A Fresh Look at the State of ABX with Gabe Rogol

Gabe Rogol: If you're selling hundreds of thousand dollars of solutions to multiple stakeholders, to others over long periods of time, you're in the game of having a sophisticated go to market.

John Common: Welcome to Growth Driver. We're the best minds in B2B or redefining growth. Hey everybody. Welcome to Growth Driver. John Common here. Look, depending on when you start counting, account based marketing and selling is. 15 plus years old as a defined go to market strategy, right? And so I think it's time that we take a fresh look at how and why account based got started, its current state, and then where it's headed, right?

So by the end of today's episode, you're going to learn what ABX is and is not. You're going to learn where and how ABM went wrong. Because it sort of did, we're going to talk about that. We're also going to talk about maybe one of the most central things, which is how can you conquer misalignment inside the enterprise?

This is obviously such an important topic to succeed, not only with ABX, but just go to market. So to help me unpack that topic today, uh, is Gabe Rogel, who has a front row seat, uh, co creating, shaping, and driving the entire category of ABX, um, during his 12 plus years at DemandBase. I'm going to keep bragging about you for a second, Dave, you, uh, you, you, you spent your whole career at the intersection of tech and media and sales and marketing.

And did I mention you're the CEO of demand base? Um, and just one other thing, I have always just love talking to you, Gabe, you're a down to earth, just an awesome person. So welcome to growth driver. Gabe Rogel. 

Gabe Rogol: I'm super excited to be here. I think they call that gassing people up. So thank you for gassing me up.

Um, too kind. And, uh, I always love talking with you. And, um, you know, you've been there. You've had the front row seat along the way. So I think this is going to be a great conversation. And, you know, from a demand based standpoint, working with intelligent demand to solve a lot of the complex problems.

Challenges and the go to market that we're going to talk about has been really rewarding. So we appreciate the partnership. 

John Common: Yeah Yeah, well, we've been a long time demand based partner and fan and user. Uh, and so yeah, we definitely come by it Honestly, hey first things first though. Um Why did you get a degree in russian?

Is that did that happen? What is and why do I suddenly feel like I do not ever want to play you in chess? Can you talk to me about this? Yeah, 

Gabe Rogol: yeah, it's a bit unusual You Yeah, I was, uh, I am somebody who got a degree in comparative literature and Russian language and literature. The last thing I wanted to do was to go into sales and my background is sales.

And then I became a CEO of a tech company. So the population of people that have done that, I think it might be one,

it's served me to a degree. It served me to a degree, but, you know, just really. Um, you know, following my passion, um, and kind of the thing that was interesting at the time. And that's kind of been following my, you know, from a career perspective, following that, that kind of inner voice, um, and trusting it, um, has been important, you know, kind of, I mean, I think maybe the more, Important thing is what did I do after I got that degree?

And, uh, I freaked out because I, I was just scared. I was going to live in my parents basement and no offense to my parents, but I did not want to do that. And I had a vision of myself when I was going to be so old, like 30 and be in my parents basement. So, um, I decided to do what I feared the most, which was pick up the phone and call people and go into sales.

Cause I figured if I could do that, then, uh, or if I failed at that, um, Anything else wouldn't be so hard. And that was another moment, you know, from a career perspective, you know, kind of doing what I thought was hard or difficult at a couple of key points really served me well. And I ended up loving sales using some of what I learned in studying literature to be able to, I think, um, you know, create a good.

Vision of, of where I wanted to go with the customer, where I want to go now in a category. So it did serve me and ultimately, like I said, fell in love with sales. And, uh, you know, that's, that's the quick version. 

John Common: Yeah, that's great. You know, some of the, some of the, uh, the most interesting and most effective salespeople I know, but also just leaders that I know have, um, found a way to do the opposite of hiding those, uh, inner voice moments, those allegedly weird, non standard, out of the shot pattern things that they love or things that they've done, but rather quite not hiding them, but actually leaning into them and weaving together a, their unique approach with that.

And that's what I hear in your story. That's just cool. 

Gabe Rogol: Yeah. Yeah. I'm a big fan of, uh, of the humanities too. You know, I think, uh, I have a, I have a college age son, uh, and a daughter who's almost college age that, you know, I think my son wants to, is, wants to go into business. But, um, you know, obviously doing something like in engineering or finance, it really, it's important that you get that grounding in college.

But I think, you know, if you're want to be a general business person, learning about people. What other, you know, whether that's psychology or literature, you know, you're going to learn business in business, getting the opportunity to really learn about humanity and people, um, is an opportunity. So, um, you know, I, I really get excited when I see those humanity backgrounds.

Maybe it's cause I had one, but when I'm interviewing people and I do think, like you said, it can really serve, um, serve in a lot of positive ways. 

John Common: I didn't even know we were going to go here. That's why I don't think I love it about growth driver. That's awesome. You know, so you heard it, you heard it here first, kids.

Uh, if you want to become an incredibly successful technology CEO, step one, study Russian. There it is. That's the secret to it all. Um, all right, let's, let's get into our category a little bit. So demand based helped create. A BM, we called it a BM back then. Uh, as a category, as a strategy, thought leadership, really teaching, um, many of us what it meant, even though we were doing pieces and parts of it, we maybe, we called it account-based.

Mostly we didn't. What was the founding vision behind this thing that we now call A-B-M-A-B-M-S-A-B-X account based revenue. How, why did it start? Take us to the beginning from your perspective. 

