How to build the right thing (before you scale the wrong one)

Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow – read by 50,000+ to scale their companies and careers. GTMnow shares insight around the go-to-market strategies responsible for explosive company growth. GTMnow highlights the strategies, along with the stories from the top 1% of GTM executives, VCs, and founders behind these strategies and companies.


Most startups die not because they move too slow. Rather, because they build the wrong thing, for the wrong customer, with the wrong team.

That’s why these frameworks from Oji Udezue, former Chief Product Officer at Calendly and Typeform, are so valuable. He’s also held product leadership roles at Twitter, Atlassian, and Microsoft, and recently co-authored a book on scaling high-growth product teams: Building Rocket Ships.

Here are five tactical, high-leverage lessons for early-stage B2B founders and operators:

1. Where to Fish: A framework for targeting the right workflow

“You can predict the terminal value of your startup by mapping the frequency and breadth of your workflow.”

This is a simple framework to assess if you’re building in the right zone. It’s a powerful filter to assess the strategic potential of the workflow your product targets. Oji maps them by two traits:

1. Frequency: How often the workflow is performed

2. Breadth: How many people across the company perform it

This creates four categories:

Look for workflows that are used daily, across teams.
Avoid building for low-frequency, narrow personas unless your wedge is razor-sharp.

So if you’re in a LiEv or LiNi zone, chart a clear roadmap toward HiNi or HiEv territory to increase market pull and enterprise value.

2. Ditch the EPD trio and build a 6-person “shipyard” team

Engineering, product, and design is a 1999 idea.”

Today’s most effective teams include six functions from day one:

  1. Product
  2. Engineering
  3. Design
  4. Product Marketing
  5. User Research
  6. Data

This prevents the old waterfall trap of “build → throw over the fence → launch.” Instead, you get faster iteration, tighter GTM integration, and fewer missed signals.

How these functions are built is continuously evolving with AI.

3. You need a 3x+ value delta to overcome switching costs

“People won’t switch unless your product is 3x better – faster, cheaper, or both.”

This one’s easy to overlook. If your tool is only 20% better than the incumbent, it won’t matter. Switching is painful, even if the new thing is technically superior.

You need to be:

  • 5x cheaper, or
  • 3x faster, or
  • Undeniably simpler

For example, despite building a better internal Slack competitor at Atlassian, they couldn’t win because Teams was bundled for free and Slack was good enough.

4. AI is creating a tempo mismatch between product and GTM

“We’re building faster, but customers aren’t absorbing faster.”

AI tools have radically sped up development. But GTM motions – onboarding, enablement, comms – haven’t kept pace. This causes friction, feature fatigue, and missed adoption moments. GTM and product need to operate on the same cadence.

Teams are adjusting by:

  • Rethinking what “version” means (rolling vs. batch releases)
  • Slowing down outbound marketing to give customers time to catch up
  • Building internal GTM muscle as fast as they build product

5. Don’t stack risk in your infrastructure

“Take only one unproven layer at a time.”

This is a mistake even seasoned founders make: layering a new market, new tech, new GTM motion, and unproven infrastructure… all at once.

Instead:

  • New product → proven market
  • New market → proven tech
  • New everything → high failure rate

Share

Tag GTMnow so we can see your takeaways and help amplify them.

✅ Recommendations

Watch the AI SDR Summit (it’s on-demand and free!)

Stream Qualified’s first annual AI SDR Summit on-demand and hear how leaders from companies like G2, 6sense, Salesforce, and so many more are leveraging the power of AI SDR agents to scale their inbound and outbound pipe gen motions.

Check out candid conversations about the state of the AI SDR agent landscape, inbound and outbound playbooks, and real results from marketers at the forefront of the agentic marketing era.


👂 More for your eardrums

147: RevOps Is a Hidden Growth Engine with Navin Persaud, VP of RevOps at 1Password

This episode explores how AI is transforming the world of revenue operations.

Navin Persaud, VP of Revenue Operations at 1Password, unpacks the evolving intersection—how AI is impacting ops, team structures, tech stacks, and execution strategies. With over 20 years of experience leading ops, Navin has seen firsthand how operational strategy went from backend support to mission-critical.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts by searching “The GTM Podcast.”


