Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Conversations about marketing and business. Hosted by Dave Gerhardt (Founder of Exit Five, Former CMO). If you work in marketing check out exitfive.com
Dave [0:00:00]: You're listening to B2b marketing with me, Dave Gerhardt.
Dave [0:00:03]: Hey, It's Dave. Quick note.
Dave [0:00:18]: Before we get into this episode.
Dave [0:00:19]: This is a recording from drive twenty twenty five our annual event.
Dave [0:00:23]: Here at exit five.
Dave [0:00:25]: This was recorded live in Burlington Vermont at Hula as part of our event.
Dave [0:00:29]: And we'd love to have you at next year's event.
Dave [0:00:32]: We're bringing it back to Vermont Stove vermont.
Dave [0:00:34]: You can go to exit five dot com slash drive to get more information, put your name on the waitlist list and maybe make it to next year's event.
Dave [0:00:41]: But we're bringing the audio recordings from these sessions to you live, well, recorded.
Dave [0:00:46]: On the podcast because we thought it'd be a fun way to show you the stuff we talk about a drive and give you a sense of what it was like, if you didn't get to be there.
Dave [0:00:54]: And if you were there, then you get to now re listen and maybe take notes again.
Dave [0:00:58]: So this is one of the sessions from Drive.
Dave [0:01:00]: Go and check it out, get tickets, Put your name in the waitlist list for next year, exit five dot com slash drive.
Dave [0:01:05]: Without further ado, I'm gonna bring it to a guy who's gonna take the energy up even more he's been Cmo of two hundred million dollar plus companies.
Dave [0:01:14]: And I asked him to speak first because he has a great energy, but also, you'll notice a theme with a lot of the speakers.
Dave [0:01:19]: The breakouts that we're gonna do with you all might be a little bit more tactical.
Dave [0:01:22]: The sessions that we have here, like, I wanted to pick speakers that can talk to you about things that are timeless.
Dave [0:01:28]: Right?
Dave [0:01:28]: Not ideas that you might hear at this event and then get ripped away in three months because there's some new Ai update.
Dave [0:01:34]: And, Sangram has an awesome point of view on go to market strategy He's done it at a bunch of companies, and he's doing it with a bunch of companies now.
Dave [0:01:42]: I'm excited to welcome into him to the stage.
Dave [0:01:44]: So Sangram, you're up. Here we go.
Sangram [0:01:46]: I'm excited first time in Vermont.
Sangram [0:01:48]: I'm excited to be here.
Sangram [0:01:49]: And part of what I wanna do is really just share around go to market.
Sangram [0:01:54]: Now, Let me ask folks up here.
Sangram [0:01:56]: How many of you can define or wanna give a shot at defining go to market.
Sangram [0:02:02]: So...
Sangram [0:02:03]: Alright.
Sangram [0:02:03]: Raise your hands.
Sangram [0:02:04]: I hear this is a group of like.
Sangram [0:02:05]: Nobody's shy, Nobody's inter work right?
Sangram [0:02:07]: I heard that.
Sangram [0:02:08]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:02:09]: A little bit of warm up on that one.
Sangram [0:02:11]: Alright.
Sangram [0:02:12]: So here's what we're gonna do.
Sangram [0:02:13]: If you make eye contact, I'm gonna come to you.
Sangram [0:02:15]: So there you go.
Sangram [0:02:17]: So how do you define the did Know you literally are, like, saying no, one wow.
Sangram [0:02:24]: How about you?
Sangram [0:02:24]: Everything in the messaging positioning.
Sangram [0:02:27]: Alright?
Sangram [0:02:28]: I I love you.
Sangram [0:02:28]: Oh, you...
Sangram [0:02:29]: None of you are me looking at me like this.
Sangram [0:02:31]: This is awkward, Man.
Sangram [0:02:32]: Alright.
Sangram [0:02:33]: Like literally, you guys are staying away from me.
Sangram [0:02:36]: I'm I'm standing with at you.
Sangram [0:02:38]: So So what do you what what how do you define go to market?
Sangram [0:02:43]: Or what you bring to business.
Sangram [0:02:45]: Alright.
Sangram [0:02:45]: I'll take that.
Sangram [0:02:46]: Alright.
Sangram [0:02:46]: One more One more.
Sangram [0:02:47]: You is really literally you're not looking at me.
Sangram [0:02:51]: Alright.
Sangram [0:02:51]: Thank you.
Sangram [0:02:51]: I love that.
Sangram [0:02:53]: How would you convince the world they need your product.
Sangram [0:02:56]: I as as Dg mentioned, I had a chance to to help build two companies that are a hundred million.
Sangram [0:03:01]: I've thought, then I knew go to market.
Sangram [0:03:03]: And then I go and actually start interviewing people around this idea of go to market and every time I would ask somebody about it.
Sangram [0:03:09]: They will give me a different definition.
Sangram [0:03:11]: And every time I was like, well, I thought go to market gross marketing and and sales and product launch and positioning and all of those things.
Sangram [0:03:20]: And every time I'll go ask somebody, they would say, oh, that's...
Sangram [0:03:23]: Now, no.
Sangram [0:03:23]: I think go to market is this.
Sangram [0:03:24]: And that made us realize that, whoa, go to market is much bigger and much different than what we think.
Sangram [0:03:30]: So so Nick and I having this conversation at breakfast and And he was like, well, how do you define go to market.
Sangram [0:03:35]: So I'm just gonna give you a small version of that definition and what what I've we learned in the process was, go to market is a transformational process.
Sangram [0:03:44]: I'll just keep it at that.
Sangram [0:03:46]: The rest of the definition, you can look in the book and all that.
Sangram [0:03:49]: In there, but it's a transformational process.
Sangram [0:03:51]: And here's why.
Sangram [0:03:52]: Are you gonna invest more in marketing or sales.
Sangram [0:03:55]: Is that a go to market decision?
Sangram [0:03:56]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:03:57]: If you're gonna open an office in Em or stay in San Francisco.
Sangram [0:04:01]: Is that a go to market decision?
Sangram [0:04:03]: Right?
Sangram [0:04:03]: If you are gonna, say, kind of build a new product or buy a company.
Sangram [0:04:08]: Is that a go to market decision.
Sangram [0:04:09]: So you start thinking about what go to market is?
Sangram [0:04:12]: And because as we interviewed lots and lots of p firms and executives and Ceos, we just realized that what go to market is.
Sangram [0:04:18]: A transformation process.
Sangram [0:04:19]: It's not something that you go on a weekend and try to put an off side and then come up with a plan.
Sangram [0:04:24]: That's not what go to market is.
Sangram [0:04:26]: That strategy.
Sangram [0:04:26]: But go to market is what you do every single day.
Sangram [0:04:29]: So what we did as G Partners who are a research advisory firm.
Sangram [0:04:32]: So all we do is research and then advise companies on go to market since twenty twenty one.
Sangram [0:04:37]: And recently, we just did...
Sangram [0:04:39]: This was last week when I was at inbound, we released a new research around hundred companies.
Sangram [0:04:44]: How hundred companies have gone through from a different stages of go to market and actually are able to go and def defy some of the odds that we all are trying to do as B marketers Like, what are they doing?
Sangram [0:04:55]: What is that working for them?
Sangram [0:04:57]: And how does that look like?
Sangram [0:04:58]: So I'm just gonna show and share some research elements around that?
Sangram [0:05:01]: I'm gonna also share a couple of frameworks with you guys because if if any of if you know me you know, like, frameworks is what I love.
Sangram [0:05:08]: And frameworks is how we think and imagine and solve problems.
Sangram [0:05:11]: And then lastly, and probably the most importantly, we're gonna do a lot of Q and a.
Sangram [0:05:16]: So this is not gonna be an hour long we just talking, You make eye contact.
Sangram [0:05:19]: I come to you.
Sangram [0:05:20]: You already have seen that, but we're gonna have Q and A as I share some of these things.
Sangram [0:05:24]: Out.
Sangram [0:05:25]: So think about questions and thoughts because I think that's when the best ideas come out.
Sangram [0:05:29]: So let's get into it.
Sangram [0:05:30]: So first of all, two truths in a lie.
