Danielle Wilkie

I distilled 𝟭𝟯+ 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 of my go-to-market experience as a CMO/VP/Head of Product into this 𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲👇 So, if you need help building a go-to-market plan, this resource is for you. I originally built this for myself for my consultation work. → I wanted a template that covered all of the key considerations in an effective and efficient go-to-market engine. → While also still being lightweight enough to be completed quickly (and no more than ~2 pages if printed out). Here's a summary of what the template covers: 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟭 - 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 • 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼 - what you stand for, the change you're championing, why you should be trusted • 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 - the urgent & important problem you're solving and how you're solving it better than alternatives • 𝗧𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 - segments, ICP and buying committee 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟮 - 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗕𝘂𝘆𝗲𝗿'𝘀 𝗣𝘀𝘆𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 • 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆'𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝘂𝘆 - jobs to be done, buying triggers • 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝘆 - objections, fears, alternatives • 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹𝘀 they trust - where they learn and make decisions 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟯 - 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗠𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 & 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 • 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 and 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 - per customer segment • 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 strategy - how you price vs the market 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟰 - 𝗚𝗼-𝗧𝗼-𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹 • GTM 𝗠𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 - sales-led, PLG, etc. • 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗪𝗲'𝗹𝗹 𝗪𝗶𝗻 - one sentence statement uniting GTM teams • 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱 Gen - how you'll generate demand • 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗚𝗲𝗻 - how you'll collect demand • 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 - how you'll prospect, nurture and close • 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 - how you'll grow revenue 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟱 - 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 • 𝗢𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀, 𝗧𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 and 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀 - for Product, Marketing, Sales and CS As I said, it is comprehensive. But as you can see below, it's all done in a lean package. ___ Want the FREE template? 👉 The 𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲 using a fictional company to help guide you through it. 1. CONNECT with me    ❗don't miss this step, I can't send you the post without :) ❗ 2. LIKE this post 3. COMMENT "GTM" And I'll share it straight with you :) Plus all my future training videos on it. ___ So why am I doing this? → Help better define what a GTM strategy consists of → Help others get a head start building theirs → Get your feedback to make the template better :) So what are you waiting for? ___ ✍️ Connect with me, like the post and comment "GTM" to get the template. ♻️ Reshare if you found valuable. #B2B #B2BMarketing #B2BMarketingStrategy #GoToMarket #Marketing #SaaS #Enterprise #BrandAwareness #DemandGen #LeadGen  #Sales #Data #ROI

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Great agencies make it easy for a prospect to say yes. Great agencies make it easy for a prospect to visualize getting started. And, if it's hard to say yes -- you're almost always getting a no. I see a lotttttt of agency proposals/plans/RFP responses. The best one's check 2 huge boxes. 1) They are easy to understand. They take complex 'stuff' and dumb it down and make it super palatable. In reading it, a prospect can see that it's an easy button of sorts. It tells a story and makes them feel comfortable in their decision. Like a warm blanket of sorts. 2) They include some sort of 'project start'. The 'if you say yes, then this is how we get rollin' section. It demystifies the 'what next' question. There's a time for complexity and flexing the collective brainpower/muscle of the agency, but, regardless, when it gets to the end, I often see brands selecting agencies who make it easiest to get started. If you're not making it super easy for a client to say yes, and visualize getting started... ...by proxy, you're making it hard on them. And, that's not getting you hired.

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👀 If you're in a fundraising round, BrightPulse Marketing put together a blog post to help you secure that funding, including actual pitch decks from brands like Yammer and Peloton. ✅ Check out How to Use Marketing Concepts in Your Fundraising Pitch: bit.ly/4ha0W0A #StartupMarketing #Entrepreneurs #BrightPulse #Startup #Solopreneur #Fundraising #Preseed #Seriesa #Funding

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3 years of pricing lessons at Equals condensed into one blog post. Since starting the company, we've tinkered a lot with pricing and packaging. It's one of the single most impactful levers early stage companies can pull. I think folks *don't* experiment with pricing enough, or take big enough bets when they do. We've tried free. We've tried completely sales led. We've tried not listing pricing on the site. Matt Hodges details all the plans we've had, why, and what we've learned in our latest installment on Wrap Text. https://lnkd.in/ecckEDba

