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If your “ABM” is just targeted demand gen, you’re leaving revenue on the table. Kristina Jaramillo breaks down a true account-based approach—a cross-functional, revenue-owned motion that prioritizes stage progression, win rates, deal size, expansion, and churn reduction. We cover building predictive ICPs (beyond revenue/headcount), crafting 1:1 content that speaks to a “party of one,” aligning sales, marketing, CS, and product, and the right metrics to prove business impact. Includes a real enterprise case study and a practical monthly operating rhythm.
Connect with Kristina Jaramillo https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinajaramillo/
https://www.personalabm.com/
Connect with Rick Smith https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-smith-094b29b
Connect with Conquer https://conquer.io/
Connect with Kristina Jaramillo https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinajaramillo/
https://www.personalabm.com/
Connect with Rick Smith https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-smith-094b29b
Connect with Conquer https://conquer.io/
Creators and Guests
What is The Future of Selling?
The Future of Selling is the go-to podcast for sales professionals looking to sharpen their skills and stay ahead in the competitive world of B2B sales. Each episode features expert interviews, real-world case studies, and actionable tips to help you navigate the complex B2B buyer's journey. Whether you're dealing with long sales cycles, multiple decision-makers, or rapidly changing technologies, we’ve got you covered. Tune in to discover the latest trends, best practices, and proven strategies for closing more deals and building lasting relationships in the B2B space. Perfect for sales leaders, account managers, and anyone aiming to master the art of B2B selling.
Future Of Selling (00:01.976)
Hey, welcome to the Future of Selling podcast where we dive into challenges, we dive into trends, innovations, anything that's impacting the future of sales and the sales landscape. I'm your host Rick Smith. So appreciative that you've decided to join us today. Our guest today is Christina Yaromio. Christina is the president of Personal ABM and she's been there over 14 years, which I find amazing and fascinating, right? Anybody that's been anywhere for that length of time anymore, that's great. So we'll talk about that a little bit.
She's also the host of ABM Done Right podcast and is a frequent contributor to publications like Forbes and other publications where she challenges conventional thinking about account-based strategies. Her passion is making ABM practical and measurable, which hallelujah, I can't wait to talk about that. From defining ICPs that predict expansion, I find that interesting, to enabling stage progression, helping sales teams confidently move up market,
I'm just really pumped to dive in on this topic today with Christina, because I want to learn how to turn ABM into something that's measurable. And she's got some thoughts around that. So Christina, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for the time today.
Kristina Jaramillo (01:18.852)
thank you for having me, Rick. I love talking about my favorite subject.
Future Of Selling (01:22.712)
Absolutely. Glad you're here. Hey, I always want to start with a few fun facts, right? About just about you. So people could kind of get, you know, we'll talk about ABM and all your expertise, but I want them to kind of understand who you are a little bit as well. I love the fact that you're a fellow podcaster. How long have you been doing that now?
Kristina Jaramillo (01:40.472)
So this was a, it's four and a half years now. It was a COVID project. That kind of just kept going. Yeah, apparently.
Future Of Selling (01:46.326)
Yeah, a code project that took off apparently. So that's great. Yeah, no, that's awesome. So hopefully I can pick up some pro tips from you today. So if you have anything as we're going through this, feel free to write them down. You can give me the feedback later. You are also very active on LinkedIn and I haven't had a chance to look at all your posts and everything, but I was out there last couple of days. What's your favorite topic to post about? What do you like to talk about the most?
Kristina Jaramillo (01:58.593)
Hahaha
Kristina Jaramillo (02:03.278)
Absolutely.
Kristina Jaramillo (02:14.665)
So I like strategic account programs, how we can drive revenue with account-based marketing. That's my favorite topic because I feel like a lot of people get lost when it comes to account-based strategies. They forget that it's not about the lead, it's actually about driving revenue and driving deal momentum and things like that.
Future Of Selling (02:38.872)
Got it, got it. Okay, cool. And we're gonna jump into some of that for sure. You also, I picked this up, you enjoy creating content for people, not campaigns. Tell me if that's accurate, but if it is accurate, help me understand what that means.
Kristina Jaramillo (02:54.21)
Okay, so yes, it is very accurate. Content for people. I was going to sell to you, Rick. I would wanna know what makes you tick, what makes you a successful business leader, what your organization wants to achieve, and I wanna create content that addresses that. So not just your role, not just the industry you're in, not your persona. You don't fit like these generic criteria. You are a party of one when I'm creating content.
or for myself, for my clients, that's what we like to do is make sure that we are talking to that individual where they are now in their organization and in their role so that we can connect with them so they don't feel like they are just getting mass targeted, speaking to everyone.
Future Of Selling (03:37.154)
Yeah. Yeah, got it. Cause I know I get a lot, I get a lot of stuff, just like you probably do, right? Tons and tons of emails and reaches out on LinkedIn. And so often they feel impersonal or they feel generic and you know, you just kind of, know what you do, you just delete those things you get rid of them. So that's awesome. So let's kind of use that as a, an opportunity to transition into your company. Tell us more about personal ABM. How do you help your customers and what do you help them do?
