The Transaction

TT - 036 - Adam B. Needles
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[00:00:00]

Craig Rosenberg: You like that? We'll lead in with some laughter and whatever. So, so let me just, let me give you my version of the story and then Adam, cause you

were there, right? I was there and getting an earful, by the way. I'm sure I'm both ends of the

Yeah. So, so first of all, I'm not sure what happened between me and, and those guys were the serious decision guys. Cause we were always, we would literally renew. Literally at the show, like sign the contract, whatever. And then the sales rep's like, well, I, uh, can't, and we're like, why? And so we're at the bar, this was the year before I go up to one of the guys.

I'm like. Is there a problem? And I'm not kidding. It was like the movies. He just looked at me and I'm like, are you not going to say anything?

Matt Amundson: Uh,

Craig Rosenberg: right? He writes him a note. They're like, no, no response. So we're out. And the next year they're having [00:01:00] it.

And, um, either Hidalgo or needles or Jason Stewart or whatever, you know, Hey, why aren't you here? And I'm like, well, I'm not sure what happened. And then, um, I'm in a meeting. Okay. Back home, San Francisco. One of the young, you know, uh, employees at Tippett. This was Tippett, I

think, or

Adam Needles: Yeah. Free

Craig Rosenberg: Hey dude, you're trending on Twitter. What? For what? You know? So I go on my Twitter and basically someone wrote, where's the Funnelholic? That was, by the way, for everyone here, that was my old, uh, uh, stage name. And then people are like, well, he wasn't, you know, invited or whatever. And then all of a sudden Needles and these guys start this hashtag free the Funnelholic.

Adam Needles: philanthropist. Yeah,

Craig Rosenberg: And it just starts, it takes over the conference. I'm dominating it. It had to drive them nuts. And then [00:02:00] I'm not sure what happened about 1 p. m. Jason Stewart creates t shirts, okay,

Adam Needles: A hundred

Craig Rosenberg: that you could buy. It was a free the funnel holic. It was like, I'll have to find it. I have one. I found one last night. Matt knows because I was talking to him while I was going through my closet and found the old Ricky Manny Jr.

jersey and all that stuff. And I was like, okay, I'm And I found a Free the Funnelholic shirt. There were onesies, which I put my babies in, uh, hats, like long sleeves. It, dude, it was amazing. And then Jason, uh, donated, uh, proceeds to a charity or whatever. And it was the, it was so funny, man. The Free the Funnelholic was such a fun little, uh, Diversion there, man.

[00:03:00]

Craig Rosenberg: But anyway, yeah, that was early days when we were all just grinding marketing automation and demand gen. And were you at silver pop or were you a new it or were you left

brain

Adam Needles: I was, yeah, I was trans. I think I was, uh, had, I think I was either at silver pop or transition to left brain at that point in time. And, uh, uh, was, uh, was, was headed towards my ultimate transition, which was to get, get into more of the transformational consulting side of things,

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, um, did you guys know each other before this, Matt?

Adam Needles: you know,

Matt Amundson: Only by reputation.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. Reputation. Right.

Cause neat. I, I didn't believe the things you were saying about Matt. I actually did think he was a good guy. So

Matt Amundson: Yeah, in your face, Craig.

Craig Rosenberg: well, look, hey guys, like there's nothing hidden about that. I mean, that's like [00:04:00] Twitter. But, uh, but yeah, so Adam was, uh, that's when, you know, Matt knows him cause Matt was at Marketo and, and Adam was really out there as one of the original, like the OGs in this like massive market transformation. Uh, I would just call it at the time, quantifiable demand gen, Aaron's cases for many companies, demand gen in general, right?

Because we're still, uh, putting up busts. bus stop ads and doing those things in marketing. And Adam was OG in that. And then, um, uh, you know, he was at Silverpop, which is old school for everyone here. There's a whole bunch of people that are listening that have no idea what Silverpop is. Um, and then I remember Left Brain.

Um, and then the big one, I think 12, 13 years at with annuitus, which is a massive, uh, you know, uh, frankly, I would say go to market [00:05:00] transformation firm now, and, uh, you know, you saw their evolution over time. He wrote a book. Demand equation. And then the new one is, oh my God, I had to leave my office. I had it in front of me.

Yes. Thank you. The chief growth officer's handbook. I'm sure we'll talk about that. Um, and so in many ways, um, you know, this is a reuniting cause Adam reached out and we hadn't talked in probably five years. And then we're like, yeah, let's, let's get on the show and talk too long. It's been far too long, Craig.

and you're talking about new things now.

So I think this is this will be a really great episode for everyone So the transactions welcoming Adam needles who you will see as the author as well as going on mass Incredible ski journeys

because he's always

Adam Needles: This is

Craig Rosenberg: plain going some hella skiing somewhere in Switzerland But but welcome Adam

Adam Needles: Hey, it's [00:06:00] great to be here with you guys.

Craig Rosenberg: let's just jump into it now that we've had our fun talking about, uh,

Matt Amundson: Yeah. Get into it.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. Since we started late due to my technical difficulties, which are now traditional, I heard Matt, I hear Matt going in, here he goes, he's going to go try to

get help. And He was predicting the whole thing the whole way through.

I know he called it the whole way.

It was, I could, and I could hear him. It was like, you know, I could hear the whole thing, but not respond. So it was, um, all right. So Adam, here's how we start the show. And then we go from there, which is. You know, what are the, what is the thing or the things that the market thinks they're doing right? It could be methodology, best practice, approach, tactics, whatever that might be.

They're actually wrong and they should be thinking about it different. What, what is that or those things? And then what should they be doing differently? The microphone to you, my

friend. Well, I appreciate it again. It's great to be, uh, you know, like this song [00:07:00] says Craig reunited and it feels so good, you know,

Oh, geez.

