Toni: What I really like about this one, um, and maybe this is an analogy that helps people to grasp this a little bit better, um. You're currently out there buying all kinds of software to, you know, purchase leads, enrich them, you know, find signals for them, put them into a cadence.

Do all of that work right? Now, imagine you would do a [00:32:00] similar amount of effort with your users instead, or on top. Like it doesn't need to be instead, right? But actually have that level inte of intelligence also for your user base. In order then to say, um, okay, you know, for your top funnel, um, uh, place, you say like, oh, you know, these guys are in this industry and in this seniority level, they have this challenge.

So when I call them or send them emails or do stuff with them, I, I'll focus on this problem and, you know, really work out the pain. So I kind of get the meeting right. Kind of that's the thinking. You have. I think someone said like, clay is like the, the, the list is the message, right? Kind of. You filter this down and then you send a super targeted message to that list.

Well, think about this just with your users instead, right? And, and kind of give them, um, you know, offer them ways to, uh, participate and learn and, you know, through that, maybe activate them, right? And those could be learning events. It could be, you know, show off your setup. It could be like, teach other people.

It could be all kinds of ways, how you [00:33:00] can, uh, differentiate user base and then start, you know, pinging them with different messages, not only for, Hey, I haven't seen you log in for 60 days. Don't you wanna come, you know, come again. But basically kind of be way more granular on this and, and try and kind of activate through that better messaging, try and activate those users in a better way.

Right. And again, all of these things, you know, we've heard them before. PLG companies have been doing some of those things before, like for sure. That's, I'm also saying kind of, it's a bit of a merge of those two worlds to a degree. But that's, you know, your, you, you know, it's, it's not even about intelligence, it's about your level of dumbness you have with your users is actually stunning.

And I think that that is something that people should recognize and realize and, and see like, well, I know more about my leads than I know about my users. How the f can that actually be right? And actually that needs to be turned around a little bit or at least, you know, balanced out. And once you know more about your users, I.

Guess what? You can engage with them in a more meaningful way for them. And guess what? That might actually increase the [00:34:00] propensity for them to recommend you again. Right? Yeah. That's the level of thinking we now need to start having

Raul: and think about the gold mine of data that you have with the users and the direct access that you have to them.

So. I'm working with a company right now who is kind of B2B two C. They're selling something that is being, it's, it's a food thing. Um, they're selling a food item to producers who's selling that to retailers who then sell that to customers within the whole, this whole chain. I. It's so difficult to understand at the end of the day, who's buying that thing and eating them, and who's buying it for who is the mother buying it for the family?

Are children buying this on their way to school? Is this for students? Like the kind of connection to end user in this scenario is so difficult for this company. And I talk to them. I'm working very intensely with them right now. Um, I talk to them every day about trying to. Gain some kind of advantage and some kind of edge and some kind of [00:35:00] access, even to the retailers to understand like what's happening with their product they would kill to have access to the data that you probably do, uh, in B2B, right?

Or whatever kind of thing it is. It's, if it's, if it's a user within a company, you're probably in a very luxurious position. You just don't realize it yet. The second thing here is what do you do with these people? And I think this is really what, where you hit the nail on the hat, Tony, is you're just not doing very much with that knowledge right now.

So understand the wealth of knowledge you have. Maybe take a little bit of inspiration from B2C and how they're, uh, approaching this kind of problem, but then really start sitting down. Thinking about your customer journey or journeys and what kind of inflection points you can design in there, because I can guarantee you once you start doing that, there is a lot, I always say in customer success, uh, that the customer journey I.

In the retention part or whatever, in the acquisition part, [00:36:00] uh, is basically the equivalent to the sales funnel, uh, when you, when it comes to lead, right? So the sales funnel is getting a lot of attention. Everyone's like designing, how exactly are we doing this? We're measuring that. This is where we're coming in, this is where we're bringing in influencers.

This is where we do all that stuff. You should do the same thing for the customer journey. It is the equivalent of the sales funnel. Just at a later point, or as Jocko would put it, it's the right side of the bow tie.

Toni: And again, right, I, I said something previously, it's like, hey, you know less about your users than you know about your leads.

And people might be like, wait a minute. That's, you know, but I know this then already about the thing is you probably have sold to maybe a committee of five people. Um, and then you have 20 or 30 users. You really, do you really know anything about those 30 users? Right? And, and that kind of level of thinking people need to start switching towards.