Sangram [0:05:32]: Can anybody's...
Sangram [0:05:33]: Tell me what the lie is over here.
Sangram [0:05:35]: I was born and raised in India.
Sangram [0:05:36]: I don't know if it's a given.
Sangram [0:05:37]: I've never lost my wedding ring.
Sangram [0:05:39]: My kids make a pillow stack on my head when I go to sleep.
Sangram [0:05:44]: Or how many think the first word is lie.
Sangram [0:05:46]: Nobody.
Sangram [0:05:47]: Alright.
Sangram [0:05:48]: Alright.
Sangram [0:05:48]: How about how many things that second one is lie.
Sangram [0:05:50]: Wow.
Sangram [0:05:51]: You really have a lot of confidence in me.
Sangram [0:05:54]: Well, how many you think the third one is a lie.
Sangram [0:05:58]: Just a few.
Sangram [0:05:59]: Alright.
Sangram [0:05:59]: Well, third one...
Sangram [0:06:00]: Well, we'll check this out the for like I was born and raised in India, I have never lost my bedding ring.
Sangram [0:06:05]: Like, I, like I never lost.
Sangram [0:06:07]: That alright?
Sangram [0:06:07]: But here's what my kids do.
Sangram [0:06:09]: Every time I go to sleep or something, like they would literally stack up a whole bunch of pillows on me and take a picture.
Sangram [0:06:15]: And send it to the whole family on the Whatsapp group.
Sangram [0:06:18]: Like, here's what that is doing.
Sangram [0:06:20]: So so that's what happens all the time.
Sangram [0:06:22]: So with that being said, here's a starter for y'all, like, to see where we are today.
Sangram [0:06:26]: In both companies that I got to build, the first too, and I should create a video on this because of Dg, like, how to make a million dollar in nine months on Youtube.
Sangram [0:06:34]: And I should put it out there?
Sangram [0:06:36]: Long Too long Right?
Sangram [0:06:38]: Like, nine minutes, nine minutes.
Sangram [0:06:39]: How's that?
Sangram [0:06:40]: Nine minutes.
Sangram [0:06:40]: But these are real companies so it takes a little bit longer.
Sangram [0:06:43]: Every money met.
Sangram [0:06:44]: Right?
Sangram [0:06:45]: So...
Sangram [0:06:46]: And what was interesting with both companies was and in term us as well as GTM partners, they both are different types of company.
Sangram [0:06:52]: So I wanna make sure that everything I'm about to share is not something that just theory and, like, we went to, you know, somewhere and just came up with stuff.
Sangram [0:06:59]: This is our my personal experience and also the research that we doing with companies and work we do with companies.
Sangram [0:07:05]: What is interesting was both these companies were different types of companies.
Sangram [0:07:09]: One was the Saas company in in the up market head in the great days of twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen where money was flowing like milk and honey and and people could do all kinds of stuff with it.
Sangram [0:07:19]: And then G Partners is a research, advisory company.
Sangram [0:07:22]: It's a sad.
Sangram [0:07:23]: It's advisory.
Sangram [0:07:24]: Like, people said you need to go get therapy.
Sangram [0:07:26]: Why are you going from a Saas company to building an advisory company?
Sangram [0:07:29]: And I didn't know.
Sangram [0:07:30]: I'm just, like.
Sangram [0:07:31]: Like, we get burnout out?
Sangram [0:07:32]: Like, I don't wanna build another the Saas company.
Sangram [0:07:34]: So I started working on this one, But what's interesting is in the process, with the first company, I had very similar experiences as as Dave mentioned.
Sangram [0:07:43]: I felt like man, my life was a mess.
Sangram [0:07:45]: My faith was nowhere to be found.
Sangram [0:07:48]: My family life was really, really rough.
Sangram [0:07:51]: Like, we've mean my wife are almost about to get divorced.
Sangram [0:07:54]: Right?
Sangram [0:07:54]: I'm just going real here.
Sangram [0:07:55]: Like, it was it was rough.
Sangram [0:07:56]: It was tough.
Sangram [0:07:57]: And then as I build, the next company G partners, I felt, like, well, those things can be true anymore.
Sangram [0:08:02]: We have to do it better.
Sangram [0:08:03]: And that's why Love events like this because this is this is where we actually get to do life together.
Sangram [0:08:09]: Wanna spend time together and and see what we need to do.
Sangram [0:08:12]: So these things are become way more important to me than just building a company for the sake of building a company.
Sangram [0:08:17]: So both of these companies have taught me that, well, the principles that I'm about to share regardless of good market or bad market regardless of the stage of the business or even type.
Sangram [0:08:27]: Some of you might be...
Sangram [0:08:28]: I think I talking to some of you, their are agencies, some of our like in construction or supply chain or manufacturing and some of your obviously in Saas.
Sangram [0:08:35]: I think these principles are gonna reflect and apply to all of you.
Sangram [0:08:38]: And the blind spots that every company our research shows, they're trying to figure out are very similar.
Sangram [0:08:44]: Like, why some companies not...
Sangram [0:08:46]: You know, seems like they're effortless.
Sangram [0:08:48]: Like, why are they doing something that we can?
Sangram [0:08:50]: And I'm sure some of that question goes through your mind?
Sangram [0:08:52]: Or we saw that only one in five actually, like, truly get a product market fit?
Sangram [0:08:58]: And what that even means is a question.
Sangram [0:08:59]: Or growth seems like a black box right now.
Sangram [0:09:03]: How many of you know the exact go to market play or growth play you're gonna do right now.
Sangram [0:09:09]: That's just gonna work.
Sangram [0:09:10]: Anyone, like none of us knows this.
Sangram [0:09:12]: Like, everybody who says, I got the best growth play common growth, and you never get it by the way.
Sangram [0:09:18]: Like, that's that's the worst part.
Sangram [0:09:21]: Like, I've I've done, like I I actually literally have an Em.
Sangram [0:09:23]: I'm like, okay.
Sangram [0:09:24]: I'm gonna play along and two weeks ago, I said, I'm gonna...
Sangram [0:09:26]: I'm gonna do this thing, like, you know, this thing.
Sangram [0:09:29]: And I literally hired an executive assistant to say go and comment on this thing and and and Linkedin works like that.
Sangram [0:09:35]: And I'm like, but I commented like that ten times, and nobody sent me anything?
Sangram [0:09:40]: Am I the only one?
Sangram [0:09:42]: Or you guys this this people get gathered?
Sangram [0:09:44]: Like, I've never got anything from other people.
Sangram [0:09:46]: So I'm like, I'm gonna do this So...
Sangram [0:09:47]: But I did it and I actually delivered.
Sangram [0:09:48]: So that was a good thing, But it seems like a black box.
Sangram [0:09:52]: What's going on.
Sangram [0:09:53]: So I wanna share three principles with you.
Sangram [0:09:55]: The first principle is going to be that all these companies did go through truly that are sustainable that are profitable that are actually creating relevant businesses and are there to stay that actually going from problem market fit to product market fit to platform market fit.
Sangram [0:10:11]: And I'm gonna define those things for you.
Sangram [0:10:13]: As a matter of fact, that's the whole book that we wrote on that we'll share a little bit.
Sangram [0:10:17]: The second thing I gonna share with you is the operating system.
Sangram [0:10:20]: Every company needs an operating system, and that doesn't mean a product, but a process.
Sangram [0:10:25]: Operating system.
Sangram [0:10:26]: Which is why I think it's gonna be applicable to every one of you regardless of what stage of the business that you're in.
Sangram [0:10:31]: And then I'm gonna use basic examples that you and not I know of companies that have done this really to wealth.
Sangram [0:10:36]: Companies that are big in b to b in b to c, because I think there's a lot that we can learn.
Sangram [0:10:41]: And I know, I I always know, like David's is, like, Always was talking about well, We...
Sangram [0:10:44]: You know, this the lines are boring, and it's truly because the consumer is the same.
Sangram [0:10:48]: The expectation that we all have are pretty much the same.
Sangram [0:10:51]: So you know the hundred companies I looked at this whole research thing was public companies, we looked at lots of companies that are out there, private companies, and we specifically have to look at P companies.