Matt Amundson: at that.

Craig Rosenberg: I like that

one.

Adam Needles: I'm going to say something super spicy. I mean, Craig, you, you, you know, me from years ago, I, I've been known to throw an F bomb up on stage. Uh, but I, uh, I think that we're at a truly transitional moment for the CMO. And I'm just going to say this. I think that part of the problem that we have in efficient go to market.

In a holistic experience, demand experience for buyers, we're trying to engage with, um, I think one of the biggest problems is the CMO. And I'm just going to say, I don't think the CMO role's working for anybody more. It, it, it's got a, it's got a functional legacy, right? So for far too many organizations, the CMO is defined by.

The person that is in [00:08:00] charge of people that do marketing things. Right. So, so we throw product marketing in there. We throw, go to market activities. We throw customer and shit like we throw all these things in there. Right. But we've got to get away from functional org design in general, first of all. But second, we've got to get to this point where we are, um, better, uh, orchestrating a lighting. Engagement with our prospects and better improving their journey and orchestrating sales and marketing interactions. And I'm going to say that as long as you've got a head of sales and a CMO. You're never going to have actual sales and marketing alignment and that we need to think, and this is what we talk about in chief growth officer handbook.

Um, I'm not saying every organization has to have a chief growth officer, but what we talk about in there is this idea of you need someone who's in charge of the go to market motion and in that person being in charge of the go to market motion, it's okay to let go of [00:09:00] the awesomeness of the product management, product marketing, right?

It's okay to. Let go of the corporate brand. Um, I actually think an ideal company's got a head of go to market or a chief growth officer, a head of product or, you know, head of solutions. Um, and somebody that actually owns corporate communication, corporate brand. But what I just said there completely just blew up the CMO's fiefdom.

Um, so let's start there.

Craig Rosenberg: Take that Matt Amundson

Matt Amundson: Yeah. Yeah. I'm just gonna sit in the corner and cry for a little bit. Uh, I think, uh, so, um, here's what I'll say. Uh, I, I, I both disagree and agree. I agree. What I agree with is I don't think it's ever been harder to be a CMO than it is right

Adam Needles: Fair.

Matt Amundson: And I think because of the [00:10:00] multi disciplinary requirements to be a modern CMO are For the most part, overwhelming and are, it's, it's too tall of a task for people to be asked to do.

And so what you get in a lot of cases, you get CMOs who are either very brand centric, very product centric, very comm centric, or very demand centric. It's very hard to find the sort of RoboCop and diagram of all four of those. Exactly. And that is, in a way, that is what's being asked of everybody who, whether they carry the title of CMO, or just Marketing Leader, Head of Marketing, VP of Marketing, etc.

Is being asked to do. I'm not saying, you know, being a Sales Leader is easy, or being a Product Leader is easy, or being, you know, the Engineering Leader is easy. I don't think any of those things are easy, because I don't think anything's easy. But I do think that it's pretty straightforward in terms of what's being asked of you.

If you're a sales [00:11:00] leader, the job is to build a sales engine and to go close deals. If you're a product leader, the job is to go build great product that your market wants. If you're the engineering leader, you're supporting the product team by actually doing the coding and building it. And if you're a marketing leader, you're like, well, you know, this place really needs to have an identity.

So you got to build the brand and this place has really got to have pipeline. So you got to build the pipe and we really should have the voice of the customer and brood into everything that we do. So you have to have great relationships with customers. And Oh, by the way, there's this whole operational mechanism that sits beneath all of that and it needs to function seamlessly.

So you have to be great at operations as well. And I think the reality is, is that's too many tasks that are falling under. I do like organizations that are divorcing the CMO from a lot of the operational parts of marketing because I think the rise of the RevOps organization is, is, is strengthening that piece.

But I, I, so I agree and I also disagree [00:12:00] because I've seen marketers who are capable of doing this and they do it really, really well. And, you know, it's my life's goal to, uh, and I aspire to be, uh, a person that falls into that camp as well. Mhm.

Craig Rosenberg: here's my, so it makes sense on paper. It always did, but isn't this the same thing they tried to do? And Matt's old company, Marketo and Elko tried to lead this chief revenue officer thing, and I think like part of the thing we need to flesh out is Is sales, frankly. I mean, like, look that fit in my opinion, that failed because we put sales leaders in top of

marketing There's not a, there's not a single CRO who's not just a sales leader, period.

so, um, and they are always gonna, I mean, they're the 800 pound gorilla in any equation on what we try to change in my opinion. So I'm going to get your guys [00:13:00] reaction, but here, and, and I'm open to it because I agree conceptually. I, I don't see it working on, in, on the street and it's, and honestly it's because of sales and it, like we've built, we have this legacy.

Relationship and personality. Now, not that Matt's like this, but so we've got the 800 pound grill on the sales side and on the marketing side, we have these, uh, hellaciously defensive, uh, leaders that, um, are always worried about how they're being judged and they're not, you know, fit for leading. You know, I mean, they are fit for leading the marketing organization, but like a chief growth officer role.

So for me, it's always like, well, You know, how do we manage sales now? Um, but on paper, I get this. Like, for example, Matt should be a chief growth officer wherever he goes, [00:14:00] because he does think about the entire process and can add value across everything happening in the sort of life cycle, right? Which is the go to market motion.

Um, And so, like, I do think of him as a good example of someone who would be good at that. But again, it comes back down to, uh, there's a person making a million dollar plus a year running a sales org, demanding everything from the organization. Uh, you know, burning the house down when they don't get what they want.

And then we give them the range, the demand gen budget, and it's all going to luxury boxes at Foxborough. And it's like, um, that's where the thing fell down. So,

uh, your reaction.

