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Welcome to the Revenue Rebels podcast, hosted by Alan Zhao, Co-Founder of Warmly.ai.
We feature B2B SaaS revenue leaders who have challenged traditional methods to achieve remarkable results.
In each episode we cut through the fluff and dive deep into modern tactics used to achieve success: intent-based outreach, social selling, B2B Netflix, video marketing, warm calling, customer led sales, influencer marketing and more.
On the show you can expect episodes with those who create demand - marketing experts, partnerships gurus and social media superstars and those who capture demand - outbound and inbound sales experts, leaders, and practitioners.
Our goal is to shine a light on modern, effective and unique revenue generating methods and equip you with the insights you need to unlock your next strategic advantage.
We're huge proponents of signal-based selling and signal-based, data-driven B2B go-to-market as a whole. Ask us what "Autonomous Revenue Orchestration" means and we'll be more than happy to shine a light on our vision of what the field of B2B revenue will become.
For more content, check out our YouTube page and LinkedIn newsletter!
Welcome to the Revenue Rebels podcast brought to you by Warmly. On this show, we cut straight through the fluff and dive deep into the specific tactics that B2B revenue leaders across sales and marketing are using to find success in today's environment. I'm your host, Alan Zhou. Alright. Super excited about this one.
Alan Zhao:I'm here with Jared Robin. He's the founder of rev genius, one of the premier active go to market communities out there with over 40,000 members. He's held VP of bro and VP of sales positions before co buying RevGenius. So he's gotten to sit on both sides of the go to market table.
Jared Robin:I also think what great
Alan Zhao:about Jared, by nature of being a community builder, he's extremely plugged into the go to market ecosystem. He knows all the top players and companies. We'll just give him access to some of those cutting edge playbooks and tools that are working today. And today we'll be talking about why collaborative growth is the future of community. I can apply it to your business.
Jared Robin:It's Jared. It's great to have you on today. Thank you so much.
Alan Zhao:Awesome. So why don't we get a quick back in about yourself and then we'll dive right into the topics.
Jared Robin:I'm Jared. I spent a lifelong in sales before finding myself unemployed at the beginning of COVID decided to build the right of genius first as a way to, to get myself a job. I thought it was a way to stand out above and beyond, show that I was still active, even though I wasn't really working and it grew too big, too fast. We built a movement and we'll talk about that today. Been here for years.
Jared Robin:We're 45,000 members to launch Rev Room and in my own personal newsletter, the collab along the way and excited to be here.
Alan Zhao:Yeah. Awesome. Jared has done so many different things. He's always trying to rush boundaries of what's possible and go to market. So I've been watching distance, so I'm learning a lot from him.
Alan Zhao:Let's dive in. So what is collaborative growth and why is it the future? Why should go to market teams care?
Jared Robin:Yeah. So collaborative growth, I think is like the evolution collaborator and ability to partner with a company or to build a movement, whether they're creators, influencers, fractionals, advisors. We see all of these titles and all these announcements. It's funny. There's so many announcements for so many titles outside of your regular company.
Jared Robin:Why is this a feature? I just named an, a tactic, but why this is the future and why it's a big strategy is everyone has more power than they ever have to be their own solopreneur, to side hustle, to do all of this. Some of them choose to do this full time, collaborate with companies. Some do it, part time. And GTM should care why this is the future, because if this is harnessing the community and giving them a chance to make money alongside you, gives you more flexibility as a founder to not have to hire w twos.
Jared Robin:And it allows you to truly partner in beneficial ways with members of the community directly to increase your awareness, drive demand. And in the case of the fractional actually help you strategize and build your go to market plan. So there's all sorts of flavors of that. And this is a more flexible way for the company to lean and grow at lower costs or the same cost and more flexibility. And it gives the collaborators opportunities to work with multiple companies, whereas in the past they were just working for their own.
Jared Robin:And how do you think this came about? If you look at the B2C world for inspiration for the last 4 years, actually, like instead of starting with genius. I want to start an influencer marketing agency and B2B because I saw the future because I came from the B2B to C world, but I'm like, it's way too early. So a couple of things. 1, people became disenfranchised with working with companies.
