Welcome to Growth Driver

Welcome to Growth Driver, a podcast about redefining B2B growth!

We started Growth Driver because B2B growth needs an intervention. The old playbook and tactical approaches aren’t working as well as they used to. Many companies are failing to meet pipeline targets and experiencing slowing growth rates and rising inefficiency.

What’s more, the B2B landscape has become so complex that no one person, no matter how smart or experienced, can ever know enough to be a world-class B2B growth leader. It takes a trusted community to reach your growth targets.

Learning to update the B2B GTM playbook is difficult, though, in no small part because most B2B GTM content isn’t very helpful! It’s either too basic for growth executives, comes from an overly narrow set of experiences (Saas/tech startups), is too wordy and academic, or is hidden behind expensive paywalls.

We created Growth Driver to address these problems. This is a show for B2B CMOs, heads of sales, and leaders of any GTM function who are feeling the pressure to rethink and re-write how their companies go to market and drive efficient growth. In each episode, our hosts talk with expert B2B GTM practitioners from a wide variety of industries about how to design, build, and run a smarter, more efficient, and more effective growth engine. We cover a broad range of topics, including GTM trends, how to align GTM strategy and execute integrated growth plays that drive ROI, emerging approaches for smarter brand awareness, leadership and culture, and much more.

We strive to make each episode fun and engaging, featuring in-depth discussions that yield insights and innovations you can actually execute. If you’re a B2B growth professional bent in re-writing the GTM playbook and leading your company towards a more prosperous future, Growth Driver is the show for you!

Growth Driver is powered by Intelligent Demand. Visit intelligentdemand.com to see how we help B2B companies grow revenue.

Transcript

John: Welcome to the show, everyone. John Common here, and I am really excited to be joining you for this first episode of Growth Driver.

Welcome to Growth Driver. Where the best minds in B2B or redefining growth. I want you to think about this episode as the origin story for the show. Right? So if you're a B2B CMO, head of sales, a VP of any flavor of a go to market function, who's personally responsible for leading and driving growth at your company, then this show absolutely has to be on your short list.

Honestly, we get it. There are lots of shows, lots of podcasts out there. So what makes Growth Driver worth your time right now? And I think it starts with why. Why did we start this show? Why are we running this show? Why are we taking the time to do it? And there's three kind of facts behind why we are doing Growth Driver for you.

Number one, B2B growth has obviously changed. You know it. I know it. You're seeing it, with decreased effectiveness of pipeline tactics, and coverage ratios, and growth rates. Um, you know that the growth game in B2B has changed, but most companies are running a really out of date playbook. That's fact number one.

Fact number two behind why we're doing Growth Driver, for you. Is no single person can possibly know everything they need to know, have read every book, know every framework, read all the research, attend all the meetings, go to all the conferences. No one person can possibly know and do everything they need to know and do to drive growth single handedly.

It just can't happen. What it takes is a community of experts who you can trust. People you really trust. That's the second reason behind Growth Driver.

And then the third reason behind Growth Driver is, and this is just real talk, most content out there about B2B go to market and B2B growth badly misses the mark, in my opinion.

How? Thanks for asking. Here's how I think it misses the mark. One, it's super basic or obvious or like, "No shit. I, I knew that. Tell me something I didn't know." Two, it comes from this really narrow set of experiences. What I see out there is a whole lot of content that's tailored for SaaS tech startups. And I love a good SaaS startup, don't get me wrong. But that may or may not be what's right for your company. Okay?

Here's another reason where the content misses the mark. Oh my god, it's boring and wordy and academic. Or, it's hidden behind this expensive paywall where you gotta pay 50, 100, 150,000 dollars a year to get access to a conversation with someone who you can learn something from. So for all three of those reasons, that's why we started Growth Driver.

I want you to know that when you listen to Growth Driver, you're hanging out with people who are in the seat just like you are. They're under real pressure to rewrite growth at their company and drive efficient growth. The whole show, every episode, ultimately ladders up to the, the purpose of helping you design and build and run a smarter growth engine.