🚀 Startup to watch

Zoca – announced their $6M Seed round. Salons, spas, and wellness other local business entrepreneurs are expected to post daily, run ads, and learn SEO – while juggling clients, staff, and operations. Zoca solves for that. Its AI engine drives demand, boosts visibility across Google and GPT, follows up with leads, and rebooks past clients. Already, it’s powering over 1,000+ small businesses.

Owner – closed a $120M Series C and now sits at a $1B valuation. An inside look to their latest funding co-led by Alex Kurland of Meritech and Shalini Rao of Headline.


👀 More for your eyeballs

By helping customers achieve their key outcomes, your team can establish strong relationships and trust with your customers which is crucial for growth. Kim Peretti (Chief Customer Officer – Klaviyo, Restaurant365) explains how connecting the dots between marketing promises, sales deliverables, and customer success is crucial for success.

Google is quietly baking Gemini into every corner of its ecosystem—from Workspace to Android. This is a demonstration of true distribution strategy, rather than a simple AI rollout.


🔥 Hottest GTM jobs of the week

  1. Growth Engineer at Tavus (Hybrid – San Francisco)
  2. Strategic Customer Success Manager at Noibu (Hybrid – Ottawa, ON)
  3. Customer Operations Lead at BlueCargo (Los Angeles/New York)
  4. Director, Solutions Engineering – MM & Enterprise at Vanta (Remote – US)
  5. Mid-market AE (Central) at Writer (Hybrid – New York)

See more top GTM jobs on the GTMfund Job Board.

If you’re looking to scale your sales and marketing teams with top talent, we couldn’t recommend our partner Pursuit more. We work closely together to be able to provide the top go-to-market talent for companies on a non-retainer basis.


🗓 GTM industry events

Upcoming go-to-market events you won’t want to miss:


Subscribe now


This newsletter was written and edited by Sophie Buonassisi, Max Altschuler, Paul Irving and the GTMnow team (not AI!).

The post How to build the right thing (before you scale the wrong one) appeared first on GTMnow.

The AI messaging pivot happening across SaaS

Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow – read by 50,000+ to scale their companies and careers. GTMnow shares insight around the go-to-market strategies responsible for explosive company growth. GTMnow highlights the strategies, along with the stories from the top 1% of GTM executives, VCs, and founders behind these strategies and companies.


In 2023, we saw a surge of SaaS brands adding anything “AI-powered” or “AI-driven” into their website headlines. A quick use of Wayback Machine for the top 100 SaaS brands will show you just how pervasive it was.

The optics were that if AI wasn’t integral to your roadmap and marketing, you were losing relevance.

Many venture capital firms shifted their investments almost entirely into AI startups.

As this flood of AI messaging hit, a lot of people quickly became numb to it.

Now in 2025, AI promises have simply become baseline expectations. Describing your product as “AI-powered” is like saying it’s internet-connected in 2005. It’s expected, not a value add.

With this expectation, we’re now seeing companies ditching AI messaging in their website headers.

Companies are testing, and the results are showing. We see brands, such as Notion, testing the impact of:

  1. AI in the hero headline
  2. AI in the hero headline and hero sub-header
  3. AI just in the hero sub-header

In the test example below, AI messaging in the sub-header won out over having it in the header.

They kept the focus on the core value proposition of helping teams write, plan and collaborate to create better workspaces, while still having the AI inclusion.

This trend of AI reinforcing and amplifying the core UVP (unique value proposition) is gaining momentum.

We see this shift towards having no AI in the hero header (but including it in the sub-header) across dozens of top SaaS brands: Klaviyo, Monday, Freshworks, MongoDB, Snowflake, Braze, Cloudflare, GitLab, ActiveCampaign and countless others.

For example, here is how Freshworks positions it:

3-step AI messaging differentiation framework

In a market where almost every product claims to have AI, differentiation can’t come from the tech itself. It has to come from the outcome, the problem you solve, and the clarity of your message.

If you’re building or marketing an AI product, use this simple 3-step framework to test and refine your positioning:

1. Start with the pain (what’s broken?)
Don’t lead with tech. Lead with the real problem your buyer is facing. Make it visceral, specific, and urgent.

For example: “Sellers spend 40% of their time manually triaging email.”

2. Move to the outcome (what improves?)
Next, show what your product actually helps people achieve.

For example: “Our users reclaim 4+ hours per week and use it to close deals.”

3. Then show how AI enables the outcome
Now that the user cares, you can explain how AI helps make that happen. But avoid buzzwords, make it visual and concrete.