Gabe Rogol: Yeah, from the beginning, um, you know, I think technically as a concept. We have to give credit. I believe to it.

1. M. A. The day they coined that, um, in an earlier version, um, and it really in its earliest incarnation was a way for marketing to work more effectively in in the market. B2B, especially when you're selling complex solutions where the universe of companies that can buy your product is quite limited for a number of reasons and could align with sales that was doing, you know, targeting, uh, account selling, you know, um, which had been here for a long time.

So the genesis of it was this intuition that marketing wasn't focusing on. The accounts, um, that really mattered to sales. And therefore there was a lot of inefficiency and waste in B2B go to markets, which there still is. So that that's the highest level origin. Now, I think where it really started accelerating is in the last 15 years, as you mentioned, where the go to market has rapidly moved to a digital go to market.

And essentially what changed is. We move from like kind of a lead based handoff model to a more orchestrated model where sales and marketing have to work together in conjunction across a digital signal. And I think essentially moving from the handoff model where marketing is kind of working offline events, um, you know, various lead gen programs.

Giving them to sales fairly warm sales isn't getting out of bed for, you know, if it's something elite, not for like 200, 000, it was just like a 200, 000 warm lead. And then they're going to a steak dinner or golf. You know, that model has gradually eroded to this digital model where there's signals from an account intent, from an account engagement, from an account and marketing and sales are going back and forth, uh, working together to move these account through the journey.

And that transition has proven to be very difficult. And that's where, you know, ABM has, has come into play. 

John Common: I know that many years ago when I, I started hearing about ABM as a thing, as a, you know, I remember having a reaction that's, that's really similar to a lot of kind of B2B growth veterans when they hear, when they heard that thing called the ABM thing and, and, and it, you know, when it first hit you back then, it kind of was like, wait a minute, I kind of know what this is, right?

You know, we all heard that. That's those of us who do this for a living, and you're like, Oh, I've been, you know, there's always that grizzled head of sales who's like, I've been doing account based since 1962, you know, like that kind of a thing. And there's a, there's an aspect I think of that point of view, which is that there's nothing new inside of account based, you know, that when you run up into that, there's an aspect that I think is true, but I'd love to hear your take on, let me, let me say this and then you can pick it apart and make it better.

I think that what we now call ABX or ABM or, well, I think of it as ABX now, uh, is actually, I think it's been a rolling series of incremental aha moments, insights, and, and improvements. And so I think this, if you call it a go to market strategy or call it a category, I think that what we called, uh, ABM, 15 years ago, has been steadily, incrementally evolving and transforming.

And yet many of us still call it what it used to be, not what it is. And that's kind of what I want to hear your thoughts about. How has it evolved? And, and what, help, help us get less confused about what we mean when we say ABX or ABM. 

Gabe Rogol: Yeah, there's a lot of, to unpack in that, a lot of great points that, that you make.

Um, for sure. I mean, I think your first point of, I think there is this That's false, uh, familiarity, I guess, or valid familiarity that hides complexity. So I do think there's not a problem with conceptually understanding that, you know, sales should focus in B2B when you have a complex solution that there's only, you know, call it a couple thousand accounts usually that you can really focus on and that marketing should align with those accounts.

So you're right. I mean, getting kind of sales and marketing teams to that. Agreement is not difficult. What is difficult and what has evolved as we've tried to solve this problem through, you know, technology and processes, um, measurement is that how do you decide what those accounts truly are? How do you together across sales and marketing prioritize them?

In a way that is most effective for your resources. How do you create the right message for each type of account and group, given the stage they're in? How do you make that message consistent across marketing and sales? How do you make the measurement of what you're trying to do? Um, such that you can invest in the way you need to invest and measure the way you need to and measure and those sets of problems is what, um, you know, is the evolution that you've talked about.

And, you know, I think what you're hitting on in terms of what it's called and what it's becoming, you know, there, there is absolutely problem with. The acronym ABM, although from the beginning, you know, I can attest it was always about aligning sales and marketing as I mentioned because it was named Um, A, B, M, account based marketing, it masked the level of co participation between marketing and sales that is necessary to have an efficient and effective go to market.

John Common: It should have, I've, I've said, I've said this for years, I, so many things are misnamed. I think intent is misnamed. A, B, M should have never had an M in it ever. Um, yeah, and we can go on and on and on, um, with our, how, there's something, there's something. Maddening to me about how our industry and our field of B2B growth and go to market, um, we, we seize on terms and then, and then they, and then they, without realizing they quickly get cast in concrete and then we have to spend the next decade being like, no, not like, not like that, you 

Gabe Rogol: know?

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, it's, and this one is interesting because There's a really high degree awareness of the problem. You know, if you go to a VC or a PPI equity firm, you know, that has a group of portfolio companies or an ex uh, an executive team in a, in a business that's selling complex solutions, it's not like there's a, an awareness issue with a BM.

It's a confusion issue, and it goes back to the naming in a lot of ways and. I do think, you know, the, the AB, I don't, I don't have a problem with, with AB. In fact, I think that's correct. Account based. Um, like you said, it's ironic that marketing is given marketing names things. And, um, and it's so good at packaging.

Um, there's an issue there. I think there's another issue with a B. M. that confuses things, which is, um, you know, just selling a B to B solution that maybe is a low cost solution that you can sell to tens of thousands of companies called a 000 solution. Your company that has maybe just is selling this one product.