Sangram [0:11:01]: And the reason is because that became a thing where they started to distinguish themselves from a public and P and different types of go to market systems.
Sangram [0:11:10]: And so it's important to note that it wasn't just one type of company.
Sangram [0:11:14]: It wasn't just Saas that we looked at because we thought that would be a very my way of looking at growth in business.
Sangram [0:11:21]: Around this.
Sangram [0:11:21]: So we looked at it, but then we also have to look at a metric that will be a plumb line for us so that we can understand how do you know these are good companies.
Sangram [0:11:30]: And the metric that we used for all of this is Nr.
Sangram [0:11:34]: Now how many of you're familiar with Nr?
Sangram [0:11:36]: Not that many.
Sangram [0:11:38]: Not that many.
Sangram [0:11:39]: Nr r is by default one of the most important metric for your business to survive forget thriving, survive in the next few years.
Sangram [0:11:53]: If I would have known that, I think we would had a bigger exit.
Sangram [0:11:57]: For example, at Term, we we acquired five different companies or a period of four years.
Sangram [0:12:02]: And the reason we've were doing is because we were trying to grow top line revenue for the business.
Sangram [0:12:08]: And every time we will look at and what, we need to go top line.
Sangram [0:12:10]: We need to go top line and investor saying that, hey, they've invested hundred million we need to go more.
Sangram [0:12:14]: And so we started to do that and we kept forgetting that we need to retain, but normally only to retain but expand our customers.
Sangram [0:12:20]: That's what net revenue retention is.
Sangram [0:12:22]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:12:22]: So net revenue retention literally means, and I...
Sangram [0:12:26]: There's a whole formula I can I can give you, but it literally means that you have customers They stay with you, and now you can expand with them, meaning that they are actually buying more from you or a period of time, more products, more seats, more departments, more usage, more credits?
Sangram [0:12:42]: However, different model that you might have in your business, they're actually buying more from you.
Sangram [0:12:46]: So you're no longer going back and saying, well, are you gonna renew?
Sangram [0:12:49]: You're actually saying, well what else What we wanna do?
Sangram [0:12:52]: Oh, you have fifty seats.
Sangram [0:12:53]: Do you wanna...
Sangram [0:12:53]: Now let's go hundred seats?
Sangram [0:12:54]: Oh, you had using so many credits.
Sangram [0:12:56]: Now let's increase your edits or your usage?
Sangram [0:12:58]: Has gone up so they're getting charged, and that's what Aws and all of these really pioneered this idea where you no longer have worried about the top of the funnel.
Sangram [0:13:07]: So here's a cool way to think about it.
Sangram [0:13:09]: If your Nr is over a hundred and twenty percent.
Sangram [0:13:12]: You can double your revenue in three point eight years without adding a single new customer.
Sangram [0:13:20]: Let me say that again.
Sangram [0:13:22]: We're all in B b, we all love demand gen.
Sangram [0:13:24]: We all love to create acquisition.
Sangram [0:13:26]: We all love to create campaigns and bring people in.
Sangram [0:13:28]: But color of money last check is still green.
Sangram [0:13:31]: It still works.
Sangram [0:13:32]: And if your company making money, it's still good.
Sangram [0:13:34]: So if you can actually be in an organization where you can actually drive Nr close to hundred or hundred and ten or hundred and twenty percent, you're actually doubling your revenue as a business without even adding a net new customer.
Sangram [0:13:46]: And here's the reverse of it, which is very, very dreadful, If your Nr is close to seventy seventy five percent, you're literally gonna die.
Sangram [0:13:56]: How's that for a exciting keynote?
Sangram [0:13:59]: That company is literally gonna die.
Sangram [0:14:02]: I I was talking to a Cmo who recently posted on Linkedin about three months ago, said, hey, We, you know, I created fifty million dollar pipeline for my company.
Sangram [0:14:12]: That was three months ago.
Sangram [0:14:13]: And then last month, she posted that Hey, I'm I'm let go from this company.
Sangram [0:14:18]: I'm looking for a new job.
Sangram [0:14:19]: And I asked her like, hey what happened?
Sangram [0:14:21]: You said fifty million.
Sangram [0:14:22]: That sounds like a crazy amount of pipeline.
Sangram [0:14:24]: Like, that sounds great.
Sangram [0:14:25]: She's like, well, that wasn't for the right segment.
Sangram [0:14:27]: These people were not gonna renew.
Sangram [0:14:29]: And therefore, they were not gonna retain.
Sangram [0:14:31]: Therefore, they were not gonna expand so this was not the right Ic.
Sangram [0:14:33]: So I was working on the wrong Ic for the company that didn't have an Nr connected to it.
Sangram [0:14:40]: So if you are not, if there's one thing you can take away from my keynote.
Sangram [0:14:44]: This is not a marketing tactic or principle, this is a business principle that I think if if we can understand the business of marketing, then marketing the business is a big difference in it, the business of marketing will mandate.
Sangram [0:14:55]: Us to think about Nr as a key part of it.
Sangram [0:14:58]: So anything that you're doing if you can connect that to the Nr number, or if you don't know what the Nr number is for your company, go and ask that to your Ceo Cfo and spend time on it Like, how do I improve that it actually believe it or not will help you keep your job longer, better get promoted because that's the help of your business.
Sangram [0:15:15]: So I'm not here to tell you another because you're gonna hear a lot about positioning with April and Jen is gonna talk about demand Gen, and I'm sure we're gonna talk about Ai.
Sangram [0:15:22]: I'm not gonna talk about any of that.
Sangram [0:15:24]: I'm talking about how do you keep your job.
Sangram [0:15:26]: Is that good?
Sangram [0:15:26]: How do you get promoted?
Sangram [0:15:28]: How do you actually help your company grow if you know how to impact that number.
Sangram [0:15:32]: If you can, it changes everything.
Sangram [0:15:34]: So that's what we use We use Nr, As a plumb line as a way to say, well, if you do have a hundred percent and more and are are now, you're talking about a better company, a longer lasting company, you're not like this amazing wave that goes up and then crashes down the next week.
Sangram [0:15:49]: No No We want something that stays because we want to have businesses that actually can scale out there.
Sangram [0:15:54]: If you looked at a lot of it, what was interesting was there were only forty companies that had and nr are of over a hundred and twenty percent.
Sangram [0:16:00]: With a lot of private companies that went private because they wanted to keep more of their profits and how they looked at their business and actually when private having an nr of hundred and twenty percent.
Sangram [0:16:10]: So that's the beauty of it.
Sangram [0:16:11]: If you can get an nr over a hundred and twenty percent, you actually would wanna go private and make sure that you have more of the profits in the way people run businesses is like phenomenal how how all that would work for you.
Sangram [0:16:22]: So this is all very much research focus.
Sangram [0:16:24]: Here are some of the companies.
Sangram [0:16:25]: Some of you are using these companies.
Sangram [0:16:27]: And the reason is because these companies are reportedly having Nr greater than a hundred and twenty percent.
Sangram [0:16:32]: That's why they stay.
Sangram [0:16:33]: That's where they're still alive.
Sangram [0:16:34]: People are using it.
Sangram [0:16:36]: People are growing with these companies, and you wanna build a business that actually does that.
Sangram [0:16:39]: If you're able to do that, you the best market in the world.
Dave [0:16:43]: This came up yesterday in one of our workshops that we did, but it seems so simple, but it is so fundamental.
Dave [0:16:48]: I think the most...
Dave [0:16:49]: Of the challenges that we hear from marketers.
Dave [0:16:50]: It's because marketing is just done in the silo of marketing.
Dave [0:16:54]: With, like, what you're talking about the real way to move Nr ours to be.
Dave [0:16:57]: Well shit.
Dave [0:16:58]: We need to be strategic about our pricing and our packaging.
Dave [0:17:01]: And some we need to have a tight relationship with the product because we need to be building new features, And I think that's where a lot of us are stuck.
Sangram [0:17:08]: Yeah.
Dave [0:17:09]: And what you're saying is important because it's, like, how do we level up and have a strategy discussion.
Dave [0:17:13]: Yeah.
Dave [0:17:13]: None of this is because the marketing team in a room had a good idea.
Sangram [0:17:17]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:17:17]: You know?
