5 Must-Know GTM Trends for Your 2024 Growth Plan with Craig Rosenberg

Craig: The market has to help you decide on a category and you have to be in one.

John: Welcome to Growth Driver, where the best minds in B2B are redefining growth. 
Welcome to the show, everybody. John Common here. I am the CEO and founder of Intelligent Demand. But more importantly, I am a total B2B growth geek, which is why I am thrilled to be your host here on Growth Driver.
So, we're talking today about the most important go to market trends that CEOs, CMOs, CROs need to put front and center as they move into 2024. 
Look, I get it. It is easy to get caught up in short term fire drills, tactical priorities. But when the growth game is changing as much and as fast as it is these days, uh, it's important to step back and make sure you're not, uh, what's the phrase? Stepping over dollars to pick up nickels, right?
So, we've identified five strategically important trends that we think you really have to account for as you're evolving and up leveling your growth engine, the way you go to market.
So on the show today, what we're going to do is walk through each of these trends and not only, um, dig into the risks that you need to watch out for, but also identify the opportunities that you get to unlock as long as you do really understand and act on these trends.
And so. I have teed up the perfect guest. Truly. The perfect guest to help me do this today.
Craig Rosenberg is a veteran of B2B sales, B2B marketing, B2B technology. Uh, this guy has a data lake's worth of experience when it comes to B2B growth. He's been a senior, market analyst, a consultant. He co founded Topo that got acquired by Gartner.
He is now the chief platform officer at Scale Venture Partners, where he helps, I don't know how many companies, the entire portfolio, uh, build better go to market engines.
Craig and I share, a similar obsession with helping B2B companies grow revenue. Craig, welcome to Growth Driver, my friend.

Craig: John, I can't think of a better way to spend an hour than hanging out with you today. 
And actually, that is pretty true. You are a fun time. It happens that we're filming and recording it. You know what I mean.
John: I know, I know. What took us so long? I like, by the way, you look great in those glasses.
Craig: You know what's crazy? Do you want to know about these glasses?
John: I do want to know about these glasses. 
Craig: Yeah. I lose things all the time. And I, uh, lose glasses all the time. So everyone, you know, I have all these different kinds of glasses, everyone's like, "My God, your glasses game is so on point." And it's like. These are like 3, 6, 12 packs at Costco, because if I'm there, I just buy more, because I lose them all the time.
John: You always look fabulous. I am really excited to dig in on these topics with you today.
Craig: Great. 
John: And what we're going to do is I'm going to set a little bit of context, get your take on the context, kind of the state, state of play right now in B2B growth. And then we're going to dive right into each of these five big trends.
Okay, so. First off, let's talk about some of the context and, you know, the elephant in the room that everybody knows. I think the most important context is the real deal pivot from growth at all costs, to efficient growth. 
Okay, we get it, right? But I, my take is that I've been watching, you know, our industry move through basically the five stages of grief when it comes to like, really, they're really beginning to metabolize the truth that efficient growth is real deal. 
And that has major ramifications. It's not going away. Shit's getting real. That's what I'm seeing as, and I don't even call that a trend. I think that's the base canvas upon which we are going to market now. Is that how you see it?
Craig: Well, yeah. I mean, I'm now working at a venture firm, so I am definitely in on efficient growth. 
Uh, but yeah, no, I, I do. I think, you know, what, like, one theme, I think, as we talk about megatrends is we have this, like, uh, collision here between, um, the need to grow, the need to do it, um, cost effectively, and a just, I mean, dynamic would be the positive buzzword to put on the business environment. But it's just, 
chaotic and it changed literally overnight.
So you've got, you know, the, the things you might have turned to, to drive efficient growth, uh, don't work as well anymore. And so now it's like, see if that's like this big sort of combustible situation, right? Because we have to be able to do better. Right. In an efficient way with a market that is making it harder to do better. 
And so, I mean, it's, it's a, it's a tough scenario. It does open us up to sort of finally reevaluate things and sort of rebuild back up with, you know, potentially better best practices and habits.
But, you know, um, and we can talk about tech, tech, I think, you know, as AI starts to, you know, come to the fore, there might be some real great elements there that will allow us to do this stuff more efficiently, but we can talk about that later.
But yeah, I mean, that's the, that's the scenario. And it's, it's tough.
John: Yeah, yeah, that I, the corner that I've turned in the last several weeks is is and I was I know I was joking about the five stages of grief, but I've been kind of going through it honestly myself, which is like, you know, what denial, anger and then eventually you arrive at acceptance. 
And, uh, and that's where I think is the is the is the right place to be. Which is, "Okay, this is how it is. Let's look at it as an opportunity to make happen the things that maybe we weren't quite getting to because we didn't have to, but now we have to." 
And so that is a perfect kind of tee up of the first trend, and you just alluded to it a second ago, and that is the traditional B2B growth playbook clearly needs to be rewritten. 
Right?
So, so how do we know what are the root causes of that? And we were, you and I were just talking about the root causes behind that trend. It's the end of free money. It's the dangling of promise of AI. Um, I think it's also the, the root cause of the need to rewrite that playbook, also has a lot of um, I think we're paying for sins that we didn't have to pay for in the past.
You know? Um, what are some root causes, maybe some, some ones that I, that I didn't mention around why do we need to rewrite that playbook now?
Craig: Yeah, I mean, look, the efficiency part of the playbook, that's internal, that's our, what we need to do. 
John: Right.
Craig: The playbook is broken because the buyers have changed. It was funny because for years, we had this narrative, the buyers changed, right? But we didn't really change. I mean, like we did a little bit, but that was really like this marketing, uh, that allowed us to buy marketing automation and other things, by the way, which is a good purchase. I'm not saying that.
John: But we didn't change our behaviors. We bought tools.
Craig: Yeah, right. Now the buyer has. [changed] Like the environment has like, you know, and it's not fair, but like, Google AdWords, you know, easy money, basically a, a solid part of a demand gen playbook changed. 
Um, content. You know, consumption, form fills, webinars, things that drove, uh, registrations, those things are harder than they've ever been.
Um, so, you know, basically we, there's all these easy rules like, well, let's send an email, we'll get X number of form fills and that's become harder. And then like a big one for me. So like, you know, in my world in tech, we would say, well, look, we got to fill the pipeline and let's say marketing through marketing efforts could do, I'll just give a round number, 50%.
Um, then we literally could fill it with SDRs. We could say, well, the other, you know, 30 percent with 20 percent is like, you know, stuff in the old pipeline or whatever. Uh, we could throw 30, 20 somethings at it. You have them go outbound, send a ton of emails, and come back with 20, 30 meetings a month. 
And the SDR output has plummeted. So, you know, and that's the buyer reacting to it. It's not, nothing changed there, right? Right.
John: Right. 
Craig: Like, you know, we are paying for our sins. And like, as you said, I quoted you. Is, uh, so, you know, the, the, the quote unquote traditional B2B, we should, we should think about the traditional thing.
I mean, we're talking only for like 15 years, right? I mean. The word conversion rate was invented in what? 2001? Was like when it was first used on Google AdWords really started to take off and all the mortgage guys and online education guys started to hit. So that's not that long. That's 23 years. 
So that's not, it's not that long. Um, but it, it did change overnight.

You know, it's funny. I was, I tell people the story I had, uh, you know, Megan Eisenberg, who's kind of been like an icon in digital demand gen for years. She was speaking at our go to market summit and she's like, look like, uh, you know, uh, Google Ads aren't working as well. 
You know, our content lead nurturing plays aren't working as well. And, you know, so we've had to make adjustments and, um. That's kind of, for me, that's a bellwether demand gen person, and that just shows that we're in sort of a, uh, like, it's a, again, a confluence of things. We need pipelines so bad, and the buying market is like, they're, you know, uh, it's a combination of they've changed in how they want to consume. 