Right. But let's maybe jump to the third one, um, that, that Jack was talking about. Um, and I think this is really interesting actually [00:37:00] because this also brings in, again, like the traditional go-to market, uh, that we've kind of seen previously and, you know, bunches it up extremely well with this PLG approach, right?

Which is really lean into, um, you know, I think he calls it human led growth, right? Uh, basically generating forums of actual people, meeting actual other people. Um, instead of having, you know, all of this being generated by AI and, you know, all of these things that we are starting to get more and more immune and vaccinated against.

Um, and he's basically kind of taking some of those examples that I think is really interesting. So, for example, loom. Um, what they're doing, kind of the, the video snippet thing, kind of, you know, tool. Um, what they're basically doing is, you know, as they tear up new milestones, as they tear up new, so specific product milestones, I.

They actually have actual events where they invite people into, you know, the different offices that they have, [00:38:00] um, you know, showcase those new features, test it out with them, give them early access, but basically kind of build a bit of a, um, a human to human connection there. Right, because, hey, this is.

This is, this is real. This is not just some fake thing. This is an actual real thing, right? And the reality of it comes from, hey, we are meeting up in person, physically in an actual location. Right? And I think, um, as we kind of go through the next couple of years, this craving for, uh, reality. We'll probably increase more and more and more fast.

Right. And I think this human led approach of this, um, again, activating users and doing exactly that, that is another lag of how we can try and achieve this activation of user base. There are a couple of more examples, but before we kind of maybe jump into this role, what's your, what's your perspective on this?

Raul: Have you heard this term? Uh, apple amplify it. Oh, so it's no. [00:39:00] Yeah, but, so I've, I've, I don't know where I got this from. It's from the software world where basically what you described is, well, let's just fuck it, amplify it, right? So the idea here is, okay, we are this kind of software company, uh, we are doing this whatever CRM thing, who cares?

Like whatever it's software we're doing. But let's try to build like a following and, and let's do that by doing like a launch event. And I'll, I'll come in a turtleneck sweater and I'll kind of like, oh, one more thing it, right. And, um. I think in, in, apparently in San Francisco, some companies already are trying to do that and maybe that's more of an American thing and it's working already.

Uh, but I found that so interesting. So I thought maybe you've heard of companies actually doing that and that's what you're referring to. 'cause I haven't seen it. Right. So I haven't seen a company in Berlin, uh, kind of rent out, uh, a whole, uh, event hall and do like a, a launch event. And then one more thing with a turtleneck, uh, founder I saw.

Toni: I saw a John Deere. Do you know the, the lawn one? Yes. The trucking or like, uh, kind of company basically. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of [00:40:00] farming, basic farming equipment. They did that. Think about it. And the, the crowd by the way went crazy. Yeah, it was absolutely crazy. And you know, it worked to a degree, right? But like.

Um, not sure where you're going with this, by the way, Raul, but kind of again, going into a space, kind of having a conversation. It's not just a conference, right? Kind of the, the, the focus on some of these things Sure. Is on new features and so forth, but it's also, and actually I just kind of another example here that triggers is kind of snowflake.

Snowflake is doing those conferences that actually only customers. Only customers are going to this conference. Um, and only customers are actually presenting at that conference. Right? Really kind of showcasing how they've been leveraging Snowflake and probably other tools and basically kind of helping each other in order to, um, you know, leverage the software in the best possible way.

But why is Snowflake doing this? Well, you know, it's, uh, making it more sticky that basically if you're up on stage and you're singing the [00:41:00] song, kind of, you are now, uh. Almost a, an ambassador, you know, for that brand, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Kind of all of those little mechanics that we're talking about kind of kicking into place here, which, which I think is, is, is really interesting.

Raul: Yeah. So I was at, um, at a conference of P Loa, I think it was in, uh, October or November, um, which was quite impressive. We actually also had the CRO later as an episode on the Revenue Brothers Joachim, who was the managing director of Salesforce before. So he kind of took a. Page outta the playbook of Salesforce.

And they had an event that wanted really to go into that direction, right? Parlo, at the end of the day, is an AI for customer service. They probably wouldn't like me saying that, but it's an agent, right? And even though that's the case, and it can be kind of seen as a very dry thing. There was super and Giga fans in that crowd, and you could see that there were people who, for, for who?