Sangram [0:17:17]: I mean...
Sangram [0:17:18]: You know, to that point.
Sangram [0:17:19]: How many of your are fans of Chick f?
Sangram [0:17:21]: I this is warm.
Sangram [0:17:22]: I don't know if chick f in mormon vermont
Dave [0:17:23]: or not, They're absolutely not.
Sangram [0:17:25]: They don't
Sangram [0:17:25]: love it...
Sangram [0:17:25]: It's a bad example, Ben and Jerry.
Sangram [0:17:27]: I should say Ben and jerry's.
Sangram [0:17:28]: Be that that
Dave [0:17:29]: would do it.
Dave [0:17:29]: Chat Gp t y.
Sangram [0:17:31]: Oh my gosh.
Sangram [0:17:31]: Oh my gosh.
Sangram [0:17:32]: Tough proud.
Sangram [0:17:33]: Okay.
Sangram [0:17:34]: Well, I'll say that because I'm from Atlanta.
Sangram [0:17:35]: Love Chick f over there, and I was talking to the Vp of marketing of Chick f.
Sangram [0:17:40]: And if you ever looked at the marketing of Chick f, they still have the damn cow.
Sangram [0:17:44]: And I was like, did this must be driving you nuts that you still have the same cow crawling up the wall in big billboards and trying to say, eat more chicken, like, you the marketers must have come up with new campaigns than the cow.
Sangram [0:18:00]: For many, many years, and he said, you know what?
Sangram [0:18:03]: We did research all the time to prove.
Sangram [0:18:05]: There's spent hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars on marketing research to say, when can we change the campaign?
Sangram [0:18:12]: Not what positioning would work?
Sangram [0:18:14]: Like, what can we change the campaign?
Sangram [0:18:16]: They wanted to figure out how can I change my campaign?
Sangram [0:18:18]: So I as marketer can write on Linkedin that I changed the campaign.
Sangram [0:18:22]: I changed the cow.
Sangram [0:18:23]: Right?
Sangram [0:18:23]: I made it purple.
Sangram [0:18:24]: Like, whatever that is.
Sangram [0:18:25]: Right?
Sangram [0:18:25]: And the research always would come back and say no.
Sangram [0:18:28]: The market likes it.
Sangram [0:18:30]: That's boring.
Sangram [0:18:31]: That's what these companies are doing.
Sangram [0:18:33]: The market likes it.
Sangram [0:18:34]: The market gets it.
Sangram [0:18:35]: They don't need a an awesome tagline.
Sangram [0:18:38]: They don't need another thing Yet.
Sangram [0:18:40]: It might be catch for a day, but even the movements that we know in this ass wall, Like, what I was an inbound.
Sangram [0:18:45]: It's still called inbound and guess what?
Sangram [0:18:46]: They don't have an inbound funnel.
Sangram [0:18:48]: It's still called the inbound conference.
Sangram [0:18:50]: It's like a circle.
Sangram [0:18:51]: So I don't understand how the funnel changed and not, but did they changed the name of the conference why because inbound works, Salesforce is still saying Dream is because Dream works.
Sangram [0:19:00]: So we gotta figure out how to we make marketing in b to b actually, in some ways, boring to boring.
Sangram [0:19:07]: Things that actually work and it may not make you look sexy.
Sangram [0:19:11]: It may not make you get it on Linkedin and show what I created this incredible banner and a thing and the...
Sangram [0:19:16]: It actually how can Build a business?
Sangram [0:19:18]: That's why.
Sangram [0:19:19]: Think about the business.
Dave [0:19:22]: I so everybody's been sharing those, like, clearly billboards
Sangram [0:19:24]: you seeing those?
Dave [0:19:25]: Like, Yeah.
Dave [0:19:25]: Alright.
Dave [0:19:26]: That's cool.
Dave [0:19:26]: Does it work?
Sangram [0:19:28]: Haven't and nobody knows answer that.
Dave [0:19:29]: Nobody knows.
Sangram [0:19:30]: And so so the way to go about this is, like, think about not marketing the business.
Sangram [0:19:35]: I have pretty sure.
Sangram [0:19:37]: This room is full of great marketers.
Sangram [0:19:39]: Think about the business of marketing, which means your job is to actually drive the growth of the business.
Sangram [0:19:47]: The reason companies hire, marketing is to grow.
Sangram [0:19:51]: Period.
Sangram [0:19:52]: That's it.
Sangram [0:19:53]: So if you can figure out how to grow the business, and you can help impact and I'm giving you a clear metric that actually tells you if the company is gonna stay there from twelve months from now or six months from now, eighty months from now.
Sangram [0:20:05]: That's your Nr.
Sangram [0:20:06]: That's your plum line.
Sangram [0:20:07]: So with that being said, like, these three stages are very, very simple.
Sangram [0:20:11]: When think about it.
Sangram [0:20:12]: We wrote that in our book.
Sangram [0:20:14]: It was for of the first research we did.
Sangram [0:20:15]: But the reason I wanted to bring that up is because it's this squiggly line.
Sangram [0:20:18]: It's not a up and to the straight.
Sangram [0:20:20]: You see a lot of times people say, well, look at our our grow.
Sangram [0:20:23]: It's going up and to the right.
Sangram [0:20:24]: Not true.
Sangram [0:20:25]: The not true because it typically does never go up into the right.
Sangram [0:20:28]: It actually always have these dips and valleys and navigating through all of it.
Sangram [0:20:33]: Every single one of the research company that we did all these hundred plus companies we did.
Sangram [0:20:37]: They all had these dips and valleys, and they happen on days and weeks and months and quarters, but you flatten them out or year over year, so they all look up into the right.
Sangram [0:20:45]: But that's not how actually most companies work.
Sangram [0:20:47]: And you may be right now in one of these stages right now.
Sangram [0:20:50]: Where problem market fit, there is there are...
Sangram [0:20:52]: In our research, we could see a twenty million dollar company in still in problem market fit.
Sangram [0:20:57]: Any guesses why a twenty million dollar company be in problem market fit.
Sangram [0:21:01]: Market is changing, Not really.
Sangram [0:21:03]: But you close.
Sangram [0:21:04]: They have one big customer.
Sangram [0:21:06]: They are kind of at one place.
Sangram [0:21:07]: Much way closer.
Sangram [0:21:09]: What else?
Sangram [0:21:10]: Wrong Ic, that is probably the closest to it, but I'll dig into that one.
Sangram [0:21:15]: I think that's probably the closest to it.
Sangram [0:21:17]: They twenty million dollar business, they have five different types of Ic.
Sangram [0:21:21]: Five different types of customization.
Sangram [0:21:24]: Five different ways to sell.
Sangram [0:21:26]: You add the complexity.
Sangram [0:21:28]: The last time I checked, one times one times one times one times one is one.
Sangram [0:21:33]: Meaning that if you can get one funnel, one product line in the early stage, you go after one type of market, you one go to market motion, one product, you can actually do a really good job at it.
Sangram [0:21:43]: But then you do the same math and say, well, what if he had two different products too early, and two different types of Ic p's and two different types of go to market motion.
Sangram [0:21:51]: Somebody do the math for me.
Sangram [0:21:52]: And two different types of process that we wanna do And two different types of messaging because they might be two different thing come in here those.
Sangram [0:21:57]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:21:58]: You're screwed.
Sangram [0:21:59]: By that time, you really don't know what you're saying and your website looks like a coffee shop.
Sangram [0:22:04]: Right?
Sangram [0:22:05]: And how many times you would say, well, my website just looks like my competitor's website.
Sangram [0:22:09]: And they're using my words.
Sangram [0:22:10]: And the reason that happens is because everybody just sounds and says the same thing anymore.
Sangram [0:22:14]: There is no exit five and when Dave went through that.
Sangram [0:22:17]: I'm calling David Dave Dg g.
Sangram [0:22:18]: I don't know what I'm calling now.
Sangram [0:22:19]: But exit five guy over there, so I talked about exit five because that...
Sangram [0:22:24]: Oh, nobody can copy that.
Sangram [0:22:26]: And that's the genius of that.
Sangram [0:22:27]: So everybody has to to think through that.
