Sam Kuehnle’s Post

Me: "PLG signups are taking off. Why aren't these driving more pipeline?" BDR: "I don't call on them until after 14 days so I get credit" 🤯 A little over a year ago we went all in with our dual-motion go-to-market (GTM) offer. We had a great sales-led GTM engine already in place and completely changed the industry by offering the first forever free recruiting ATS/CRM with our product-led GTM offer. A handful of months in we were seeing PLG signups steadily rising, but the pipeline and revenue from those signups weren’t following that same trendline. Next to prospects explicitly asking to talk to sales, this should’ve been our second “hottest” pipeline driver…but it wasn’t. We had a basic marketing nurture series in place for those who signed up, but with these being higher “intent” signups, these would be layups for our BDRs to follow up with and convert. So I reached out to our top BDR to see how I could help further enable the BDR team with these. What content would be helpful to supply, what objections could they expect + how to speak to those, FAQs, etc. But what was uncovered in the first 5 minutes of that call put a spotlight on the issue when they said: “I don’t call on these until after 14 days so I get credit” At the time we had a 14-day “Pro Trial” period where the prospect had full access to the entire platform. After the 14-day window was up, they would be downgraded to the “Free” version. Based on this, there were rules in place that prevented BDRs from getting any credit or compensation for converting the PLG leads within the first 14 days because they were “attributed to marketing, not BDRs.” --> Attribution was holding us back from business growth. Worrying about who would get credit for pipeline or revenue was literally keeping us from creating pipeline or driving revenue. The actual fix for this is wildly simple - don’t get caught up in attribution. But putting this into practice is much easier said than done due to things like compensation plans, budgeting, and more. So we went back to our north star metric: revenue. Is what we’re solving for here going to increase revenue? Yes. Is what’s holding us back from doing this internal processes or red tape? Yes. Can this be solved by changing said processes? Yes. There was our answer. And within the next week here’s what happened: - We had BDRs starting the sequence we built together ASAP instead of waiting 14 days - Marketing and Sales leadership reworked the BDR compensation plan for these - Pipeline from the PLG signups shot up immediately - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Remember: the goal of attribution isn’t to say “Who gets credit for this?” but to answer “What’s working to drive business?” Once you overcome that hurdle, that’s when the magic happens as team siloes are broken down and true cross-departmental teamwork begins, resulting in a better customer experience + better business results. P.S. I share tips like this + more weekly in my newsletter

This isn't just about soccer. This is the "secret" to success that top-performing individuals and organizations understand. Talent alone doesn't guarantee success. Here's the formula that the best recruiters + leaders use when determining who should join their organization: Intangibles (drive, grit, motivation, etc.) + Environment (high standards, embrace innovation, etc.) + Team (leadership, manager, teammates surrounding you, etc.) + Talent

We were 24 days into an experiment and saw: 20x more handraisers, 7x more pipeline, AND 2 won deals from the cohort The experiment? “I’m going to be presenting at Goldenhour in a few months. What would be interesting for me to share with US marketing leaders?” Tim Rath, founder of DACH marketing agency YOYABA, asked me this during a catch up a few months ago Little did we know at the time, but this simple question might have unlocked the next growth levers for both Tim (expanding into the US) + I (tapping into countries we previously struggled to penetrate) The US is a great market for us, but certain international markets have an even higher density of our ICP that we wanted to dig deeper into, such as Germany So when Tim asked me about a topic that could be interesting to US marketing leaders, I thought to myself that if this is a problem I’m looking to solve, I bet others in similar positions might be as well I explained to Tim that there were a handful of European countries that we were working on expanding into, but that the UK and Ireland were the only ones we were seeing meaningful growth in So we got into what we were doing (running US ads to these other countries, but with their own “EMEA” budget) and Tim stopped me after that, trying to hold back a laugh as he said: “It’s almost common practice that US companies clone their US playbooks for EMEA and for DACH. And it doesn’t work.” With this, Tim and I decided to help each other out in a win/win way We would work with Tim’s company to put this hypothesis to the test. What happens if a company that excels in the US wants to expand successfully into other countries, specifically DACH? NOTE: we weren’t starting from scratch. We already have strong product/market fit, have a dialed-in ICP, and know which messaging lands best. Using this, Tim’s team was able to build off of these foundational items to do what they do best From there, we did 3 key things together: 1) Localized the creative strategy Translate proven winners from English to German. But also applying the context of the culture We had big success with our recent “Bigfoot” campaign in the US, but in Germany, Bigfoot isn’t really a thing - and the team wasn’t scared to tell us that, so even though it did well in the US, it’s not relevant in Germany, so we took their recommendation and pulled it 2) Followed through on the experience It’s not enough to write the ads in German. What happens if they click on it? Are they sent to a landing page in English? (talk about a broken experience…) So they built out a localized landing page that matched the campaign 3) Constrained the execution - No other additive growth efforts or variables in play for Germany. Execution across all GTM efforts remained as they were in the period prior - Used one channel - Defined timeframe - - - - - - - - - - I shared the full story last Saturday in my newsletter - give it a read for the rest of the interesting insights + learnings