There's also changed on what and how much they can buy. 
John: Right.
Craig: And so, like, these things sort of got crazy, but then. Here's the thing I'm going to throw on the top. You ready for this? 
John: Yeah hit me.
Craig: On the top, particularly in technology is it is like, I mean, it is impossible to figure out who's who or what's what. And so it's really confusing.
And so, um, you know, all of these things, so you've got, You know, like, let's say you're in, uh, let's say conversation intelligence. So you're Gong or Course or whatever. And, um, you know, basically you would go and sell and you're in your micro category.
John: Yeah. 
Craig: So you'd go reach out and whatever. So now when you're trying to engage the buyer, you're not just competing against the other conversation intelligence, you're competing against every sales tech vendor in there.
John: That's right. 
Craig: Positioning themselves that to solve the same problems you are. 
John: Most of whom, let me add on, most of whom are running the same increasingly obsolete playbook, A. B, many of whom are using the same terminology, uh, and, and, and, and they say attribution, they say growth, they say revenue, they say, uh, all the, and it's very confusing to the buyer who to your earlier point goes back to their office and has a meeting with the CFO that says, "Tell me what you can cut."
So like this confluence that you're talking about is, and we're not here talking about, I'm not trying to do catastrophizing the situation, 
Craig: No, no. Yeah yeah no for sure.
John: But it's, it's, it's real. And I think, I think what, what. Again, trend one that we're talking about is the traditional growth playbook has to be updated. Right?
And, and, and I think what the causes that you've put your finger on, Craig, are one of the net effects of all of it is that the idea that was always naive, I think of, "Hey, what's the one silver bullet tactic or the one extra next piece of software I can buy that will get me through the year so I can hit my pipeline number?" 
That has always been a naive, I think, an incomplete approach to dealing with the things you're talking about. But now, um, we're, we're, we're out of that. That, that shit is not gonna work anymore. And I think we're staring at a exciting and a very overdue, um, overhaul of, of how we go to market that has to be rooted, in my opinion, in, the fundamentals that have always been true, A. But also leverage, be willing and courageous enough to leverage some of the new, innovative stuff and let go of some old muscle memory. And that's what I think. 
And let's talk about indicators. So if you're a CMO, CRO, CEO at a B2B company. How might you know that your growth playbook isn't a little out of date, but very out of date? 
So here's some thoughts I want to get you get your take on. 
Your CAC, your Customer Acquisition Costs, are totally your CACs out of whack. And it ain't getting better.
That's number one. You're missing your pipeline targets over and over again. Your coverage for your revenue goal or your ARR goal, your coverage is not what it needs to be.
Or maybe, yeah, you've been three to one on your coverage, but three to one isn't good enough. And now you're saying we got to be four to one, we got to be five to one. Um, these are some, uh, declining engagement rates, declining conversion rates. So if you're experiencing any or all of these, don't go put your head in the sand, rewrite your growth playbook. 
That's my take. What do you think about that?
Craig: Yeah. Right. That's right. I mean, but, and again, we're, we just, maybe this part of the, uh, podcast will be all catastrophizing and then we'll go figure out the rest. Because that, I mean, like, uh, you, you brought up coverage ratio, right? Like, that's technically supposed to be a byproduct of your win rate. 
Okay?
John: That's right. That's right. 
Craig: And, win rates are down.
John: If my win rate is 33%, then I should only need three times my goal.
Craig: A little, a little bit, okay, a little bit more. But like, yeah, down, like a lot of folks are, uh, I mean, sometimes 10 points, 15 points lower than that, um, you know, you got to improve your sales conversion. 
But at the end of the day, you're to hit the number, if nothing changes, particularly in the near quarter, your coverage ratio changes, which means you need more pipeline. 
Which once again goes back to these things where everything's sort of hitting at once, which is like, but it's not easy.
John: Right. 
Craig: Like, yeah, I mean, like, you know, I look at everyone and I said, well, you know, your pipeline ratio should change.
Now, there are other things and other things we can talk about that allow you to think about pipeline ratios on the net new side being higher, the customer expansion side lower.
John: Yeah, right, right. 
Craig: It's a good way to even it out, which we can talk about. Um, but yeah, I mean, I mean, it's like, so, so that's why it was, um, you know, the, the, the coverage ratio thing is really interesting to me because, uh, you know, basically, uh, there, there is a chance.
I don't want this to happen, but for many companies, their 10 percent close rate means, well, A, they're just in big trouble. But, uh, that's a, you know, technically that's like a 10 to 1 ratio and that, that's going to be really hard to do. You have to increase your conversion rates, which we can talk about what you need to do for that.
John: But where you're going is, is the, is the rounding out of the first one, which is, okay, great. Craig and John, what do I do about it? What's the advice? So go there, man. Uh, what are some things, if you're suffering from that coverage or that low or that declining win rate? What's a, what's a piece of advice or an insight you have?
Craig: Well, one thing I think, um, so one, it's important to sort of start with this like idea that you brought up. Which is a lot of things that we've talked about for a long time, but didn't make a way of life or, you know, thought of it as old school, or in some cases thought of it as radical. Which is the one I'm going to talk about in a sec. Those things come to light now.
So one is everyone assumed that account based was why you got an ideal customer profile. And you're wrong. Your go to market has to be guided by an ideal customer profile.
John: Preach it. Preach it. Yeah. Show me a company, show me a company that doesn't need an ICP and I'll show you a dead company. 
Craig: Yeah. I mean, it's like, guys, I mean, you know, there, uh, there were volume billion dollar companies that decided they have an ICP. Right? And said, we're only going to sell it to _. Because you, you have to make really good decisions. 
If you think about how much it's like, because one of the things that we're sort of leading up to is that one silver bullet doesn't work. So you can't take the whole world and, and hit them out of outreach or sales law.
John: 100 percent. All right. All right. So, yeah. 
Craig: That's a big one, though. That's a big one.
John: Yeah, keep going, though, because you said there's this other one.
I want to hear the other one. 
Craig: Well, no, I mean, like, let's just start there. Like the, um, you know, you everyone needs an ICP. And like, even if your product, you know, a lot of smart product growth folks. Right. So you think is like, let everyone in. They know it's not let everyone in. The conversion rates are tough in product led growth.
So they know to identify based on uh, ICP attributes, the folks that should be in your product, right, and should buy your product. I think, um, so we're getting like tactical, but not really. The ICP strategic. That's something like you, everyone in the world in the company should be focused on. The other one is like, um, I have a con.
So, um, on the playbook side, I have this, I'm going to sound like I'm contradicting myself. You might get comments on LinkedIn. Because I do want to talk about the buying committee because there's these shadow buyers and all these people that are killing your deals. Okay. But from a pipeline perspective, uh, I think it's important to identify the entry point.
I don't care what level they are. That get that you- to concentrate on a persona is like, if you look back, is the key to a lot of these companies that grew fast.
It's like Marketo didn't talk to the CMO for like 10 years.
You know, they've, they had the marketing ops to manage in person, which were likely roughly the same thing. 
And they sold the living crap out of those guys. They understood them. 
Now at a certain point, they, yes, they had to move up market to get bigger deals and to like. But I'm not move up the chain, but they found that persona. Like I just met with a CEO guy's brilliant. He's a sales driven CEO. And he's like, he's like, you know, we need help with our messaging.
And he's like, but I'm going to tell you, man, I don't want any of this all over the place stuff. We're going to choose one persona, 
John: Focus.
Craig: -and we are going to, you know, so they have an ICP it's clear.
John: Yeah. 
Craig: And now in that ICP, we are going to beat the crap – that sounds – like, I'm, that's very sales of me to say, but it is.
