Shop Talk: Modern B2B and GTM with Scott Albro

Scott Albro: We oversold. We just did. We just sold too much stuff to these organizations. 

John Common: Welcome to Growth Driver. Where the best minds in B2B are redefining growth. 

My name is John Common. I'm a founder. I'm a CEO, but most importantly, I'm a total B2B growth geek, which is why I'm also your host. Okay, I want you to imagine a CEO who truly deeply gets B2B go to market, B2B sales, B2B marketing, B2B technology. Yes, such a person actually exists.

And I know a very good one. His name is Scott Albro. Now today, Scott and I are going to discuss the state of B2B go-to-market. Before I hand you the mic, I'm going to try to introduce you.

You've built and successfully led multiple companies as a founder and a CEO, including, co founding Topo. Which got acquired by Gartner. That's dope. Now you're also, because evidently you like to suffer, the co founder and CEO of Goldie.ai, a sales co pilot platform and company. 
So if it sounds like I respect this guy, I do. Scott Albro, welcome to Growth Driver. 

Scott: Oh, thanks, John. That is a way too kind of an intro. It's great to be here. 

John: Alright look. I want to anchor our talk in what I think are the larger trends currently in B2B go-to-market. But let's just start with the first one. The pivot from growth at all costs to efficient growth. How are you seeing B2B CMOs, CROs, CEOs, and their teams? 

So go to market executives. How are you seeing them actually really deal with the shift to efficient growth? Is it going well, according to your point of view, honestly? 

Scott: Yeah. Well, um,there's a complex, multifaceted answer to that question, because it's a big question. And  the first point I would make is like, we clearly have shifted, you know, for those people who might be in doubt about whether we've shifted from growth at all costs to efficient growth. We absolutely have.
I think the second point that people should be aware of there is that there's this thing that sits outside of the go-to-market function that is really the most important thing when it comes to efficient growth. And that is what many people would call product-market fit.

Scott: And so if you're trying to make this move from growth at all costs to efficient growth, and you don't have product-market fit or it's imperfect, or, you know, you're somewhere on that journey to finding it.
It's really, really hard to get to efficient growth. If you have product-market fit, it's a lot easier. You still need to make good decisions in the go-to-market organization, but you have a fighting chance. And I was in a board meeting a long time ago and I was an executive at a company where we did not have product-market fit.
And a very well known VC was an investor in the company and he walked into the boardroom. In kind of, I think year five or six of our journey. And this was before the phrase product-market fit had been coined. And he walked in and he said, "Guys, we're done." And everyone looked around and he said, "You know, you've made all the right moves.
The problem is there's, there's just not strong demand for this. The market is not like sucking the product out of your organization." And what he was saying is you don't have product-market fit. And what he was also saying is you did everything right in your, in your sales and marketing organization, but because you don't have product-market fit, it's just, it's just too hard, right?
John: Yeah. 
Scott: So that, that was one of those, you know, you have these top 10 moments. Well, that was not a top 10, that was a bottom 10 moment, but things you don't forget, right? That was one of those moments you just don't forget. So that's so important.
Then the third thing I would say is, I think companies are having, you know, there are lots of different types of companies out there, different types of markets, products, et cetera. And so to pretend that there's this one way to get to efficient growth and achieve efficient growth. Is a mistake, right?
You have to look at your market, your ICP, your current org structure, your conversion rates, your go-to-market strategy, your sales process, et cetera. And you have to make decisions based on these oftentimes unique characteristics of your company. And that's why so many companies are on different, you know, their companies who have gone, they've gotten to efficient growth. Like pretty quickly, right?
They're profitable, you know, whatever the metric is that they look at. And then their companies that are really struggling, and, in my opinion, that's not because people don't know what to do. It's because there are these unique operating characteristics that exist in most businesses that might prevent you from, you know, taking a very smooth path to get there or vice versa.
They might make it really easy for you to get there. So those are some high level thoughts. You know, I have some additional thoughts on, specific moves that companies are making. But,  does that make sense so far?
John: Yeah. No, it does. It does. You know, and you mentioned product-market fit. I think a lot of the folks who are at the core of our audience at Growth Driver, we can assume they've achieved product-market fit to some degree. And I think the question is, okay, in light of this mandate to be more efficient with budget, to be more efficient with talent and time, in light of that how are these B2B leaders making the jump? Like what are some guiding principles that you would recommend? Maybe even just two or three. Like, look, I'm a CMO at a company that's got a couple hundred plus million dollars a year revenue. We've got product-market fit. But I have to see CAC improve. I've got it, but I still have growth goals.
What are some things that you would say? Look here first.
Scott: Yeah. Well, I think they're just two big ones that jump out at me. What one of these, there are two parts to it. But the big things that we should focus on as a CMO, CRO, whatever it is. One thing is like just costs, right? And you might say, well, that's obvious, right? Where I think that discussion gets more interesting is when you think about costs that sort of spread across the revenue process or the customer experience.
Because costs are very, very different depending upon where you are in that experience. And again, at a very, this is a very high level statement, but the way that I tend to think about that is Marketing spends money on campaigns, technology, traffic acquisition, lead acquisition, whatever it is.
That's where they're spending their money. And sales spends money on people. And those are, those are two very, very different models, right? And, but they're both expensive. And you have to go pay attention to both of those things. They're just very different. So that's one thing to go focus on at a high level is obviously cost.
But the, the important point there is this distinction between, you know, marketing costs and sales costs. And often people time, oftentimes people forget that, right?
John: I think of it as digital, digital forward channels and human channels.
Scott: Yes. That's a good way to put it I think. The second thing is, again, it's a very simple, common concept. It's just conversion rates, right? And again, you can look at those in marketing. You can look at those in sales, right? But you know, an example of something we might do in a sales organization is we might identify where most deals fall off. And like a common place where deals fall off in a sales organization is you deliver the proposal and the prospect goes to you.
Well, what do we do about that? We can fix that. Like we can, if we have product-market fit, we can absolutely fix that problem, right? 
Or in the marketing organization, maybe we generate some version of a qualified lead, a marketing qualified lead or whatever. And we have this massive drop off when we hand that to the sales development organization, or maybe sales development is part of marketing and we're delivering sales qualified leads into the sales organization.
Again, if we have product-market fit, and we're seeing a drop off in conversion rates at that point in time, we can go fix that, right? And so, to me, I think about this as like, we gotta, of course, you know, if we're gonna be efficient, we've gotta deal with costs and there are moves you can make there. And then we also have to go deal with conversion rates.
I mean, those are the two big levers you can pull. 