Adam Needles: yeah, I think, I think a couple of things, one, um, Let's come at it from a different, you know, let's, we're talking largely B2B right now, but let's say that we're, you know, let's say you're [00:15:00] a Procter and Gamble, right? Somebody who's a brand Yeah. is effectively doing this. They own a marketing budget. They own a sales budget. They own a number. A brand manager's ass is held to the wall for a number, right?

And so, you know, you've got different industries, you've got different modes. And I know that's not a considered purchase, that's not a sales led, right? So it's a little bit different. Um, but I would say one, there's definitely people that are capable of bringing in commercial leadership. And I think that it's something that is lacking in the B2B arena, right?

And so I think we need to care for that more because what I'm kind of talking about Is a commercial leader, right? Like when you talk about growth, chief growth officer or go to market, right? Um, so I, I, I, I think that the other aspect of this is that, um, you know, there are, and you mentioned this earlier, like there's definitely some like really smart marketers and there's some like really strategic sellers [00:16:00] that I think can come at this.

I just think it's, it's a different role. And I think that, that, um, in the B2B arena, like we have this like predetermined POV that everything is going to be, you know, uh, a sales led sales close. I, I see that changing a lot. So like, let's, let's also challenge the notion that the old school, cause we've seen this, we, we work with.

Financial services, healthcare, pharma, enterprise, security, uh, ed tech. We work across a lot of industries that are sales led, consider purchase. That's the work we're doing at, at annuitus. And we're actually seeing that the seller's role and like years, look great. You know, Craig, you were, you were on the research side of this, right.

But we've seen this out of Sirius, Forrester, Topo, you know, Gartner. You know, cross the board, everybody like that amount of time that the seller is involved. [00:17:00] It just keeps going down and all the research and the amount of time that people are out there on their own, doing their own research, engaging in quote marketing or social or other channels.

Um, that's changing. And so I just think it's worth saying that. In the B2B dynamic, the idea that you've got a, you know, seller out there who's just like the man or the woman, um, or, you know, out there like doing their thing and they, they've got the relationships and they're, you know, like you said, they, they want to be the box suite, et cetera.

I just think that that role is just changing and it's being customer driven. And so what I really want to see is I want to see a commercial motion where The nurture email, the website interaction, the event invite, the sales call all actually have cohesion, right? So we just need to talk about the fact that go to market for most organizations falls apart.

In execution every [00:18:00] day, most organizations engage in random acts of demand every day. And because of that, for most organizations, uh, their demand motions are largely NPV negative and people turn them on as long as they're, you know, closing contracts and they turn it off and reduce that budget, you know, whenever they just want to like sit on top of recurring revenue for a period of time.

But we're just in, in a mode today where there's such disconnectedness. And if we were to really bring all this back together, we'd say, Hey, this is really about orchestrating the interactions. And so how do we have a role, a function that is thinking about the critical path, the orchestration, and then is responsible for the closed loop outcome of those activities.

That's what we're talking about.

Craig Rosenberg: can get behind everything you just said. So I, I will say I will, I'm not going to retract what I said, but I did focus on the people too [00:19:00] much instead of the, you know, the overall idea, which is what you just talked about. Um, and, uh, there's still a, even in like, I mean, even today, there's still a lot of cookie and I, and by the way, I totally, you know, one of the things we see right now, like, you know, particularly me, I'm working with early stage, right.

And we've got this incredible conflict, which is, it's harder to drive. Uh, you don't kill me. Just wait until I finished the point. MQLs the way we did. The playbook that made a lot of people a lot of money and a great career is broken and how we go think about it differently. Um, and all the things that go into the interactions, uh, makes a ton of sense to what you're talking about.

How we get there, I think is, is where the [00:20:00] rubber meets the road. But, you know, I, I think about that all the time, which is like, it's, it's really hard for us to rethink everything until we have that sort of. Overall leadership that thinks about the entire, uh, go to market life cycle. I think another example is like Matt and I were talking about how in the really sort of high tech sales processes, the role of sales is

changing. Uh, the need for the buyer to be more technical up front changes the value that the sales rep can actually bring. And we, we, we've seen more and more where they, they're really focused on relationship management, which, you know, maybe there would be a reaction from you on that. Um, and, uh, we have, uh, either SCs or value engineers moving up into the early stage of the process.

And a lot of the touches are being run by other folks. We have a manager of the, you know, of a sales [00:21:00] process or, you know, uh, well, let's just call it a sales process, but we have, we have started to really rethink those various, like, you know, interactions that are left, right. Cause you talked about how it's shrinking.

Um, and, uh, in the, in my opinion, the reasons it's shrinking is there's no value in a lot of

those interactions. I it. It is literally Craig.

Adam Needles: That is probably the most critical thing we have to ask about our sales and marketing touch points is when are we adding value? Because The reason, like there's a linearity if I say, and I, we run economic modeling all the time. I knew it as I do this all the time.

It is frightening how many clients prospects we engage with. We run numbers like they don't want to hear how much money they're throwing in a problem, but really the money is just a proxy for, they're putting money behind things that interact [00:22:00] with these prospects and these clients, but they don't actually add value. And that's the problem. Like we need to actually be the rationalization is how do we build sales and marketing and in fact saying sales and marketing is part of the problem. I'm just going to say that because both of those are outbound, like, like meaningful to the seller, the marketer, but have no meaning to the buyer.

The buyer just has an information search they're going through, you know, a discovery and validation process that they're going through and they just want you to add value in that process. And the people they work with, ultimately they're ones that are, are, you know, value added. ongoing And so it is interesting when you talk about the relationship and relationship management.

Like, um, I, I do think, I actually, it's a little bit sad. I we're seeing across the board the death of [00:23:00] relationships, but I do think that Um, the concept of, of value and value add is becoming more important and relationships that are enduring are ones that are not like, Hey, you know, you know, uh, you know, let's do a, you know, family meetup this weekend.