One persona you can, and that's where you, you know, you can, uh, that concentration, the data will tell you who starts your deals. Or who touches all your deals. And also who's more likely to consume your content. 
You got to take those odds and go. And everyone's like, well, we got to call higher to win more deals. Yeah, you do, but you got to get in the door. Your biggest problem right now is getting in the door.
John: Yeah. 
Craig: And so, ICP and then entry point. Let's focus on those two things and let's build around those. Um, and we can build plays after, but like in terms of a pipeline, but we need those two things. So I think those are two smart things to do. Yeah. 
John: Very smart. Um, love it. So just wrap up advice for how, what should folks do who have been convinced, hopefully in the last 10 minutes, like, yeah, yeah, we do have this issue. It's time to rewrite our playbook. The two things, Craig, you just said, boom, I'll, I'll throw a few thoughts too.
One is as you go to rewrite your playbook. Actually recognize you're rewriting a playbook, which is the opposite of looking for the latest silver bullet tactic. So that sounds obvious, but like literally my first piece of advice. Think of it as a strategic rewrite of a cross functional growth play. 
That's number one.
Number two, at your company right now, you got to get super clear and super focused about your growth goals. Not all of the growth, like what are the things that like, what are your growth goals for acquisition, retention, and expansion? How do you measure it from a KPI standpoint? And cut the shit, real deal truth, about your priorities and your budget and your timing constraints. If you only have a dollar to spend, don't let your go to market team go out there as if they have 10 to spend. It is. I see it all the time. There's just this like, uh, delusional thinking within go to market teams that has to be stamped out. 
That's number two.
Number three, design one new model, what we call it ID, we call it an integrated growth play. And there's all kinds of flavors. 
You can do them for acquisition. You can do them for retention. You can do them for expansion. You can do them account based. You can do them one to many. You can do them PLG. 
You can do them customer led. You partner led.
Pick, I don't care. But pick one and say, we are going to get really good at this. And if you want my recommendation for the average typical B2B company out there, the one you ought to do is some flavor of probably a one to few account based motion. Probably expansion.
Craig: Mm hmm. 
John: Or acquisition. So, the two pieces of advice that you gave are awesome, those are my three, moving on. Trend number two. Trend number two.
Craig: Number two, okay. 
John: Yeah, we got, we got a lot to cover.
Craig: All right, all right, yeah, yeah. 
John: All right, come on, we could talk all day. So, trend number two that you need to be really cognizant of as you're going into '24 is, and you've seen this all over LinkedIn, and rightfully so, is the need to bring balance back to the brand - demand sales equation. 
Okay?
We have, in my opinion, over rotated for a loooong time on demand capture and demand conversion, a. k. a. sales. To the, to the negligence of brand. And I think what's been causing that is years and years and years of over rotating and over focusing on the most active bottom of funnel demand. I get why. I'm not saying that's bad. But we have over rotated. And ended up, now, in so many companies, they have basically, uh, neglected the top of the buying journey. Which I think it's not about, geez, I want to see my logo more when I log on to the Financial Times website or whatever. 
That's not what it's about. It's about shaping how customers understand their pain and understand their category so that they think about you, uh, in the short list, uh, when they buy. 
So that's it. That's the trend. That's my take on the cause. But talk to me about causes and indicators around this misbalance between reputation building top of funnel versus mid and bottom of funnel.
Craig: Well, I mean, I, uh, I'm worried I'm going to catastrophize. So I'm going to say this. And your question was the answer. 
I mean, you can't like the...
So brand, and when I talk about positioning, like I'm in the world of tech, you need one, the market has to help you decide on a category and you have to be in one. There's, you know, product market fit, part of it is like, you know, is market and you have to be creating a market that the buyers go. 
So, you know, so many people are trying to deposition themselves out of a market because it's sort of been, uh, defined by, I mean, I worked at Gartner, could be defined by Gartner, whatever that is. And it's like, no.
Like we have to, you have to carve your P you can use a current category and carve your differentiated view of it. 
Or you can work to create one, which is really hard. 
But if you don't have one, then the buyers don't have, like, so we talked about conversation intelligence. That's stuck. It hit. Like people go, you know what? I, I, I need to look into conversation intelligence. So that's one. And then number two is like, you know, there's positioning. Guess what?
You're positioning to be in a top two position. Um, and that is not easy. So we're, you and I are like on our soapbox here. But like, uh, you, the second part is what you have to be, you know, considered here, right? Because what we talked about before is the hard day, right? So people are looking for new technology. But like, look, you know, three years ago, you could cold email someone without a category without the market thinking about you and you might get a deal.
You know why? Because there was 0 percent interest rates and you would the buyer could be like, "Yeah, you know what? What is it? $40K? Yeah, let's go for it." Right? Now, there's no going for it, guys. That's right. You know, and so, uh, 
John: There has to be a direct connection between a prioritized pain or opportunity in the buyer that they consciously say, "I have that pain and I am willing to prioritize it today." 
A connection between that and your solution. And I, to me, that, that leads to some of the indicators around this trend. If you are in a B2B company that you think might be out of balance between brand versus demand and sales. Top of funnel versus mid and bottom of funnel. How do you know? Well, number one, dropping engagement rates. 
Number two, if you're not being invited into deals, if you're not on the short list, that's a major indicator. And I'll, I'll offer a third indicator or symptom of being way out of balance. If, if brand at your company is misunderstood as identity or, I mean, logo or, or even what I just call kind of corporate narcissism versus what you were, what you were just talking about. 
What brand really should mean is reputation and positioning and, uh, and, and category, if not category creation, category strategy. Craig: Yeah.
John: I think, I think that's an indicator at your company that you've got some work to do. Um, are there any other indicators or symptoms of a company that's out of whack?
Craig: No, but I think it is important to remember that what you said at the start, which is.
It mattered, but it didn't. You could outbound and playbook your way into this position with bad brand and positioning. That's not the case anymore, right? And so, uh, you can't beat the market into submission. 
You're not going to get the money for it, first of all. 
John: That's right.
Craig: Um, you know, because we were just taking troughs of money and just beating the market into submission. 
Now we've got to be smart. And so what you talked about is really key. You'll, you'll know, um, if you're, as you said, you're being invited into deals. You know, it's so funny. We used to laugh at people that looked at unprompted, uh, mentions on social, remember? Like radiant, the radiant six sort of, uh, dell, you know, aerospace, um, mission center. 
But actually, that's interesting, right? Like, um, now with all the way that you know, buyers sort of trade information. Are you in that narrative? The big one for me though, by the way, is like, this isn't a quantitative look, but like a qualitative. Now that we're in this like moment in time, like this must win scenario that the value prop building, you know, it's something that you just realized what you, you were resonating with me so hard. 
So I hate to agree with you. So much, but I'll put it in a different way, which is like, when you say what you do, that's when the buyer personally derives ROI. 
Because everyone's worried about the ROI models at the end, you need those that's for finance. If your buyer needs an ROI model, then they're not a buyer. 
They should be able to hear what you do and go, "Hell, I need that." Like, you know, we want it. So I'll give you an example. Marketing automation, we keep using it because you and I are in the game.
It's like, we did a whole bunch of like marketing around like lipstick on the pig. People wanted to send a lot of emails and track them. 
They did. And like they can feel that.
And yeah, the other stuff they bought, they never use, so we know that, right. So, uh, you know, the, you know, the, the, that's one where, the, I'm not sure the positioning worked as well as the category. 
The category of marketing automation, people knew, "Hey man, like I need this because every one of my competitors is sending and tracking their outbound," you know, not their outbound but their emails to people.
And it's like, they could feel it. They understood it. They could feel it. I need that. Right. And so, you know, as you know, as we think about, you know, how we talk about our products, if you have to justify it to the buyer, the actual person who will use it and benefit from it, then you got a problem. 