John: You know, the thing, one of the things that I've been thinking lately is not really debatable that we are in the era of more efficient growth. That's a true statement. 

And you'd have to be kind of an idiot not to know that. All right. So what, and I, what I'm wondering is depending on who you talk to and the topic, it sounds like we need to completely rethink everything when you're having this conversation. 
AI as an example, which we're going to talk about a lot in a second, as a good example of a, of a trigger, that's like, Oh my God, the whole world is completely different. But then on the other hand, I'm in these conversations about what do we do about the pivot to efficient growth?
And you know what? It sounds a lot like to me, Scott is it sounds like a return to fundamentals. You know? 
So is it that we are literally blowing up status quo and recreating whole cloth go to market in B2B? Or are we actually returning to fundamentals? Or is it a third thing, which I bet you're going to say, which is it's a scoop of both? 

Scott: Yeah. I mean, I guess what I would say is it's, and again, some companies are doing this, some companies are not. I'll call it hardcore optimization, right? Or heavyweight optimum, you know? 
John: Optimizing down to the bone, so you're not, not, not surface level.
Scott: Yeah, yeah. We've always optimized, but let's be honest. You know, in a zero interest rate environment, right?
Like it was sort of lightweight optimization, right? Now we're, now  we're in heavyweight optimization mode. 
John: Yeah. Totally. It used to be should we go incredibly hard at the trade show? Or should we just sort of go sort of hard at the trade show? Right? I mean, it's like. 
Scott: Yeah. Or, you know, my paid search spend is, 5 million a month. Can I take that down to 4.999 million a month? Right? Like, and so, so anyway, but it, so to me, it's like the real shift that's happening is lightweight optimization to, like heavyweight optimization. And then heavyweight optimization can take you in a couple of directions.
The two directions you mentioned. One is like we're getting back to the fundamentals, right? We're gonna go relook at the ICP, do big, you know, like deep analysis of the funnel and conversion rates, right? But heavyweight optimization can also take you to, we need to blow the whole thing up, and, you know, like build some new, come up with some new ideas and new, new programs and sort of start over.
And that's obviously very hard to do. That's typically going to happen when like, "Hey, we don't have product-market fit. So we need to come up with something radical on the go-to-market stuff." 
So I think the shift is really about deeper optimization.