You know, it's not the like, Hey, let's talk about, you know, we both like basketball. I'm not saying that that's doesn't have a place, but I think particularly in B2B it's literally. You know, are you adding value? Are you helping me navigate these really complex? You know, challenges that I'm having in my business.

And I, and I really feel like that's what we need to pivot towards in our demand. Like, I don't want to say sales and marketing activities anymore. I just don't, it just is a demand emotion. It's a go to market emotion, right? And so like, how do we build a perpetual value added Demand motion. I feel like that's what we've got to solve for and go to market.

Matt Amundson: Adam, who's doing this right? [00:24:00] Like, what's, what's like the, the, the shining city on the hill here where, you know, you can sort of point to somebody and say, this is what good looks like.

Craig Rosenberg: Adam, before you answer that, if you don't mind me pointing out, he used the shiny city on the hill, but okay, go ahead. All

Matt Amundson: we're getting into, I mean, it's election time, baby.

Craig Rosenberg: right, all right, I like it,

Adam Needles: I'm going to mention, um, you know, uh, uh, one of them that's a client of ours, cause I just happened to know, uh, is Monotype. Uh, they're fascinating company. The fonts on your computer, the fonts in the video games, like they're the leader in, uh, Uh, and you know, primary foundry and provider of fonts to like most of the world and nine in Chaco who we've worked with a couple of times before we worked with him together at Pure Newswire a number of years ago and built an amazing, uh, um, sales and marketing apparatus.

So like we were part of the solution, but what we built [00:25:00] together, uh, together with Bob Seiler, who was his CRO was truly what we're talking about. But monotype is a great example of this where, um, they are truly blurring the lines between sales and marketing. Um, you've got, you know, quote marketers who have, you know, actual like inside sales and development teams that are under their purview.

Um, sellers and marketers all have numbers. That they're, you know, required to hit, um, there's a continuous closed loop. Look at what we're doing. Obviously we've been part of helping them to build an engine, helping them to build that process and close the loop. But, um, what they're doing is they're. Um, optimizing perpetual interactions, right?

They're looking at nurture activities, website events, engagement channel spend, um, and they're constantly like beating it up and tuning it. And like they do QBRs where like sellers and marketers, commercial leaders, product leaders are all sitting in a [00:26:00] room looking at, they go to market and asking questions about what's working.

And so. At a programmatic level, uh, a system and a data level and at, and this is the important thing, an organizational level, um, they don't have strong sales and marketing lines. They blurred the lines and they force a conversation around the journey and value add in that journey and improving it. And so.

Um, Evan Kent, who is, uh, their, their demand leader there and is hurting cats sometimes trying to get everybody to work together, um, you know, is a great example of the type of role that is, I think, changing. He has a background. He was at Schneider Electric for a lot of years. He's sold B2B for, you know, his whole career, but like he's forcing a, uh, cross functional.

Dialogue and he's forcing cross functional metrics, um, and partnering with finance, partnering with, you know, key [00:27:00] folks in the mix to really help his company be more successful. So I think monotype is a great example. You know, we've been working with them for about three or four years now, um, of what is, is possible.

Um, and I, I think, um, what I do think is different there and I'll give nine in some credit is that you've got a CEO who's envisioning this as possible. Um, I'm going to actually just say that one of the biggest challenges to what we're talking about is not sellers, is not marketers, is not CROs, is not demand leaders.

One of the biggest challenges, Matt, I love your perspective on this, is the CEOs and CFOs that don't line up the right people with the right vision and actually force a legacy model. On a lot of these companies

Matt Amundson: Yes. Uh, so what I've seen, uh, both as an operator and as an advisor is the sort of CEO profile du jour for, um, for [00:28:00] startups is, is now more than ever, in my opinion, a product person with almost no go to market experience. And when they hire their sales and marketing leaders and they often hire them in tandem, they're kind of like, Hey, get in here and do this thing.

Adam Needles: and they say things like PLM and they believe that you product led is something.

Matt Amundson: yes, yes, yes. And what I would advocate for, and I think, I think you'll start to see this as a trend. This is like, we're getting towards the end of the year. So that's one of my big predictions is actually starting with, uh, very much earlier in the process, bringing in a COO who's a very business minded person who can come in and be the yin to the yang there.

And, The, the, the problems that I'm seeing with a lot of organizations is that, you know, Series A wants to hire a CMO and there's no [00:29:00] marketing team. So just like go build it all from scratch. And, you know, Series A wants to hire the VP of sales and there's no sales team. Go hire a bunch of people and build it from scratch and transition us from founder led right into sales led.

And I think, you know, what, what I've been telling people for a long time is you don't need a CMO, you don't need a sales leader, what you need is a demand gen person, or you need a sales manager type. And actually, the more I think about it, a lot of this stuff is, uh, these cycles of we hire a CMO and it doesn't work out and we make a change within a year or 18 months, we hire a VP of sales and it doesn't work out.

We make a change very quickly is there's just no overall strategy for people to walk into whatsoever. There's no, uh, you know, the, the thing that, Uh, the analogy that someone gave me who's very intelligent, uh, was like, there's no, uh, sort of booster rocket that like takes it up and then just sort of falls away and, and gives it its momentum.

It's more just, Hey, you guys are here [00:30:00] and you know, sales and marketing, just, just go do that thing. Um, and I think that that is what's hurting a lot of organizations is there's no overall strategy around how to do it. You brought up PLG and PLM. It's like, That's an idea that we could bring in maybe, and if it works great, and if it doesn't, we'll have to make a quick transition, but these things don't get thought through.

They just sort of ride the wave of like, you know, whatever GTM, uh, du jour is in, is popular at the moment.