John: Right.
Craig: The ROI stuff is for the other people who have no idea what you do and have to sign off. 
John: That's right. Yeah, I've got it.
Raise your hand if you've thought or said B2B content sucks. I have. All right. What's the antidote? What's the solution? And the answer is courageous, creative that lives at the intersection between your goals, your strategy, and your target audience.
If you need a partner who can really move the needle with the right creative, the right messaging, the right content, and the right calls to action – go to IntelligentDemand.com, schedule a meeting with a creative expert.

John: Advice. So I'm at a company that I now recognize that we are out of balance between brand and demand and sales. What do I do about it? 
I've got two thoughts. I bet you've got a bunch more. So one is, and I alluded to this second, first piece of advice is you've got to redefine what brand means at your company from corporate narcissism and what I call brand on an island, totally disconnected. To helping your target customer really understand the risks and the opportunities associated with the problem you solve.
So that that's the first thing. 
Second piece of advice I would offer is you got to connect brand to demand to sales to see this. Like for real. And you have to, you have to operationalize that. 
And, and, and by it's what you were just talking about. It is operationalize really compelling, on point positioning, messaging, content, calls to action. 
And then, and this is the second piece, which no one likes when I, when I bring this up, is, great, we've created it, but in so many companies, they have to actually hold marketing, brand marketing, demand marketing, SDR, sales, and CS accountable for actually the words and the emails and the content that comes out of their mouth.
They have to be working from that same messaging and positioning play. And if they can do that, that's how you connect brand to demand to sales. And it takes leadership.
CMOs and CROs have to get on the same page. 
But those are the two pieces of advice I would offer to how to get back into balance. Um, and the third thing I would say is what you're not going to be able to do is just go piss away a bunch of paid media and just pound the market into submission because those days are over. 
And the buyer, the buyer's kind of resistant to that too. All right. 
Craig: But they don't have time, John. So like, the reason a lot of people do that is you don't have time. Like you got to report results and so you're going to gravitate to going quote unquote A/B testing. I'm just going to let you guys know both tests won't work.

But the, uh. It's just tough. Right? Uh, by the way, I just take your first point and just like, make it really easy. Uh, everyone in the company needs to go talk to a hundred customers.
John: Yeah. 
Craig: Customers are going to be prospects. Because, I think you, you, you, you just, that's like basic. And what, but right now you need to, because you're going to hear new things. 
And, um, you know, it's, it's just. It's healthy to do no matter what, you should always be talking to your customers. Only good things happen when you do that. 
But like to really redefine and get everyone back on board, it can't just be marketing. It can't just be a report. Like we all got to hear it. And I tell everyone, my favorite story of all time was old school Motorola rugged wireless.
Okay. Oh yeah, baby. Like old school. It was for paramedics, first responders, you know.
And the CMO there, I got, I keep giving this guy credit. I got to get his name. But basically he said, look, like we're going to live and breathe these guys. So everyone in the group had to go spend a week. With their target market, which was paramedics or police officer.
They had to spend a week with them. There was pictures of these guys all over the hallways. They just had to, everyone had to live and breathe these people. And that's how he believed we would build better product and how we would build the right message and how we would be able to talk to them and understand what they do. 
And like, that's. Another reason to go back ICP target persona, like let's isolate what we're trying to do. It doesn't have to be small. Everyone assumes account base means small. It doesn't mean small. It just means targeted. So anyway, sorry. 
John: No, no, don't. That's, that's great. Everything you just said is we need to have a visceral, direct understanding of our customer, not a theoretical understanding of our customer.

Preach it. Craig.

All right. All right.

Trend three, trend three. And this one shouldn't take too long because it's so fricking obvious. But the third trend that you, as you are going into 2024, you better not be given lip service, you need to be operationalizing, that to grow efficiently and profitably, you've got to focus on end to end revenue.
I'm talking about new logo acquisition, but also retention and renewals, and also expansion. This is the part where you go, no shit, John Common. Yeah, but do you know what? I, I, I can't, more and more I could talk about this. There's this thing called the no do gap. And people like you and me, pointy headed dude's like you and me, we unfortunately end up in conversations with customers and companies where we are saying things that they go, "Oh, yeah, I know that." 
But what we have to do is say, "Are you doing it? Are you operationalizing end to end revenue growth?" Because if you're not, And the best way to do this is like, you know, we talk about root causes and symptoms.
Um, ask yourself, how much marketing focus at your company is put not on new logo acquisition? On retention and renewal? And in most companies, even today, literally they're like 98 percent new logo. At this point in the game, Craig, I think that is borderline dereliction of duty.
Craig: Yeah. Or just, uh, yeah, 
John: Unless, unless, unless you've got just naturally high retention and, and, and RR, right? 
Craig: Well, no. That, so, no, I was gonna, I was trying to think of a different way to put it. Which is, uh, you're asking, to lose your job. And I don't want to say that you can't, I mean. So by the way, but what I was going to say to you, so look, you should always look at your business end to end and you should always make sure you're optimized across that. 
And, um, but I, I gotta tell you this with this was amazing. 
So, uh, public company, Rev Ops. I was telling you about his, what they did in reaction to the changing buyer market is they actually flipped to 80 percent customer revenue. And what they did was they just said, we're not. And it's like, it's big dollar ticket dollar. 
They said, no, we're going to build, we're not going to build new products to sell new stuff to new people. We're going to build products our customers want so that we can build on our customer base. And so they targeted all their revenue there. And it was, uh, for the time, it was a brilliant strategy. Now, let me just say this, though. 
If you are not viewing things at end to end, that pivot is brutal. For them, this pivot was not brutal. Sure, like, the product decision making changed, but there was already a product, uh, decision making apparatus. They just made tweaks to the, you know, guidance system. 
But, like, um, they had, you know, uh, processes in a playbook for what they did with customers. 
They had, like an example is, they were big ticket items, they had QBRs with their customers. There, there was already a habitual motion that allowed them to come in and work with their customers to buy more stuff in a positive relationship way. That's because they viewed their business as end to end. Now, sure, they had to do some, uh, serious uh, resource, a lot, a lot, you know, resource changes up front. But the processes fundamentally didn't change much. 
The products and the emphasis, uh, did. And so that's, uh, that's an example of end to end turning into end revenue. Smart.
John: Right. 
Craig: You know, for a lot of, yeah, and so, like, you've got, like, the NRR and the, and the Renault, that, that is near and dear to my heart, obviously. Right? 
That's something that, um, you know, frankly, in the go go days, sales closed the deal, threw it over the fence, they didn't give a crap. Right? I mean, with all due respect to my boys and girls in sales, I'm with you guys, but, like,
John: Yeah. 
Craig: We didn't have to, we weren't held to this and CS was left to hold the bag and keep a brutal job. But they didn't get much attention or resources, but now they do. So that's better, right? Uh, still not enough as you know, there's struggle. Uh, but let's face it to your point of not, like, end to end revenue means you have to have customer marketing.

John: Yeah. I mean, let's start, let's start there. And, and, and, and why not, write one? Give me one good cross functional customer renewal play and one really good cross functional, which means marketing has to be involved, um, upsell cross-sell? You know? And I haven't even gotten to adoption and first value and all that kind of stuff. 
But um, what's one-
Craig: For like you and I deal with marketing, so we have, like, you know, a love for what they do. But like, uh, I, 
John: Right.
Craig: But there are a lot of people that don't. And I have to tell them, no, actually marketing can help you here. 
John: Right.
Craig: You just have them in. They can. They can help scale adoption.
They can help scale, uh, expansion plays. They can help drive opportunities in the install base. Like let them in, give them the resources to do that. If you're a CMO and your job is to drive 90 percent net new, then you have to, you know, you're sort of forced in that direction.