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Consumer incentives and motivations are multi-faceted and complex. I find qualitative marketing frameworks for segmenting users by readiness to purchase and “persona” to be distracting and unproductive -- and, at worst, providing a thin veneer of rigor that gives a marketing team license to spend money with no accountability. In my view, the best approach to optimizing marketing spend for commercial outcomes is to anchor robust and exhaustive advertising experimentation with a reliable, quantitatively sound measurement framework that focuses on incrementality.

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Every company & every product has a name. Yet, few folks truly know how to name one. I’ve named companies and products for startups and big brands. I wrote a post this week about naming the Uber One subscription, and Paul A. responded with a request to write a post about the process. Challenge accepted! Let's start by saying that there are plenty of successful companies and products with bad names. Facebook (so lame), Spotify (what), and even Instagram (now everyone just calls it IG). But a good name is a tailwind. And building a business is all about generating tailwinds. Scrub Daddy - instantly makes it fun Shark - a vacuum that looks like a shark and a name you won’t forget Airbnb - fun and easy to remember—unlike VRBO Apple - for a computer! Love it Skims - so simple So, how do you name a company or product? Here are steps to a simple & comprehensive naming process. Step 1 - Brainstorm A well-structured brainstorm is key. You need the right people in the room, with the right prompts, in an environment comfortable enough for all ideas. The goal is to generate as many names as possible. This is a good opportunity to include stakeholders so they feel part of the input. Step 2 - Evalutation criteria Be specific about your needs, and exhaustive. Your criteria will generally have things like: Trademarking - can we own the trademark in our category? Domains available - if a company, what domains can we get? Internationalization - does this word have meanings in other languages? I recently heard about a startup named Corva, a very bad word for anyone who speaks a Slavic language. Don’t make this simple mistake! Alternate meanings - does this name have multiple meanings? Connotations test - Positive or negative connotations? Relatedness - does this communicate a key aspect of our product? Differentiated - how different is this from our competitors? Etc. Make sure your stakeholders approve the criteria! Your criteria will likely remove 90% of your ideas to help you filter. I recommend using a spreadsheet with your criteria as columns. This creates a simple tool to filter names by criteria easily. Step 3 - Picking a name The hardest part of the process is buy-in. Naming is more of an art than a science. I've generally used a voting process. Some tips: - Put the final names into a deck with the finalists used on the website, packaging, ads, etc., so your team can see it in situ. - DO NOT include the internal code name. It will always win the top votes as it is the most familiar. Even your smartest, most discerning colleagues will fall for the familiarity trap. I saw it at Uber many times. Step 4 - Sell it Unveil the name with a splash! We often did this by creating fun campaign examples with the new name. We made social media posts, billboards, and even ad campaigns to show the team how the name would bring their work to life. Happy naming!

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I am helping several of our early-stage 𝐁2𝐁 portfolio companies hire their first Head of Marketing (reach out or tag someone looking). Hiring Your First Head of Marketing is one of the most impactful decisions you'll make as an early-stage founder. "Impactful" can be good -- drive quality pipeline, define your messaging, support retention, and amplify your brand's presence in a noisy market. "Impactful" can be bad -- waste your team's time, money, and energy chasing the wrong things with the wrong budget. We wrote a guide to help early-stage founders make the right hire. Takeaways: ✅ Prioritize Demand Generation: Early-stage startups need marketing leaders who can focus on driving pipeline and revenue. Look for someone hands-on in creating demand. If your candidate is not asking to look at your pipeline and wants to see your CRM data, they likely won't focus on building (AND Tracking) pipe. ✅ Focus on Product Marketing Early: Your Head of Marketing needs to deeply understand your product and market fit. Articulate your value proposition, craft compelling messaging, and educate the market about why your product matters. Your candidate should be eager to connect not only with sales but also with your product leader to understand what makes your startup unique. ✅ Test for Startup Agility: Marketing leaders from large enterprises often struggle to adapt to the resource-constrained, fast-moving startup environment. During interviews, dig into how they’ve succeeded in ambiguous, scrappy situations. ✅ Balance Between Strategy and Execution: A great Head of Marketing will think big-picture and be willing to roll up their sleeves and execute when needed. This balance is critical in early-stage growth. Ask how they think about hiring and what tools they need in the next year. Finding the perfect hire is challenging, especially as a startup with early revenue is challenging. Focus on the core pieces that matter most. Read the full guide here for more tips:

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Vertically-niche-focused marketing agencies can market and sell much more efficiently than the rest. On the Metrics & Chill podcast, I've interviewed a number of marketing agency owners who are focused on a market niche. One of the latest is Andi Graham, Managing Partner at Big Sea. They "empower mission-based organizations to amplify their purpose through impactful storytelling." During our podcast we compared her agency's own sales & marketing performance against a benchmark of 130+ other HubSpot partners. (Access the data here: https://lnkd.in/epN-QaHn) As I said on the podcast, with a relatively small team of 18 people, they are "punching above their weight class." As you can see on the video below, one area where they are outperforming is with their landing page submissions. When I asked her why she thinks they are doing so well vs the rest of the group, she revealed that she had one specific campaign that takes them about a month to execute that generates a large portion of their leads for the year. Yes, the YEAR!!! While I guess other agencies (who are not fully focused on working with non-profits) could duplicate it, this campaign works really well for them because they are. The best part? It's brilliant in its simplicity. What's the campaign? Every year they give away $30k worth of marketing services to one lucky mission-based organization. Why does this work for them? They get loads of non-profits completing the application form. They also get applicants all year round by simply changing the landing page call-to-action to say, "Notify me when applications open for next year." Plus, they have a blog post that ranks well in Google which lists out marketing grants available to non profits. Of course, they feature their own at the top. Add in what I would consider a modest, but purposeful effort towards marketing each month, they can nurture some of the rest of those applicants into paying clients. ----- For the last 9 months, I sorta stopped pushing my agency owner friends to go niche. When we developed our free course (https://lnkd.in/eGH_8qpR) that teaches professional services firms how to market and sell more effectively using KPI and business process benchmark data, we even went so far as to simply lay out the pros and cons of running a benchmark study for a niche vs a broader group of companies, instead of suggesting that everyone should build a niche one. Even though I wanted to push agencies to build a niche group, I was tired of people fighting us on it. But, then over the last few months, I've seen more agencies niche further. We've also observed that when niche agencies launch a benchmark study with our free benchmark software (https://lnkd.in/efK_5xKf), they're more successful. So, I'm back on this bandwagon again. PPS. You can hear the full podcast episode here: https://lnkd.in/e-TUEtNj PPPS. Big ups to Hatch (hatch.fm) on the podcast production.

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Can we talk about CMO turnover? It seems like every time I blink, another one bites the dust. 😫 And look, I get it. Being a CMO in today's fast-paced, ever-changing business landscape is no walk in the park. But after seeing this pattern play out time and time again, I can't help but wonder: are these CMOs being set up to fail? 🤔 It’s worse than that. The truth is that most CMOs only last around 18-24 months because they are only focusing on marketing goals that last that long, too. In other words, they’re focusing on the wrong damn problems. Instead of doing the hard work of building a solid foundation for long-term success, they focus on quick wins. And instead, they’re just slapping Band-Aids on a gaping wound and calling it a day. Why do they do this? Well, for starters, it’s easier. It's human nature to gravitate towards the path of least resistance. And there’s no marketing strategy met with less resistance than performance marketing. But another reason for this is that most CMOs suffer from what I call the "hammer syndrome.” When all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. They try to force-fit solutions to match their own skill sets and interests rather than taking a step back and asking: "Am I even solving the right problem here?" But it doesn't have to be this way. CMO’s have the power to break free from this trap. All they need to do is shift perspectives. Like the picture below of a cat on the stairs. At first glance, it looks like the cat is heading down. But if you let your eyes adjust, you'll see that the cat could just as easily be walking upstairs. Wild, right? 🐈 It’s an important reminder that the most obvious answer isn't necessarily the right one and that there is always more than one way to see things. As CMOs, we have a duty to our brands, our teams, and ourselves to focus on the right problems— the ones that will drive real, meaningful, long-term results. It's not easy, but it's essential if we want to break the cycle of turnover and build something that lasts. 💪 CMOs need to start training themselves to look beyond the quick fixes and easy wins and dig deeper for the real root causes holding our brands back. So, here's my challenge to you: Print out that mind-bending cat picture and stick it somewhere you'll see it every day. Let it be a constant reminder to: 1. Question your assumptions and look for fresh perspectives on old problems 2. Put your ideas in new contexts to spark creative breakthroughs 3. Avoid getting trapped in a doom loop of negativity or falling in love with a single approach 4. Stay open to the possibility that if one path isn't working, a better one might be right under your nose. #CMOlife #PerspectiveShift #NoMoreBandAids