Kristina Jaramillo (04:06.264)
Sure. We're an account-based go-to-market firm. So we work with people that are targeting strategic accounts and targeting enterprise sales and helping the teams move stalled pipeline accounts to revenue, improve their win rates, increase deal sizes, drive revenue growth. So we are involved from the brand and demand side to land and expand. But mostly we want to improve that go-to-market motion that's
leading to revenue growth, not just pipelines. So we wanna make sure we're driving revenue. And we typically work with CROs to help them drive these goals.
Future Of Selling (04:46.007)
Yeah, that's good. and kind of what you differentiated there was not just about the pipeline, which is great, got to have pipeline, right? But about creating the pipeline, but also being able to impact the revenue side. So, actually close what's in the pipeline, which is a huge piece of it. You know, and some of the things I was reading, and you've already mentioned it, you talked about account-based approaches.
Is account-based approaches, is that different from account-based marketing? if so, how? If you don't mind, just unpack those two ideas or those two phrases.
Kristina Jaramillo (05:25.058)
Yeah, so account-based approaches or account-based strategy and account-based marketing are different in the fact that I think a lot of people just assume because marketing's in that term, that it's a marketing initiative. But account-based strategies, account-based experience is everyone in the team. So everyone from customer success to product to sales to marketing are all involved. How are we going to go to market as a team of one versus
Future Of Selling (05:51.509)
Okay.
Kristina Jaramillo (05:52.138)
marketing in their silo sales in their silo and kind of just marketing handing things over to lead Excuse me handing leads over to sales and not enabling them or helping them move that deal to revenue So it's how are we going to work as a strategic team? To make sure we are impacting any kind of revenue where there it's ARR GRR and are
Future Of Selling (06:12.917)
Yeah, got it. it. So just to kind of recap that, so account-based marketing really is focused on that's more of the marketing swing, right? But when you think about account-based approach, you're talking about, marketing is actually absolutely included in that, but it's also your entire go-to-market approach, customer success, sales, everyone. So that's how you would differentiate those two. Is that correct? Okay.
Kristina Jaramillo (06:39.054)
Yeah, yeah, and it's also, think a lot of people think of account-based marketing and then they think of what kind of tech platform are we going to use and that it's just a campaign or it's just a quick thing we do for maybe 60 or 90 days, but the strategy part or approach part is a long-term initiative. It's not gonna be quick. It's going to be how are we going to shift our mindset as a team?
Future Of Selling (06:47.701)
Right.
Kristina Jaramillo (07:08.898)
so that we are focusing on the revenue as opposed to leads and these generic parts of sales and marketing, they're not actually impacting revenue.
Future Of Selling (07:23.531)
Right. Have you found that companies, teams get hung up on, know, like when I've worked with ABM companies before, sometimes it turns into where we, maybe there's a tendency not to want to talk about the revenue piece quite as much. And they do want to talk more about the, you know, the kind of the front end. Also the metrics get a little fuzzy sometimes. Is that something that you've seen? Is that something you guys focus on trying to make sure that there's a clear path?
there and that we're not just focused on just the front end, the touches, the website being hit, whatever it may be.
Kristina Jaramillo (07:58.74)
Yeah, absolutely. It obviously is important, but it feeds into the further down the pipeline. So for me, when I'm doing an account based approach, it's usually for accounts that are in the middle of the pipe of their journey to the end of their journey. So even for customers as well for expansion and retention initiatives, but we need to make sure that the metrics we're using are actually important to the end to what we want to achieve as a group and that they are.
moving the deals closer to that revenue number as opposed to, okay, we got X amount of leads, this X amount of pipeline, is it translating to revenue or is it just like going into the pipeline and then just fizzling out? So we wanna make sure that we are impacting all those areas.
Future Of Selling (08:43.915)
Got it. And it sounds like you're saying that you guys typically get involved kind of mid funnel or that's where you focus your account based approach energy, if you will, or focus mid funnel. Yeah. then really it's just making sure that you've got all the teams involved and engaged in that. So that's incredible. How do you define an ideal customer profile in a way that's truly predictive?
Kristina Jaramillo (08:54.722)
Yes.
Future Of Selling (09:12.981)
of accounts that are going to expand. I'm asking that question because in some of the research that I did, you talk a lot about the ICP and also the predictive signals for expansion. how do you do that? Make sure they're going to expand, not just land.
Kristina Jaramillo (09:30.68)
So we have to make sure we're going beyond these kind of traits of, does a company fit into the criteria that we kind of created that maybe might not be broad enough? So we wanna make sure we're going beyond, they have this much revenue, they have this much headcount, they're in this industry, they fit these kind of criteria that we made that aren't really.
Future Of Selling (09:41.845)
Okay.
Kristina Jaramillo (09:57.902)
targeted enough, they're not specific enough. So we want to make sure that we are going to be not just looking at superficial characteristics, but we want to look at characteristics like why did a customer buy with us so that we can make sure that we're targeting companies like that? Why did they stay with us? Why did they leave? Why did they expand? Why did they close in the first place? So we want to make sure that we are
targeting people that fit into a customer that we already have, that we know are using our solution to the best of their ability, getting the most out of it, getting the most ROI, staying with us for a while so that we kind of can replicate that and look for similar characteristics and go beyond industry and persona and pain points. We wanna make sure that we're looking at a more detailed view of an account.