Bad: “We use AI to streamline sales workflows.”

Better: “Our AI automatically categorizes, prioritizes, and drafts replies – so reps can focus on revenue.”

A quick cheatsheet for better AI messaging:

  1. Replace “AI-powered” with outcomes – what does it enable?
  2. Use your customer’s language – not your internal jargon.
  3. Get specific – “launch campaigns 2x faster” beats “transform workflows.”
  4. Anchor with proof – even directional data builds credibility.
  5. Show, don’t tell – demos and workflows > buzzwords.

Leading with “AI-powered” used to signal innovation. Now, it risks blending you into the noise. Companies are putting product value back at the center and letting AI show up only when it adds clarity to that story.


Share

Tag GTMnow so we can see your takeaways and help amplify them.

✅ Recommendations

Watch the AI SDR Summit (it’s on-demand and free!)

Stream Qualified’s first annual AI SDR Summit on-demand and hear how leaders from companies like G2, 6sense, Salesforce, and so many more are leveraging the power of AI SDR agents to scale their inbound and outbound pipe gen motions.

Check out candid conversations about the state of the AI SDR agent landscape, inbound and outbound playbooks, and real results from marketers at the forefront of the agentic marketing era.


👂 More for your eardrums

GTM 145: What Happens When a CRO Owns the Entire Customer Journey, How to Build a Unified GTM Engine | Marcy Campbell

Episode guest Marcy Campbell is the CRO at AppFolio, where she leads sales and client services with a focus on delivering unified, end-to-end customer experiences. With 30+ years of experience scaling revenue teams across FinTech, SaaS, cloud computing, and communications, Marcy has held executive roles at Boomi and PayPal—where she led an 800+ person global team. Her deep expertise in aligning sales, customer success, and operations makes her a standout leader in the GTM space.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts by searching “The GTM Podcast.”


🚀 Startup to watch

Jeeva – just launched: your superhuman AI agent for top of funnel. It finds leads, writes outreach, and proves ROI so your reps can focus on closing.

Coffee – the AI-first CRM for SMBs, just launched ICP Builder—a free tool that lets you describe your ideal customer in plain English and instantly see matching companies.

Stotles – launched a major revamp to their single platform to growth public sector business. One tool where teams can: create strategy, build pipeline, track tenders and win bids. They help public sector teams move from disconnected workflows, mountains of data, unqualified opportunities and painful collaboration to a single, end-to-end process.


👀 More for your eyeballs

Sendoso has acquired Postal, uniting the two top players in the global gifting and direct mail world. Corporate gifting has exploded into a $260 billion space. Sendoso and Postal have powered 15 million+ sends and hybrid experiences for leading companies to date, and this acquisition strengthens Sendoso’s position in the space.

The former CPO of iconic companies Typeform and Calendly speaks to how AI is rewriting product and GTM playbooks. AI is transforming the process of building products.


🔥 Hottest GTM jobs of the week

  1. Founding Growth Marketer at Create (San Francisco)
  2. Sales Development Representative at Cube (Hybrid – New York City)
  3. Growth Manager at Seso (Remote – US)
  4. Content Strategist at Owner.com (Hybrid – San Francisco)
  5. Director, Marketing Operations at Vanta (Remote – US)
  6. Business Development Representative at Tavus (Hybrid – San Francisco / New York City)

See more top GTM jobs on the GTMfund Job Board.

If you’re looking to scale your sales and marketing teams with top talent, we couldn’t recommend our partner Pursuit more. We work closely together to be able to provide the top go-to-market talent for companies on a non-retainer basis.


🗓 GTM industry events

Upcoming go-to-market events you won’t want to miss:


Subscribe now


This newsletter was written and edited by Sophie Buonassisi, Max Altschuler, Paul Irving and the GTMnow team (not AI!).

The post The AI messaging pivot happening across SaaS appeared first on GTMnow.

Product-Channel Fit: Finding the Right Growth Strategy for Your Product

Product-Channel Fit measures how well a product aligns with its distribution channels to effectively reach its target market. The goal is not to test every possible channel but to focus on the one or two that maximize your resources and scale your product for hypergrowth.