Sangram [0:22:29]: So when you go through this, and we looked at companies like, what growth happens in stages.
Sangram [0:22:34]: And every single company that you look at out there, they all went through that.
Sangram [0:22:38]: And I used Mcdonald's as a as an example another.
Sangram [0:22:41]: I don't know why I'm talking Fast foods debt, but Mcdonald's, in nineteen forty, they had everything from barbecue to orange juice.
Sangram [0:22:48]: But then they did a research in about nineteen forty eight, and they said everybody's like Sangram.
Sangram [0:22:52]: They like hamburgers, fries and soda.
Sangram [0:22:55]: So they cut down everything in nineteen forty, they actually went through just three items, and they grew like crazy, and they got that...
Sangram [0:23:02]: That's the proverbial way of thinking about product market fit.
Sangram [0:23:04]: I promise you this.
Sangram [0:23:06]: If you go back and look at or even in the brakes, looked at all the things you do in marketing that is probably sixty to seventy percent, and I'm not exaggerating because we do advisory on this thing a lot.
Sangram [0:23:18]: There's sixty to seventeen percent of the things you do that if you didn't do, nobody would know.
Sangram [0:23:24]: And I imagine the next newsletter you send, you don't send.
Sangram [0:23:29]: And nobody would know.
Sangram [0:23:30]: I know that hurts.
Sangram [0:23:32]: That's your job.
Sangram [0:23:34]: But that's the difference between business of marketing and marketing the business.
Sangram [0:23:37]: It's not a two list.
Sangram [0:23:39]: It's not three webinars a week and two blog post and one social post.
Sangram [0:23:42]: It is about finding what sticks with your customer and be boring at it.
Dave [0:23:48]: Do with a question?
Sangram [0:23:49]: Yes, sir.
Dave [0:23:50]: I am Dave from X five.
Dave [0:23:51]: How do you get off that Hamster wheel.
Dave [0:23:52]: Like, this comes up a lot.
Dave [0:23:53]: Right?
Dave [0:23:54]: Away?
Dave [0:23:54]: And I think this is awesome because I I think there's a lot of times where marketing does feel like the order taking department, and this came up yesterday, Colin, I'm just thinking of you have you where, like, it was like hey.
Dave [0:24:04]: All these people push back.
Dave [0:24:05]: Like, marketing feels like the no department because they want
Sangram [0:24:08]: us to do this this this
Dave [0:24:09]: this this.
Dave [0:24:10]: So how do you say no and say, like, hey, we're not gonna do these things because we need to go do x and how do you become credible.
Dave [0:24:15]: How do you get the permission to go do that?
Dave [0:24:17]: How do how do you...
Dave [0:24:18]: It's like a drug?
Dave [0:24:19]: Right?
Dave [0:24:19]: Like, how do you...
Sangram [0:24:20]: It is.
Dave [0:24:20]: How do you get off that?
Dave [0:24:21]: How do you stop the Oz and still stay fit.
Dave [0:24:23]: Like, how do you
Sangram [0:24:24]: do that?
Sangram [0:24:24]: You need a lot of pills.
Sangram [0:24:26]: And a lot of scotch and all of it.
Sangram [0:24:29]: I think it's the...
Sangram [0:24:30]: It's really hard.
Sangram [0:24:31]: Mean, I wish there was a silver bullet to that and, like, an answer to that, but here's how I've seen that work.
Sangram [0:24:36]: First of all, go figure out what the top three priorities of your business are.
Sangram [0:24:41]: Maybe two?
Sangram [0:24:42]: Maybe one, go in there.
Sangram [0:24:44]: And if you cannot connect that back to the Nr number, you can challenge that.
Sangram [0:24:49]: And you have to learn to challenge it because just like that Cmo that generated fifty million pipeline.
Sangram [0:24:56]: You don't wanna be that.
Sangram [0:24:58]: Is the worst thing in the world where you feel successful, you're high five and the next week, you're told like, hey, we need you no more.
Sangram [0:25:04]: Like, you don't want that.
Sangram [0:25:06]: And the reason that happens...
Sangram [0:25:07]: And the reason why we can't say no.
Sangram [0:25:09]: A lot of times is because Well, well, okay.
Sangram [0:25:12]: I don't know what I'm doing.
Sangram [0:25:13]: So...
Sangram [0:25:13]: Let me try this.
Sangram [0:25:14]: Let me try that.
Sangram [0:25:15]: That just is to me.
Sangram [0:25:16]: It also means that, well, you're not sure how you're doing is driving business outcomes.
Sangram [0:25:21]: So the know is only possible when say, hey.
Sangram [0:25:23]: We are doing all of these things.
Sangram [0:25:24]: Which one of these things you would you want me to stop?
Sangram [0:25:27]: That's a great question to ask.
Sangram [0:25:29]: I do that with my kids.
Sangram [0:25:30]: It works.
Sangram [0:25:31]: But it's hard it's very hard because if sales are not closing, marketing, launch a campaign.
Sangram [0:25:36]: If customer success is having churn skill your business, marketing why I'm what be doing with our customers.
Sangram [0:25:41]: So you're all end up becoming the person who actually is in the middle of everything.
Sangram [0:25:45]: So in a way, it's awesome in a way.
Sangram [0:25:47]: It's like the worst job ever.
Sangram [0:25:48]: But you have a role to play, and the only way we can I think we can and as a cmo myself twice?
Sangram [0:25:54]: I could tell you the only way to worked for me was going and saying, well, here are the words top three metrics and here are the three things and here are the projects we have, Which one do you want me to drop.
Sangram [0:26:04]: So I never say no.
Sangram [0:26:05]: Hey, and never say no.
Sangram [0:26:06]: I'll always let them let them pick which ones, and I'll tell them what each one of them are doing.
Sangram [0:26:10]: Last times is just communication and what what's going on in the middle.
Sangram [0:26:14]: So I'll get into now the rest of the results and the operating system and all of it, but I wanna...
Sangram [0:26:19]: Wanna just go ahead and say it out loud.
Sangram [0:26:21]: That, look, go to market is hard.
Sangram [0:26:22]: At one point, we all had the inbound system.
Sangram [0:26:25]: That's all we did.
Sangram [0:26:26]: The best market in the world where good at inbound.
Sangram [0:26:28]: And then we added outbound.
Sangram [0:26:31]: And then we added P and then a investor...
Sangram [0:26:33]: And the company said, hey, You should be doing P work.
Sangram [0:26:37]: Why are you're not doing that.
Sangram [0:26:38]: So you added that.
Sangram [0:26:38]: Then you started building community because everybody was building community at that time.
Sangram [0:26:42]: As a Saas business.
Sangram [0:26:43]: It added that.
Sangram [0:26:44]: And then you started doing events, and all of a sudden you're like, I'm a...
Sangram [0:26:47]: Saas business or an events business.
Sangram [0:26:48]: I don't know.
Sangram [0:26:49]: Like, you know, so you're starting to do that and you're doing all of it, then you start at partner, let growth.
Sangram [0:26:54]: So they're, like, six different go to market motions that most marketers are actually running.
Sangram [0:26:57]: You may be running two, three, four of these.
Sangram [0:26:59]: So it's extremely hard, You figure part.
Sangram [0:27:02]: It's it's become increasingly hard and you are, you fall in this value of death at any given point.
Sangram [0:27:07]: We call it like the five values of death in our research when we do with companies like, which value of death are you in?
Sangram [0:27:12]: Like, let's just get it out.
Sangram [0:27:13]: And so once you know that, now you know how a navigate.
Sangram [0:27:16]: Remember this squiggly line it's...
Sangram [0:27:17]: The squiggly line is all about.
Sangram [0:27:18]: Do you know where you are and do you know how you can get out of it.
Sangram [0:27:21]: Do you know where you are and you know how you're gonna get out of it.
Sangram [0:27:25]: That is the whole gymnastics of what go to market really is all about.
Sangram [0:27:30]: Out And ultimately, I have to learn this the hard way.
Sangram [0:27:34]: At part out when I was running marketing, that my sales leader came to me and said, hey, we need more leads.
Sangram [0:27:40]: I'm like, I gave you thirty thousand leads last quarter.