Future Of Selling (10:36.619)
Yeah.
Future Of Selling (10:49.739)
Yeah, so to me, that sounds like we want to really focus on lookalikes. mean, if you've got a really strong 10 customers in a specific industry, they continue to renew year after year and expand, why wouldn't you just get focused there from an ICP standpoint? Do you have an example of a client that you guys have worked with, maybe that we're looking at this incorrectly?
and were able to make this transition to the way you would want them to see an ICP and their expansion opportunities. And so what they thinking about and what was that journey like to get them to your point of view?
Kristina Jaramillo (11:29.646)
So we were working with a company that sold conversational AI into call centers. So think about customer service teams type of targets they were selling to. They were targeting big banks. So we're talking like Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, those organizations. And they were using a ABM tech platform. I believe in their case, they were using demand base. They were getting pipeline, but they were noticing that those accounts that they were engaging
Future Of Selling (11:37.675)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kristina Jaramillo (11:58.008)
were going dark, they were stalling, they were kind of just, you know, not progressing through their journey. We noticed they had gotten an engagement with Bank of America and they were, you know, moving along with their engagement with Bank of America. But for whatever reason, they went dark and we did some research and we found that they were selling, or excuse me, sharing content that was very confirmatory to what Bank of America was already doing.
They were trying to tell them or sell them on the importance of AI in their call centers. And Bank of America had already developed their own AI tool in-house. So they were already on board when it came to using AI in their customer service centers and their contact centers. So they weren't selling or sharing confirmatory information as opposed to something that was going to make them think of, you know, where are the gaps that they are have in their current approach.
Future Of Selling (12:36.203)
Right.
Kristina Jaramillo (12:53.336)
How are they filling those gaps and what those gaps, how do they translate to maybe lost revenue with customers or churn of customers or how does it impact the strategic initiative of the bank later down the line? So we changed the conversation to talk about the bank itself as opposed to the industry or the pain point or, you know, they, again, going beyond those generic criteria and basic characteristics.
Future Of Selling (13:10.636)
Right.
Kristina Jaramillo (13:20.622)
to make it a party of one kind of conversation or a party of one story and messaging. And then it helped them progress that deal so they could have opened up a deal that was worth at least half a million dollars for them. So it's all a matter of shifting the conversation to talk to the account. And this type of approach is really more for accounts that are enterprise level. So it's not gonna be a $25,000 deal or something like
Future Of Selling (13:40.373)
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, gotcha, gotcha. And so that sounds like the outcome of that. So once they were able to shift their perspective and shift their focus, then obviously they started making progress on this opportunity that they were working on. So that's great. Were they hesitant to do that? mean, they kind of, as you were consulting with them and saying, hey, here's the way you need to see the world, I mean, did they tend to push back or were they just like, no,
This is great. mean, any challenges for you guys in that conversation?
Kristina Jaramillo (14:15.36)
Yeah, at the beginning they were a little hesitant because they didn't see the value in the one-to-one personal kind of relevant story and conversation and content. But once we shared the content that we created for them, then they kind of saw that they could use that content to target other organizations that might be similar to, you know, Bank of America and kind of it wasn't something that they had to use just once. It was something that they could use across different conversations and they can help sales.
with other conversations with other banks, whether they're smaller banks or bigger banks and kind of say, tell that story better.
Future Of Selling (14:50.379)
Yeah. Can you just unpack just a little bit the one-to-one content strategy versus the more kind of generic strategy?
Kristina Jaramillo (14:59.756)
Okay, so one-to-one again is speaking to that particular account. Like what are their priorities? How does their strategic priorities as an organization, as maybe the department that you're selling into, and how can your solution or your offering fit into that goal or into their strategic priorities? So what are they looking to do in the next 12, 18, 24 months? So you become seen as a strategic partner with them to help achieve that goal as opposed to a vendor.
So when I'm talking about like a broader conversation, that might be something that you sell send to people that are just entering the pipeline or people that are new to your selling conversation. That conversation is more, the one-to-one is more for people that are engaged and kind of have shown an interest in possibly working with you.
Future Of Selling (15:39.095)
Yeah.
Future Of Selling (15:50.562)
Got it, got it, yeah. So, and that makes sense. So as they work their way through the funnel, right, and they get into that mid-funnel, that's really where you guys would get engaged with an account-based approach. And then we turn from, here's the generic way we would get it, to the market, know, go, you know, speak to the market. Now let's figure out kind of the one-to-one strategy that I call that. And we do like account reviews and QBRs and things like that. always, I've got a section in those things where I always say, hey,
help me understand what's on your radar, right? What's important to you over the next 12 to 24 months, because I'm trying to, I mean, you kind of walk into those things with assumptions, right? And maybe even knowledge, you kind of know what's important to them. But when you ask that question, if you could just ask that question and be quiet and listen, they're gonna unload some really important items for you.
They're going to tell you, and that way you can hone in on that one-to-one strategy. So I think that's kind of what you're talking about. Is that correct?
Kristina Jaramillo (16:52.888)
Yeah, absolutely. Speaking to what's important to them, not necessarily what you think is important to them and what you have kind of guessed is important to them.
Future Of Selling (16:55.723)
Yeah. Yeah.