For example, an AI-powered video creation tool designed for viral social media content thrives through influencer and organic campaigns. Meanwhile, a collaboration tool with a high NPS can scale rapidly through Product-Led Growth (PLG) and word-of-mouth. On the other hand, an AI customer service platform targeting enterprise clients performs best in offline events or VIP dinners where relationships drive trust.

By narrowing your focus, you can concentrate resources where they matter most, making it easier to achieve sustained growth.

Three Approaches to Finding Product-Channel Fit

There are three primary ways to identify product-channel fit:

1. Identify Channels That Suit Your Product

Focus on what makes your product unique. Does it follow a PLG or Sales-Led Growth (SLG) model? Does it support single or multi-user collaboration? Are you targeting consumers or decision-makers? Each factor influences which channels will deliver the most growth.

Differentiate between keyword-based channels that target active searchers and interest-based channels that engage users passively. Prioritize channels that align with your product’s strengths and have the highest potential for success—this is key to avoiding wasted time and effort on channels that won’t work for your offering.

2. Adapt Your Product to Fit Major Channels

Some companies can adapt their product to make better use of high-potential channels. For instance, a video editing platform might release a suite of free, lightweight tools that scale SEO traffic, or an SLG company could create a self-serve option to generate leads more efficiently.

When you adapt your product to fit key channels, you not only make it easier to reach your audience but also increase the likelihood of channel success.

3. Create Your Own Channels

In some cases, companies can leverage their product’s unique strengths to create new channels or use existing channels in innovative ways. This might include integrating your product more tightly with other platforms, using your data to create valuable lead magnets, or finding creative distribution methods that go beyond traditional marketing.

Channels can be benchmarked by ARR stage:

The Benefits of Product-Channel Fit

Finding product-channel fit allows you to move faster and avoid wasting marketing budgets on channels that aren’t suited for your product. By bringing focus to your team, you enhance operational efficiency and set the foundation for long-term growth.

This approach isn’t about following a prescribed playbook – it’s about identifying the channels that work best for your specific product and market, then doubling down on them to achieve scale.

The post Product-Channel Fit: Finding the Right Growth Strategy for Your Product appeared first on GTMnow.

GTM 119: Design Products Backwards From GTM: Lessons from Scaling to $1B+ with David Knight

David Knight is the Co-founder and CEO of Avarra, an AI-powered platform that simulates human-to-human interactions to accelerate sales onboarding and training. With over 30 years of experience scaling companies from tens of millions to billions in revenue, including WebEx and Proofpoint, David brings a unique perspective on the intertwined nature of product and go-to-market.

Discussed in this Episode:

  • The power of AI simulations in providing experiential learning for sales reps.
  • Designing products backwards from the go-to-market motion.
  • Strategies for aligning product and sales teams to drive revenue growth.
  • Rethinking ramp time: it’s about at-bats, not arbitrary time periods.
  • Shifting perspective from the sales funnel to the buyer’s journey.
  • The future of AI in sales training and enablement.

Highlights:

(02:24) Simulating human-to-human interactions with AI avatars.
(07:44) Creating a fun, engaging environment for sales training.
(13:26) Designing products from the go-to-market motion backwards.
(19:32) Helping sales leaders win deals as a product leader.
(27:08) Listening for pain points, not feature requests, from customers.
(31:07) Completely changing the go-to-market motion at Proofpoint.
(37:43) Aligning motivations between product and sales teams.
(38:43) Rethinking the sales funnel as a buyer’s journey.
(41:50) Building customized simulations for qualified prospects.
(34:55) One thing revenue leaders believe to be true that David thinks is bull$***.
(41:50) One thing that is working for David in go-to-market right now.

Guest Speaker Links (David Knight):
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidrknight/

Host Speaker Links (Scott Barker):
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
Newsletter: thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/

Sponsors:

  • HG InsightsFeeling that AI FOMO? You’re not alone. That’s why HG Insights created The Next Generation of Sales AI report — to calm the FOMO and help you bring AI to your GTM teams. It includes a breakdown of the Sales AI landscape, adoption of GenAI and Sales software across buyer groups. Plus, an analysis of the top 75 trending sales AI tools. Why HG Insights? Simple. They’ve been writing market reports for years as the pioneer of tech adoption and market insights. Trusted by GTM leaders at the likes of Snowflake Five9 and Google Cloud to improve GTM efficiency. Thinking about AI for your sales team but unsure where to start? This free and ungated report has you covered.