When CMOs and the, and like, especially the good ones today that have this experience and sort of turning on their machine, if they can, um, sort of focus their machine and the way that they go to market to the, uh, to the, uh, you know, from adoption on, then, you know, there's really good things that can happen. 
So it's like, it's not just, uh, like the right thing to do in the ivory tower. It's actually they can help a ton, a ton.
John: that's right. 
Craig: It's all being marketing-centric right now.
John: And that, and that gets to one piece of advice I would offer. And I'd love to hear one from you as well. Okay, great. Trend three is that we need to be thinking end to end revenue growth and profitability, not just acquisition. 
So what do I do about it? One thing I would offer, and you just alluded to it, is the CMO needs to walk down the hallway to the CEO and say, "Hey, we have a retention problem, a churn issue. We also are sitting on a bunch of untapped growth. And did I mention profitability? And our existing customers who actually are happy?
And if we just did a better job of showing up with the next product to sell them or the next service to add on to the success we already are having, we could unlock really great pro- So Dear CEO, let me and my team in. I'm over rotated on acquisition." 
So that's the first thing. I know that sounds theoretical, but like, it's not. 
I think literally, um, so many, in so many company cultures, CEOs are just like, marketing is the new logo, top of funnel machine. And so I think it's incumbent upon the CMO to enlarge their remit, not in a greedy way, but in a help, I want to help way. That's number one piece of advice. What would you add? To that piece of advice for trend three.
Craig: Well, um, when the CMO walks, so one of the issues a CMO has is there's, there's their brand perception internally. 
John: That's right.
Craig: Um, but also, uh, the, you almost need to think big and think small. So like a really good thing to do is when you walk into the CEO's office or the, you know, executive teams, because you have to do a lot of selling across the C staff is, you've got to show them your ideas.
It can't be theoretical. 
John: Right.
Craig: Because marketing is going to have great ideas that they're not doing today. And we brought up examples. Like, could you, you know, walk in and be like, "Look, I've looked at what we're doing here, I've got three ideas for you already. And you can shoot."
John: "Here's a play." 
Craig: Yeah. By the way, you can shoot them away, but it shows what things we could do. Like here's what we would do for adoption. Here's how I will drive renewals and here's how it would drive expansion. And just. So they could see it. Because otherwise it's like stay in your lane. 
John: Right.
Craig: Uh, and, uh, whereas like there's really amazing things that the, uh, marketing person can do. When I talk about it with executive teams, that's the first thing I gravitate to.
Is I just give examples out of the gate. Uh, and so I'm just adding to what you said - if we, you do have some selling to do, but like come to the table with some ideas,
John: Tangible. What if we did this? Something like this? Yeah. Something to play.
Craig: And then, you know, if you're talking to the CEO and the CFO who might have some questions, it's like, no, like I just, you know, I need this amount of customer marketing people. But everything else is what I do now. I'm just pointing it.
John: See that's the thing! I've already got the engine. We just need to point it and tailor it for the customer use case. Yeah. All right. All right. That's great.
All right trend number four. Trend number four you gotta account for as you go into 2024 is, and the way I'm phrasing is, the trend is, and help me Craig here, but I think the trend is there we're undergoing a simultaneous technology reckoning, or consolidation, while also going through ongoing simultaneous technology innovation. 
And there's no better example of that than AI. But there's other examples beyond AI. So the trend is, how are, and the question is, how are you accounting for the realities of technology consolidation, simultaneous with technology innovation at your company? And here's one, um, I think the best example of some work from Gartner.
Um, uh, Ben Bloom did in 2020. He's amazing. In 2020, um, self reported utilization of marketing technology and B2B companies was 58%. Which was disappointing in 2020. Then in 2022, it had dropped 10 points to 42 percent, or, no 16 points to 42 percent utilization, of like. The question is, you just tell me, be honest, how much of the capabilities of your tech stack are using? In 2020, 
58 percent was the answer. It dropped to 42%. It has dropped again in 2023 to like 33%. That's a third.
And so like if that's even moderately true at your company, um, the, you know, if you've got low platform utilization; if you've got a bunch of tech that nobody knows how to use; if you're, if you're using your, your platforms for spam cannons, these are, these are the symptoms.
So what should companies do who are sitting there? And I think it's most of them, Craig, honestly, in our, in our field who are like, you know what? I've got a tech stack that is, I'll just be using a euphemism, uh, underwhelmingly optimized, but I also still have to innovate, and I'm really intrigued by these different capabilities and these new platforms and data and analytics.
There's so much work to do. What advice would you give?
Craig: Well, uh, we talked about it, you know, so on my podcast, GoToMarketUnfiltered, or GTMUnfiltered, we had Scott Albrecht, who you and I did, I think you'll probably have Scott on, uh, 
John: Yeah, totally.
Craig: And, like, we talked about, because he had this LinkedIn post, which was really simple but amazing. Which is, "Let's be careful, 
the word 'consolidation' actually is elimination." And because the vendors get confused on consolidation, they, well, we need to go, you know, and all these predictors, I'm out. They're going to roll up the whole market. It's like, well, that's actually not what the buyer wants. Right? They don't, they don't necessarily want one platform for all. 
I'm sorry.
But they, you're sort of mistaking the consolidation work, which is, uh, they need to eliminate. I actually would argue that, uh, that the CFO, this is where the CFOs, uh, sort of meddling in your business has helped CMOs and CROs a lot in the, my friends in the sales tech MarTech space will, you know, uh, will be mad at me. But, you know, look, if you're only using 33%, the decision is really simple.

It's just, you gotta have the guts to do it. And the CFO is gonna, uh, put you on, uh, you know, on blast here and expose what you've got going and you should just. In my, you know, you, you shouldn't just eliminate, you got to figure out why you're not using it. There's a number of reasons for that. Number one, you fired 30, 50 percent of your marketing team. 
You had a bunch of people that might have used it. They're not there anymore. That could be one. But generally speaking, we just bought a whole bunch of stuff. Because the value, because like we could. And now we got to sort of, that's the reckoning. And it's health. Because, you know what, the innovation side is, is going to come back up. 
We're heading into 2.0 and sales tech and 2.5 and MarTech, right? The AI is going to change the game. I'm sorry. Like I know it's a buzzword, but it is. You can see already that really interesting things are happening. And by the way, in many ways, hopefully these things will emerge, which was topic number one. Which is the buying environment and how they consume things is changing, which means our playbook, but our operational playbook has to change. And now, new tech will allow for that to go do that.

So I'll give you my one example on the sales side with AI, is, um, you know, the, um, the, the prospecting and outbound SDR, um, you know, we solved it with people. I know we had to. 
So, look, generation one of SDR tech was great. Okay? Contacts where I didn't have to buy magazine subscription data to try to do our, you know, uh, you know, the old sort of, the first generation of digital contacts.
You know, the, the new, we got them and we're able to, put them into a system and sales engagement from an SDR perspective changed our game there. It did. There's just nothing to it.
LinkedIn, you know, game change. Probably not being eliminated as much as others, right? Uh, and then now we've sort of hit this wall, right? 
Because, as you said, we've sort of paid the price for how we use these things. And, um, part of that operational wall that we hit was we always said, well, we can hire 30 will work out and they will bring us 600 meetings, and now they can't. And so now we've got to be and now we're, you know, we're letting go of much SDRs, et cetera.
So AI, you know, there's now, as a I sort of moves from just messaging, which, by the way, if you're not doing, uh, you know, AI for your messaging, at least for the first pass to give you some idea of what the data tells you is good, then you're already behind. But I think a lot of people are playing with it right now. 
And that's sort of, you know, uh, .01 of like the what AI is gonna do. Now, it's gonna start taking over and being very taking, you know, becoming more autonomous, right? And more, uh, the inbound SDR activity. A lot of the mundane activity on the outbound SDR, the queue up a better message. All of these things that we were just talking about are, were in crisis, there is the promise of tech.