Future Of Selling (17:01.707)
Yeah, got it. Got it. Now that's fantastic. Another concept that I found is kind of doing some research on you was talking about stage progress enablement. So first off, tell me what that means. And then secondly, are there certain enablement practices like tools, training content?
that you see most effective in taking this stage progress enablement approach. But start first with kind of defining what that means.
Kristina Jaramillo (17:34.264)
So stage progression is are they moving from initially engaged to further along in their buyer's journey? And obviously the terminology is different from organization to organization, whether it's close one, however you guys internally talk about it. So are we helping deals get closer to the end of their journey or not necessarily the end, the close? Are we?
Future Of Selling (17:43.233)
Yeah. Yeah.
Future Of Selling (17:57.163)
Yeah.
Kristina Jaramillo (17:59.242)
making sure that they, when they're in the funnel, that they're actually progressing to that sale or if they're a customer, are we making sure that they stay with us, but also expand to other areas? Do we have other products that we can sell them? they have other, are there other solutions that they have access to, but maybe aren't you seeing the full value because they're not using them correctly? How do we help them see that value? So it's, it's that type of what I mean when I say stage progression, that's what I mean.
Future Of Selling (18:25.483)
Yeah, okay. So talk about the enablement piece of that. I get the stage progression moving from stage to stage throughout the pipeline, whether it's a current customer or a new logo. But what's the enablement piece of that for you? How do you talk about that with sales teams and customer success teams that you work with?
Kristina Jaramillo (18:46.99)
So enable me enablement to me is how are we arming sales to have a conversation? Are we giving them the content content they need? Are we giving them insights that we have seen as maybe a marketing perspective and see how it might impact that conversation. If we are really engaged in interacting with sales, then we will see what kind of information we need to help them. So do they we need to you know, listen to those sales calls and say what can we as a marketer?
get from those sales calls and try to create maybe a piece of content or a white paper or some article that we can kind of persuade the buyer to see why they should move forward with us. So it's all a matter of giving sales all the information they need, all the research they need, all the insights they need so that they can have a valuable conversation with that prospect, with the buying committee, with everyone that's involved in that decision.
Future Of Selling (19:44.12)
Got it, got it. Yeah, so just to think that through, right? Stage progress enablement then is just making sure that you don't just probably have one approach to the enablement content that you're creating and providing for sales, but it's actually making sure that stage by stage, we've got the right content to move them from where they're at to the next stage.
and each stage along the way. that's really what you and I'm assuming that you guys from your company, this is part of the kind of what you bring to the table with the clients you work with.
Kristina Jaramillo (20:21.122)
Yeah, absolutely. We want to make sure that we are involved in that sales conversation just so that we know, you know, sometimes sales will come to us and say, that conversation we had with a prospect was great. They were on board. They're going to move forward. And then we listen to it from our perspective as a marketer and say, well, you didn't hit that aha moment that said, we have to do this or we have to move forward or we see what you're talking about. If we don't move forward, is XYZ is going to happen if we don't move forward. So those are the types of things that we need to as a
from the marketing perspective kind of help sales address in the next conversation, whether that's an email or a live conversation or a virtual conversation, how can we help them make sure that their prospects or their accounts are actually seeing the value?
Future Of Selling (21:07.799)
Yeah, got it, got it, okay. You've talked a little bit about shifting up market, right? So for companies moving into up market for the first time and clients that you're working with, right? What are maybe the top two or top three changes that they need to make to be able to make this transition into an up market, kind of scale that motion?
Kristina Jaramillo (21:35.15)
So I think the best way to do that is to look at any kind of accounts that maybe you already have that fit the upmarket motion that you would want to do. Because I think a lot of people think that they're ready for it they're not. So if you're used to selling maybe to small business owners or you're used to selling to companies that maybe only have 100 employees, it's a whole different conversation than when you're selling to a multi-billion organization that's got thousands of people all over the country, all over the world.
Future Of Selling (22:00.865)
Yeah.
Kristina Jaramillo (22:04.428)
team as a sales team, are you ready? Meaning, do you have the experience? Do you have the information to move what's important to those enterprises versus maybe what's important to a smaller company? Do we know that it's even a fit for us? Because just because you want to move up market doesn't mean it's necessarily a fit for your organization and for what you're selling. And I think it's all a matter of making sure that you have the data pulled from internal resources. Whether you have sales,
Future Of Selling (22:25.9)
Right.
Kristina Jaramillo (22:34.284)
marketing and customer success data and kind of figure out does it even make sense for us as a team and why. So if the data doesn't back you up, then I think you'd have to reevaluate why you'd want to.
Future Of Selling (22:45.079)
What would the data need to say to back you up?
Kristina Jaramillo (22:48.614)
so to me is, we have proof that we can increase our deal sizes? Do we have proof that, organizations that are maybe in the next tier going up markets, whatever that means for your organization. do we have stories that we can tell so that when we go to a bigger organization, we could say, well, we've worked with organizations like you and we've achieved XYZ by doing, you know,
putting these initiatives in place for them. So are you prepared that way? And a lot of sellers aren't necessarily prepared. So marketing kind of has to help them get prepared. So you have to know the market before you can kind of sell to them. It's not a matter of saying from one day to the next that we're just gonna shift. And you can't abandon the customers that you're already selling to. You kind of have to take on maybe the enterprise sale slowly. It's not like a quick turnaround.