And, you know, you're looking for a list of accounts to prioritize and you're looking for the contacts, you know, within those accounts to sell. And generally you have kind of a marketing motion that drives a lot of inbound and a kind of a call down motion on the SDR team. There's not a lot of touches at the accounts like that's also, you know, a lot of times people are trying or categorizing that motion as a B.

1. Right. When really it is just kind of more of a demand gen motion. 

John Common: So Gabe, what ACV, uh, number of personas and, and length of sales cycle would, would be the threshold where you'd start to say, I wouldn't recommend that one to many approach anymore. I would actually officially say you should start. 

Gabe Rogol: Yeah, I mean, it's a matter of complexity.

So in other words, how, how much scrutiny, um, do you need on every individual account that you can sell to over what period of time? So you know, do you need, do you need to be able to do that? To be able to invest resources in every single account. And usually that means when you're selling a complex solution, you know, call it can go up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Maybe it's not always, but it can go up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. You know, the sales cycle is, you know, probably minimally three months, but usually more like six or nine and can go up to a year or more in some of your larger deals because. There's a lot of internal scrutiny also at the prospects and customers you're selling to.

Therefore, there's just a lot of complexity in the way you work with your client base and the way that you work internally across functional areas. And there's a lot of reward in every account. That type of, Reward to you and your business and that that type of go to market is very different Than a go to market where you have tens of thousands of accounts That you know, you really just need intent and context with and that's where you know an account based platform um is really really important and that's where i'd say the um, you know, kind of the line is It's not a hard and fast line, but I think if people thought about it in terms of how much investment and resources.

Am I willing to put in every account because the limitations on who can buy my products are pretty clear. 

Think another, another dimension to think about is, you know, do you have multiple products? Cause that's, that's another, you know, complex area of the, of the go to market. And when do you sell which product to what group, what salesperson, what marketing team within your company and that level of complexity, kind of the expansion motion.

I don't think it's talked about enough and how difficult it is and how much of an account based use case that is. I think, you know, typically when we talk about it, ABM, as it's called, um, as we probably should call ABX, as you state, it's really tends to be an acquisition motion, who, who are going to be my new customers.

But as the go to market gets more complex and you're growing as a company, it comes, becomes a lot more about. What product can I sell next? And that's a very difficult problem to solve. And you need to understand the accounts that can buy that next product. Therefore, you need an account based motion.

John Common: Yeah. Well, let's, let's, let's go right at it. So, you know, account based experience should mean or does mean what? And I'll, I'll throw out a couple of thoughts and then you'll, you'll make them better, I'm sure. So one is the difference between ABM and ABX is the M, right? So it's not about a marketing thing.

Uh, I, I would submit it's, it's about a cross functional thing, and it was borderline misnamed originally. That would be my first, you know, right on the, on the whiteboard, uh, of, you know, ABM versus ABX. Second one I would say, and you alluded to it a second ago, is, uh, ABX is not only acquisition focused, it has got to be end to end.

Uh, so I think those are two things that you could get behind. It's not just a marketing thing. It's not just an acquisition thing. What's a, what's a third or like, how else do you define ABX? 

Gabe Rogol: Yeah, I think it's, it's a go to market thing as you state. It's, um, revenue driving across. Acquisition, expansion and retention, and then I think it's, uh, you know, the other point that I mentioned was it's, it's a complex go to market thing.

It's not to be confused with a simple solution, you know, that gives that prioritizes a list and gives people contacts when you're selling kind of a one to many solution. I think if you think of it in those terms, You get a real clear picture of, of the, the differences, um, or clarify the confusion that's currently out there on the concept of ABM.

John Common: What's the most, what's the fastest path to, imagine so many of the companies you and I talk to probably on a daily basis and our teams talk to on a daily basis. What's the fastest path you have seen to help a go to market team or a company? Get there faster to have the light bulbs come on that need to come on like what because you've done it and you've seen it and you've coached it and guided it for a decade plus now.

What's the fast path advice be like? Look, if I was a CMO or a CRO or a CEO who is ABX curious, I kind of know where the right fit for it. But how do I get my teams there faster? What do you what would you recommend? 

Gabe Rogol: Yeah, I mean, I think it depends a little bit on the size of the business. Right. I think I look at it, if you're kind of a mid market company, when, when, meaning, you know, CMO, you know, know each other, you know, are, are, are in the room together, the virtual room together, and their teams, their key leaders are able to be in the virtual room together a lot.

And there's, there's kind of not the communication, the complexity challenges of an enterprise. It's different than in a global enterprise. So I think the first thing that you have to do in a mid market company is you have to get the right, and this might not be the quickest thing to do, but it's the most important, the right CMO and the right CRO.

And when I say that, I mean that both from a skills, And also a human aspect, the skills aspect is that these are, you know, people that are driving a modern digital go to market, which I think most, most people are these days, but have experience in working together, not in, in, um, that motion where marketing is driving leads and sales is expecting leads and, and there's finger pointing because that's death.

When there's still a ton of it, there's a ton of it, and it's the, it's the biggest problem, you know, across all types of businesses, but especially when you've got a business where you have an opportunity, like a mid market business, that your, your sales and marketing teams could be very aligned because it's not that complex got, you know, hiring the right CRO, the right CMO that the skill sets to drive that, that digital go to market, um, but also the human aspect.

Meaning are these people, you know, that are going to collaborate with each other, you know, and you're going to get that winning team and then that's going to permeate across demand gen, you know, revenue rev ops, your various sales leaders, your SDR leaders, and so you can get that alignment. So, so ultimately, I think, you know, that's, that's the most important thing that's not.