Friday health thoughts: exercising not just for stress-relief, but for the endorphin (happiness) boost We've all seen + heard the stories about how exercise helps to relieve stress through reducing the levels of cortisol (stress hormone) your body produces But to me, the unsung heroes of exercise are the "happy" neurochemicals your body produces from it What are they? - Endorphins (the body's natural pain relievers + mood boosters) - Dopamine (the the “feel-good” hormone that gives you a sense of pleasure + the motivation to do something when you’re feeling pleasure) When do they start to be produced? - Research has found they start to be produced after just 30 minutes of moderate exercise So what does this all mean? - Exercise goes beyond physical benefits - You don't have to have some crazy/rigorous exercise routine to get the neurochemical benefits - The body is an amazing thing that can help restore your neurochemical balance if you know what to do. There's a reason the best doctors ask about things like your diet + exercise before prescribing medicine as a first option for certain things we experience #fridayhealththoughts

"Sam, what do you use instead of [insert any expensive/overly-complicated martech vendor here]?" Simple: ✅ Tight targeting criteria ✅ A distinct POV ✅ And a number of messages that are refreshed regularly and worded ever so differently that all reinforce our POV ✅ Distribution through platforms directly (email, podcast, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) Fancy + expensive tech doesn't mean your marketing will be successful. Doing the fundamentals well + consistently...well that right there is the not-so-secret "secret" that many are searching for.

You can drive brand awareness without creating demand, but creating demand requires more than driving brand awareness

Friday health thoughts: find a place where you enjoy the work you do, but more importantly, magic happens when you find a place where you get to work with amazing people A handful of months ago I wrote about the "three circles" to job fulfillment: Pay, Purpose, & People The takeaway was - If you cover 0 or 1 circles, there likely is something better out there for you - If you cover 2 circles, be careful not to fall into the "grass is greener on the other side" trap - If you cover 3 circles, consider yourself lucky to have found a role + place where you can thrive Of those 3, the 'People' part is the most underrated one, yet will leave the most lasting impact on your career On paper, it's hard to see what a company's people looks like from the outside, and that's why individuals often make job decisions based on the compensation + role But if I've learned one thing over my career, it's that the people I have (or haven't) been surrounded with are what propels you to even greater heights Call it talent density Call it teams who actually operate like a team Call it a company that knows how to attract great people Call it a company that doesn't tolerate the top-performer-but-toxic-person If the people you surround yourself with in your job: - Set the bar high - Push you to be the best version of yourself - Support an environment of innovation - And are just genuine, good people to be around Amazing things can and will happen - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - This past week I had the chance to meet up with one of my Loxo colleagues, Lex, and our video partner, Chandler The agenda didn't include sitting in a stuffy conference room somewhere talking about marketing for hours on end Instead, we embraced a recent campaign we all worked on together that involved finding and contacting the hardest-to-reach people (which ended up using an alien) and we met up at the Kennedy Space Center Yes, we talked marketing But more importantly, we had fun + talked about anything that friends would talk about when getting together Great teams + amazing people are hard to come by If you're on one, you've got a career superpower sitting in your lap - make sure you're taking advantage of it #fridayhealththoughts