Future Of Selling (23:38.849)
Yeah.
Future Of Selling (23:43.116)
Yeah. Give me a couple of examples of proof. It sounds like maybe one of them was that, we've got a bunch of mid-market, a lot of mid-market customers, been very successful with them, but we've got this one enterprise customer. So that would probably be proof, but what's some of the other proof that you would be looking for if you were to advise someone to make this shift to upmarket?
Kristina Jaramillo (24:08.664)
Well, I would look at the deal sizes. your deal sizes close to, know, can they get bigger or are you kind of stuck at one particular price point? Because maybe there you need more offerings. Maybe you need to stay where you actually are selling to. I think it has to be revenue wise. If you think of the next deal will be enterprise level and obviously from organization to organization, it changes what they consider an enterprise deal versus
a mid market or a small to mid market deal. So I would think that, but also experience of the sales team. Do we have to train our sales team to sell into the enterprise? they equipped? Because I think even if the best intentions of trying to go up market and your sales team's just not ready, it could be that they're not ready. It's not that the organization isn't ready, if that makes sense.
Future Of Selling (25:02.679)
Yeah. Let's say somebody was listening to the call right now, CRO, right? They're wanting to make this move into the enterprise space, but they don't have the proof. In other words, they don't have any large clients. They don't have any large revenue contracts, and they don't think they have the enterprise seller, right? Somebody in place to do that. What advice would you give them at that point? they're like, okay, I know I don't have the proof and I don't have the seller, but I want...
know, strategically we've decided we got to make this move. What advice would you give them?
Kristina Jaramillo (25:37.39)
I would tell them to ask themselves why. Like they want, what is the reasoning behind it? Is there something that is triggering them to want to do it? Is it just because they want bigger deals? Are they trying to fix a revenue issue? Is it because there's a turn issue and they want to see if maybe if they go into a deal size, that'll help. What are the revenue leaks that they have to address and why is it that they're trying to look at this particular?
approach.
Future Of Selling (26:07.126)
Okay. Okay. I think that's a great question, right? Because mean, anytime you're to make a move like that, a change like that, yeah, that's probably, you what's driving this? Assume they've decided they've gone through that thought exercise with you and they're like, yeah, we still want to make this move. Would you recommend bringing in some experienced enterprise sellers? I mean, where would you go with that recommendation if they definitely wanted to make that jump?
Kristina Jaramillo (26:36.27)
I would think that maybe having the CRO, they might, it depends on the CRO, but I would think that they could try to be the kind of, do like a pilot program as that with them being the enterprise seller and try it instead of bringing on new headcount. Cause I don't think throwing new, you know, sellers out into the market is necessarily going to do anything but leak money.
Future Of Selling (26:51.379)
okay.
Future Of Selling (27:00.884)
Yeah. Okay.
Kristina Jaramillo (27:02.85)
So I would pick maybe a small set of accounts that they think would be a good fit for them and kind of do the research as to why and kind of prove it that way. When you go to your board or when you go to your CEO and say, well, I want to hire five enterprise BDRs or AEs, there's a justification because we've seen that this is a market that we can tap into or this is a industry we can tap into and it's uncharted territory that we refit.
we're fit for.
Future Of Selling (27:32.747)
Got it, got it. So what I hear you saying that is if you don't have the proof points, but you still want to make this move, you've got to figure out a way to go create the proof points without kind of spending every dollar you have in the bank. Yeah, yeah, I like that. That's good. You know, as you have implemented these account-based approaches with other companies, with your clients that you work with, how do you...
Kristina Jaramillo (27:46.388)
Absolutely.
Future Of Selling (28:01.46)
how do you keep alignment between sales and marketing, customer success, maybe even product when you're doing this, right? Because I mean, they all kind of see the world from their particular point of view. I've seen the alignment at times, you've not be there, seen it be there as well, but sometimes not there. So how do you guys work with that and make sure you've got good alignment? Because better alignment creates more momentum, better results, et cetera.
Kristina Jaramillo (28:28.866)
Yeah, so we make sure that there is clear visibility on the sales and marketing side. we're, I would say 50-50 that we're brought in by marketing teams and barred in by sales teams, depending on the organization. But if they say that they don't have a close relationship or they are picking accounts or picking strategies without having the other ones, like the marketing leader is not really talking to the sales leader and vice versa.
then we know that that's going to be a challenge and it's not going to be as successful. And so we want to make sure that they're playing, it's a team sport. Revenue is a team sport, whether you like it or not, it's just the way it is. So marketing can't just be accountable for leads and pipeline. They need to be accountable for revenue as well. So we make sure that they are understanding why this is happening. Explain to them.
Future Of Selling (29:14.986)
Mm-hmm.
Kristina Jaramillo (29:21.132)
that the revenue is something that we are always wanting to impact, whether that's like any kind of initiative or program that we play, we make sure that there's a reason behind it and that it does necessarily, it does always tie back to revenue in some way, shape or form. So we just make sure that there is, we try to bring, be that bridge between the two. So we will be like an extension of marketing, but also helping sales cause they need a little more support that they can't necessarily.