The GTM Podcast
Features conversations with the top 1% of tech executives, VCs, and founders – the experts who have ‘been there, done that’ to build some of the fastest-growing software companies. Every week, a guest joins Scott Barker to dissect their stories – revealing what worked, what didn’t, and how things actually went down.

The post GTM 119: Design Products Backwards From GTM: Lessons from Scaling to $1B+ with David Knight appeared first on GTMnow.

GTM 118: 5 Must-Try PLG Tactics to Accelerate Growth with Kyle Poyar

Kyle Poyar is the Co-Founder and Operating Partner at Tremont, with over 8 years of experience at OpenView where he became a leading voice in the product-led growth (PLG) movement. Kyle shares his insights on the inevitability of PLG in an AI-driven future and reveals must-try tactics to accelerate growth using a PLG approach.

Discussed in this Episode:

  • Why PLG is becoming inevitable, especially with the rise of AI in software
  • Creative ways companies can build out their PLG motion
  • How social proof and PLG are merging to influence buying decisions
  • Advice for early-stage founders looking to set up a PLG motion
  • The realities of working in venture capital and how to break into the industry

Highlights:

(4:22) The evolution of PLG from an investment risk to a critical strategy.
(9:10) Will the vast majority of software companies have a PLG motion in the future?
(18:56) Using product data for marketing purposes.
(21:17) Offering an affordable entry-level package to land and expand.
(23:44) The increasing importance of social proof in PLG.
(31:41) Advice for early-stage founders setting up a PLG motion.
(37:43) Kyle’s journey from consulting to VC and advice for breaking into venture.
(44:43) One thing revenue leaders believe to be true that Kyle thinks is bull$***(47:59) One thing that is working for Kyle in go-to-market right now.

Guest Speaker Links (Kyle Poyar):
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-poyar/
Newsletter: https://www.growthunhinged.com/

Host Speaker Links (Scott Barker):
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
Newsletter: thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/

Sponsors:

  • Brought to you by Attention. Attention’s AI-powered call recording platform ensures that your deals are executed flawlessly. It records your calls, generates next-step summaries, action items, and even creates scorecards for every single call, so your reps can continuously improve. But that’s just the beginning. Attention’s generalized insights allow you to ask any question across all of your conversations – think of it like ChatGPT for your sales calls. Attention also lets you build automated workflows tailored to your needs. For example, if a customer mentions they’re at risk of churning during a call, Attention can automatically loop in a sales director and solutions engineer to ensure that customer receives the full white-glove treatment, reducing churn and keeping your business thriving. Attention is helping companies onboard reps faster, increase the productivity of their existing teams, and giving revenue leaders unparalleled visibility into their pipelines—all while automating those tedious manual tasks.

The GTM Podcast
Features conversations with the top 1% of tech executives, VCs, and founders – the experts who have ‘been there, done that’ to build some of the fastest-growing software companies. Every week, a guest joins Scott Barker to dissect their stories – revealing what worked, what didn’t, and how things actually went down.

The post GTM 118: 5 Must-Try PLG Tactics to Accelerate Growth with Kyle Poyar appeared first on GTMnow.

GTM 116: The Future of SEO and AI’s Impact, with a $100M+ Product-Led SEO Framework with Eli Schwartz

Eli Schwartz is an SEO expert and consultant with over a decade of experience driving successful SEO and growth programs for both B2B and B2C companies. He has worked with major brands like Shutterstock, Gusto, WordPress, Quora, Mixpanel, and Zendesk to build and execute global SEO strategies that dramatically increase their visibility at scale. Previously, Eli led the SEO team at SurveyMonkey, growing organic search from nearly zero to one of the largest growth channels at the company.

Discussed in this Episode:

  • The product-led SEO framework Eli used to drive SurveyMonkey from 0 to $100M+ in revenue.
  • Why the old model of churning out SEO content is dead and how AI is disrupting the space.
  • Eli’s journey from getting rejected at top tech companies to becoming a thriving consultant.
  • The power of deeply understanding your target user and building products for their needs.
  • Actionable advice for making the transition from operator to successful consultant.