Sangram [0:27:43]: Like, I don't got no leads.
Sangram [0:27:45]: What do I do?
Sangram [0:27:46]: It's my gum machine Like, where do I put the dollar and get bunch of leads for you again?
Sangram [0:27:50]: And he will not listen.
Sangram [0:27:52]: He's like, dude just go get me more leads?
Sangram [0:27:54]: That's when I decided, I need to go do something else, and that's what led to starting tournaments.
Sangram [0:28:00]: It was, like, I'm gonna fix, try to fix the marketing sales issue.
Sangram [0:28:03]: Why can't we focused on pipeline and expansion and velocity and stuff like that.
Sangram [0:28:07]: And as we started troy minutes, it was a new category in Ab?
Sangram [0:28:10]: Guess what I had.
Sangram [0:28:11]: I had a wall with retention.
Sangram [0:28:13]: And I said, man, the customer success team sucks.
Sangram [0:28:15]: Because it's not just sales.
Sangram [0:28:17]: Now sales.
Sangram [0:28:18]: I think I got a handle on it, but the Cs.
Sangram [0:28:19]: So we started to fire a lot of Cs people.
Sangram [0:28:21]: I'd we did that to try to fix that.
Sangram [0:28:23]: We thought that will fix the churn.
Sangram [0:28:24]: It's hire more experienced people to solve our bad product problems.
Sangram [0:28:29]: And that didn't work.
Sangram [0:28:30]: And so all along, I learned that, oh, we have been pointing fingers the whole time.
Sangram [0:28:34]: Instead, if you would have, hey, what's our go to market problem?
Sangram [0:28:36]: How many of you have sales and marketing alignment meeting?
Sangram [0:28:39]: Kill it.
Sangram [0:28:40]: Does it work?
Sangram [0:28:41]: And then think about it, if you go to a therapy, as a husband and wife, which everybody should.
Sangram [0:28:47]: If you're married, if you're not, you should certainly go then.
Sangram [0:28:50]: If you wanna get married.
Sangram [0:28:51]: If you go there and think, alright.
Sangram [0:28:52]: We're gonna make both of you talk to each other.
Sangram [0:28:54]: Go.
Sangram [0:28:55]: It doesn't work that way.
Sangram [0:28:56]: It doesn't work that way.
Sangram [0:28:58]: So in general, if you call what what you call, the naming has a lot of power, what the lesson that they went through earlier was, like phenomenal that naming does have power.
Sangram [0:29:08]: So call it the go to market meeting.
Sangram [0:29:09]: Call it a meeting that actually is about solving a business problem because go to market is the business.
Sangram [0:29:14]: If you call it a sales pipeline meeting, Guess what, the salesperson is coming with all kinds of defensive line and a review of, like, more my job is better and I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.
Sangram [0:29:22]: You call it a campaign reporting meeting, the marketing is coming with campaign reports that you don't understand a thing about it, but it's amazing.
Sangram [0:29:29]: Right?
Sangram [0:29:29]: But instead, just call something that actually is about the business.
Sangram [0:29:33]: Guys, all I'm really saying is that understand the business of marketing.
Sangram [0:29:37]: It is the best role in the world only if you can think about the business of marketing, not marketing the business.
Sangram [0:29:44]: This is one of my favorite quotes of all times.
Sangram [0:29:48]: If you ever read atomic habits if you have not read it, you should go get it, read it.
Sangram [0:29:52]: He talks about this idea that you don't rise to the level of your goals, you rise to the level of your systems.
Sangram [0:29:57]: And it made a big impact on me.
Sangram [0:29:59]: Recognizing that.
Sangram [0:30:00]: Oh, yeah.
Sangram [0:30:01]: We always created goals.
Sangram [0:30:03]: You all have goals.
Sangram [0:30:04]: Your company has goals, and we all have, like, be held a personal goals, like, be held and all that stuff or company like you've gotta hit so much pipeline, but ultimately, only a few of us are able to get there.
Sangram [0:30:14]: So the question is, what is your system?
Sangram [0:30:16]: What is the system that gets you to that point.
Sangram [0:30:19]: So what I wanna give you is this?
Sangram [0:30:20]: And the Qr code is really the recording.
Sangram [0:30:22]: I'm not selling a free course Dave, but it has a recording of all of it so you all can have access to it because it's...
Sangram [0:30:29]: The research is so deep.
Sangram [0:30:30]: You can just go do that.
Sangram [0:30:31]: But it literally came down to this system, and this is where I'm gonna park.
Sangram [0:30:34]: It came down to all these companies all the research you've have ever done has led to these eight questions.
Sangram [0:30:40]: If you and your organization can answer these eight questions clearly.
Sangram [0:30:46]: Mark my words, I'm not talking about certainty.
Sangram [0:30:48]: Nobody knows except death and taxes, there's no certainty in know, off of it.
Sangram [0:30:53]: Right?
Sangram [0:30:53]: But clarity, what Ic see you wanna go after whatever what...
Sangram [0:30:57]: These eight questions are the most important questions that bring alignment, clarity, and trust in your team.
Sangram [0:31:05]: And note each one of these words in here.
Sangram [0:31:08]: I've highlighted the one.
Sangram [0:31:09]: They are very intentional.
Sangram [0:31:10]: The worst question is where can we grow?
Sangram [0:31:12]: Sounds smart, but it's the worst question because it doesn't have any parameters to it.
Sangram [0:31:16]: But if you ask the question, like, where can we grow the most?
Sangram [0:31:19]: Now you're talking about, oh, do we have product for that?
Sangram [0:31:22]: Do we have customer success that can service that product?
Sangram [0:31:25]: Do we have enough gross margin on that product?
Sangram [0:31:27]: Do we?
Sangram [0:31:28]: Is there market for it?
Sangram [0:31:29]: You're gonna ask...
Sangram [0:31:30]: All kind of qualifying questions that makes you make a great business decisions.
Sangram [0:31:34]: So I'm gonna park at that and we we'll go through examples if you want to through all of it.
Sangram [0:31:38]: But these eight questions is literally the system that seems to be used by all these companies.
Sangram [0:31:43]: They are very clear about these questions, they know exactly what their differentiated point of view is.
Sangram [0:31:48]: They know exactly what their Ic looks like where they can grow.
Sangram [0:31:52]: They know exactly how they're gonna expand with their customers.
Sangram [0:31:55]: Once they know that, they are just boring.
Sangram [0:31:58]: After that.
Sangram [0:31:59]: And I want to encourage all of you.
Sangram [0:32:01]: If you didn't want...
Sangram [0:32:02]: It it came for creative and better ideas, become a boring company.
Sangram [0:32:07]: It pays you really well.
Sangram [0:32:08]: It has great benefits It stays with you long and you get to be on a slide of somebody else's presentation like mine.
Sangram [0:32:15]: So you get to do amazing things when you do that.
Sangram [0:32:18]: So I'll park at that and open up with questions, but thank you so much for letting me share them.
Nick [0:32:23]: My name is Nick.
Nick [0:32:24]: I we talked a little bit about this at breakfast, but I'd like to go deeper on.
Nick [0:32:27]: I'm sure other people have the question.
Nick [0:32:28]: I've tried to as Cmo tried to spear more good market initiatives, and it's like herding cats when you have Cs and sales and product.
Nick [0:32:38]: And...
Nick [0:32:38]: And so it's hard to get everybody on the same page.
Nick [0:32:42]: So...
Nick [0:32:42]: Instead I'm trying to get everybody on the same page.
Nick [0:32:43]: I think what kind of a discovery for me is, let's try to just get the Ceo.
Nick [0:32:47]: On the same page and let him he who has the power to hire and fire, let them get everybody in the same page.
Nick [0:32:53]: So what are some different ways that I can go back and talk to my Ceo and say, this is really important and sell just sell him so that he can then Yeah.
Nick [0:33:02]: Drive the process.
Sangram [0:33:04]: I love that nick.
Sangram [0:33:04]: First of all, the reality is that Ceo owns go to market.
Sangram [0:33:07]: In all of our research, and I have we have books we giveaway away as well in this...
Sangram [0:33:12]: But...
Sangram [0:33:13]: That was the number one thing that Ceo owns go to market.
