The GTM Podcast

Sophie Buonassisi is the Vice President of Marketing at GTMfund, overseeing GTMnow - the media arm of the GTMfund brand - and the internal community. She's passionate about empowering go-to-market leaders and founders with access to insight through GTMnow's channels, like this podcast, the newsletter, and more. Before joining the GTMfund team, she built and scaled GTM at a predictive conversion optimization company. She enjoys advising SaaS companies as they build out and optimize their marketing and overall GTM strategies. What you will learn How to be proactive with your references The need for speed throughout your interview process Showcasing skill and character effectively Highlights (3:45) Who's Sophie and how she ended up at GTMfund (6:31) How Sophie stood out during an application process of 400+ people (11:15) How to be proactive about finding a new role when you haven't identified what that role is exactly (17:21) Knowing how to navigate the interview process systematically  (22:41) How to leverage your community to endorse you (26:49) How to effectively nail a take home assignment (32:30) The importance of understanding your future employer deeply (35:35) How to hit the ground running before your start date (40:05) Top tips for landing page conversion optimization Links and Resources Sophie's Linkedin: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi 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. And…monthly bonus podcast episodes dropping the first Thursday of every month.

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 power house 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 Links and Resources Zach's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zlawryk/ 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. And…monthly bonus podcast episodes dropping the first Thursday of every month.

This week we have a special 2 guest episode, with the best hiring guru's in the game, Chuck Brotman & David Teichner. Chuck is the co-founder of Blueprint Expansion, a GTM roles recruiting firm that has helped over 50 VC-backed companies make amazing Sales, Marketing, & Customer Success hires.  Prior to starting Blueprint in 2020, he worked for over fifteen years in various sales and sales management roles, building teams across presales, partnerships, SMB, Mid-Market, & Enterprise Sales.  Chuck lives in the Bay Area with his wife and has two daughters, a junior at UCLA and a freshman at UC Santa Barbara. David has 25 years under his belt as a serial entrepreneur. Built and exited companies in MarTech, FinTech and Media. He's invested and advised for over a dozen companies, and launched AccelerateHC seven years ago to help companies think through the organization they need and ultimately help them recruit high performing talent. What you will learn Understanding your business goals before expanding your team Utilizing a 'White Board' exercise throughout the interview process How to hire the most ethereal talent in an oversaturated market Knowing which role to hire for when budgets are tight How to avoid making a bad hire at the early stages Highlights (1:35) How Chuck initially started his career in recruiting (4:40) How David got drawn into recruiting (9:10) Generalists vs Specialists for Seed/SeriesA startups, which should you pick? (14:00) How to decrease the chance of making a bad hire at the early stage (21:00) The importance of implementing a strong process when hiring talent (22:38) Maximum number of skills/behaviours you can test for during an interview process (25:27) Optimal length for an interview process  (30:05) How to test for ethereal factors that you can't put on paper in an interview (35:10) When budgets are tight, who do you opt in for, another AE or a sales leader (38:29) How to navigate the 'lead' roles / player coaches (40:50) Hot Take: The "Hire slow and Fire fast" mentality no longer serves us (41:45) Hiring people for their titles and hot logo's on their resume does not guarantee success Links and Resources If you're looking for any help with your hiring process, fill out This 3 Question Typeform and we'll connect you directly with Chuck and David If you're a talented go-to-marketer on the job hunt, fill out This Short Typeform to help get placed in your next perfect home! 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. And…monthly bonus podcast episodes dropping the first Thursday of every month.