Jared Robin:On the other hand, companies just in the last 12, 18 months went through a really difficult time in general. We went from growth at all costs to growth, like sustainable growth to growth at the lowest costs, or you have no budgets, not even using your budget effectively. It's what can you do with nothing? And that's forced people to be creative and and realize you have no money for ad spend. Like, how could we partner with individuals?
Jared Robin:How can we drive value? How could we get the money, whether it's in one way or another for the impact that they're making? So the combination of people wanting to side hustle and seeing this in B2B2C or B2C rather and knowing it would come to B2B because people want to trust the brands that they're buying from. And this has been happening in B2C and the, the market combined, it was a perfect storm.
Alan Zhao:Yeah, it was amazing. The, the point about brand is a big one. Like, it's not enough to just say what you do. You have to get some credibility about who's saying nice things about what you guys do. And it's like you said, individuals getting a lot more power, a lot more influence brand wanting to align with them.
Alan Zhao:It's a perfect storm.
Jared Robin:Absolutely. And it be much more flexible on your bottom line than hiring like an army of w two marketers who
Alan Zhao:are inherently biased because they work for the company. So this brings us into the next topic, which is what's the key insight on how to be successful doing collaborative growth, given everything we talked about.
Jared Robin:Yeah. Let's take the collaborative growth phrase away for a second. Yeah. We know collaborate and let's insert, like, partner because there's, like, a partnership connection here. And instead of it, 2 companies partnering, it's like a company and an individual partner.
Jared Robin:This is the new nuance. So first off, think of it like that. And with partnership, the ideal partnership, there needs to be equal equity in the situation. 1.0 collaboration, 2 people work for a company and the company benefits the individuals. Sure.
Jared Robin:Maybe they could get promoted or not, but it's not quite equal equity. There's this forcing function that happens when it's an individual in the company. So you could have a true partnership and how can a company ensure that they're like truly partnering versus just like taking advantage? One, the collaborators will hold you in line now because they're starting to know their value. But the key insight is to make sure that you're driving true value for the people that you partner with.
Jared Robin:So even if it's an ambassador program where they get X percent of everything they drive, I always tell company to create a bulleted list. It could be a handful of bullets of other value that they'll off on giving them outside of that. Is that a better network? Is that a mentorship? Is that building their personal brand so they can make money from others that that might have bigger budgets?
Jared Robin:Is it them being seen a combination thereof, but there's a lot of other value points. Is, is it you helping them? Like literally get more followers and stuff that that'll translate into money in other ways. So the key insights to test lead to collaborative growth as a company is to make sure that you're actually driving value that the other person agrees with, not just value that you think not the value within your product, so to speak. Like I know my product will help make you money or save you money.
Jared Robin:If you just use it. Take a step back. How can you help them in their career or in their journey outside of your product as well? And I think that's big aligning with their full goals and then bring your product on.
Alan Zhao:So there's something else you mentioned when we were talking about this was how can you get people who is your audience to wanna promote your product and win along, like, in that process? You give examples about Salesforce, you use apps about HubSpot. You yourself have built large communities, you built the collab, the newsletter, the next 50. So just how do
Jared Robin:you think about that? So one audience, how I always defined it is it's a one way speaking, right? Person, the expert speaks to their audience. Community is bidirectional. So meaning like you're asking for feedback, you're involving them in the decision.
Jared Robin:You're lifting them up. So that's small nuance. And what, no matter how you define it, just go with me for a second to find the way I do in the sense that. Make it a two way street. And you'll notice me personally on social.
Jared Robin:I have some one way posts, like this is a playbook or this is what you do, but I quite frequently will engage my audience or my community to give feedback. Right. What are the top brands? What are creators that you want to lift that I'm not seeing? And I'll do that with consistency and, but rev genius, whether it's spotlighting people or brands or building programs to help lift others, making it bidirectional and both being at the table with equal equity is massive and driving value for them is massive into collaborative growth, engaging your audience.