So we think the best way to do that is to not throw a, talking head who's pointing at a thousand slide PowerPoint at you. Imagine that. Instead, what we're doing every episode is inviting the best minds in B2B sourced from across a wide range of expertise where we come together and talk shop at an expert, pragmatic level and unpack the topics together and learn together.

This show really isn't for beginners. Um, there's a lot of content. A lot of great content out there for people who are just kind of kicking the tires on B2B or, or needing to learn kind of the basic chapter one, chapter two foundational topics. That's not what this show is about. You're going to see us talking to CMOs, CROs, CEOs, heads of product, heads of customer success - and from different industries, different business models, different company sizes. That's really cool. This, think of it as a community of your peers who share your goals.

What kinds of topics do you get into when you listen to Growth Driver? Well, it's, admittedly, it's a big topic. But there's sort of three pillars, three big chapters that we cover, all the time.

So one is how do you modernize and align around smarter go to market strategy? What's the research telling us? What are the trends? How do we create smarter, better, go to market strategy? That's number one. Number two, okay, we've got that strategy. How do we bring it to life in the market? Not in siloed heroics. But do it in a way that integrates tactics and teams and people and motions and technology and content.

We call them integrated growth plays. How do we bring integrated growth plays to life? Whether it's account based or product led growth or customer led growth or wider aperture demand gen. And doing it for acquisition, retention, and renewal. So that's the second big topic.

And then the third piece is people, people, people. Right? So leadership, culture, work life balance, or work life integration. Really getting at the topics of, hey, at the end of the day, you can have the strategy right, the tactics right; but if you don't get the people right, you're not going to hit your growth goals consistently. But every episode needs to pay off on five things.

And as a host, that's what I'm focused on. One is, we shall have fun and be informal when we do it. Life is too short to be grim. Number one. Number two, we're going to come at the topic through the lens of an aligned strategy and an integrated way to execute that. Number two. Number three, we're going to go deep like an expert practitioner, right?

So again, I mentioned it, this is not for beginners. Number four, we're going to absolutely focus on innovation, but we're going to call bullshit on buzz and hype. So it's innovation that you can execute and move the needle with. That's what we're looking for when we talk about innovation. We're not here to just pitch an idea to you.

And then the last piece is we're going to be candid. We're going to challenge ourselves to be courageous, and human, and talk about mistakes, and talk about what we learned from. So hopefully this sounds like your kind of show. The only other thing I think it's important to, to make sure you know is that are we a podcast?

Yeah, we're a podcast. But we're not just a podcast. We regularly produce video content, short form content, key insights, full episodes for you to share with your team, with your colleagues. We deliver frameworks and research and guides that you can use right now, in your role. And then also we, we are putting on invite only events, where we can actually, imagine this, get together, not just virtually, but even in the real world.

So, If this sounds like the kind of nerdy B2B growth stuff that you love and that you need, here's what I want you to do. I want you to hit subscribe on Growth Driver. I want you to follow us on LinkedIn, on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram. You pick the channel. We are there for you. I want you to share episodes with your team, with your colleagues, with your teammates and your friends.

And I want you to always feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. Just find me on LinkedIn, John Common. And, I'm always eager to hear ideas for shows. We obviously don't charge for Growth Driver. It's, there's no credit card needed. But that doesn't mean it's free, either, right? So, we're asking for two really precious assets from you.

One is your time, and the second thing is your trust. And, we don't take that lightly. So, alright, let's have some fun digging into B2B growth, together. I am so excited to be your host. I'm so excited to see you out there and I'll see you soon. Thanks everybody. Growth Driver is brought to you today by the talented and kind people at Intelligent Demand.

Look, if you're a B2B CMO, CRO, or some flavor of a go to market leader, and you're personally on the hook for driving efficient revenue growth, you need to go check them out at IntelligentDemand.com. Schedule a free meeting with one of their growth experts, talk some shop, and learn how they can help you hit your goals.