Future Of Selling (29:30.038)
Yeah.
Future Of Selling (29:35.296)
Right.
Kristina Jaramillo (29:48.568)
get for marketing while marketing is doing typical demand gen or typical campaigns and sales is more focused on that revenue side. So we're kind of the bridge in between and we want to make sure that we're connecting the both. And we've seen it ourselves that a lot of organizations will say, yeah, we want to change, we want to change. And then they revert back to like sales doing their own thing, marketing not doing their own thing. And they're not really communicating. And like you said, you're not going to have that momentum if marketing just does their own thing and sales is
worried about different accounts. Like there has to be a play for everyone on the same page.
Future Of Selling (30:26.934)
Have you had situations where you went in and worked with a company and maybe, I guess there could be a couple of situations. One, they're just like, no, you know, we don't want to work together. Maybe they don't say it that clearly, but really they work together. And you know, what have you done to pull them together? then scenario two might be initially they say, yeah, this sounds great. The best idea since, you know, whatever. And you've been working together, but then over time they...
Kristina Jaramillo (30:38.656)
Yeah.
Future Of Selling (30:54.704)
Like you said, they drift back into their old habits. what's the tactic to keep people kind of focused and synergized and working together in alignment?
Kristina Jaramillo (31:06.7)
It's going back to answering that. Why, why are we doing this? And if we can't answer that, why then you have to reevaluate what you're doing. Like what is the reason? we targeting these accounts just to target or is there a reason behind what we're doing? And I think a lot of people lose track of that when they're running a marketing campaign or they're targeting an enterprise or targeting an account because they like the logo or they think it might be a good fit or they have a connection there.
Future Of Selling (31:10.112)
Yeah.
Kristina Jaramillo (31:34.958)
There has to be a why are we reaching out to them? Can we help them in a way that will make them better at their job and in turn they'll stay with us and grow with us? Or are we just getting customers into that pipeline that are gonna churn in the next year to 18 months? So it's answering that why.
Future Of Selling (31:52.791)
Is getting is answering that why is getting them to stay focused on that? Why is there a tactical solution for that? Is that a, you know, it's a some sort of meeting that we're doing every week. Is there a process that we're putting in place to make sure that they're all focused answering the question of why are we doing this on a consistent basis to keep them from drifting or, you know, how do you, how do you manage that?
Kristina Jaramillo (32:16.174)
I'd like to say that sales and marketing should have joint meetings, like at least the leaders of the teams on a monthly basis to make sure that they're always in alignment and keeping each other on track and kind of holding each other accountable to see that they're, you know, that they're achieving what they're set out to do in the first place. I think when people say to me that they've only, you know, that we check in quarterly or we check in every six months, there's a way too much can happen in that time period.
Future Of Selling (32:44.352)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Kristina Jaramillo (32:45.336)
for a disconnect to fall off and for the whole approach to just fall off the rails. So I like to see at least a monthly kind of check-in to keep sales and marketing accountable for what they're doing.
Future Of Selling (32:59.188)
Got it. And would that be sales and marketing? Would you also want customer success in there?
Kristina Jaramillo (33:03.382)
Yeah, absolutely. If it's, if yeah, if it's relevant to your organization, absolutely. Yeah.
Future Of Selling (33:07.99)
Okay, got it. If they're going to get together and do this once a month, I'm assuming then there's some sort of planned agenda for that. So what would that meeting look like if we were going to get together once a month with sales and marketing and customer success? And then what are some of the important metrics and measurements we might look at in there? Because you kind of want proof that we're staying aligned, right? We want to prove that we're focused on why.
If you were in an organization and said, hey, this is the best idea. Yeah, I love this. Let's get together monthly. What would you want them to look at, talk about, do in that meeting?
Kristina Jaramillo (33:46.2)
So as long as they're on the same page about the accounts that we're going to target, that we're kind of reach out to, the meeting should go pretty well. But I want to make sure that we'd have to be on the same page as saying, we're going after these industries, or we're going after these named accounts, and why are we doing it? And then marketing will say, well, we've seen stage progression in these accounts. And sales will say, well, keep
Future Of Selling (33:52.373)
Yeah.
Kristina Jaramillo (34:15.566)
keep them in line and saying, well, this is what's happening in these accounts and trying to just keeping each other abreast of what's happening in the actual accounts. I don't think that there's any value really in saying, you know, we've had this many hits to the website and this many, you know, visitors who attended attendees to a webinar. think it's all a matter of how are we moving these deals and how are we progressing them? So it goes back to the progression. That's what that meeting would be focusing on is
Future Of Selling (34:22.804)
Okay. Yeah.
Future Of Selling (34:40.523)
Yeah.
Future Of Selling (34:44.886)
Okay.
Kristina Jaramillo (34:45.026)
How is a customer success team moving a customer to expansion and retention? And then how is sales doing new, net new accounts and how is sales actually moving accounts through their journey? So it's all about the progress that's being made. And I would think that would be the only conversation really of progression to revenue would be the only conversation.
Future Of Selling (34:51.168)
Yeah. Yeah.