Jared Robin:Using that to build your brand because your brand is how you're making them feel. And building a movement from that. You can't build a movement without community. I'm sure that there's a couple minor examples that you can poke calls in, but by and large, there is no movement without people. People don't follow a movement that they don't care about.
Jared Robin:They care about a movement because it hits them in the feels like it's literally it speaks to them and they want to join it because it's a worthwhile cause to whether it's their personal life or their professional life. I like that a lot.
Alan Zhao:And you mentioned this before you called a lot of content these days as working participatory content. It's a two way street. It's done through people who engage, people who engage back. With the movement, once you've created the movement, you always wanna tie it back to a business model. So can you talk about all the things that you've done, what you've done a lot to create these movements and then how you tie it back to the rev genius business model?
Jared Robin:Yeah, absolutely. So the most recent example of this is our next campaign. Here's a little micro movement and I'm calling it a micro movement because it's only been a couple months. I don't know how big we're gonna make it, but it's this idea that in in also listen to the new author. I speak about it because there's a couple ways you could speak about it, but it's this idea that both emerging creators and emerging brands aren't being seen enough.
Jared Robin:They don't necessarily have the resources that the big creators or the big brands have because they built it up and, and total props to those at the top. And, and I took the same play from this fashion magazine I built 10 years ago. I didn't even tell you this in preparation. We just featured emerging fashion designers. Why did we do that?
Jared Robin:Because they weren't getting into the major magazines, yet they were cooler Then, then like the brands you heard of, but because of money or influence or network, They weren't doing it. So we just built the whole thing around them. So let's fast forward and we made it cooler. Here's the key. We curated the heck out of it We made it cooler.
Jared Robin:Yes. You want to look people up to lift people up, but you want to do it tastefully. So peep, so like you get credit in the space. So bring it to today. We created this list of creators that was highly diverse, really awesome people on the come up and, and in turn, they lifted the movement.
Jared Robin:They're like, you saw how many people we got like 1,800,000 impressions. Okay. In in a week's time, our brand was lifted and got inbound from that. But we took that because there wasn't like a direct product with that, but we did that as figuring it out typeface. And then we moved it to a SaaS startup series A and seed and below.
Jared Robin:Who said, let's create a list of the top 50 and how and now we have all these creators activated. We have all these ambassadors activated because they're like, damn, like we, we love where this is going. And then we have this list of and by the way, in the process, these emerging people tend to be like the hungriest. Right? Like, they're out there.
Jared Robin:They're leaning in. They're the most active. And they're not. And, and, and they're also not like complacent and just sitting at the top and not they in their super humble, but they're going at it. So like you have this like energy, a bottle.
Jared Robin:So we have them, everybody's getting active. Then we have the top 50 startups and now we launch a demo day product, which we haven't even announced yet. And before we even announced, like pretty much sold out in a week or 2 weeks, just talking to people because they see the movement we're creating. And now we're giving VPs and potential buyers an easy way to buy and not just from the emerging folks, but from all folks on this. And we have the next fifty list of these startups coming out too.
Jared Robin:These are the most energetic startups, man. And and they're the most organically energetic startups. Right? Like, they really have to be. So we're doubling down and the activity I think will probably match the last one, if not more.
Jared Robin:Right. Because startups that make this list, we'll probably email it to all their people And rev genius now becomes the source to discover new startups, become the place where startups want to pay to these even. Right. It's a place of credibility, assuming that you like our list and the curation thereof. And then we have all of these creators that that have been activated that now are like, oh, fuck.
Jared Robin:Yeah. Let's keep going. So we're about 3 months deep. And the only thing holding the movement back is us. These people, all of that.
Jared Robin:So already, we're thinking about demo days with more niche. We're thinking about easier ways for people to buy and discover talent and just creating like a product out of this movement and did it pretty quick and pretty fast. And then seeing like other challenges in the space, like with buying, Like VP, he the way sales is working right now. I just want to go to rev is who we trust is like building this movement to show us who's there. And now these brands are like, damn.