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🗣 "I’d buy a glass of hot water if Grace Beverley sold it." Every DTC founder should be paying attention. It’s not just about how strong her personal brand is—it’s about how she leverages that to create deep, genuine consumer loyalty. What’s driving this almost cult-like following? Let’s break it down: ✨ Keep It Real: Grace shows up as her authentic self, not just as a polished businesswoman but as someone willing to pull back the curtain on her life. Whether she’s talking about the emotional toll of running TALA on Instagram or the chaos of scaling operations on YouTube, her transparency breeds trust. And that’s key—because when TALA’s first drop sold out in just 40 minutes, it wasn’t just because of the product; it was because her audience believed in her story. ✨ Purpose > Profit: Grace doesn’t just create products for the sake of it. She solves problems. Affordable, sustainable activewear with TALA, accessible fitness through Shreddy—her brands are born out of real needs, not just profit margins. The result? TALA pulled in £6.2 million in its first year. Purpose-driven branding builds loyal communities, not just customers. ✨ Show Up Consistently: Whether it’s on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube, Grace is constantly showing up. Her TikToks feel like snippets from a business diary, with relatable rants about the pressures of being a founder or behind-the-scenes looks at her brands. It’s not just the content—it’s the consistency. Her audience is engaged because they see her as more than just a founder; she’s a relatable voice they trust. And that’s why she can drop a new product and sell out in under 20 minutes. The key? Build trust through TRANSPARENCY, solve REAL problems, and show up CONSISTENTLY. That’s how you turn casual followers into die-hard supporters—and how you get them to buy even a "glass of hot water." 😉 #FounderLedMarketing #PersonalBranding #DTCGrowth #GraceBeverley #SustainableFashion #EcomMarketing

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Aditya Vempaty and the team at MoEngage have a genius strategy. Use other brands to help build their own and create a connection between the two. A current campaign they're running is giving people custom Air Jordans for taking a demo. No one bit for $100 gift card... their time is worth more than that. But finding a brand that had emotional and non-monetary value for the buyer (execs) means they'll engage. Even if the conversation goes no where, they'll remember you're the one who gave them the custom Jordans. They'll tell other people about the custom Jordans. They'll give their kids the custom Jordans and remember you every time they see them on their kid. This helps build lift that you couldn't get any other way.