Future Of Selling (35:12.458)
Got it, got it, yep, gotcha. Okay, yeah, so it sounds like what you're describing is just good old account review. Now I mean, here are the accounts that we're working on, here's the reason we're working on these, and now let's just move through each one of them and get a status. What progress are we making? What obstacles do we need to overcome? Those kind of things, not just the high, high level. How many inbound have we got or something like that?
Kristina Jaramillo (35:38.518)
Yeah, think then it would help marketing know what they need to do the next month and then customer success know the next month and the same thing with sales. And that's why that monthly check-in is because priorities shift very quickly. And if you're only meeting once a quarter, once every couple of months, it's not going to, it's not going to work.
Future Of Selling (35:43.232)
Yeah. Okay.
Future Of Selling (35:54.667)
Yeah, clearly not going to be enough. Yeah, yeah. Are there any specific metrics or measurements that you would want someone to track to understand kind of the effectiveness and the efficiency of an account-based approach and how well the program is going? What do you guys measure when you're working with
Kristina Jaramillo (36:13.085)
Yeah, are we shortening sales cycle times? we increasing revenue, win rates, excuse me. Are we increasing deals size? Anything that's tied to revenue is basically what we're going to ask. Are we reducing churn? Are we driving expansion with the accounts that we know or maybe only using a small portion of our solution or offering?
Future Of Selling (36:15.86)
Okay.
Future Of Selling (36:40.096)
Yeah.
Kristina Jaramillo (36:40.182)
and they can maybe expand it into their whole organization or there's more solutions that we can sell them, whatever that is. But those are the type of things that I want to know. If I can answer those and see that I'm answering them in a way that means we're increasing going in and getting higher revenue and deals or, you know, shortening sales cycle, then I know that the account-based approach is actually succeeding.
Future Of Selling (36:46.411)
Right.
Future Of Selling (37:04.214)
Right. Okay, got it. So I tried to write these down. I I may have missed one, but you said shortening sales cycles. I think I missed the second one. You said increased deal size, reducing churn on the client side, obviously, and really, are we seeing expansion on those identified accounts? So yeah, I think there was one more, I didn't, sorry, I didn't catch that one. Okay, good deal. Good deal.
Any common pitfalls that you've seen as a company is bringing in an account-based approach, what are some of the common pitfalls you say, let's be careful about this, right? Don't do this, don't do that, don't do the other.
Kristina Jaramillo (37:50.104)
So thinking that it's only a sales initiative or thinking it's only a marketing initiative, that's one of the main ones. Another one is we're going to buy an ABM tech platform, whether that's demand-based, Sixth Sense, Terminus, whatever they're using, and we're just going to run campaigns. And you wind up doing demand gen, just more targeted, so not really moving accounts to revenue in those type of initiatives. So I think when you think an account-based approach and you
Future Of Selling (37:57.515)
Yeah.
Kristina Jaramillo (38:19.712)
It equals tech. You're missing the point. And also not thinking that it's going to be a change management type of thing that everyone has to be involved in. It's not going to be, okay, that's definitely just sales, but that's definitely just marketing. It's everyone together as a team to bring accounts to revenue, to bring accounts to close, to shorten sales cycles, to increase that value of the account. How are we going to do that as a team? I think it's a mindset shift that's really important for a lot of people.
that they might not be either ready for or they might not think they need it or, you know, they're just, they might be set in their ways of, know, this is how we've always done things. So it is definitely a change.
Future Of Selling (38:59.872)
Right.
Future Of Selling (39:03.508)
Okay, got you. Let's say we brought in a brand new logo, whatever it may be, and we're in the initial stages. We've onboarded, maybe we've implemented, maybe we just went live. Is there anything in the early stages of that customer journey that you would say, man, this is absolutely critical to get involved now to, again, implement this account-based approach?
Make sure that you're getting understanding, kind of the expansion and the cross-sell, maybe up-sell play. Anything that you would say, you know, make sure you're doing these things in the first three months or six months of an account.
Kristina Jaramillo (39:44.578)
Yeah, so once your account is onboarded, I would make sure that you are documenting their initial state when they started with you so that you can see the value you've added along the way. So you can tell that story. Too many times, I think people are just worried about onboarding the account and getting them up and running, that they're not setting themselves up for how can we make sure that this is a long-term relationship and not just somebody that's going to churn, so that you can tell that customer story later down the line. if customer success really
Future Of Selling (39:55.146)
Yeah. Okay.
Kristina Jaramillo (40:14.542)
captures that information of what did they look like when they came to us so that when we're looking again at three to six months or when it's time for renewal, we can say this is what you've achieved now and then marketing can help craft the story to position it as to why stay with us, why expand with us, why grow with us. So it's very, I think the most important thing is really capturing that before so that you can document that whole growth as a customer.
Future Of Selling (40:18.646)
Yeah.
Future Of Selling (40:29.92)
Yeah. Got it.
Future Of Selling (40:38.89)
Yeah. Yeah. What if they don't have the data? I've run into that before, right? Any ideas around, you're onboarding a new customer and, let's capture your, kind of capture your pre, whatever the technology is, data. Like, we're just doing a terrible job of tracking that. We don't have it. mean, there, do you have an alternative strategy on that to make sure that you're capturing kind of pre-go live?
know, activities or pre-go live, you know, where they're at and how they're operating.