The quickest thing to do, um, because it's, it's about building the right team, but I, I don't think in the long run, you can't get there without the right team. And you have to think about that systematically. And I guess ultimately that's the CEO's responsibility, um, to, to do that. I mean, in terms of a mid market quick wins, you want to understand your, your addressable market.

You want to be able to tier that addressable market into levels of entitlement. So. You know, here's the big group of accounts that we know can buy. Here's the, here's the ones that we think are a market. And here's the ones that across sales marketing. We're like, these are long best long term, um, opportunities.

And you're kind of the entitlements is what, you know, I think the right term is where you're saying, hey. What is marketing giving these, these prospects at these different tiers? What is, what type of sales resources are coming in at these different tiers? So I think that's the, you know, if we're talking about the quickest within mid market, I think it's really about alignment, right?

Team, you know, total addressable market. Entitlements probably measurement to of, like, how do we know we're going to be successful in enterprise? It's a total different beast, right? Because you got a lot more complexity. And I think what works best there is you're looking for the marketers and the sales teams.

They're going to prove it, you know, is that a business unit? Is that a region? Um, but what we're going to do is we're going to align an account based strategy where we're going to set up the motions. Where we're going to understand what accounts we want to target together. What are the workflows and automations that we're going to do?

We're going to do between sales and marketing. What are the measurements that we're going to know this is successful? Because it will work. It'll be better than what you're doing. And if you get that right group, they're going to prove it to the rest of the organization. 

John Common: I don't know a better way to do this, you know, then, then, then to do it the way you and I have been talking about it.

But I, I will say, I think. I think that that transformation has to start and be sustained at pretty much whoever has revenue and profit responsibility. To your point, if it's at the enterprise, it's at a business unit level. If it's mid market, it's at the company level. But whoever's on the hook for profitable growth, who has a C in their title or a SVP in their title, has got to Enter the cross functional room of marketing, SDR, sales, and customer success, I think.

Enter that room and say, Hey, if you wonder if I believe that this is the right way to do this, I do. Your comp is changing because of it. I'm not going to just talk about this at the RKO or the SKO. Welcome to your new world. And I wish more senior revenue leaders would take that responsibility, that opportunity more serious.

Honestly, 

Gabe Rogol: you're right. Yeah, I know. You know, you're, you're, you're a hundred percent right. And, uh, but I mean, I guess. To be pragmatic, cross functional is hard, right? Yeah, no, it's hard. Cross functional is hard. And I think if you compare, you know, another way to think about ABM and contextualize it is compared to what was really the previous marketing category, which is marketing automation, 

John Common: right?

Gabe Rogol: And those platforms, you know, that was an evolution, but it was within marketing. Right. So you, so the transformation of the automation of your prospects and the message that you got here from your prospects, once people saw how effective it was for that generation, it was about marketing, adopting it.

This transformation, which is a go to market transformation, as opposed to, as opposed to just a marketing automation transformation is much more difficult because it's across multiple groups. And so you're absolutely right when you say, ultimately, it's a senior leadership. Um, initiative, and it can't be run just at a marketing or out of sales, 

right?

And, you know, it has to, um, you know, in that way, it's one of the key, uh, CEO initiatives is that you have to align a modern go to market. And if your go to market is complex and every account really matters, and there's a lot of upside in those accounts and you want to understand who you should acquire and who should buy your next product, then you've got to adopt that.

And we're going to be talking about an account based strategy that aligns yourself, your sales and marketing teams, or you're not going to be successful. 

John Common: That's the headline. That's the truth. And it's like, Hey, you know, you either, you either realize that or you don't. And if you don't, well, I don't want to put words in your mouth.

If you're at a company that hasn't really grappled with the truth of that, we'd like, and usually we go something like for us to hit our revenue growth goals, we must win large, complex, strategically important deals. Is that true or not? If it's true, then you got to go great. What is the best way to do that?

Do you think the best way to do that is pounding them with emails? They didn't ask for that. Then pounds them with SDR outbound. They didn't ask for that. Then hopes, hopefully gets them to a demo that your sales, right? Because that's the old model. MQL focused one to many demand gen model. Do you think that will be sufficient?

And I think that's where it breaks down. I think that's where a lot of boards. And I'll call them just revenue executives of various flavors. They, they know that they need to go up market or that their deals or their lifetime values or the ACVs are large. But I think the operative, and maybe we're uncovering something here, but I think the real opportunity is to, is to then say, do you really think your old playbook is fit for purpose to achieve those goals in light of the modern buying Behaviors that were, and digitally, uh, forward modern buying, because if they go, yeah, I think it'd be good enough.

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Gabe Rogol: There is this, you know, as you were stating earlier around, well, that, that sounds right.

ABM. I do think we're in this odd position where, like I said, you know, whether it's an investor, you know, that has a portfolio or a CEO or an executive team. I think there's a lot of head nodding around, you know, conceptually, you know, we need to have an aligned approach. I think the breakdown, one of the roots of the breakdown is.

It's owned out of marketing because it's ABM. 

John Common: Where should it be owned? What, where should ABX be owned as a go to market strategy? 

Gabe Rogol: You know, I mean, I think ultimately it's. The CEO, you know, has, has to own across like, how are we going to market and, and, or it's co co owned, which is the complexity across sales and marketing.