We have a special episode this week, a community mashup with the best community leaders in the game! Pavilion's SVP of Marketing, Kathleen Booth, The founder of Salesforce's Trailblazer's Community, Erica Kuhl, and The Former Director of Community for Salesforce's Trailblazer Community as well as The Former Head of Global Community at Atlassian, Holly Firestone. What you will learn The importance of community in 2023 How to stand out as a community in an oversaturated market How to maintain quality members in community as you scale Centralizing user groups for community, how to scale, track, and optimize in order for monumental growth Highlights (1:15) Kathleen Booth explains why community is more important than ever (6:34) How to advise early stage SaaS companies on how to leverage community to drive revenue and demand (16:00) Erica Kuhl unpacks the oversaturation of community today and how to overcome that (20:00) Maintain quality members as you scale (25:07) Building Salesforce Trailblazer's, walking through what worked and what didn't (33:00) Holly Firestone's time at Atlassian, scaling, tracking, and optimizing for signifcant growth (42:00) Some mistakes that Holly made as the Director Community with Salesforce's Trailblazers (46:20) Mistakes that Erica Kuhl made during her time at Salesforce Links & Resources Kathleen Booth's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleenslatterybooth/ Erica Kuhl's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericakuhl/ Holly Firestone's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hollygfirestone/ 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. And…monthly bonus podcast episodes dropping the first Thursday of every month.

Mark Cranney is an enterprise go-to-market operator and three-time unicorn creator. Most recently, he was the COO at Skydio. He's also a founding operating partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and has been involved in the acquisitions of Opsware and Aster Data Systems by HP and Teradata, respectively. Mark specializes in developing winning playbooks, cultures, and strategies that put his competition on the back foot. What You'll Learn  How to create a winning culture  How to keep your competition at bay How to hire talent that culturally fits your organization Episode Highlights (03:48) The books that shaped Mark's winning culture (10:39) How to keep your competition at bay (14:10) Three questions to ask when scouting for culture-fit talent (15:46) How to keep recruited talent motivated (16:16) "Process triumphs heroics." How Mark created and used playbooks to create  winning cultures (23:00) Why you need to get more granular in your competitive strategy (35:17) How to create a winning culture without turning your team's culture toxic.(37:18) "If it's not a competitive environment, for me, that's toxic." (39:09) Mark's parting advice Quotes "The winning general knows the outcome before the battle even starts." "You got to go where you can win, particularly when you don't have a lot of arrows in your quiver. You've got to make sure you're spending time in the right places, from a segmentation and targeting standpoint, until you build up the muscle where you can expand into other scenarios." "If it's not a competitive environment, for me, that's toxic." "If you have eight hours to chop down a tree, are you going to spend eight hours hacking away with a dull axe? Or are you going to spend seven of them sharpening the blade and an hour chopping the tree down?" "If you take a shortcut, there's always a consequence—and it's usually not a good one." Links & Resources Mark Cranney's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markcranney/ The Hard Thing About Hard Things, a book by Ben Horowitz What You Do Is Who You Are, a book by Ben Horowitz 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. And…monthly bonus podcast episodes dropping the first Thursday of every month.

Dan Reich is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and writer and has been building companies since he was a teenager. Some of the companies that he founded include: TULA Skincare which was acquired by Proctor & Gamble - Troops.ai which was acquired by Salesforce - Spinback which was acquired by Buddy Media and then acquired by Salesforce. Dan is now a co-founder of Dibs Beauty, which is backed by LCatterton and is building more companies. He also invests through his family office, Reich Capital. He has a background in electrical engineering and volunteers as a member of national ski patrol. What you will learn The power of influencer marketing Leveraging b2c strategies for b2b companies Maintaining authenticity across all business plays The importance of building strong relationships in business  How to keep your team motivated when momentum takes a hit Highlights  (6:33) Influencer marketing in b2b (8:34) Tactics and strategies that b2b companies can steal from b2c companies today (13:00) How Dan structured a designated BDR team for influencer marketing (17:00) How to maintain authenticity when partnering with influencers  (21:32) How to effectively compensate influencers: Equity vs Cash (24:20) Dan's experience with 2 M&A exits (30:08) How to keep your team motivated in moments of momentum loss (32:28) How each acquisition began its first conversations (42:30) Why e-mail marketing is dead today (44:50) Finding gratitude and happiness within yourself will ultimately lead you toward success Quotes "Companies don't buy companies, people at companies buy companies" "By grounding yourself with things that you're really grateful for, when things don't go well, it gives you perspective about what really matters and what doesn't"  "People that chase happiness will find success, and the people that chase success, most of the time, will never find happiness" Links and Resources Dan's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danreich/ Dan's Website: https://danreich.com DIBS Beauty Website: https://dibsbeauty.com 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. And…monthly bonus podcast episodes dropping the first Thursday of every month.