Now look, the same rules of pride, it's strategy, people, process, then technology and tactics. I get it. But like at the same time, these are great things that are happening. It's okay to throw out the deck you're not using because the new stuff's about to fill in. And, um, it's, there's really exciting stuff.
I mean, I think about like Matt, Matt Amundsen and I were talking, he's like, you know, man, I worked in Marketo. I love Marketo. But man, like, if AI could just, you know, If I could just go to the AI and say, "You know what, give me the folks that have been to Marketo summit over the last three years and like, let's queue up a campaign to them" and in the system allows me to go do that versus a lot of the work. 
I know you get, uh, you know, you have to help people with this all the time. So, uh, that's efficiency and that's amazing. Or, you know, just the, you know, I just love the idea of, you know, asking, being able to ask and just get it, you know, not making reporting and not making insights such a laborious effort and making it something that AI can deliver to me. 
Um, those are the things that are, they're, they're going to happen. And so it's okay that, you know, I can understand why you're only using 33%. You should probably be at, like, if you're, you know, purchasing, well, you know, it should be 60, 70. There's always going to be, um, go ahead, make it 60, 70. You'll have to take out some to do that, to hit that number. 
You're not going to go start using. You know, make up that gap by starting to use everything. Uh, and so just you can clean out. You will build back up. That's not going to stay forever because the next gen of AI will make things better and easier. It will. There's just nothing to it. It's like, I love people that argue with me.
I'm like, dude, there's trucks driving through Europe right now on their own. Right. Like, stop. I mean, this is, you know, going down right now. 
John: That's right.
Craig: Don't deny it. Like, I mean, sure you can be afraid that, you know, uh, Optimist Prime is gonna come. But like, uh, but AI is like real. I mean, it's like you have all these examples of real, and all these people are in denial. 
I'm like going, what? I mean, I'm not a genius. I'm not just latching onto the buzzword. We have tons of examples of this thing being an action.
John: Yeah. That's right. 
Craig: It sounds great to me. It sounds that, you know, and then there'll be these really cool sort of CMO differentiators. Like as content becomes more and more commoditized because of, well, well, first of all, it already is because everyone just copies themselves. 
Um, but now the machines will commoditize. How you adjust, and get into that brand differentiated, that's going to be amazing to watch. Because the humans are going to have to figure that out. 
John: That's right.
Craig: And the systems. And so that, that's going to be really fun. But, but look, that, that, that's my, that was a long take. 
I'm actually really excited. Finally, again, right? I, I, I was excited in gen one of all this stuff. I really was. It was painful. We forget what was before. 
John: Yeah.
Craig: Uh, and then I got bored. And it was like, and people kept trying to pitch me stuff, and it was all on the edges, man. It was all things that didn't have big lift.
Um, and now, like, I'm like, yes, this is going to be great. You know, so.
John: Oh, man. That's great. Alright, so let's you and I quickly make our, uh, tight list of, uh, executable recommendations for what do CMOs, CRO CEOs do in, in the face of tech reckoning, tech consolidation, but also the requirement and opportunity to innovate.
I'm going to go and you clean me up. 
Number one, audit your tech garden. You got to weed your garden. 
Craig: Yes.
John: Audit your tech stack through the lens. This is critical. You already should be auditing your tech stack, but here's the magic. Through the lens of your must to have versus nice to have, uh, functionality specifically to execute your core go to market motions.
That's the trick. Don't just do a tech audit and be like, well, I don't know. Raise your hand if you like Marketo. That's not the question. The question is first, what are our core go to market motions? And then you put that as a template through which you look and audit your tech stack. Which requires you to understand, what are my core primary go to market motions that we have to be really great at? 
If you understand that, now you have a ruler that you can use to measure the must have versus nice to have ness of a platform or a feature, number one. 
Number two. Ruthlessly hunt for overlapping features, overlapping modules, overlapping platforms, and unneeded seats. CFOs are real good at this, making this decision. 
And remove or reallocate. It's just that simple.
Number three. Be brutally clear and honest about your priorities and your resource constraints. That sounds obvious, but that's an overlapping statement that it's amazing to me how many marketers, sellers, customer success people are just so disconnected from, from the, from the realities. 
And I think it's because CEOs and CMOs don't want to bum people out and they don't want to talk and say, "Hey, we don't have enough money to do that." You know? Rip that bandage off. Be honest. Your employees want to know what the truth is.
Number four. For the, for the platforms that remain, either the existing platforms or the new ones, where you're going to play some careful bets to innovate, you must train.
What a crazy idea. You gotta train your people so they can be good at it.
Number, uh, let's see, that's number five. Is, um, create a culture where it's okay to talk openly and honestly about, "Hey, are we getting the ROI and impact we need out of that platform? Let's just, I know you've championed it and you were the one who said it would be a good idea for six months later, 12 months later, 18 months later, are we, is it, is it worth it?"
And if it's not, it's okay. I'm not going to crucify you, uh, because you recommended that software. It's okay to be honest about that. So those are a handful of recommendations I would have about what to do in the face of tech reckoning and innovation. What would you add?
Craig: So what I would add is, so yeah. You need to look at the revenue life cycle, you know, it's an exercise you should do no matter what. Everyone talks about the buying experience, then you model your revenue experience and the things that you need to do.
There's two layers to it, right? There's engagement and then operations and you've got to look at how those support those efforts. Okay, so that's one.
But I will say one thing on ROI, which is really important is, uh, I wouldn't be careful about judging quantitative CFO type ROI against if people are using it.
Sales tech is a very good example. If sales is using it, you pull that thing out and it, I don't care that it's like you're just equating the ROI wrong. Right. Because you, you just need to look at what they would do without it. And how. 
John: Yes. Right. Yeah. It's, it's, it's not a traditional ROI model is what you're saying. 
You're saying you have to, you have to have a, a, a deeper, a deeper, more holistic understanding. That's why I didn't say ROI. I said, measure the impact. 
Craig: Okay.
John: I didn't say ROI. Yeah. 
Craig: That's important because like sales tech, man, you gotta, you, you, you. The ROI oftentimes in sales tech is that they use it. It's like Clary. If they're using it, they're using it, keep it right.
Like, I mean. 
John: It's not like, yeah, you don't log into Clary like Netflix. I was bored. So I spent six hours this week in Clary. No, right.
Craig: If they use it, they use it. And then, um, and that, that, that's really important. And like to, to not forget, right. And then, um, what I would say is- start small in your new, so your new acquisition, 
I think one of the things, even if you just came from a new place and you successfully use tech, because I know the vendors are going to call you and be like, "all right, you're in a new place, let's put it in." Don't assume like you have to look at how you're going to go to market and how it's going to work and the resources you have to support you on it. 
Uh, before you make the, you just got to make really good decisions. Um, and starting small helps, right? So you, you go, and you have to have a team ready to test. That was often like a lot of the utilization issues over the, when, when everyone was on a buying spree, it was like, okay, we'll bring it in. And then like, in, you know, we'll have the team tested it.
And it's like, they didn't have a team ready to test it. They were too busy. It's like, no, like if you're going to buy now, let's be ready to buy and let's be ready to use and starting small helps there. Right. And I know everyone's been talking about it, but. It didn't haunt the guys. It didn't happen. Like we, we just bought a whole bunch of stuff.
John: And assumed, yeah, it was build it and they will come, buy it and they will come. Um, all right.

Craig: The redundant features thing is a, is another big deal you said, but.
John: All right. 
Craig: That would just be me agreeing with you.
John: That's okay. I love it when you do that, Craig. All right. So we're, we've made it to the fifth must understand, must account for trend. 