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Optionality’s Fall will be Fierce! We slacked a bit over the summer, too. We took a break from webinars and podcasts in July and August. But now we’re back with that new school clothes feeling, and we’ve got some opportunities to share with you. 🔥 September’s fireside webinar: This Friday, September 13 at 12PM PT Hear from journalist and author Brigid Schulte about why work stopped working for so many of us and what we can do about it. Her new book (Over Work) covers both problem and solutions. 🤝 Announcing our first Optionality IRL event October 2nd in Silicon Valley! Thanks to our host, Extreme Networks and its WIN Alliance (their women’s ERG), it’s time for us to start meeting IRL. We’re collaborating to celebrate Optionality member Maria Ross and her new book, The Empathy Dilemma, exploring how empathetic leaders can balance the practice of compassion with performance and protecting one’s personal boundaries. 🕛 September Office Hours: for Premium members, Wednesday, 9/11/24, at 12PM PT. This month, a member is going to workshop her learnings on effective cold email outreach (no, this isn't a paradox!) 👩 👴 👵 Working Groups: Currently, we have a working group dedicated to helping members bring a book to life. And we have a working group dedicated to personal positioning. If you're great at helping other people articulate their personal brand, differentiation, and value proposition but SUCK at doing it for yourself, this is the working group for you. 🧞‍♀️ And don’t forget The Wisdom Exchange! A place to get just-in-time advice, learn a new skill, or get a helpful nudge toward making progress on any number of goals. Link for more details and registration for any/all fall activities: https://lnkd.in/gAMfTE5z

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🚀 Venture debt covenants might sound like a small part of the deal, but they carry huge implications for your startup’s future. 📈 You need to be strategic in your negotiations to avoid any pitfalls down the road. It’s all about setting yourself up for success, not stress. Dive into more details in the original Kruze Consulting post. The link is in the 1st comment. 👇

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We've transitioned close to 3 dozen of our email-only clients to the "new" audience-first RevBoss*. And we've learned a lot in the process. 😬 People are surprisingly nervous to put themselves out there. Even founders that very obviously know their sh*t are hesitant to start creating trust-building content. Maybe it's imposter syndrome. Maybe it's just fear of public speaking. I get that talking into a camera comes more naturally for some than others and It's definitely feels a little awkward at first, even for the naturals. But the reality is that you don't have to be anyone other than yourself. 🦥 The hardest part is getting started. Once you can get over the nerves, you just have to go. You don't need to be perfect or polished. You really just need to be consistent and helpful. I wouldn't say I'm "good" at "content" yet, but I've gotten waaaay better from when I started. And I've got a much better plan going into 2025 than when I started. Building an audience is like planting a tree -- the best time was 10 years ago, the next best time is today. 🍇 Your first goal should be reaching the people that already know you. The non-obvious value I've gotten from a strategic content / audience effort on LinkedIn has come from preaching to the choir so to speak. The new follower growth has been nice, but the engagement, leads, opportunities, and revenue we've generated from our existing audience -- current clients, former clients, and non-converted leads -- has been the lowest hanging fruit. 🤠 It's fun to make marketing that people want. Our clients smile when they're creating this content. Their collective audiences seem to be responding in a positive way. And there is undoubtedly a hidden impact that doesn't show up in visible metrics like comments, likes, shares, etc. I know because I get text messages, DMs, emails, etc. in response to the stuff I'm sharing. And clients and prospects mention it completely unprompted on calls. 🏋️ There is so much more potential. We've just started the "activation" piece of our process with a handful of clients -- i.e. working to turn the audience into sales leads. We're experimenting with a few levers -- direct outreach via email, direct outreach via LinkedIn, LinkedIn ads, and (eventually) live events. Not going to tell you that an audience-first lead generation strategy is easy. But it's fun. And it works. :) *The new audience-first RevBoss officially launches this week. We're still emailing and we're still lead generating, just started our process from a different foundation -- audience, then trust, then leads. Leave a comment or shoot me a DM if you'd like to learn more about it. It's fun and it works. :)

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We had 450+ folks apply for our content lead role in 24 hours 🔥 Some quick thoughts on scaling talent density @ Verbatim: 1. Talent is everything - especially true in service models In an agency or service-based business, your people are your product. If you want to sell a better product, you need to hire the best in the world - full stop. 2. Quality comes first, followed by speed and agency Quality has been our northstar from day one. Speed is a fast follow. Rapid turnaround times + sprinting to deliver in time-bounded deadlines is crucial. 3. Ability to communicate clearly is wildly underrated As a 100% remote business, our team at Verbatim needs to be able to communicate with eachother clearly, efficiently, and concisely - without ego. 4. Top writers wants to work closely with top writers Talent attracts talent. The same way the best engineers want to work with the best engineers, top marketers want to be in the same room with eachother. 5. Full-stack writing (lifecycle, social, ads) is critical As B2B content evolves, every new content team member we onboard needs to be able to effectively create long-form, short-form, and lifecycle assets. Lots more to share as we ramp up our hiring this quarter ⚡

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What key elements transform an association website from merely good to great? Review these three examples and see where your organization fits.