It's your go to market. It's like nobody, when you say who owns the go to market, maybe that's another way to think about it. So, like, of course, you know, the CEO and the leaders on the go to market, it's just. Really a B. M. is your go to market. If you have this type of complexity, so it has to be the way you go to market.

And I think you know that realization that essentially this isn't a marketing initiative. It is your go to market and should be treated as such has to be realized. And therefore, that level of ownership and scrutiny. I think that's that's a key area breaks down. Another area breaks down is, I think, measurement.

Because I think, I think you could get to like kind of the head nods on, yeah, like we have to have an aligned to go to market, buy an account and we have to have, you know, the right content strategy and we have to create the right digital engagement and all these things that you do to drive accounts through the journey.

But then it's like, okay, what was our ROI? How many leads do we get? And you're kind of like to get a, you know, to get a complex company, you know, that, that could be 500, 000 account for you or more to convert is not about getting a lead, you know, it's about all of these levels of engagement, if it 

John Common: ever was as simple as getting one MQL from a thing called a company and winning the logo.

Yeah. By the way, I don't think it ever was, but if it ever was, it ain't that way anymore. I mean, unless you're just have your head in the sand and you're not paying attention to how B2B buyers buy today, you know, um, 

Gabe Rogol: but the measurement problem of, Okay, granted, you know, we're going to have a, you know, we call them journey stages, which is every, every type of account that you're selling with called a certain vertical or certain segment, um, or a certain, you know, type of revenue acquisition, cross sell, whatever has its own unique journey stage for your business.

You know, the types of It has the type of content it has to engage with the type of marketing and sales engagement. It has to have had, and you have to make sure that you're being successful at every stage and increasing the conversion at every stage for each type of account in, in your complex, go to market and lead is one of the stages.

Perhaps, but it's one of many, 

right? 

And that measurement issue where you forget about all this other stuff that you have to measure and try to show ROI through this one discrete step undermines your ability to put in the type of resources you need across the journey to drive the revenue that you need.

And so. I think it ultimately breaks down on that it, you know, ABM is considered to be owned by marketing and not as a go to market should be owned kind of cross functionally and an executive level and and the latter, you know, issue I discussed, which is around. It's the measurement and belief in that measurement is not in place.

John Common: When you're talking about, um, reporting and analytics, talk to me about how that connects with rev ups, if there is a connection in your mind. Who, who should help the company conceive of those? Cross functional goals and then move away from that sort of old playbook MQL focused who in the organization should provide that source of truth around reporting and analytics.

Gabe Rogol: Rev Ops, yeah, yeah, I mean, I think that which is, 

John Common: which is, which is another thing that is an emerging go to market 

Gabe Rogol: feel. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's, it's kind of like, um, it's an interesting thing because a lot of functional areas. There's, um, there's many ways to skin the cat, right? Um, so, you know, as an example, SDRs, you know, some organization have them within, um, the marketing organization.

And there's a pro to that because, you know, marketing moves. The, you know, accounts further down the funnel and sales can focus. You know, kind of on, on, on kind of the, the selling, um, as, as pipeline, a little less than prospecting still should be prospecting. Yeah. You know, um, the downside then is that, you know, pipeline is completely owned by marketing.

Whereas if you put it in sales, then there's a co participation in driving pipeline and there's more alignment. So you, it work, it can work either way. Right. It, it kind of depends, you know? And, and I think the reason I bring that up is 'cause with ops. You know, there's a case to be made. You have marketing ops and sales ops and, you know, each functional area benefits from having an operational team.

And there's a case to be made that it, that the organization benefits more based on having a unified rev ops. So, you know, I think a lot of it just depends on how aligned you are. Um, across anyway, across the different functional areas to make sure you're all buying into what the metrics are, but essentially it's rev ops or a combination of marketing or sales ops that has to kind of produce the combined analytics that enables you to understand what's going on through all those stages that you mentioned, 

right?

But within those accounts, there's kind of a middle ground, which is what is the buying group, 

right? 

Who, who is really, and it becomes very important when you have multiple products. Yes, right, right. Who's buying, you know, our, our security solution, you know, who's buying our privacy solution, you know, if you're in that space, but, you know, um, for us, like, who's buying our data solution, who's buying our core platform, like, you know, it's a different buying group and, um, integrating that across everything we've talked about, I think is that is like a next, you know, Wave of innovation.

And that's, that's a big part of what we're driving from to, from a data and technology standpoint is create that third object. You have the people data object, you have the account object, and then you have the buying group object. It's really a product level data object. That you have to measure and align in on the same way that we talked about from an account based perspective, which is what, who, who across, you know, across sales and marketing, are we agreeing who we're targeting, what content, how we're measuring.

John Common: Yeah, 

Gabe Rogol: and we're in, we're in the process of kind of interweaving that buying group object across all of our technology. So you can track it, 

John Common: that's smart and, you know. In a CRM system, you know, the object, the data objects would be, you know, the contact object, the account object. And what I've heard, I mentioned your take on this and what we sort of preach and execute on behalf of our partners who are moving from MQL to buying teams and opportunities is the opportunity object is the CRM structure that is critical, right?

Is that, that's the one that's the middle ground between a contact Which is one human, an account, which might be in the enterprise space. Multiple buying centers. What is that sweet spot in the middle is the opportunity object to which you connect contacts tied to product opportunities. I don't know if that made any sense or not, but, um, 

Gabe Rogol: Yeah, no, it does.