Kristina Jaramillo (41:14.402)
Hmm, that's a good question. and would this be that they have like a customer success rep or they have an account rep that's helping them with the go live and things like that? Yeah. So I would say whatever they're building out for the onboarding, kind of figure out why it is that you're building it. Cause every customer obviously is different, just again, answering that why, why are we doing this so that we can say that we achieved.
Future Of Selling (41:23.156)
Yeah,
Future Of Selling (41:30.571)
Mm-hmm.
Kristina Jaramillo (41:40.98)
this in six months time or 12 months time. And it doesn't necessarily have to be, okay, we need another tech to capture this. You could probably capture this information in your CRM. It's not a matter of adopting another piece of technology.
Future Of Selling (41:48.992)
Yeah. Okay.
Future Of Selling (41:55.958)
Gotcha, gotcha, okay, good. All right, well, I know we're getting close to time here. I did have one other question I wanted to ask you about. As you kind of look into the future, and especially AI and all the things that are happening there, is there one strategy or practice that you believe is gonna become really important for an account-based approach over the next maybe year, two years, three years? But something maybe other, maybe teams and companies aren't seeing it, they're not preparing for.
Kristina Jaramillo (42:26.434)
think people are adopting AI too quickly and they're kind of losing sight of the person that's teaching the AI. So if you're removing that kind of personal relevance, they're still going to be to need someone to interpret that information that you're getting. If you're using AI for account research or for information about the prospect, what they're doing, you're still needs that need for the person behind it to actually interpret it and say, how can we
use this information to our benefit. And I think there people are a lot of companies are just kind of adopting it so fast and they're just turning out more of the same or more noise and not getting that personal relevant layer added on top of it. So I think that's something that we have to be aware of when we're selling or marketing to organizations.
Future Of Selling (42:58.517)
Yeah.
Future Of Selling (43:17.813)
Okay, got it. Yeah. And, know, I ask that or a similar question to a lot of sales leaders and that's often the response or something very close to that, right, is just to make sure that we don't lose the personal touch, the personalization approach, right? Even though AI can do a lot of amazing things, still person to person, or at least it is for now.
Kristina Jaramillo (43:39.564)
Yeah, and the AI is only as smart as the person that's manning it. So we've got to make sure that we kind of, are, and I know I personally am not going to buy a hundred thousand dollar piece of technology from a bot. It's just not happening.
Future Of Selling (43:42.835)
Yeah, true.
Future Of Selling (43:55.066)
Nor will I. I completely agree with you. So cool. Well, I always like to wrap up with just a few key takeaways. So let's say that I'm new to an organization. I've just come into an organization on CRO or SVP or sales, something like that. And I'm thinking, OK, our deal size is too small. We're moving through the pipeline too slowly.
those kind of things. What are the top, let's say what are the top three recommendations you would give them based on the conversation that we had today?
Kristina Jaramillo (44:33.44)
I would say get in touch with their marketing leader within the first like 30 days of being on board because you want to see why these things are happening. If you can get to the reason behind, then you would be able to better informed to make an educated strategy and educated decision of what to do for first. And I think from a CRO's perspective, that's to know that you can have more success is kind of figure out where those revenue leaks are. Where's our biggest challenge.
You might have several challenges, but where is the biggest revenue leak and address that first. And then you can kind of fix the other, other problems, but hit the major one first, but it has to be done with marketing. Otherwise it's going to be not as effective and you're going to lose that momentum or it's going to only be, you know, it's, only going to be as effective as, as that one team or that one person. So I think.
getting the marketing and customer success team and maybe even that product team on board and saying, hey, how can we work together to make this a better process for all of us or a better strategy for all of us?
Future Of Selling (45:40.745)
Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. So what I heard was get as soon as you get there, new CRO, get in touch with the marketing leader, get in touch with the CS leader as well. If that's a relevant part of the business, which it probably is and build those bridges quickly. Right. And, also not just the bridge, but understanding what the, where, where the leaks are to identifying that major leak first and, just having to prioritize. Right. And then kind of
Kristina Jaramillo (46:10.488)
Yes.
Future Of Selling (46:10.581)
from there, use the snowball effect, right? Go for the biggest one, figure that out. I was talking to somebody the other day and we were just talking about prioritizing. I'm like, look, you just gotta be okay with the fact that there may be a few cracks out there that you just can't get to right now. Identify the ones that you want to take care of, let the rest of them be okay for now. You'll get there, but you just can't do everything at one time, right?
Kristina Jaramillo (46:25.893)
Yeah, exactly.
Kristina Jaramillo (46:36.014)
Yeah, because it's never going to be as successful as it could be if you have to small, small pieces.
Future Of Selling (46:41.205)
Yeah, agreed. Well, Christina, this has been great today. Thank you so much. I appreciate you kind of bringing your expertise to the podcast and talking to us. I'm assuming that you're probably, I found you very easily on LinkedIn. So if anybody wants to kind of look you up and have a conversation with you, I'm sure they can grab you there. But, and we'll make sure we put all your contact information in the show notes. So again, thank you for being here. Hope you have a good day and luck to stay connected.
Kristina Jaramillo (47:08.59)
Thanks for having me, Rick, appreciate it.
Future Of Selling (47:10.133)
All right, thanks, bye bye.