Parlo was much more than just a customer [00:42:00] service agent. Yeah. It was a sign of a revolution. It was a sign of something big to come and they wanted to be part of that and they, they had this community aspect of things where people were talking about, I don't know what the term was, but they had a. Parlo, I'm a Parlo one.

Something like that, right? And people really identified with that. And those were also people bringing in new people into the crowd. I got connected to someone through another Parlo, one guy who I didn't even know that was a Parlo one. Boom. All of a sudden connection happens. Someone does a new project with them because of that.

Um, these things happen at that kind of event, and that was just one event and they really make it big, right? So there's like, the founder, I think he actually did have a turtleneck or a black sweater, I'm not sure. Um, they had BA. Was supposed to be on stage. He was like a German icon in football, right?

Because he is an investor in Par Loa. So they put out all the tricks, and I do think that it worked for them. I did talk to the CRO after, I'm not sure exactly how much money they made with that, but that was really what we're just talking about maybe to the [00:43:00] German level of how can I amplify that thing?

Yeah, there's Dreamforce obviously, and then all the followers that do the same thing. But, um, if you have really no idea where to start, there's some examples already. Maybe you can do that in your own size and to the degree that you're able to do that and also pay that, pay for that. But, uh, this thing has been done, right?

This is not like entirely new.

Toni: No, it's not. Um, I think what does change is some of those tactics. They're going from un nice to have, yeah. We'll do them when we are the size of Salesforce, uh, to, oh, wait a minute. They're not just doing this for fun. They're not just doing this to kind of, you know, prove a point.

They're actually doing this to acquire more customers and increase their attention. Um, and I think that change of thinking. I think that is, that should be happening with this new playbook in mind. And again, why, why, why do you need to change that? Well, because current ways of working, starting to crumble, we're all seeing this pipeline [00:44:00] is harder of is, you know, going down Kakas app, all of that stuff is there.

Um, we are seeing that buyer behavior is changing and what we now have to do is we need to change the way we, we are selling. The way we are selling is extremely healthy and useful. You know, in this new way of thinking about it, it's like, well, let's acquire people. Let's acquire companies that have users that are gonna be extremely happy with our product.

Let's build a system around those users. To try and, you know, help them, you know, give them a platform, try and amplify them by giving them a status, by inviting them to events to speak, by giving them early access by, you know, basically prompting them to talk about us. Right. Um, and you know, as they do that.

They will help us acquire more customers. It's actually an extremely healthy way of doing it, right? Because you're not cramming in, you know, anyone and anything into the, into the pipeline. [00:45:00] You're doing this by creating a great solution. I. And then helping the people that are benefiting from your solution to help you acquire more folks, right?

It's really super healthy when you, it's, it's really super healthy when you think about it like this, right? And, and that's what this, you know, new quote unquote playbook is trying to achieve. Some of the tactics are known. Some of those tactics are proven, but the way you should be thinking about your funnel, your bow tie, your flywheel, your infinity loop, whatever, whatever label you wanna, you know, you know, slap on this thing.

That, that I think is the change. And, and I can, I can tell you right now that CROs that even own CS and customer success very much like myself in, in a previous life, um, they did not think like this. And I, and I think they are not thinking like this, and I think now's the time. With all the challenges that we're seeing, now's the time that that needs to change.

And, and I think what's gonna be really crucial here for, you know, revenue [00:46:00] leaders, CROs, maybe VP of sales, marketing and so forth, is you now need to understand and learn a little bit more what's happening on the product side of your business. Not what's being built and so forth, but we're using this. Why are you using it?

Why are they successful, you know? What, what are the personas of the other users that you never acquired? Because they're not a decision maker. You know, what, what are they doing right and how can you take that and, you know, make it basically an input to your funnel again? And I think that change will be painful for people, but I think that change will be extremely healthy for the ecosystem and will benefit users in the end.

Right? Users will be more happy with the solutions that they're using.

Raul: I think one more thing that's also really painful for people is, um, and I call that kind of the private equity way of thinking and and thinking about sales and, and commercial, is when Salesforce goes out there and invites 200,000 people to the Dreamforce, or 200,000 people show up and [00:47:00] they pay you too, who is probably the most expensive life act you can have in the world to show up at their event?

I am not sure that they're thinking about customer acquisition costs the same way that someone is, who's kind of like doing a little sauce company in Hamburg or something. Um, and that's kind of more the forward thinking way of, um, maybe they find a way to measure it. So I'm not saying they don't, but it's, it's quite hard.