Adam Needles: or ABM, like these are not strategies. These are just concepts. These are frameworks. These are approaches. Like these are not solutions,

Matt Amundson: I, I hear a lot of what you're saying around, you know, where CMOs are coming up short and I, I've, I, I agree with it. I think, uh, and disagree with it, I think, as I stated earlier.

Uh, that you've still got that. You've, you've reserved your right to disagree with it as well as agree with it.

that's right. That's right. Doesn't that mean you're neither?

that?

Craig Rosenberg: If you [00:31:00] agree and disagree, doesn't that mean zero?

Adam Needles: I think, I think it's like sweet and sour. Like that's. That's, it's like, you know, you're like, you're at the Chinese food place and like, the best stuff is like the sweet and sour, like together. Like that's where you get the good insights, Matt. So I'm, I'm with you. I'm with you.

Matt Amundson: Thank you. Thank you.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. Keep going. Sorry. Yeah.

Matt Amundson: the answer to a lot of these problems is hiring, like, a really good business minded COO early on. Uh, to, to, to be the countermeasure to the very product oriented COOs that, that are sort of, uh, really in, in,

in vogue right now. I do, I do think part, I do, I do think partnering also, I, one of our clients a couple of years ago, Dave Kyle, who's been a very successful entrepreneur, venture guy here in Atlanta. I mean, a company QA Symphony, and he, he literally, Uh, you know, their go to market was flailing that a great product, but they were like stuck in this like low end trial mode, lots of trial [00:32:00] lists, not a lot of conversions, hiring salespeople to throw out the problem.

Adam Needles: But like they, they, and I'm just going to say, he actually, he, he brought us in, we did a lot of. Actual customer journey analysis. We really looked at and said, Hey, if you want to be more strategic, like let's look at these other strategic stakeholders. Let's talk about how to talk to them, how to engage with them.

And what I think he was really smart about, um, is that he was like, I know we don't have a blueprint. And he was like, Hey, if you guys can accelerate that, that's going to be the game changer. And so I loved the partnership where it was like, he admitted that. We went in, we helped, we worked with them. We also helped him bring in, um, uh, a CMO who was very demand oriented and it just kickstarted, right?

And so it was this like admission of like, Hey, we might actually need some help. You know, we, we might need to actually like map this out a little bit. The advantage was that they went from zero to 60 on a very successful program. Like there, you raised the MQL earlier, Craig, I [00:33:00] will tell you, just cause I know from these guys, their, uh, lead to opportunity conversion when we first engaged with them was like, wow.

Like 4%, 5 percent and it was like 43 percent a year later. And so like, you know, it, like you see the rapid results. And so, you know, I raised this just to say that, um, you know, just throwing people at it or just hiring people to your point, Matt, and going like, Hey, you like fill all this in. You still need the insights.

And the plan, like you still need that strategy, right? That blueprint. And I feel like that's often the missing piece and go to market is like people. And that's why I say this over and over again, but I really believe it. Go to market falls apart and execution. It's because people have all these great ideas about their product, their service, their addressable market, their target for who's going to use the product. And then they don't actually build that same level of granularity and blueprint in the actual process of [00:34:00] connecting with the stakeholders, they're going to acquire the product and that you're going to scale that because once you've built the product, the scale motion is really got to be around the go to market.

You know,

Craig Rosenberg: So what's in the blueprint? What is the

blueprint?

Adam Needles: this is a great, this is what we should be talking about. I, I, so I think the starting place for the

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, Matt, this is what we should be talking about. Hold

Adam Needles: Yeah, go ahead.

Craig Rosenberg: just attack Matt. See, this Sorry, go ahead. Just by his reaction, I didn't even need to say it. That was amazing. Yeah. I just brought up that I wanted to do a zinger and then he just went, ah. So, all right. As you were, please.

Adam Needles: I think that the start of the blueprint is that like we actually need to, um, let me advocate for, and Matt, you, you know, you raised, you know, PLG earlier, right? Like I want to come back to so many companies have great products and services, and they've spent so much time and energy doing persona work and understanding the people that use their product. [00:35:00] But they have not applied the same level of research and insights to the people and the process that buys their product. And so I think the start of the blueprint, Craig, is understanding the target stakeholders, the savvy cohort that is going to buy your product. Like what are their real higher order business needs?

What is their process? Who's involved? What is their content consumption? Where are they going to solve their problem? And what are the frictions that they might be saying, seeing with you guys, with other competitors, we've got to start with that framework and then map that to actually like seeing those flows.

And we always talk about the idea of getting to what we call a conversation track architecture, which is like, can you see the common paths and the stages? Because once you can see that you can go, you know, event, Nurture flow, right? Website, sales call, you know, demo. Like if [00:36:00] you can see the paths, you can then rapidly rationalize that value add that you were talking about earlier, Craig, like what is the value add at different stages, you know, across different segments.

And so I think the start of the blueprint are the insights. To lay out like the tracks that you're trying to enable.

Craig Rosenberg: So it's who's involved in buying the product, how do they buy, what's going, you know, all the, the, except for the, how do they buy, you know, how do they buy, what are they all about, et cetera. But what you're saying is also important that nobody does is, you know, where do they get their information? How do they engage?

I think we focus in on the user when we think about that. And, and so we take that. And then when you say flows, then we're taking. We are building the flows against that stakeholder map. Is that the idea? And like, um, how we're going to engage with them and add value across the various steps. And that is [00:37:00] the

blueprint.

Adam Needles: I think that's the start. I think that's the start of the blueprint because I think that the, the keel of the boat you're trying to build has got to be those critical paths you're trying to enable. And the critical paths, first of all, there's not one, there's several, cause you had several stakeholders to those critical paths span multiple channels.