We're almost, we're almost there, buddy. And that is, the trend is cross functional alignment and orchestration is no longer optional. It is mandatory. That is the trend. 
And what causes this? Well, the first obvious cause is what we started this episode with. Which is there was a mandate for efficient growth.
You want, you want to know what inefficient growth is? Is you take the go to market team and you go, "Everybody go off and do shit. And I'm sure it'll work out."
Craig: Right. 
John: So that's the, so the mandate for efficient growth. You will never get to efficient growth, mark my words, if you do not get good, and I mean authentically cut the shit good, at cross functional alignment and orchestration, I literally mean brand and demand, and if you still have SDRs, SDR sales, customer success, executing growth plays, arm and arm, with clear role clarity.
Um, that's, that's, that's the, I think that's what's causing this trend. I think I could add some supporting trends, but what, what are some of the other causes if you, if you buy into this trend, which is alignment and orchestration are no longer optional, what is causing that?
Craig: Uh, the fact that there is no alignment..? Or the fact that you have to do it.
[Laughter] 
I mean, you know, I'm just, so I'm my, one of my guys is working with a team on their prospectin. And it's like, I'm just going, "Oh my God, who's the first person I go to on that?" 
I go to marketing. Because guys, uh, if this is like many account base, like these are, they have to get into these, they have 50 accounts in their territory. If we go send them off with the sales engagement platform and say, "Go prospect in" or whatever, it's not going to work. Like, can we just, I'm just giving you like a really specific tactical example is like, 
John: Yeah.
Craig: I go to marketing and go, we need to just run a dinner in the territory and we need ads against all these accounts and anybody you invite to dinner has to be from these accounts. And like, uh, you know, just that little thing is important. But then there's the big thing, which is they're not going to get, none of you will get any of this.
You won't get people at dinner. You won't get any response unless we've created a brand halo around that market. So it's like, you start to just see all this intertwining. Now, like, salespeople say, "Well, I always wanted that." Yeah, but you used to just criticize marketing because they weren't everywhere. 
"Where's my billboard on the 101?"
John: Right, right. 
Craig: That's actually, you were wrong about that. What we needed you to do is agree to the ideal customer profile.
John: That's it. 
Craig: Once you do that, then we can all align against it. Including executives. Executives can go into the territory to go meet with a CEO of a bank for a meeting that is about their money. 
And they could say, I'm going in. They can look at the, you know, what's in the territory and who they need to go talk to and go talk to someone. And it's like, uh, I'm just giving you sort of raw, like that's sort of that raw thing. It just makes sense. And that's the thing is it just makes sense. It's because everything's harder. 
The discrete activity, right, that one that you talked about a silver bullet? Well, there was a bunch of discrete activities. They were all done in isolation. Dead. So when someone goes, "Hey, SDRs are dead. Yeah. In isolation."
John: In isolation, they're dead, right? 
Craig: Yeah, here's the, here's the context and go come back with opportunities and that's not working.
And, and, and so that when we talk about causes, it goes back to number one. You have to be top of mind. Everything has to be working. And, uh, because they're all going to work a lot less as discrete items, right? And even to just survive as a outbound email, or survive as a webinar, all those things need to be working together against the same set of accounts and same set of target personas. 
And uh, and when you do that, then good things happen. It always has. Always. 
John: So three, I agree, three, three piece of advice I would offer for, okay, yeah, John, great. I agree. Cross functional alignment and orchestration is no longer optional. What do we do about it in my company? What do we do about it in my company? 
Cut the shit. Give me advice. I've got three pieces. 
One is it's, it's sort of summarizing what you and I've been talking about kind of the whole episode, sort of align, get aligned on your go to market strategy, execute an integrated growth play, probably account based because you'll learn. And the number three is Rev Ops, Rev Ops mindset. 
What do you think about that? Clean me up, man.
Craig: Well, I agree. I think the Rev Ops mindset. So I, you know, the way we positioned it in the past, um, and Gottlieb and others. I can't talk for what's happening now. But like, was that RevOps is a business model. It's how you go to market. It's not a position. It's not even an organization. 
Could you have a position and have an organization to support it? Sure. But like the best RevOps org I ever saw was Appfolio and marketing operations was basically putting that all together. Right? And so like, um, you know, that, that, that was always been very confused. And, and, and the most, the thing reason I even gravitated there is because what you said is, uh, we can optimize the business if we're looking at it end to end, and that's goes back to, I think, number three? Yeah.
John: Yeah. 
Craig: Try number three. So we probably should have mentioned it there. But yeah, so, so, um, driving alignment, really? Because everyone's been talking about it. You do searches. It's like the most ridiculous thing in the history of B2B thought leadership. 
John: Right.
Craig: It's because what you said, it's like, oh, you can go do trust falls.
You can go camping together, go get a beer with them. It's like that doesn't change anything.
John: No! 
Craig: But it doesn't change anything. And, and what you said is right. All of this, it's like, you know, if marketing wants to initiate this, let's just start with an idea. Right? And let's, let's take a set of accounts and let's go do it together. 
John: Yeah.
Craig: It's actually impossible for not. 
John: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. For this group of accounts, who has these needs, that we solve with this unique value prop. What if we, what if we executed this thing that's called an integrated growth play? And what if we measured it and supported it with a technology and data approach and an analytics approach that was, you know, like we acted like we worked at the same company? 
Hey! What about that guys? Alright, um, to the audience. 
Craig: Before you end. One other thing, but you don't have time. So you can't do the thing where it takes nine months to put together the growth play. 
John: No.
Craig: Get in a room. You'll figure it out. 
John: Yes.
Craig: As long as you have the target markets, just get in a room and do what you can do because it'll be better. 
John: Don't let perfect be the enemy of good, quote Craig Rosenberg. 
Craig: Let's go!
John: All right, we did it. We got it. All right. So I'm going to wrap up. Don't worry. I've got a little bit more that I'm going to get out of you, man. We're getting all the juice out of this orange. 
To the audience, what Craig and I just walked through, the five really important trends you got to be thinking about and incorporating as you plan and execute, and improve your growth engine. 
That if you have a sixth, an idea for a six or a seventh, reach out to me or Craig, tell us and we'll circle back. Yeah.
Craig: We'll come back and, yeah yeah. 
John: Um, all right, I'm going to do a lightning round with you. Um, uh, you are not allowed to overthink it. I want you to just hear my question answer off the top of your head. Here we go. 
One piece of advice for CEOs as it relates to improving how they drive organic growth. One piece of CEO, CEO advice.
Craig: Don't just, don't automatically fire your CMO.
John: One piece of advice for CMOs. 
Craig: Don't automatically, no, um. For the, the, the, um, For the CMO, I would say two things, right? Uh, you're going to have to rip up the playbook, um, and go rebuild from the ground up using all of our previous tips.
But two is think big. Because the revenue may not come from where you traditionally have lived. And so let's look at the big picture and see where we can go drive real results.
John: One piece of advice for for head of sales, CSOs.
Craig: Um, your game has changed too. You lived off, reps, mediocre, mediocre reps, living off zero interest rates. 
You, they know this. Actually, this is not a piece of advice. They know this. But that means that, um, before, you know, I talked about tech before we do all of those highly innovative things, let's go back to the basics. Like, um, let's make sure that we have the fundamentals of selling. Because that is kind of been the collision course there, which is like a complete drop in the fundamentals of sales, right?
With a changing buyer environment that's been catastrophic for the, for attainment. Um, so we gotta, we do have to take a step back and look at how we're selling. And I think that would be my, tip to say, they all know this though. Every time I tell them, they're always, they, they know this.
John: They're like, all right, all right. 
All right. So one piece of advice for the head of product? Who we don't talk about often enough. 