Sam McKenna is the founder of SamSalesConsulting, previous to that she spent 6 years at On24 ending up as their VP of Enterprise Sales, She then jumped over to LinkedIn as their Head of Enterprise Sales. Sam is also an advisor for high growth companies. She now leads an all women team of 11, has over 180 clients, multiple million dollars in revenue, all under 4 years. What you will learn Knowing when to outsource talent as a founder Using strategic hooks to capture engagement on social The power of dark social and leveraging it to increase impressions How to monetize your social presence  Learning to scale things you do well effectively  How to effectively implement the "show me you know me" framework in sales Highlights (3:40) Why building your digital footprint is more important than ever for founders  (8:30) How to carve out time for thought leadership throughout busy times (13:00) Strategies from Sam's playbook that people should implement when building their social (20:00) High impact strategies that Sam used to excel throughout her sales career (26:00) Walking the line between doing what works for you vs following playbooks given by your leaders (29:00) A framework for "show me you know me" in Sales (33:42) Hot take: Shorter e-mails are not the way to earn your ICP's time (35:51) How to successfully hire for key roles (40:30) Hot take: Cold calling isn't the way to approach your ICP anymore (44:10) How to leverage data to prospect efficiently  Quotes "You need to be sure that you're hiring someone that truly has the mind share expertise of the platform" "I thought that If I could scale whatever we're doing really well, show me you know me, I bet we could kill it" "Depending on the environment that you're in, if you have wiggle room to try new things out, give it a shot" Links and Resources Sam's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samsalesli/ SamSalesConsulting: https://www.samsalesconsulting.com LinkedIn Influencer Playbook: https://shorts.samsalesconsulting.com/courses/linkedin-influencer-playbook  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. And…monthly bonus podcast episodes dropping the first Thursday of every month.

Melanie Fellay is the CEO and Co-Founder of Spekit, a just-in-time platform that is transforming how we learn at work. Spekit meets reps with the process guidance, enablement and knowledge they need, right when they need it, in their flow of work to help them be more efficient, drive more revenue and eliminate the friction of change. She's a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient, Top 100 Female Entrepreneur to watch (Entrepreneur) and has been featured across Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Business Insider and more. Mel co-founded Spekit with Zari Zahra to solve a simple challenge: how do we make sure employees know what they need to know, when and where they need to know it. Hundreds of the world's most innovative companies, including Uber Freight, Snowflake,  Southwest Airlines and Invesco, rely on Spekit to empower their employees with real-time knowledge and training, without disrupting their day-to-day workflows.The company has raised $60M in venture funding from notable investors Craft Ventures. Felicis, Operator Collective, Matchstick Ventures, Renegade Partners, Foundry Group and Bonfire Ventures and more. What you will learn Narrowing the playing field and going where people aren't as a founder Always be strategic and intentional when you go wide The importance of customer facing as a founder  Making hard decisions faster will only benefit your team's success long term Product momentum comes from working well as an executive team Highlights (2:40) The importance of allowing your mind to rest  (9:37) Mel's founder journey that inspired her to build Spekit (15:44) How to go-to-market with a tool that tackles multiple categories (22:33) Customer facing as a founder shouldn't be overlooked (24:10) How Mel ended up having to step in as Spekit's CTO during the pandemic and her experience sitting in the engineering seat (34:08) How Mel took the mental strength to show up for her team when things were difficult (39:38) What Mel would tell her 25-year-old self (42:06) The Importance of networking and building your brand as a first-time founder  (46:44) Figuring out how you work best as an executive team to increase product momentum Quotes "It's okay to solve different problems and go wide, but you need to have a very intentional strategy behind it" "At the end of the day you need to have smart and resilient people, but you need to have people who are driven on your particular problem" Links and Resources Mel's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniefellay/ Spekit's Website: https://spekit.com 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. And…monthly bonus podcast episodes dropping the first Thursday of every month.