Think about how many times Matt, you, you know, right? Think about how many times. Somebody tries to analyze like their spend across channels and they're all about like, Oh, what was the original source? Or like, what was the last source? Right? We could not be more in a state in this marketplace of massive Massive multi channel interactions.

Massive. And so like if you're not thinking in a portfolio view about engagement channels where it's like, Hey, like we're going to mix these together, but in a way that is going to enable people to string between them. Like if you're, if you're, [00:38:00] this is the real, I mean, we're seeing for us with clients, we're seeing, and I love you as a perspective, we're seeing literally the death of search. Marketing right now, like so many people are still so doubled down thinking that a search ad, you know, traffic ads are so critical. Same thing with, I would say with social ads right now because they're looking for like a start. They want to be there at the start. But the thing is, is that the game's not the start.

The game is actually the journey at this point. And so.

Matt Amundson: yeah,

Adam Needles: You know, you look at where we're doing analysis. We're seeing like rapid like fall off in the efficacy of search advertising, but yet rapid increase in the costs. And so like literally we have clients that are saying we're going to get out of search advertising entirely.

And frankly, having conversations with Traditional ad people and going like, Hey, we need more display, like in a community, you [00:39:00] know, like in some industries website, like, like we want to be in the right place at the right time. It's this over focus on like the single channel that the, like, what was the lead source?

And the thing is. The three of us are having this conversation, right? Probably understanding and having the same POV. Somebody go educate a CFO

Matt Amundson: right,

Adam Needles: beat the shit out of you, of your budget, because they want some sort of forensic proof of the source.

Matt Amundson: yeah,

Adam Needles: tackling the wrong problem. And so that's why I go, when you talk about this blueprint, Craig, I think the starting place has got to be the hops.

And then what you're going to do is you're going to go, okay, the blueprint then becomes saying, how do we mean, you know, how do we have telemetry across the hops? Meaning like knowing what stage someone's at, what they're doing, you know, intent engagement, like being able to see that. Cause it's not about funnel management.

It's really about just understanding [00:40:00] where someone is in the journey. And then it's also saying, Hey, At different stages, let's rationalize the different modes of engagement that make the most sense, including When do they want to start engaging with a seller? Like don't, you know, every seller is like, Oh, and I get engaged earlier in the process.

Maybe the buyer doesn't want you engaged earlier in the process, but your company should be engaged earlier in the process. That's the problem you should be solving for. And how do you get there? Even though they don't want to talk to your seller.

Craig Rosenberg: Okay. I get it. The, and the blueprint makes a complete sense. Can I just mention something I've mentioned three times so can groan really quick and then we'll go back to it. Um, you know, we talked about the CEO and COO. Actually, now that I sort of sit in my seat, the biggest education point for this change is board level. I agree. Um, we need a storyline. So [00:41:00] like, let's say Adam, Matt and I left this and said, Adam's nailed it. Chief growth officer, all this stuff that I'd say, well, look, you can't write a book like you, you, well, you can't write a book. You got to write the book. I'm sorry. That wasn't it. The book's part of it. But the big one is like.

Matt has to go before the board and there's someone up there is like, well, I don't see how, you know, you're talking about attribution that is actually that started with a defensive mechanism and is now. A board level ability for them or the CFO to see something,

Adam Needles: right?

Craig Rosenberg: And, uh, and so there's a, the education actually, uh, there's a ton of education required for what you're talking about.

Uh, but like the, there's a board level education here thing, I think because it's very, there's a, there's a really good business. Acumen exercise and what you just said that I think it will resonate. [00:42:00] We just need to be able to better talk about it. Um, and so just, uh, I say it all the time, but I've learned this.

I stopped. Like, I know you're not necessarily, uh, an ABM guy or whatever guy, but let me just take that for example, you know, part of the ABM thing was like, we'll move away from MQLs and you want to do this, but nobody told the board. They, they didn't, and they didn't explain it to the CEO

Adam Needles: Right.

Craig Rosenberg: and until you do that, you're asking, you know, it's like, we need everyone on board.

So, so. So I get it. I actually think the blueprint, uh, is really helpful here.

Like I, I'm just sitting here going, man, like, uh, the blueprint Is actually this tie that binds the ELT, the folks that they could see this. And it makes total sense. And in what you're describing, frankly, Adam is when you say insights, there's a fair amount of research that creates that [00:43:00] insight that makes what the blueprint looks like credible.

And then the second part is. The, the, uh, it remains credible because you do have to revisit it. Um, and look at, you know, as you said, you had, you were talking about with the, I forget the name of the company you gave as examples, like eight functions in a room looking at the data across that blueprint and what's working and what's not working.

And as a group, we, we make adjustments. Um,

I feel

Adam Needles: Well, which which means, and so just let me insert here. A key call out in what you just said there is that, and so that means that there's insights that start the blueprint, but basically like you need to think about your analytics, not in a defensive way. But in a way where they can be diagnostic and can actually help you tune and see, you know, I, everybody always talks about like different analogies of like how to see demand, like, you know, there's a factory mindset, like, Oh, it's about these different stages and, you know, regardless of how you talk [00:44:00] about it, there still is this need to go like, Hey, are we seeing you talk The, the interactions and the, the efficacy, the like result of different stages.

And like, you need to be able to, when you have the conversation about like the, like how well the blueprint is, is doing, you need to make sure that you've created actual dashboards and metrics that can then tell you how you tune the blueprint, not then lead you in some alternative activity to just defend.

You know, marketing spent.

Craig Rosenberg: so we would start with the blueprint and then like, Um, I'm just trying to think about it from getting started, right? So, like, we're gonna lead this effort to develop the blueprint. I love that. Makes a ton of sense.

Matt Amundson: Yeah. Um,

Craig Rosenberg: with them across those touch points. [00:45:00] And then we create a set of systems so that we can look at and optimize that. So what, is there anything else we need to think?