I mean, I think it's kind of flips it. I mean, I think, you know, the nuance is a buying group could probably have multiple opportunities, but I think it solves 

a

bit of a C it is, it kind of solves a CRM challenge. You 

know, 

CRM is kind of struggled with. Moving to account based and moving to buying groups.

And so I think that opportunity level, you know, does pull in the right people to focus on, you know, in terms of a pipeline perspective.

John Common: This has been, this is all right. We've been talking about so many of the right things in my opinion, and I love conversations like this. And I appreciate you flying with me over the landscape. It is complicated though, isn't it? It, it is many interrelated concepts. And parts, and I hear myself talk about it like right now, I'm just watching myself have this conversation with you and on some level, and I'm sure our audience too are probably like, God, that sounds complicated, man, maybe I'll just go back to doing MQLs.

And I think that goes back to the point that I was trying to make a second ago, which is don't hate Gabe and John, man, like this is the reality of, of ABX. This is the reality of, let's be honest, most B2B. Companies need some kind of an account based experience, go to market strategy if they're going to hit their growth goals.

I think that's a true statement. And if you disagree with me, send me an email on LinkedIn. We can argue about it. But I think based on my 15 years plus experience. Most of the B2B companies I serve and know are not going to get it done with PLG alone or going to events alone or writing more blogs and get doing inbound alone or a one to many MQL fest.

So yeah, 

Gabe Rogol: 100%. So if you believe 

John Common: that, if you know, that's true. Then the next question is like, okay, what is the highest likelihood, highest success path into devising and executing and winning with an account based experience strategy? And I think that the pillars that you and I have, I think of them as pillars, the pillars that we have uncovered here around alignment, around measurement, around process, around role clarity, um, are the ones that, around what you called entitlements, what I called written integrated growth plays.

These are the things that you have to do, uh. To succeed with this stuff. Um, 

Gabe Rogol: Yeah, I 100 percent agree. Like, and I think if you go back to that kind of the conceptual, if you're in this game where you're selling complex solutions, you know, there's a, there's a degree of sophistication you need to be successful.

And what you and I are talking about are the, are the sophistication. Let's be real though. We're not rocket scientists. 

John Common: I mean, I didn't study. Okay. You're the one who studied, 

Gabe Rogol: you know, um, which, you know, so are 

John Common: you saying if John and Gabe can do it, 

Gabe Rogol: well, I think the complexity is all relative, right? I mean, right.

You got to expect if you're selling hundreds of thousand dollars of solutions to multiple stakeholders. Over long periods of time, you're in the game of having a sophisticated go to market. And I think the problem is just acknowledging that. And once you do, there's technology out there, which demand base is one of that can help.

There's agencies out there. Which intelligent demand is one that can help and then there's people. There's so many people I see every day and we should say that CMOs, SDR leaders, sales leaders, demand gen leaders, um, advertising professionals that are doing this successfully that, that you can hire. And in an interview for and understand and build the team around so that the pieces are there to do it There's just still a lot of challenges and I think that's what we've been diving into.

John Common: Yeah Um one one other I think important question. I don't want to I don't want to um miss the chance to ask you about Because of what you do on a daily basis and what you've done in your career, you have a really unique point of view about where is ABX headed as a category. We know that intent is a real thing.

We know that AI is a real thing. We know, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the opportunities around changing how we think about measurement that you were just alluding to as a thing. There's a lot going on. I, I'll, I'll throw one in. I think that marketing automation is an old, old, old. category that needs to be tipped over in my opinion.

So there's a lot of technology advances, feature advances, data advances, measurement advances. Where is this thing called ABX as a category going in your opinion? 

Gabe Rogol: Yeah, I think at a high level, there's a lot of convergence that's going to happen over several years. And I think the way I look at it is, A lot of it is going to be driven to a future where data is at the base, but base of everything, you know, you've seen Matthew McGonaghy on TV for Salesforce was his date data is gold.

I think is what he said. The new gold data is the new gold. There's a reason, you know, for that marketing campaign and, you know, ultimately it's first party data and third party data, right? And the first party data is your CRM is marketing automation. Your third party data is like your demand based partner.

You know, that, that type of partner where we bring that together for a complete view of the account, the buying group, the person you got to get that right, and that's going to become the most important asset in a lot of the ways, because that's going to turn into workflows and automations that are largely AI driven, and so a lot of what we currently call products are kind of more going to be features that work together through automations.

Of segment segmentation, automations around orchestration, automations around content creation. Uh, and so I think, you know, it's going to be data foundation. You're going to really have to be thinking about into workflows. And then, you know, But there's this human element, right, the selling and the sophistication that has to be aligned around a much more unified, um, sales and marketing, go, go, go to market.

And so I envision a future where data isn't as dirty as it currently is, I'm sure in your CRM, um, where you, you, you've got first party data and you've got the third party data platform. There's going to be. A lot more automation, and you're going to have an aligned sales and marketing team that knows how to work more effectively together so that when salespeople are live, they're armed.

With insights, and they have somebody coming to that meeting that has come through very specific workflows and that conversation is, is much more impactful and drives a lot more business. So I think that's the future of where it's going. 

John Common: I just, as you were talking about that future, I wrote a, I always like to take notes.

Bottom, bottom box, like a layer cake, bottom box said data, middle box says workflows and automated workflows. of various kinds. Top box says people. Yeah, that's really, that's really, I think you're right. I think you're right. And I think we're in a really exciting and an exciting time in our field. I really do feel that way.