Highlights:

(4:14) Building SEO products tailored to the user intent, not just keywords.
(8:19) How Zapier unlocked massive growth with a product-led SEO approach
(17:15) Why AI content generation is not a silver bullet – it still requires a purposeful strategy.
(22:54) Examples of Eli’s product-led SEO wins at SurveyMonkey, Tinder, and Coinbase.
(29:31) The biggest mistake people make with SEO is having a diminished understanding of what it can accomplish.
(41:28) Eli’s best consulting gigs came from job interviews where he got rejected.
(44:33) To succeed as a consultant, develop a niche specialty and have customer success stories.
(52:23) One thing revenue leaders believe to be true that Eli thinks is bull$***.
(54:49) One thing that is working for Eli in go-to-market right now.

Guest Speaker Links (Eli Schwartz):
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schwartze/

Host Speaker Links (Scott Barker):
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
Newsletter: thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/

Sponsors:

  • HG InsightsFeeling that AI FOMO? You’re not alone. That’s why HG Insights created The Next Generation of Sales AI report — to calm the FOMO and help you bring AI to your GTM teams. It includes a breakdown of the Sales AI landscape, adoption of GenAI and Sales software across buyer groups. Plus, an analysis of the top 75 trending sales AI tools. Why HG Insights? Simple. They’ve been writing market reports for years as the pioneer of tech adoption and market insights. Trusted by GTM leaders at the likes of Snowflake Five9 and Google Cloud to improve GTM efficiency. Thinking about AI for your sales team but unsure where to start? This free and ungated report has you covered.

The GTM Podcast
Features conversations with the top 1% of tech executives, VCs, and founders – the experts who have ‘been there, done that’ to build some of the fastest-growing software companies. Every week, a guest joins Scott Barker to dissect their stories – revealing what worked, what didn’t, and how things actually went down.

The post GTM 116: The Future of SEO and AI’s Impact, with a $100M+ Product-Led SEO Framework with Eli Schwartz appeared first on GTMnow.

GTM 106: Mastering the Transition from PLG to PLS with Andrew Johnston

Andrew Johnston is currently the Head of Sales at Superhuman, where he leads the go-to-market strategy as part of the executive team. Previously, he built the Mid-Market and PLS motion at Scale AI and led the global sales team at SendGrid following its acquisition by Twilio and its IPO.

Discussed in this Episode:

  • The key differences between product-led growth (PLG) and product-led sales (PLS).
  • When and why companies should consider transitioning from PLG to PLS.
  • The challenges of combining distinct sales teams during an acquisition.
  • How to effectively enable sales reps during a product expansion.
  • The importance of understanding your ideal customer profile (ICP) for successful PLS.
  • Strategies for moving upmarket, such as implementing paid pilots.
  • Creating career paths and incentives for sales reps in different segments.

Highlights:

(9:50) Andrew’s definition of product-led growth and how it differs from product-led sales.
(12:16) The triggers for considering a transition from a PLG to a PLS approach.
(25:00) The challenges faced when combining SendGrid and Twilio’s sales teams post-acquisition.
(32:49) How Twilio’s unique “estimated ARR” commission structure impacted sales behavior.
(35:55) Using SendGrid as a “trojan horse” to expand Twilio’s presence in customer accounts.
(42:00) One thing revenue leaders believe to be true that Andrew thinks is bull$***
(47:09) One thing that is working for Andrew in go-to-market right now.

Guest Speaker Links (Andrew Johnston):
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewfoxjohnston/

Host Speaker Links (Scott Barker):
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
Newsletter: thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/

Sponsors:

  • Brought to you by ApolloEver wonder what automating your entire outbound workflow could do for your revenue team? Apollo.io brings this to life by centralizing your entire go-to-market execution in one platform. Sellers using automation in their outbound efforts see a 70% increase in open rates and 4x more meetings booked while saving hours on manual, tedious tasks.
  • Brought to you by IPS. Most recruiting firms fill an order, but IPS is a different breed of search firm. They dig into your business to understand its current state and the future vision and are relentlessly in pursuit of the very best leaders, sales people, marketers, and engineering talent out there. Whether you want advice, have one hard to fill role or a team buildout, we can’t recommend IPS enough.

The GTM Podcast
Features conversations with well-known tech executive, VC, and founders – the expert operators in the trenches who have ‘been there, done that’ to build some of the fastest-growing software companies. Every week, a guest joins Scott Barker to dissect their stories, revealing expert insights around what worked, what didn’t, and how things actually went down.

This podcast is produced by GTMnow, the media brand of VC firm GTMfund – sharing insight on go-to-market from working with hundreds of portfolio companies backed by over 350 of the best go-to-market executives.