Cause that, Well, so, so yeah,

Adam Needles: there's a critical step here. So then, and this brings us back to the start of the spicy entry point, uh, about this CMO. So it's like, so once you've got this sense of the journeys. The programs, you know, the, the content interactions, the sales enablement interactions, the qual, the systems, the data, like you said, like once you've got all that, you still have a fundamental, like elephant in the room, what is the organizational stewardship of that journey? Mm. And how do you rationalize the roles of a field marketer, of a web designer at your firm, of a content marketer, of a lead developer, of an inside seller, of a sales engineer, of an enterprise accounts, you know, leader, you [00:46:00] know, big game hunter, right? Like, so you think about this continuum of these people around the go to market process.

And by the way, It also exists in the post sale. Like we completely just like, you want to talk about how unsophisticated companies can be, let's start talking about the post sale demand engagement. Right. Like the lack of any, like we, we talk about the, we always talk about pre sale having like a clear, engaged, nurture, convert mindset.

And then we talk about post sale having a succeed, develop, grow. Nobody is focused on anything other than account renewal in the, in the post sale. Right. Like there's no, But I go back to, and I'm getting sidetracked there, the org, right? We need to rationalize these sales and marketing roles against that process, that journey, that is what we're defining the blueprint, right?

Like we've got every other piece, Craig, but who owns, and, and if you don't have a clear [00:47:00] sense of who owns what by stage, Then nobody owns it. Then you have gaps and then you have a buyer that is off doing their own thing.

Craig Rosenberg: You know, I'm going to cue you because one thing I noticed about Matt is in his blueprint, no, he has an incredible way of simplifying. You know, early, cause he's an early, he's an early stage, uh, leader. And like, uh, when I've looked, you know, I've known, I've been friends with him for years and I've watched the way he takes the, what looks so complex and it's so messy and takes that, you know, his version of the blueprint, he really simplifies.

Um, and I don't know, Matt, is that purposeful or what? But like, it is pretty extraordinary when I think about it. Um, you know how you sort of take the, all of these nuances and complexities, but you, you think of, you know, your blueprints are pretty simplified in a good way,

Matt Amundson: Yeah, I mean, one, it's just [00:48:00] because I like to try to make it accessible to everybody in the organization, especially people that don't have any go to market So important. And, and two, I sort of live by that. Like, if you can't explain this to your parents, then you shouldn't be trying to explain it to other people, you know, which is, and my parents are very non technical, so, um, uh, you know, I also think that like there, even though things are very complicated and very complex, uh, the more you proselytize how complicated and complex they are, the more afraid people get.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. I think it's about being sophisticated, not complex. Like you don't want an unsophisticated go to market. You want an absolutely sophisticated, you just don't want a complex go to market.

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, I love the way you just said before, by the way, Adam, I didn't mean to move right off it, but as you were talking, I was, I was thinking about, uh, you know, Matt's sort of simplification magical power. Uh, by the way, my parents, my dad asked me what I [00:49:00] do last week.

I've been

Adam Needles: that go?

Craig Rosenberg: years. Um, and then before that, when I was just, you know, like in my thirties, I was a teacher before I joined tech and the holiday card would still say, Craig's still teaching people because they could not figure out what I did.

Hey, yeah, I don't know if I can, I don't know if the simplification will work on my parents.

Um, That's the heart. That's the, that's the hardest. That's the hardest simplification for any of us to drive is. My parents are lovely people and I know that they support whatever I'm doing. I'm pretty sure they don't know what I do. So Yeah. One thing, Adam, since you work with other verticals, my one thing I did, uh, learn at Gartner was that, um, It did feel like the other verticals besides tech were less sophisticated, but more aligned and integrated and more closer to [00:50:00] the chief growth officer idea than tech. Um, you know, when I, I, you know, there was, as you know, it's like, there's no CRO in financial services.

It's the chief business or chief commercial officer. And like, You know, they really did think about

Matt Amundson: I

Craig Rosenberg: it just, they weren't as, you know, like, you know, when I talked to a tech leader, it'd be like, Ooh, intent data, what should we go do? And then, you know, financial services folks, there was at the beginning of that sort of sophistication journey.

But in terms of your, you know, chief growth officer idea and like, um, better alignment, it felt, it feels like in some of those other verticals that are farther along

there. I don't know if I, I, I will say that there's also a little bit more of a sense of, there's some amazing marketers and people who truly lead, but they have a sense of, but they're in service too. So like at a financial [00:51:00] institution, I feel like, you know, think about some of the banks that we've worked with where we're like literally.

Adam Needles: You know, you know, mid market to corporate, you know, kind of banking, you know, we're targeting the corporate treasurer, the CFO, the controller, like engaging literally there's a banker that needs to build a value added relationship to these folks. And marketing needs to support that. It's, it's so fascinating to me 'cause I, let's talk about, um, I've emailed a whole lot of people in my lifetime, a lot of different personas across a lot of different industries.

I will tell you that if I email A-A-C-I-O or CISO from a, a software or hardware provider with some sort of value added. Report something that's truly beneficial. That would help them. They will just delete it immediately. Whereas at a banking institution, if like the CFO gets a report from their bank.

You know, from [00:52:00] their, their banking relationship manager. Like they're like download that, print it out. They're marketing it up. They're like, there's a very different relationship that has been established there. Um, and I think that there's a sense of respect for the time of the people that are engaging with.

And so I think we could all learn a lot from other industries outside of our own, particularly if we spend a lot of time in tech, where. Everything, the banker, the marketers in service to a value added relationship, not interrupting, not like, you know, it's always gotta be something that's meaningful and that leads to a good Working relationship.