And if I'm going to keep being honest and overwhelming, it can feel a little overwhelming because this is, this transformation is happening. During the death of growth at all costs and the rise of the mandate of thou shalt grow efficiently. There is only one way and it must be efficient. So, you know, learning new things and transforming in the midst of that high pressure scenario is, I think, really hard for a lot of CROs and CMOs and CEOs.

I know you know that and you, you're probably living it. I'm living it, but I'm also serving. These are the people we serve. And I just had a lot of empathy, real empathy for, for these revenue executives and their teams. Um, they're smart, hardworking people working under incredible pressure against real hard goals and having to transform at the same time.

And I just want to say that out loud, that that's real and that's hard. And that's why they need good partners. I think too. 

Gabe Rogol: It's incredibly difficult and um, you're, you're, you know, thank you for saying that and you know, I know This is fairly obvious, but the pace of change is just incredible. And, and the pace of the acceleration of that change is incredible.

And I think it feels like just when you've kind of corrected for the change that's in place, all of that has, has changed. So, you know, adaptability, um, is key, you know, being open to change is key. And we're all going through this amazing time just from a technology standpoint. And it kind of, you know, like you said, overwhelming, another way to put that, I think it's just the beginning.

And, uh, you know, where it's really going to be in five or 10 years is going to be, um, I think where it's almost, it's all inspiring and incredible to, to see where it's going to be. Yeah, 

John Common: well, you're, you're one of the people architecting it and driving it and setting that vision. Um, we do a thing, uh, here on growth driver called lightning round.

And, uh, it's something that especially CEOs tend to hate, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna make you do it anyway. 

Gabe Rogol: Yeah, 

John Common: because I ask you a, Unfairly simple question, and I give you very little time, and I make you give an off the cuff answer, which CEOs don't do. They know better. That feels like a trap, but I promise it's not a trap.

So, let's just, and it's, what I want to do with you in particular, I've been thinking about this lightning round with you, Gabe, is I'm going to ask you for one piece of advice for the following roles. These are revenue executives. And I'm, I'm just going to roll through it. I want you to not overly think it, but you are going to kill it.

So here we go. I'm gonna do this. Um, one piece of it. And by the, the piece of advice around is, is navigating that complexity. We've been talking about leading transformation, driving growth. So the advice would be about that. Um, one piece of advice for an enterprise CMO. 

Gabe Rogol: Um, have the CRO be your best friend.

Yeah. 

John Common: One piece of advice for an enterprise C R O. 

Gabe Rogol: Have empathy for marketing and have the two part, um, have a pipeline goal for your team. 

John Common: Hmm. 

One piece of advice for CFOs who want to add positive value to go to market.

Gabe Rogol: Learn about the best measures, best in class measures to drive an account based. go to market and be open to my unminded to dramatically changing your thinking. 

John Common: Yeah, man. Um, one piece of advice for a CEO who is awakening to her or his go to market responsibility. 

Gabe Rogol: You're the chief go to market officer.

John Common: Last man, last one, one piece of advice for the boards who all of those C suites report to. 

Gabe Rogol: Hire the team that is going to be able to align and work effectively around a unified go to market, be really intentional in the CMO and CRO in particular roles. And then you could connecting to the CFO, um, be really open minded to the measures.

John Common: I knew you would kill it. Thank you. Thank you for trusting me. No, that was fantastic. That was, 

yeah, 

that's what I wanted that, you know, cause we, we, you and I just spent about almost an hour now talking about the complexity of it and there's something powerful sometimes to just be like, It's unfair, but distill it down to one thing.

So thank you. Thank you for doing that. Every one of those, in my opinion, was like gold. Um, all right, before I let you go, I want to talk with you just about, just really quick about you. Just as you talked about the people, I want to talk to you about you as a human. Um, if you'll let me, so sure. You have had a pretty incredible career, honestly.

And, and, and I, I, I am fascinated how people grow in their career and what did they do? And we, we touched, uh, touched on at the beginning where like it started off with young Gabe gets a Russian degree. Okay, cool. Well, I'm going to go forward to like, you know, you, you're a bag carrying salesperson successfully climbing the ranks as a sales leader.

Then you become CRO. And then you become CEO and talk to me about that VP into CRO, CRO into CEO. Those are critical, big, um, milestones. Yes, but also like you've had to, I would imagine you've had to learn and unlearn some really big things as you've gone from that VP to that CRO to that CEO. Talk to me about that.

What are one or two things where you're like, Man, sitting here now as a CEO, I didn't know then X, or I had, what got me to be a great CRO is I had to drop that and start, talk to me a little bit about that. 

Gabe Rogol: There's a lot. Um, I think the first thing to start with is you mentioned that the learning and you know, I guess that comes off as an obvious thing, but I think the most important thing is being willing to, to learn because the world is complex.

And you don't have all the information that you need to make good decisions. So you're going to make mistakes, especially if you're pushing yourself in your career beyond kind of your understanding level. So I think not having a thick skin as much as possible, taking responsibility, being the first one to take responsibility for, you know, that's an extreme ownership concept, but.

You know, as things go wrong, what could you have done differently? And it's a hard thing. And, you know, but I think that's number one in terms of the roles. I would also say the strategic salesperson in retrospect, doing that for a long time, meaning selling complex accounts was a real formative experience for me.

Because what you learn doing that are really powerful tools. You learn discovery. So you're, you're learning about what are the business problems I can help solve with my customer. You're learning stakeholder management. So who are the different spheres of influences and how do they differ and relate to each other?