The post GTM 106: Mastering the Transition from PLG to PLS with Andrew Johnston appeared first on GTMnow.

GTM 75: The AI Evolution: Cross the Chasm of First to Future Iterations with Gong’s EVP Eran Aloni

Eran Aloni is the Executive Vice President of Product Strategy and Ecosystem at Gong.
He has been a leader at Gong for eight years, previously holding titles of Chief Customer Officer and Chief Operating Officer.

What You Will Learn:

  • Eran’s career advice to younger go-to-market professionals. 
  • Two stages of AI advancements and which is more valuable. 
  • The role that data sets have in AI progressions. 
  • How to continuously solicit team feedback to level up as a leader. 

Highlights:

(6:55) How AI solutions are still only scratching the surface in terms of driving deep, strategic value for customers.

(10:00) The competitive advantage players have with their access to rich, proprietary data sets to train AI. 

(18:12) Eran’s biggest personal surprise from growing with Gong has been constantly challenging himself to develop new skills as the company scales.

(23:15) A story about early feedback Eran received as a young leader and how it shaped his future leadership.

(28:19) Why having core operating principles permeate through all levels of an organization builds trust.

(34:03) One thing revenue leaders believe to be true that Eran thinks is bull$***.

(37:22) One thing that is working for Eran in go-to-market right now. 

Guest Speaker Link:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/eranaloni/

Host Speaker Links:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
Newsletter: thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/

Sponsor:
Common Room enables you to turn any buyer activity into pipeline. It ingests all of your product usage data, intent data, social activity, community conversations, and CRM insights to automatically surface high-intent leads and timely, relevant context so your sales reps can convert more customers and hit revenue targets faster. You can try it for free today, or book a demo to go deeper at www.commonroom.io.

The GTM Podcast
Don’t miss The GTM Podcast dropping every Tuesday discussing true stories and experiences including trials and tribulations in the Go-To-Market world.

The post GTM 75: The AI Evolution: Cross the Chasm of First to Future Iterations with Gong’s EVP Eran Aloni appeared first on GTMnow.

GTM 65: Consultative Selling Mastery, and The Positive Snowball Effect of Building Strong Relationships with Zach Lawryk

Zach Lawryk is currently the Head of Global Solutions Consulting at Rippling, previously the VP of Solutions Consulting at Slack, Director of Sales Engineering at Box, and really began his career in tech at Salesforce as a Sales Engineer in 2005.

What You Will Learn:

  • The importance of building long-term relationships at work.
  • The beginning of SaaS SE’s.
  • How the SE/SC role will evolve with AI.
  • Knowing when to bring in SE’s as a founder.

Highlights:

(3:41) How Zach has successfully landed at powerhouse companies and how to identify those companies.

(8:16) Zach’s snowball effect of building relationships in the workplace.

(11:10) The energy you put out always comes back to you.

(19:30) When the sales engineer role got pioneered.

(21:43) The SE/SC role evolving with AI.

(29:11) AI experiments that Rippling is currently running.

(34:49) When to invest in solution engineers.

(37:30) Benchmark for the bump in win rate after bringing in SC/SE’s.

(42:07) Gauging the complexity high water marker.

(44:35) Practicing transparency with the value you provide.

(48:07) The power of video content that Rippling is currently leveraging.

Guest Speaker Link:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zlawryk/

Host Speaker Links:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
Newsletter: thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/

Our Sponsor
Today’s episode is sponsored by Demandbase, Demandbase helps B2B companies hit their revenue goals using fewer resources. How? By using the power of AI to identify and engage the accounts and buying groups most likely to purchase. They combine your sales and marketing data with our validated B2B data and AI to create Account Intelligence that informs every step of your buyer’s journey. They deliver accurate company, contact, technographic, engagement, and intent data right where you work every day – CRM, collaboration tools, browsers, and more. Start spotting opportunities earlier and orchestrate smarter sales and marketing motions with Demandbase. See this live in action: https://www.demandbase.com/product-tour/sales-intelligence/

The GTM Podcast
Don’t miss The GTM Podcast dropping every Tuesday discussing true stories and experiences including trials and tribulations in the Go-To-Market world.

The post GTM 65: Consultative Selling Mastery, and The Positive Snowball Effect of Building Strong Relationships with Zach Lawryk appeared first on GTMnow.