Jared Robin:You got all our buyers coming. And these buyers are like, we fuck with all the brands you have coming. We make it much simpler so you don't have to listen to 40 2 different questions from an SDR that no offense doesn't always, isn't always trained the right way and we create things simpler. And we're the connector of all this. We named it accordingly.
Jared Robin:Like, what's hot now and what's the next? Anyway, thank you for listening. But that's like just an example of the movement in real time.
Alan Zhao:If you're a fan of the Revenue Rebels podcast, please leave us a review on Spotify and Apple Podcast. Your support goes a long way to helping us bring on more amazing guests. Thank you. What I like about that is you've amassed the creators, the influencers, and the companies that are trying to build big brands and you've aligned them to your brand. Your brand becomes the platform, the connector, almost like the
Jared Robin:central choke point through which a lot
Alan Zhao:of these brands have to flow through.
Jared Robin:And by the way, creator companies that hire creators went through our list, reached out to creators and offered them money to work with them. Some of them accepted, some didn't. But how cool is that? I got those creators fucking paid. Do they like me more, less or the same?
Alan Zhao:Probably more in this day and age, anything that brings in money, people probably like you more.
Jared Robin:Money or status is pretty much the main drivers, I believe, in in where you're going to spend your time.
Alan Zhao:And you found a way to provide money and status at scale with a lot of people waiting while having on a shoestring budget yourself. Like you probably didn't spend a whole lot.
Jared Robin:No, we spent a good amount of time, but not a whole lot of money. Yeah.
Alan Zhao:That's right. So this is powerful. How do you think on the next topic marketing or go to market teams can adopt your playbook, this meta game that you're playing into their own go to market strategy.
Jared Robin:So it's funny. You saw a couple starting to do it. My homey at sales Intel that worked with rev genius for a minute. Hasenberg was like running some things, zoom info, like just launched their community. So I think and that brings up another point.
Jared Robin:There's people running the tactical side of this without the strategy. And you will get impressions, but there'll be like PR pops. Versus like longstanding stuff. So how could your team teams adopt this playlist for themselves? 1st and foremost, understand the challenges of the persona and the ICP your product is for deeply and think about what they need, the movement that needs to be created to fill the gap.
Jared Robin:Our s do you sell sales? In our case, we drive demand for businesses, right? Let's break down with sponsors are. I just create a whole demand driving movement to help them. And we have a community that, that helps them as well.
Jared Robin:So how can you with it without charging for admission, right? How can you build something that your persona needs, like along the way, give them, value that they could actually realize in your ITP And, and think through it, talk to them, build paths, community advisory boards. So get a few people around there, build customer advisory boards and understand like the gaps that they have and then build something for it and then rally the fuck out of them around it. That's what a movement is. RTS rally the fuck.
Jared Robin:Yeah. Black Lives Matter rally the fuck. Let's go. Okay. Let's go.
Jared Robin:It's us versus them and us is helping you. Us is helping you.
Alan Zhao:Do you have any examples of companies that pull
Jared Robin:it off pretty well? A party option? I'm watching I'm I'm loving Clay. I just feature them. I I love HubSpot.
Jared Robin:I love so these examples I give have, like, really big agency, like, footprints under them, and and they're creating, like, new business streams for people that maybe not had that business before. And they're geeking out over these products. Like the clay people are geeking the fuck out. I kid you not. After announcing clay, I probably had more net new connection requests than any single announcement.
Jared Robin:Like and just coming in, hey, I'm a Clay part. Like, clay, like, oh, whatever. I got off the phone with somebody today. Like, oh, clay. Like, it's a movement.
Jared Robin:Notion, reality is the fuck. Like, are you kidding me? How many people have businesses off Notion templates? Like, yo, let's level it up, though. You know, here, how many people, like, throw things on Gumroad?
Jared Robin:Beehive. I mean, people didn't have newsletters before Beehive came around. Now they have newsletters. Now they're geeking out in Slack. They're tagging beehive on social because they know a 100 beehive will come and like their posts.