Um, and those two, what are the business problems and stakeholder management are key really in being a CEO, right? You're trying to solve your own business problems. So you've got to do the discovery, constantly be asking external people and internal people in your own business. Like what are the challenges we have to solve in the stakeholder management?

You know, you've got your board, you've got your executives, you've got everybody across the company. So I think those sales skills, um, that, you know, strategic salespeople are. Our learning are really critical. And then I think there's a, there's a moment as a salesperson, at least that I had, where I realized, you know what, I'm not just selling my client.

I'm selling internally because if you're selling a million dollar solution, this is a complex thing we'll have to deliver. I have to make sure the organization is bought. I have to make sure that people that are going to deliver it. Do it well, right? And so once you kind of get that, okay, I'm finding the business problem stakeholder management, and I'm a bridge from the customer to, to, to my own business.

That's the foundation, I think, of being an executive extension, essentially. Um, and then of course, you know, as you go through management and, um, you learn more and more about driving objectives and, um, execution and, um, tough decision making that you have to make. And everybody, I think kind of learns that stuff.

I think it kind of, as a CRO, you know, I got some good advice where. It was like, you kind of got to get, get, you know, as the person responsible for revenue, get what you need from the organization, like what, what product support do you need? What marketing support? You don't do that in a way that's. Not collaborative, but, you know, as a CRO, you're, you're, you own the number and you have to know how you're going to get to the number.

And part of that is working with the rest of the organization. And, and I think, I think that's a big one as a VP of sales or CRO, um, that is a growth opportunity oftentimes. And I think naturally also starts to lead into like, maybe a CEO role, because then you're thinking about. You know, then you start to realize, okay, I need this product to ask, but Hey, product is having these challenges.

And you start to think about 

how 

do I solve those challenges? And as you start to do that, then you're kind of getting more into how does the CEO think? 

John Common: That's right. I have wanted to ask you that question for about three or four years, knowing that, because I know how just. how much of a thoughtful person you are.

And that answer you just gave was so, it's helpful to everybody listening to this because I think you're right. I think, what I love about leadership is there's many paths to being a great leader, but the things you must learn to be a great leader are universal. And so, uh, man. 

Gabe Rogol: Yep. And it's constant learning.

John Common: Amen, brother. Boy, talk about humbling. Do you find it humbling to be a CEO? I, I, I, I certainly do. Uh, good God, Gabe Rogel. You have, uh, you've been so generous with your expertise and your time. I thank you so much for being on growth driver. I have learned a ton in the last hour. I know our audience has to thank you.

Gabe Rogol: Yeah, thank you. I really enjoyed this and I'm looking forward to continuing our great partnership. 

John Common: Yeah, man, me too. Thanks so much. And, uh, to everybody who's listening, um, uh, if you don't know Gabe, follow him on LinkedIn. He is a smart dude. And I said this the other day to some people, um, you're a very humble person, but I think, uh, this episode shows, uh, just how, how much is contained in that big old brain and heart of yours.

So thanks again for being on growth for everybody. 

Gabe Rogol: Very kind. Thank you. 

John Common: All right. Well, Gabe just took off. Um, that was a deep, that was a deep conversation. That was a deep, he made so many interesting points. I, I knew it would be good and it was, um, I think the thing that I'm thinking about right now is just, I loved that he and I talked honestly about that fact that many B2B companies go to market and growth strategies are fundamentally complex.

They are. B2B, there is a real innate complexity to B2B and, and that necessitates a corresponding complexity, but a manageable complexity in your go to market strategy, which is often going to be ABX. And so I, I, we had a wide ranging discussion obviously, but I thought, I thought it was really candid. And, um, and I hope.

Well, lots of different B2B people I think need to hear that because in it is the honesty of like, hey, um, this world often wants to stick a shallow sticker on top of complex things and be like, it's the easy button. And, um, that's not always the case. That's often a good way to fail. And yet the trick is to not, to not admire complexity, but to understand the complexity and then lay out a plan.

A complexity managing approach that manages, that navigates that complexity and makes it possible for your go to market organization to drive growth, um, and transform itself. That's, that's the trick and that's what, that's what I love that we talked honestly about. Anyway. Um. Thank you. Welcome to Growth Driver.

That's kind of how it is here sometimes. Thank you so much for spending your time with me and Gabe today. Um, we're trying to build something cool on Growth Driver and you're totally a part of it. So if you like what you hear, I'm going to ask you for a favor. I want you to share this episode with your, with someone who you think might appreciate it.

Um, if you see us out there in the world, uh, comment, uh, disagree, agree, share it, uh, follow, subscribe. We crave your feedback. We need your feedback to keep making growth driver better and better and better. So please do that for me, for us, for this community that we're building. Um, also you can reach out to me anytime on LinkedIn.

I would love to hear from you. If you've got ideas for guests, for topics, if you want to just, uh, talk shop or you want to argue or learn together, I am down for it. Uh, so please, uh, pop in and say hi. And then maybe also the last thing I would say is you need to know the growth driver is brought to you today by the very talented and kind people of intelligent demand.

If you are a go to market executive or growth leader, Who's got a big growth goal, but not enough time, not enough resources, reach out to Intelligent Demand. Go check them out. IntelligentDemand. com and schedule a conversation. Here's an idea. Schedule a conversation with them where they can talk to you about the old playbook versus the new playbook.

They can help you. They can help you and your team. All right. That's it. Thanks again. See you soon on Growth Driver. Bye everybody.