But that's kind of a forward thinking way to measure hey, um. We know that this is going to bring us users and we know that this is going to bring us money, and we kind of have a way of calculating that. But we also know that in between there is some kind of magic that we can't exactly tell you is going to convert like this and is going to convert like that or the other.

We can maybe say, oh, there was a hundred thousand users at that event, and we can try to track who showed up at that event and we can try to track how much money we made. And why am I saying that? Because in the startup world that we're in right now, I think a lot of companies [00:48:00] who want to be acquired by a private equity company would kind of be scared to do that, right?

If you're, if you're being still right now financed by vc, going to maybe be acquired by PE or a PE thinking company, they're going to ask you, Hey, how much money are you paying per customer? How much is your retention? Exactly. How much is your conversion rate? Exactly. And they're going through the, all these exact.

Numbers, which is a little bit of a different thinking or I'm not actually, I actually don't think it's a little bit of a different thinking, but it's hard to bridge. It is much easier to grasp when the VC is asking you, what's your conversion rate, what's your net retention rate, and thinking that way, and then executing that into kind of like the old ways of the funnel is a much more natural thing.

Rather than, well, the VC is asking me for these concrete and hard numbers that are basically funnel driven, but then I kind of need in my daily business to now think about making customers happy. And I can measure that because NPS, who cares about that? And then that those customers bring me business and community and all that stuff Now.[00:49:00]

This is a very rough problem and I, I just think I just grazed the edges, but I think in the minds of a lot of people, this is just hard to bring together. So if you're a VC funded company, a lot of times it's more about like, no, no, no funnel, funnel funnel. And that's the only way that I can talk to VCs, mps.

That's why I operate that way. So I think bridging the gap is something that you need to find out for yourself here too.

Toni: I think to a degree, some of those issues are very similar to marketing. Kind of a lot. Let's just, let's just do the example. A lot of people have now realized, hey, running Google Ads, that's cool.

You know, we have direct attribution, but it doesn't scale. You know, you can't buy more of those, you know, keywords. It's just over. So where's the rest coming? And how did they even go to Google to look for this in the first place? Right? There's a whole, you know, people call it the dark funnel or dark social or whatever of things that you can't in, you know, you can influence, but you can't track, you can't measure.

If you're comfortable with that reality that's hitting you already, it's there. Like, you [00:50:00] know, whether you believe it or not, it's there. But if you're comfortable with that, well that kind of, uh, fluffiness, um, you will probably also have on your user base. Right. And I think there are just a couple of proven accepted concepts that people have built around the, you know, left side of the bow tie, the acquisition side of the bow tie.

Some of those concepts, now you need to paste over to the other side. And I think the people who do, and some, some companies have already an extremely successful, but the people who do are able to kind of take those concepts and kind of apply them to the other side. I think that's what the new playbook is about.

And maybe that's great way to, and the show. So we went a little bit longer today because we really wanted to cover all of those different pieces. Uh, hope we didn't lose you along the way. If we haven't hit that subscribe button, maybe. Hey, if you are a happy user, maybe you send this to another user and you kind of invite them to our show and kind of have a listen.

And I'm sure as you have [00:51:00] been listening to the last five episodes, you're actually one of our ambassador users already. But, um, you know, feel, feel free to share and, you know, uh, um, uh, share the episode and otherwise, uh, RO thanks for kind of going through this. Uh, kudos to Jocko for this new. Way of, of thinking, uh, that I actually really enjoy.

And then, uh, see you guys next time. See you everyone, bro. And I have been consulting quite a few founders and CROs on their SDR playbooks, and that makes a bunch of sense because there's tons of change in this area. Next week we will share some of our insights on what the old world of SDRs looks like.

And where it actually still works, but also what the new world looks like and how it can shift your STR team in that direction. Sales pretty much killed sales. The spammy approach that we were able to drive is what's creating all of these blockers now that we see,

Raul: but what is completely different is the place and the mind.

[00:52:00] Set of what is kind of an SDR and what is kind of a BDR and the relationship to AI and to tooling. Now, it's not just about extending the quantity, but it's also about working a lot on quality.

Toni: But that leads us with, okay, great. I now invest into all of those tools. What are the SDRs supposed to do now?

Like? Like literally,

I.