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Great agencies do free work. A lot of it. Did this give you a visceral feeling of anger? I don't mean it how you probably think I do. Great agencies proactively do so much 'stuff' that never lands in a scope or an invoice. - They proactively reach out to see how the relationship is going. - They proactively schedule time to chat and meet. - They proactively do research on trends / new shiny objects. - They proactively come to the table with new ideas. - They proactively bring up the bad -- the things not going so well and how they plan to rectify them. - They proactively meet internally, to talk about the account, the results, new ideas, etc. - They proactively send meeting agendas. The #1 thing I hear from brands looking for a new agency? "Lack of proactivity" "They got too comfy" Sticking to your scope by the letter of the law, rigidly, is a recipe for losing clients. It just is. And if that pisses you off...I'm sorry...but it doesn't make it any less accurate. The day you win a client is the day you start losing them and it's safe to assume every agency out there is trying to eat the lunch of their competitors. I'd argue doing the stuff that never lands in a scope is equally as important as the stuff that does land in the scope. THAT is how you truly differentiate.

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Branding in-progress... Kanwood started as a HoldCo for my freelance consulting projects, which is exclusively early-stage growth work. It always felt wrong to call this work a "Sales Agency" -- Other than growing revenue, it never looked like an agency: - More senior staff than SDRs on projects ("reverse pyramid" structure) - Terrible at sticking to scope (will chase shiny objects) - Strategy via execution (time in market > time spent scoping) Because of this structure, the majority of our projects (75%+) were with Seed/Series A founders from tier-1 VCs. We'd work on solving their hardest growth problems. Our work involved discovering, nurturing, and executing on entirely new distribution channels and partnerships. This required a lot of scrappiness, iteration, and banging our heads against the wall. It's been super fun working with artists/designers to find branding that better reflects the iterative and experimental nature of our work, and our culture where fun is mandatory.

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If Aimee Schuster asks me to collaborate, the answer is always hell yes. If you don't know Aimee yet, she is a badass fractional CMO/COO who works with companies $10-100mm in annual revenue. And as many of you know, I work in the $1-10mm range, right below her. We connect and exchange notes regularly. And it's funny to me how many similarities we see in our respective clients - regardless of their perceived maturity (revenue). There is never 𝘰𝘯𝘦 GTM problem. No silver bullet. But 𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴, we both find that one of the biggest problems, impacting the whole damn GTM strategy...is a poorly defined and 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘦𝘥 ICP/persona. WHO you are selling to (ICP/persona) and HOW you differentiate yourself (positioning) is the roadmap and the compass of every other marketing and sales tactic and action. If you don’t give 𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 the right roadmap, a few things can happen: • They get analysis paralysis and don’t know where to start, so their activity is stalled. • They spend time (and money) bringing in leads that don’t convert because they aren’t a good fit. • They somehow close customers who aren’t a good fit, leading to poor experiences that ultimately result in customer churn. If you fail to give 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 the right roadmap, you will see the following: • An incredibly wide net that captures everything under the sun, bloating the top of your funnel. • Sales gets frustrated and starts to say, “Marketing keeps sending me bad leads.” • Marketing gets frustrated and starts to say, “Sales won’t convert the leads I send.” Check out our co-authored article in CMS Wire for more details and tactical tips. 👇 https://lnkd.in/eUKtJjkQ If you still have questions, you know where to find us 😎 ________________________ If you don't know me well, I'm Jess 👋 . Fractional CRO + CMO and #FounderLedSales Transition expert. Making go-to-market simple(r) and scalable for #founders and sales reps, one #startup at a time.

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