Jared Robin:RTS, like beehive. That's fucking they're killing it and they're crushing it. ConvertKit is a really great tool, but Beehive has all these people, like, towards it. ConvertKit has some of the best creators, some of the best tooling and the creators themselves do stuff. But Beehive has this like community buzzing there is, but going towards that.
Jared Robin:And that's so rad. And then with businesses, with the agencies, the Hubspots of the world and Salesforce, when you're in like forums and people have questions on this product, you're jumping in and geeking out because, 1, you could get new business from it too. So you're going to rally around where you can make money. And that's a key takeaway there, but those are some great examples
Alan Zhao:On the next topic, you've always been at the forefront of this, creating movements, creating brand and building communities. You were ahead of the game. It seems like now only now are people really starting to catch on. So how do you think about creating new playbooks and being at the cutting edge of go
Jared Robin:to market? What's funny. You think creatively about doing things and you do it, but you don't write, I don't write down enough stuff. Having somebody asked for a playbook, so coursing function to fit, oh shit, I need to think about this. And then in some ways you get like a lot smarter around being able to communicate what you did to get somewhere.
Jared Robin:But in some ways you like lose the nuance, the real subtle stuff because you can't keep track of everything and micro everything, so to speak. But how do you create your own playbooks? You look at your goals, you figure something out and you pray to God, you remember what worked in them along the way. To get to, I could tell you our playbooks have hindsight now, but in the process, I wasn't working from a playbook.
Alan Zhao:That's okay. Our investors said the same thing. It was really, it was like all these playbooks. And when people ask how you get to product market, they always explain it to you in hindsight, but they just did whatever it took to get there. And then they're just trying to explain the mechanism they took to get there, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna transfer over to you.
Alan Zhao:So it's more maybe a mindset than it is playbook.
Jared Robin:I think it's so true. And what do they say? Like great marketers, like they just keep taking at bats and they figure it out and and they do, like, micro recalibration. The next business model is supposed to be people paying us to be a part of this movement. But whether it was too early or just a bad idea or somewhere in the middle Got.
Jared Robin:Crraction with that and did well. But what really took off more was this demo day. And we figured that out by looking at the market, understanding what they need, seeing how many times did we speak, Alan, where you were giving me different ideas, like in the last 2 months. Some of them were great ideas that other people did that I might've done. And we ended up with something completely different that feels easier and more scalable and hitting and hitting it even more like some of the examples are, you know, the next fifty lists, having people pay to be on it or something, or like having a voting thing.
Jared Robin:And there's so many great ideas around that that I was considering. But ultimately, I wanted this list to be curated by us. So then how could we create a product if we're not charging anybody anything? What do they need even more than being on a list or all that they want to pay to be to drive demand? And this list could and will, but how could we like build something that's like even more attributable and fuck.
Jared Robin:Maybe we should charge for both, Alan. Like, maybe there's more micro pivots to be made, but, when they came out and it was just like easier from a product standpoint than like having this like big voting thing and all of that.
Alan Zhao:And that's the thing, right? Like in order to be a really good marketing strategist or CMO leader, you can't just take playbooks. There's a certain genius to recognize that every day the market changes a little bit, and you have to stay on top of that and adjust your own strategies accordingly.
Jared Robin:Jared, don't be afraid to give, don't be afraid to give extra, like that next fifty list is a big give and we're figuring out, the business model that it turns to
Alan Zhao:1000%. And collaborative. Give 5x more than you receive, and that's what you've done.
Jared Robin:Thank you.
Alan Zhao:Thank you so much for the time, Jared. It's been a pleasure learning about brand collaborative growth, partnering with people in the ecosystem and then building them up. How can people find out more value?
Jared Robin:Hit me up on linkedinlinkedin.comforward/inforward/jaredrobin. Go to Jared Robin.com. Sign up for my newsletter. Shoot me a note directly in slack revgenius.com. Click any of the sign up things there and join.
Jared Robin:And those are 3 pretty straightforward ways to get to me.
Alan Zhao:Amazing, Jared. RTF. Thank you so much. RTF.