I, um, I, I got this email, uh, recently from a, uh, a seller at some sort of cybersecurity services provider. And the headline was literally something like, like, you know, you know, so are we going to talk or something like that? It was like something like super [00:53:00] disrespectful, super interrupted. The note had no value add.

I immediately. Screenshot it, put it up on my LinkedIn. I was like, this is literally like the death of cold email, you know? And I'm not trying to shame that person. Well, a little bit, but I'm not trying to shame that person. But I actually, like, I want us all to look at that and go like, this is how bad we get sometimes.

Matt Amundson: Mm hmm.

Adam Needles: should generate demand based on a value added interaction.

Matt Amundson: Yes. Oftentimes. Honestly. Oftentimes.

Adam Needles: And by the way, I talked to their CMO like later that day. And his comment was like, well, we have a range of tactics that we use. And I was like. They were targeting me because I'm the CEO of a company, you know, we're sizable in our space. Right. And they're targeting me with their services. And I'm like, I'm just telling you, Mr.

CMO, like I am your prospective customer might've bought your services, but [00:54:00] not. And here's why he didn't even want to hear the feedback. He was actually like, Oh, well, you know, we have a lot of different ways we try and connect with. Prospects. I'm like, I know you sent one of them to me and I'm telling you, don't do that again.

I

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah.

Matt Amundson: It's bad. It's hurting your brand. You should care about your brand more than

anybody. Come actually try to be really helpful in the, I always try to give really positive, like constructive feedback to people. If I have an issue with something like I, sometimes we all like our gut is like get mad about, or like, you know, or, or just shut down and not say anything. If something is, if service is really bad, marketing is really bad.

Adam Needles: I usually try to get feedback. And I was like blown away to be having a conversation with this guy. He called me. And so like, I'm like talking to him on the phone and saying, can I just give you some feedback about this and why this doesn't work? And, um, he just was not having it. I was, uh, and, and so I, I think we've got to rewire tech.

I don't, I, again, I apologize if I've got us off track here, but like, [00:55:00] I think something came out of the conversation a couple of minutes ago, which is that like other industries have a different, like go to market mindset. I actually think that tech. Really needs to like grow up and go like, let's respect prospect.

Let's stop harassing the prospect.

Matt Amundson: Yeah. I think there's a lot of truth to that. And I, you know, it's interesting cause I don't think I, I talk about this a lot on the show cause we've had a lot of people on this on the show who are, you know, early stage Marketo, early stage Eloqua, early stage HubSpot, sales loft, outreach, et cetera. And everybody who's, you know, gone on from those organizations feel somewhat guilty for the state of things. Um, you know, just, just because we've made it so easy to send an email and to send lots of them. Uh, you know, that was the intention. Never was to be annoying and non value additive or anything like that. It's just where it went [00:56:00] because it's easier to send more than it's easier than it is to send good. And that's, that's, I think the, the, the overall problem that we're in. I think we're, we're, we're all sort of in search of like, what is the next wave of demand generally going to look like? What's the new playbook? Adam, I think you said something here that's very profound, which is like, the new playbook is to have a

playbook Yes,

and people just don't have it.

And they're doing random acts of selling, random acts of marketing. There's no cohesion between what anybody's doing. And then, you know, to, to, to put the cherry on top of all of it, here comes somebody and throws you an email that looks like that, which, you know, I get a dozen of those emails a day as well.

And I, I'm just turned off as you are. So. It's, uh, I think starting with a blueprint is my big takeaway from, from this call today. And I think that that is a really, really important component of what we discussed on today's call. And something that everybody should be thinking about is what is that one [00:57:00] blueprint that everybody in ELT is aligned around, whether you're building products, selling product, marketing product, uh, or, or keeping the finances together around the product that, that, that you're bringing to market.

Adam Needles: a hundred percent. One, one footnote to that. Uh, uh, AI is going to be really important in all this. AI is not a blueprint. Like you need a blueprint before you start sticking AI. in this I just feel like there's a need to say that because everybody is just substituting their lack of go to market for AI. Mm. And I, I don't think that AI is the solution to your bad go to market. I think. To your point, you need, your playbook needs a playbook and then, then plug AI into like where it makes sense in this. Cause AI is going to be super powerful in your go to market.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. All right. Well, that was awesome. It was a deep conversation. I, [00:58:00] uh, I thought, um, I thought initially, Oh God, another guy trying to do the alignment, the executive alignment play. But actually, even if you didn't create a chief growth officer, there was a lot to learn on how you would just frankly do better go to market The blueprint was huge.

And as Adam said, this is what you should talk about. And, uh, so that, as you said, I mean, that's like, I can do that at seed. I can do that when I'm a multi billion dollar company,

Matt Amundson: Yep.

Craig Rosenberg: better decisions about everything, like use. And then I liked how you're saying like blueprint, then resources, like, you know, those, that is.

That is, uh, that is really important. So, um, I just, I would say this overall, I think this is a big one. I, I, I wasn't kidding. Like to bang the drum, if you thought about on your side, Adam, all the stakeholders involved in making this [00:59:00] change in mentality, you might think the same thing, that's what I think is that.

We often get the early adopter person attracted to innovation to latch onto these things. And those people often fail when they go up and when they go down. And, and, and, and like helping sort of, uh, folks explain that and, and bring it to the table and how we're going to look at, I think is going to be, you do the right thing for the

world. Well, hopefully this is so Craig, you're still teaching. You're

Oh, well, thank you. Well, I appreciate that. All right, guys. Well, that was the transaction. That's what kind of stuff we want to talk about here, Adam. So that was, uh, that was a great conversation. And I just want to say, it's good to see you, man.

And thanks.

Adam Needles: Good to see you too. And, and Matt, good to connect with you as well. And I appreciate you guys taking the time to include

Matt Amundson: it was awesome. Thanks, Adam.

Craig Rosenberg: All right, brother.

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