Sangram [0:33:15]: They may or may not know it, but that's literally...
Sangram [0:33:17]: They're making go to market all day long.
Sangram [0:33:19]: So I will phrase that question very differently.
Sangram [0:33:21]: It's not about...
Sangram [0:33:22]: Hey, This is really important and be better do this thing and can you help me here to do it?
Sangram [0:33:27]: It's like, hey Do you think this is important.
Sangram [0:33:29]: And I'll put that in front of him saying, hey, can you help me answer these questions so we can understand.
Sangram [0:33:35]: What do you think if would all of us all of us as executive team would be answer the same way as you did?
Sangram [0:33:41]: Should we just do that as a group to make sure that we're on the same page, give the Ceo all the egos that they need?
Sangram [0:33:48]: Because ultimately, they're making decisions, and they may be making it with some data points that not everybody's gonna have because they're the Ceo.
Sangram [0:33:54]: But they are the most invested in this.
Sangram [0:33:57]: They actually want this to work.
Sangram [0:33:59]: No Ceo wants to go in and say, hey, have the...
Sangram [0:34:03]: Cat and dog fight in those meetings.
Sangram [0:34:05]: What they want is actually answer answers, they just don't know how to phrase it.
Sangram [0:34:08]: And they're asking this the same questions in different ways.
Sangram [0:34:11]: And if you put in front of them, I promise you, the first thing is like, yeah.
Sangram [0:34:14]: Yeah I I think I know what they answer.
Sangram [0:34:16]: Because in their mind, they've already answered it, But the question is do you think all of us have the same answers?
Sangram [0:34:20]: That's what I would do right away and see where you are.
Rachel [0:34:23]: Hi.
Rachel [0:34:23]: I'm Rachel, and I'm curious.
Rachel [0:34:26]: I mean, I love what you said about systems.
Rachel [0:34:27]: A lot of these questions.
Rachel [0:34:29]: Rely on customer discovery.
Rachel [0:34:32]: And when you're small, you can intimately know your customers as you scale, it gets harder.
Sangram [0:34:37]: Yeah.
Rachel [0:34:38]: And so I'm curious if what systems you have, I guess, to do really good customer discovery and not just what they're saying they want.
Rachel [0:34:44]: But truly what they want and we'll use and we'll pay for.
Sangram [0:34:48]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:34:48]: Well, how big is the company?
Rachel [0:34:51]: We're small.
Rachel [0:34:51]: You're small few million.
Sangram [0:34:53]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:34:53]: So so is this...
Sangram [0:34:55]: Your the problem in your company?
Sangram [0:34:56]: Or are you talking generic?
Sangram [0:34:57]: Companies have more...
Rachel [0:34:59]: No.
Rachel [0:34:59]: I'm talking generically, because it's something we're really good at and See the need to continue to be
Sangram [0:35:03]: really good Yeah.
Sangram [0:35:04]: And now okay.
Sangram [0:35:05]: Well, first of all, I think truly, if your companies have actually...
Sangram [0:35:08]: I didn't even say Ai, can I get a applause for that I didn't say Ai in my if You know how how hard it was for me not to say Ai, in the whole thing because the point is that Ai is not gonna solve all the problems?
Sangram [0:35:19]: But in...
Sangram [0:35:19]: On a question like this where you have...
Sangram [0:35:22]: Let's say you have a hundred customers today or a thousand customers.
Sangram [0:35:24]: You can...
Sangram [0:35:25]: Actually deploy an Ai agent today and say, how are my customers using my product?
Sangram [0:35:29]: And you can actually get that data way more than asking the four fancy same people who say all good things about you and they are just and on drinking the Ko aid, you actually don't want their feedback.
Sangram [0:35:40]: You want the feedback of all of.
Sangram [0:35:41]: So with Ai, you actually can get all of that data and actually ingest that in trying to answer these questions better than ever before.
Sangram [0:35:48]: And I think it's a must for it, but most companies don't have a problem there because they have all these data points and conversations.
Sangram [0:35:55]: The problem and in one of the slides I had was the reason companies are not hitting their revenue goals is not because they need another tool.
Sangram [0:36:02]: How many of you need another tool to hit your number.
Sangram [0:36:04]: How many of you need another Ai agent that will just do the trick for you and send all those Dms and get meetings booked?
Sangram [0:36:10]: It doesn't work.
Sangram [0:36:11]: What works is alignment.
Sangram [0:36:13]: This works.
Sangram [0:36:14]: I can promise you this, like, if you get clarity on this, at the executive level, it will work for you because we've just seen that in our research over and over again.
Sangram [0:36:25]: This is hard work.
Sangram [0:36:26]: This is work that requires humans to talk to each other and actually align on something, not marketing aligned to sales.
Sangram [0:36:34]: Like, you could see, like, we didn't even say brand and demand.
Sangram [0:36:36]: We even split that out, brand and demand to us is the same.
Sangram [0:36:39]: Like, you and I Dave You and not have talked about that forever is that why do companies even split that.
Sangram [0:36:43]: It's not...
Sangram [0:36:44]: There's no reason to split that it actually drives your differentiated point of view.
Sangram [0:36:47]: So the issue is not those things.
Sangram [0:36:50]: The issue is not having clarity on this.
Oliver [0:36:52]: Yeah.
Oliver [0:36:52]: This is Oliver.
Oliver [0:36:53]: Really enjoyed the presentation.
Sangram [0:36:55]: I think this...
Oliver [0:36:55]: The sort of system side of think is really interesting.
Oliver [0:36:57]: I spent the last twelve years in the Saas and a product world and recently switched over to services and consulting in a advisory.
Oliver [0:37:04]: Curious to understand how this changes in that environment where maybe you don't have sort of products that people buy or implement, But have services that people are a part of and and things like that.
Sangram [0:37:17]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:37:17]: Oh, we were shocked how well it works for that.
Sangram [0:37:19]: I think the first, the sixty percent of our advisory work is actually in the services industry.
Sangram [0:37:24]: I was shocked by that.
Sangram [0:37:25]: Because in the service industry, you're always thinking about this.
Sangram [0:37:28]: It's actually more natural in a services business.
Sangram [0:37:30]: In a Saas business, this is unnatural.
Sangram [0:37:33]: Because in a Saas business, you're like, hey, let's just go and try this and spend a lot money and launch this campaign in a Saas business, let's just try that messaging and stuff.
Sangram [0:37:42]: In a services business, The cash flow is king.
Sangram [0:37:44]: You gotta figure that part out because most of the services business don't raise money.
Sangram [0:37:48]: So this is actually more natural to them and sixty percent of our work.
Sangram [0:37:52]: This works.
Sangram [0:37:53]: I know this works really well.
Sangram [0:37:55]: The hardest thing for services business is really how are you gonna ups observe your customers?
Sangram [0:38:01]: Because most services business are based on hourly rate or projects, and they just try to keep going on that?
Sangram [0:38:08]: And you don't know what else can you do what else kind Of bolt on that will actually keep us with the same customer, That's the hardest question to answer.
Sangram [0:38:15]: For Saas businesses, that's easy.
Sangram [0:38:16]: They can add new features, new products, new serve, you know, they can do that.
Chelsea [0:38:20]: Hi.
Chelsea [0:38:20]: I'm Chelsea with recast, a cybersecurity company.
Chelsea [0:38:23]: Regarding Nr.
Chelsea [0:38:25]: We have about a hundred and ten percent Nr.
Sangram [0:38:29]: Nice.
Sangram [0:38:29]: And we do give it up for that.
Sangram [0:38:30]: Hundred and ten percent.
Chelsea [0:38:34]: We do very well on cross selling and expansion into our customers.
Sangram [0:38:38]: Just have to.
Sangram [0:38:39]: Yeah.
Chelsea [0:38:39]: However, we are not meeting our goals on new business.
Sangram [0:38:42]: Yeah.
Chelsea [0:38:43]: So we have forty percent growth rate, thirty five million in the Arr.
Sangram [0:38:47]: You have a forty percent growth rate and a hundred and ten percent Nr.
Sangram [0:38:50]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:38:51]: You know you're one of the rare ones.