You can spend your way to brand awareness, but not demand creation. A simplified breakdown of the two 👇 TL;DR - you can spend your way to brand awareness, but not demand creation Brand Awareness - Messaging: high-level with a focus on answering what you do and/or a memorable tagline - POV/differentiation: NO strong POV/differentiation statement - Audience: total addressable market (broad + large) - Timeline: "always on" - Measuring success: brand recognition + brand recall Demand Creation - Messaging: high-level with a focus on answering what you solve for - POV/differentiation: VERY strong POV/differentiation statement - Audience: ICP (smaller + specific) - Timeline: constrained by success measurements (next point) - Measuring success: pipeline + revenue Real-world example: Monday.com Remember the past few years when it seemed like every time you went to watch a video on YouTube, you first saw an ad for Monday.com? I do 🙋♂️ I can tell you exactly what they do (project management software) ...but I can't tell you how they're different from all of the other competitors in their space (Asana, Trello, Basecamp, etc.) Their ads were very successful in that they got my attention + communicated what they do, but they never convinced me WHY they are the only option I should go with, what they provide that's different from their competitors in making their customers more successful, or added any value to me that positions them as THE experts in this space If I got a survey from YouTube or a third-party firm asking if I had heard of Monday.com, the answer would be a resounding yes BUT if they asked if I considered buying their software in the next 12 months, the answer would be no Why? Because they didn't *create* any demand - They didn't give me a sense of urgency around what I'm missing out on by not using them - I didn't receive any compelling feeling that they are THE project management platform I should use - They didn't educate or provide me with any value with insights that they uniquely know as experts in the space Long story short, they didn't break out of the commodity bucket - they're simply another option Creating demand means: - Communicating a unique POV about your category + why you're the only option - Sharing data + insights around how customers have seen success, along with actionable takeaways others can do to improve even if they don't use your product (aka show they understand the problem, their market, and are invested in their customers' success) - Constraining your measurement timeline to understand if the marketing efforts you make today are driving noticeable increases to your pipeline + revenue numbers after a few quarters (and if it isn't, it's not creating demand + you need to go back to the drawing board) - - - - - - - - - - Justin Norris and I geeked out on demand creation, getting exec buy-in, and more on a recent episode of his podcast RevOps FM + was one of my favorites to date. 100% worth a listen.

I've helped 50+ SaaS companies implement a marketing strategy for today's world, and there's 1 thing I've found that indicates if it'll be successful: (and it has nothing to do with the marketing strategy itself) *Expectation setting* The best thing you can do for yourself and this new strategy is to CLEARLY set expectations with leadership. AKA what to expect, when to expect it, and how to validate if we are on/off track. I like to do this in two ways. 1) Timeline The first way is by giving an overview of the timeline for this shift, but still in an easy-to-understand way for non-marketers. Getting started (days 1-30) Experiment (days 31-90) Validate + iterate (days 91-180) Scale + iterate (days 181+) The key here is setting expectations that it's going to take one QUARTER to get experimental results and ANOTHER quarter from there to validate our findings before we're able to get ready to scale. 2) What to watch The second way to successfully set expectations with your leadership team is to tell them EXACTLY what we will be watching to understand if things are working and when we will be watching for those signals. The first thing you’ll notice is that we’re aligning these KPIs with the 4 stages of the timeline we walked through moments ago. The second thing to notice is that we are calling these KPIs (key performance indicators), not goals. Our goal is to increase revenue from marketing. Like the name states, KPIs are indicators that we’re on track to hitting our desired goal. Getting started (days 1-30) Historical performance will continue (remember: we’re getting things in place here, not executing). Experiment (days 31-90) # new users (direct + branded) to website # visits to high-intent pages ICP engagement % on social channels you’re active on # “leads” from paid search + paid social* (if previous strategy was lead gen, this will decrease) Cost per lead* (if previous strategy was lead gen, this will increase) *Note: It is ok and EXPECTED if the above two go that direction - we’re focusing on downfunnel impact Validate + iterate (days 91-180) # high-intent handraisers “How did you hear about us?” responses referencing the new tactics/mediums you’re using BDR/AE feedback on if ICP has heard of your company before (will change from “Who are you and where are you calling from?” to “Ohh yeah, I’ve heard of your company before, I love your content!” # discovery calls completed Conversion % of handraiser > discovery call completed Conversion % of discovery call completed > qualified opportunity Scale + iterate (days 181+) # qualified opportunities $ qualified pipeline Win rate HDYHAU responses referencing word of mouth Sales cycle length $ revenue Advertising customer acquisition costs (CAC) Advertising CAC payback period Pro tip: turn the KPI bullets at each stage into checkboxes so you can show them the exact progress you’re making as you move along the new journey #marketing

Friday health thoughts: Are you stuck? In a funk? Wheels spinning but you aren't getting anywhere? Go change your scenery Step away from your computer and... Go for a walk Head to the gym Take a shower Play with your dog Take your kid to the park Call a parent or grandparent Go for a bike ride Grab a fiction book + read a chapter or two Meditate Then come back to where you left off when you're in a better headspace and watch how much easier things become. #fridayhealththoughts