Meka Asonye is a Partner at First Round Capital based in San Francisco. Before moving into venture, Meka was an active angel investor backing companies such as Coda, Alchemy, Rimeto (acq. by Slack), Snackpass and Stytch. Previously, he served as the VP of Sales & Services at Mixpanel, where he ran the more than 100-person global revenue team. Before Mixpanel, Meka spent four years at Stripe and scaled and matured its sales organization during the company's rapid growth from 250 to 2000 people. Prior to joining Stripe, Meka served as Case Team Leader at Bain in San Francisco, partnering with the C-Suites of Fortune 50 companies across different verticals. Meka started his career working in Player Development & Baseball Operations for the Cleveland Indians. Meka earned a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude in Economics and Finance from Princeton and his MBA from Harvard Business School P.S. We're officially running a GTMfund giveaway program! Share your favourite media piece (GTM podcast or GTM newsletter) on LinkedIn and Twitter, tag us, and you'll be entered to win a pair of GTMfund Airpod Pros! What you will learn Long term orientation for lead distribution at Stripe Investing in the person, and then the product, is most important in angel investing Best tips to start out in angel investing  Compensation structures that early stage companies should implement Highlights (3:44) How Meka started his career in player development and baseball ops for the Cleveland Indians (8:50) Meka's biggest challenges during his time at Stripe as the Head of Sales (10:15) How the SMB team measured success at Stripe and how it evolved over the years (13:14) Balancing lead distribution at Stripe (16:28) Practicing "Dumpster Diving" at Stripe (18:00) Setting up long term incentive structures at Stripe (22:48) How Meka began angel investing (28:10) What Meka learned from his first angel investing experience (36:22) The best way to start out in angel investing (39:42) Why traditional sales compensation models at early stage companies is flawed  (42:00) The importance of educating your customers effectively through each touch  Quotes "One of the things I look for out of founders is commercial orientation" " I knew a little bit about what he was building but I really just made a bet on the person" "What makes you money and loses you money is the founder" Links and Resources Meka's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mekaasonye/ Meka's Twitter: https://twitter.com/BigMekaStyle Mekas's Email: [email protected]  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. And…monthly bonus podcast episodes dropping the first Thursday of every month

Eli Rubel is the CEO of MatterMade and NoBoringDesign, and has served as a Marketing advisor for companies like Dropbox, Loom, Productboard, Calm, and many others. Prior to MatterMade & NoBoringDesign, Eli was the founding CEO of Glider.com which he led through a successful acquisition to FPX. What you will learn The importance of leveraging Demand Efficiency for your business Being aware of the bad actors that exist in business Extreme diligence on contract work should not be overlooked Setting yourself up successfully post acquisition changes  Highlights  (3:39) Defining Demand Efficiency  (7:30) Shared data around good efficiency through channels  (10:10) Common micro-surfaces that are often overlooked (13:10) Companies revisiting their brand guidelines and brand identity  (15:24) Good conversion rates on ad spend for b2b SaaS companies (17:10) Things people should think about when analyzing their demand efficiency   (18:10) Eli's acquisition that went wrong (25:30) How to combat against acquisitions going wrong (28:00) Post acquisition shift - how to set yourself up (30:10) Founder Question: What your first marketing hire should look like (25:00) Hot take: LinkedIn is dying! (38:00) Operational excellence will set your team up for success every time  Quotes "Demand efficiency as a definition, is the evaluation of all of the different micro surfaces and growth levers throughout the buyers journey and how they all stack up together" "Build a brand that's extensible, you can still have fresh ads that are being changed up as long as the underlying brand foundations were created in a way that allow for creativity and experimentation" "When you combine curiosity, grit, and drive together, it doesn't matter what they know and what they don't know. Because they're going to figure it out and try" Links and Resources Eli's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elirubel/ MatterMade's Website: https://www.mattermade.co NoBoringDesign Website: https://www.noboringdesign.com 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. And…monthly bonus podcast episodes dropping the first Thursday of every month.