Sangram [0:38:52]: Yes.
Sangram [0:38:53]: Okay.
Chelsea [0:38:54]: However, we're are not meeting the goals on the new logo.
Sangram [0:38:58]: Mh.
Chelsea [0:38:58]: And so now there's increased attention.
Chelsea [0:39:01]: Yeah.
Chelsea [0:39:01]: On everything new logo.
Chelsea [0:39:03]: It's all about bringing a new logo.
Chelsea [0:39:04]: Yeah.
Chelsea [0:39:05]: So we've totally I mean, we're not doing anything on the...
Chelsea [0:39:08]: For marketing on on cross sell right now.
Sangram [0:39:10]: Yeah.
Chelsea [0:39:11]: However, based on, know, if we wanna get to a hundred twenty percent Nr, and we shift our focus cross, I'm certain we can get there.
Chelsea [0:39:18]: But do you see, you know, down the road a ceiling of can we continuously reach a hundred and twenty percent Nr without adding a significant amount of new logo to cross sell into and fifty three years?
Sangram [0:39:34]: Great question.
Sangram [0:39:34]: It's great.
Sangram [0:39:35]: First of all, reaching that kind of is is, like, phenomenal.
Sangram [0:39:38]: I think people should talk to you.
Sangram [0:39:40]: I wanna come talk to you after this because that's fantastic.
Sangram [0:39:42]: How did you do that?
Sangram [0:39:43]: Or what...
Sangram [0:39:44]: What...
Sangram [0:39:44]: Your product must be really good that actually allows you to, like, that's, like, a bad default has to happen.
Sangram [0:39:49]: The question for you is that, it's a great problem to have.
Sangram [0:39:52]: You're not gonna go out of business.
Sangram [0:39:53]: I can guarantee that.
Sangram [0:39:55]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:39:55]: Right?
Sangram [0:39:55]: Like, so you don't have to worry about that.
Sangram [0:39:57]: And now from a growth perspective, if you're a thirty five, forty percent growth rate, That's actually a good healthy growth rate, It's not bad.
Sangram [0:40:03]: But maybe the security world right now is growing massively.
Sangram [0:40:06]: So compared to all of your peers, you guys probably are not growing as fast as they all are growing and that's why the pressure comes in.
Sangram [0:40:13]: But that's literally your first question where you grow the most.
Sangram [0:40:16]: So whatever amount of time you can spend on segmenting and isolating and saying, can we go in this particular vertical of this particular industry or this whatever, all those things is literally going to be the whole focus on it?
Sangram [0:40:28]: I don't think there comes a time once you start hitting those kind of hundred and ten percent.
Sangram [0:40:32]: I've not seen companies go down.
Sangram [0:40:34]: Our research did not show that.
Sangram [0:40:35]: Because the reason most companies get to hundred and ten percent is because they have a really good sticky product and people can stop using security once they install it and need everything.
Sangram [0:40:45]: But your growth rate will always always at some point is gonna be in the under question because you're probably really good for that particular industry.
Sangram [0:40:54]: And now you almost need to reinvent yourself.
Sangram [0:40:57]: You have to almost go off a new market out there.
Sangram [0:41:00]: And for that market, the Nr might be not as good as the market that exists.
Sangram [0:41:04]: And that's okay.
Sangram [0:41:05]: So it's almost like launching a new business out there.
Sangram [0:41:07]: And you have to look at it differently.
Sangram [0:41:08]: You have to look at Nr differently You have to look at to go back from a problem product platform.
Sangram [0:41:13]: You wanna go through those stages and again and again as you launch new products.
Sangram [0:41:16]: But sounds like you're in a great place, and I think that's fantastic.
Sangram [0:41:21]: Thank you.
Sangram [0:41:22]: Awesome.
Dave [0:41:23]: Feel like sometimes you gotta ask.
Dave [0:41:24]: Question in here to just feel like, yes, shit should I
Sangram [0:41:26]: am doing a job.
Sangram [0:41:27]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:41:27]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:41:27]: Right.
Sangram [0:41:28]: I mean, that's all.
Dave [0:41:29]: Any other questions for Sangram before we for rep yet.
Participant [0:41:32]: I was just curious if hypothetically, we don't know the answer to any of those questions?
Sangram [0:41:38]: It's a hypothetical Right?
Sangram [0:41:38]: It's not.
Sangram [0:41:39]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:41:39]: I totally Totally get it.
Participant [0:41:42]: All.
Participant [0:41:42]: Where would you start?
Participant [0:41:43]: If you...
Participant [0:41:44]: Obviously, you'd kind of want to address all of them at the same time, but it's the real world And if you had to pick a place to start, where would it be?
Sangram [0:41:52]: Oh, Gosh.
Sangram [0:41:53]: That's a great question.
Sangram [0:41:54]: First of all, thank you for that honesty state.
Sangram [0:41:56]: I really do.
Sangram [0:41:57]: Because I think most companies don't have
Oliver [0:41:59]: answers to these questions.
Dave [0:42:00]: It was a hypothetical are you being on?
Sangram [0:42:01]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:42:01]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:42:02]: I'm just reading too much.
Sangram [0:42:04]: Amanda.
Sangram [0:42:04]: Yeah.
Sangram [0:42:05]: No.
Sangram [0:42:05]: Most companies do not have answers clear answers or aligned answers on these.
Sangram [0:42:11]: Most companies.
Sangram [0:42:12]: So the hypothetical is actually true.
Sangram [0:42:15]: Most companies don't.
Sangram [0:42:16]: The goal is to see how far are you from it.
Sangram [0:42:18]: And if you were to start somewhere, I would always start with, like, the Roi and how retention Nr.
Sangram [0:42:25]: So the bottom two, the customer time to value and customer expansion.
Sangram [0:42:27]: Because if that doesn't work, no matter how fast you grow at the top, and some of you have probably experienced it.
Sangram [0:42:34]: You're gonna come trump tumbling down.
Sangram [0:42:36]: Very fast.
Sangram [0:42:36]: Because if that number is not good, The writing is on the wall.
Sangram [0:42:40]: If you're not at hundred percent or more Nr, like, you have to demand your company to think about it because a lot of times executives and investors and off, like not all they just go.
Sangram [0:42:50]: But I've never seen a business that is at seventy percent Nr and still in business after three years or so.
Sangram [0:42:56]: So if you're at that, that's your bigger problem.
Sangram [0:42:58]: It doesn't really matter if you created a great campaign and created more demand at the top.
Sangram [0:43:02]: You can't retain it.
Sangram [0:43:03]: You're not in a in a market.
Sangram [0:43:05]: That means you need to really figure out which market do you need to serve where they will stay.
Sangram [0:43:08]: And if customers stay with you and you become a logo on a slide, that's a great business.
Sangram [0:43:14]: Alright I guess.
Sangram [0:43:15]: Thank you.
Dave [0:43:16]: It up for Sang.
Dave [0:43:17]: Hell, yeah.
Dave [0:43:17]: Hey.
Dave [0:43:22]: Thanks for listening to this podcast.
Dave [0:43:24]: If you like this episode.
Dave [0:43:25]: You know what?
Dave [0:43:26]: I'm not even gonna ask you to subscribe and leave a review because I don't really care about that.
Dave [0:43:30]: I have something better for you.
Dave [0:43:31]: So We've built the number one private community for B marketers at exit five, and you can go and check that out instead of leaving a rating a review, go check it out right now on our website exit five dot com.
Dave [0:43:43]: Our mission at Ec exit five is to help you grow your career in B2b marketing.
Dave [0:43:47]: And there's no better place to do that than with us at exit five.
Dave [0:43:50]: There's nearly five thousand members now in our community.
Dave [0:43:53]: People are in their posting every day asking questions about things like marketing planning, ideas, inspiration asking questions and getting feedback from your peers, building your own network of marketers who are doing the same thing you are, so you can have a peer group or maybe just venting about your boss when you need to get in there and get something off your chest.
Dave [0:44:11]: It's a hundred percent free to join for seven days so you can go and check it out risk free, and then there's a small annual fee to pay if you wanna become a member for the year.
Dave [0:44:20]: Go check it out, learn more, exit five dot com, and I will see you over there in the community.