Craig: Yeah. So, um, so I think you have to take in, um, the overall strategy of the business, which is what we talked about. Who's going to be the target? Who will be the target user? And that includes at what point in the life cycle. I talked about how that one company, they 80 percent of their revenue would come out of customers, product made that adjustment quickly. 
I think oftentimes I'm in tech where it sounds really cool, so we're going to go build it. Um, and instead we need to look for the highest impact place that support the business. We're in rough waters here, so we all have to be on board in both building product and the go to market to, to allow us to steer through these times and, you know, and when we come out the other side. 
John: Yeah, okay. Last, last couple of things is, um, where do you go? Even the great Craig Rosenberg has to learn new things, right? Where do you go to learn and gain new skills? Even, even at this point in the game?
Craig: Oh, man. I, I mean, I scour the internet. Um, I do what you do. I actually think the greatest thing you can do is do a podcast, you know, I have a podcast now so I can talk about this stuff. 
I do podcasts with people all the time. Just talking it out is really important. But no, I don't know that I have one place. I scour the internet. Uh, you know, I, even though LinkedIn's got a lot of noise, there's a ton of value in there. You just gotta find it. I don't, you know, I worked at Gartner.
I don't have a subscription there. But I, I mean, I used to dig into that library there. There was a lot in there. I think people gravitate to just the magic quadrants or the cool vendors. And there's a whole bunch of really good stuff in there. Um, so the research houses are still creating really good stuff. 
John: I agree.
Craig: But look, here's what I will tell you. For years of just being on the circuit and acting like I was a prima donna and showing up and speaking at an event.
Um, I go to them now because you know what you need to do? You just need to get out there and talk to people again. That, at Dreamforce, everyone's like, what was your biggest learning? Oh my god, man, I missed just having that conversation and finding out what was happening and how they were reacting to it. 
And that, that's, I mean, that's a simple thing you can do. Like, what's the, we've been out of the game. We haven't talked to each other in so long. Like, go out there and do that. I think about all the, the gen one CMO masters. Dude. They were at every marketing event. They were going to every webinar. They're consuming everything.
We got to do that again. And it's more fun. It's great. It's fun.
John: Preach it, man. What advice would you give - I actually like this question. And I'm, I've, I'm really interested. What advice would you give to 23 year old Craig? And I really, I mean it seriously. Well, what advice would you give to yourself at 23 years old, knowing what you know now? 
Craig: Um, that, uh, the shot, it's not a, it's a short, the shot clock's not as short as you think. Like, you, you have time to mess up. And the key is, is to, to, you know, uh, to, to you, you have to get started. So that's one thing, um, in your career. Or you don't, I mean, if you want to travel Europe, just travel Europe. I don't care like that. 
Just whatever makes you happy. Because here's the thing is, here's the biggest contradictory statement of all time. You have time to figure out what makes you happy in your work life. Right, but you don't have a lot of time to have all the enjoyable moments that you want to have. So it's like you got a lot of time and you have a little bit of time, right? 
It's like everyone's like, oh, time flies. I'm like 51 years old now and I'm like, oh my god, time flies. My kids are like, you know, grown up. People on snapchat and all this stuff just going, what the hell just happened? Uh, so that, you know, that's what I mean. It's like, you know, I'm going to tell my kids at 23, I don't care.
Do you want to go start your career? If you're not ready, then go live in an igloo in Alaska. That's cool, man. I'm, I'm good with that because this thing, this, this thing ends quick. Now, on the other hand, on your career though, that's not, it's not the same thing. I didn't figure out that I was going to be in B2B sales and marketing until I was 30.
John: Yeah, that's instructive. And eye opening. Man, um, you've been so generous with your time and your expertise, Craig. I knew this would be, I knew this was going to be a killer, a killer experience. Thank you.
Craig: No problem. This was awesome, man. Let's do it again.
John: Yeah, man. Uh, let me know how I can return the favor, but, uh, this was just jam packed.
I knew it would be with, with stuff. This is, this is going to be an episode where you're going to want to rewind, my friends. Trust me on that. All right, Craig. I'll talk to you soon. I know I will. 
Craig: All right, guys. Thanks, everyone.
John: So, uh, we just said goodbye to, uh, Craig Rosenberg after a dense and fun and deep conversation. 
I knew it would be, but man, um, you know, we, we try to. You know, think fairly strategically about, you know, we, we ask you to come listen to Growth Driver. We want to make sure it's really, really valuable. And uh, and I really, uh, if I can say so, I think, I think what, what Craig and I just talked about is just dense with really relevant. 
important information. I really, I think, I really think we did that. And I kind of knew we would. My, my big concern was, um, could Craig and I stay focused long enough to really, to really land the plane across these five key trends? And, um, I think we did. I you know, it's interesting. I'm just rolling it back in my head.
He had so many good points. The thing about Craig, man, he is so he's got that I called it that data lake worth of experience and pattern recognition. And if you go back and listen to it, or you just heard it, you know, it's like the guy has a specific example, um, at the ready. Every time we talked about and I love that about him. 
I love how he lands a big complicated concept and he has a story for it. It's just so enjoyable and it makes it so easy to understand and learn. So I really appreciated that about him. Um, also, I mean, I don't know, I hope this came across, but I love talking shop with Craig. He and I, um, I think, I think it's, I think it's peanut butter and jelly. 
Uh, he is a cool dude and, um, and I think it's been, it's been fun over the last hour or so to, to tee up a topic and then sort of, I call it playing tennis where you hit the ball back and forth, um, on a topic and hopefully, hopefully, um, it was fun and, and valuable for everybody. My advice, uh, rather than calling out, um, specifics about, you know, AI or ICP, the importance of ICP, I, I mean, go on and on and on how to, how to approach tech consolidation, um, at your company, how to, how to be thinking end to end versus only on acquisition, how to, uh, really get real about alignment, how to execute integrated growth plays.
I mean, there's so much that we covered. My advice would be. Um, if any of these key trends or key moments or sections where Craig and I were talking about it resonated with you, go back and listen to it again, because I think there's some really good stuff to unpack. That's number one. Number two, um, if you have someone in your company. 
There's a good chance that someone in your company might, might benefit from hearing, you know, a five minute section or a three minute section. Um, one of the things we do is we're, we're going to be cutting up these episodes into more, uh, more digestible bites around key insights. But even in advance of that, share this with folks at your company who, who might need to hear a key point. 
Um, but man, uh, so fun. So fun, and I knew it would be. I'm so grateful for, for Craig and his time and his expertise. I'm also really grateful for you for spending some of your valuable time with me today here on Growth Driver. We're really trying to, if you can't tell, we're trying to do something special and make sure that it's super valuable for you. 
Um, hopefully we are landing the plane in that value space for you. Um, if you like what you hear, if you're getting value from it, um, let us know, reach out to us, say hi. Uh, follow us, subscribe, you know what to do, you know what to do, but we want to stay in touch with you. And, um, also absolutely feel free to reach out to me, uh, on LinkedIn. 
If you've got ideas for guests, show topics, um, uh, things you want to cover questions, uh, we're going to be incorporating those more and more. So don't be shy, reach out. I'd love to hear from you. Um, I also want to give a huge shout out to the Growth Driver team. Uh, it takes a team to do this Growth Driver thing.
So Brianna, uh, Jeremy, Josh, Doug, Ben, Mike, Anne Marie, uh, all of you, you are awesome. Thanks for helping us, uh, uh, build this show and, and, and, and make it successful. And um, Last thing I just would say is just a reminder that Growth Driver is brought to you by the talented and kind people at Intelligent Demand. 
So look, if you're a B2B or a VP, or a director who has got a real deal mandate to drive growth efficiently, uh, then check them out at IntelligentDemand.com. All right. I will talk to you soon. See you soon out there. Don't give up. Bye bye.