John: Which leads us sort of to the next kind of major topic in our conversation today. Which is, okay, in light of that, mandate for efficiency, let's talk about and just follow me if you will follow the structure, the simple structure I'm laying out, which is, old B2B go to market playbook. Imagine that. New B2B go to market playbook.
Okay, so let's focus on the old or maybe it's status quo playbook. Describe for me from your perspective, the main sort of elements or ingredients of that old go-to-market playbook. What were those things that typified, that made it be the status quo?
Scott: Yeah. Well, I think the fundamental things are at a very base sort of foundational level is, that, they are, there's a market out there, right? And then we're going to build this apparatus to go target, engage, and hopefully close that, close, you know, organizations, people, whatever, who are in that market.
And the status quo has kind of always been, we've got marketing, we've got sales. And then more recently, you know, we have this thing called customer success, right? And, those are like the building blocks. And what happens in B2B is, we tend to think of different ways to manage and organize those building blocks.
Like an example of something we might do in the market is, we might refine our ideal customer profile, right? That's a marketing exercise. But what you're really doing there is you're thinking about a way to organize that first building block that I talked about. What the market is, right?
You know, personas would be another, you know, what are our target personas? That would be another example. I think that stuff is pretty self contained, easy to understand where things get more interesting and, and kind of a little more dynamic is, how we think about how marketing, marketing and sales, I'll leave customer success out of it for the moment, but how marketing and sales are going to work together, be organized, develop a process, whatever it is - to go target and engage
the target market. And it seems like in B2B, we're sort of always, I would call it perpetual dissatisfaction with the choices that we make there. Right? So, I mean, you'll remember John, like, and we still do this today, right? We went all in on this thing that we call demand generation, right?
And, that started, you know, wow, you know, close to 20 years ago now, right? And we saw things like marketing automation tools emerge that were sort of purpose built for demand gen models. Like everyone was throwing up landing pages. This was, sort of the first, digitally native effort to organize sales and marketing in a way, that would effectively target and engage  that market that we were talking about earlier.
And a process emerged, where we generate MQLs and then we'd re-market those or nurture those. Some of them would end up going to the sales development organization. Like this body of work emerged around demand generation, and it was essentially sales and marketing working together to try and figure out how to get to the market.
And of course it wasn't perfect. And so the next thing that emerged was account based, right? And that was another effort to organize sales and marketing. To go win customers. And it looked very different than demand generation. And so, the reason we went in that direction is I think a lot of people realized that that demand gen model was imperfect.
And then we realized account based was imperfect. And so, 

John: How is account based imperfect? 

Scott: Well, I think account based is, yeah, go ahead. Account base is imperfect in the sense that it doesn't allow you to, I guess I would say account based works for certain market segments. For other market segments, it does not, right? Another way that account base is imperfect is that it can be expensive.
Speaking of efficient growth. You know, figuring out how to do efficient account based can be challenging. The cost to managing account based across a marketing, you know, basically across the entire organization. Those can be more expensive than pure demand gen effort. So, I'm not bagging on account based specifically. My point is that all of these B2B go-to-market strategies, motions, methodologies, whatever you want to call them are imperfect. Like PLG is imperfect too. Right. And so there will be another thing after PLG. I don't know what it is. Right? 
But like, if you view this as like, "Hey, demand gen came, then account based came, then PLG came." 
There's going to be some new thing that people come up with sometime in the next five years, right? Like that will happen. 

John: Yeah. Let me throw this out as a summary. And then you can beat me up and make fun of me. All right. So, old playbook to new playbook, as you've been talking, I've been thinking like, how would I answer that question? That deeply unfair question that I asked you. So it's only fair that I, I think, I think one way that the old playbook is different than the new playbook is in the area of targeting. Old playbook tended toward TAM. 

Scott: Yep. 

John: New playbook tends toward cohorts and segments and account tiers. That's one. Two is old playbook was kind of like, I hope you like my message cause you're all going to get it. 

Scott: Yep. 

John: New playbook is much more personalized within reason based on your ability to do so. But it's personalization is the second dimension I think of old to new.

Third, I would put, the degree of like, cut the alignment and orchestration across departments, right? So old playbook, siloed, happily siloed. New playbook, beginning to recognize we should probably act like one growth team, no matter what our go to market strategy is. And then the fourth, I think from my, I think the fourth one might be from myopically acquisition focused.
To more end to end acquisition, retention, and expansion in the new playbook. What do you, does that hold water to you? 

Scott: Yeah, I love that. I mean, I might, you know, on that last point, I think we could call that a lifetime value of the customer. Right. 

John: Yeah. Oh that's good. 

Scott: But you're making a really good point there. And then, you orchestration alignment piece, I think you're right on there. I would use some slightly different language there to make it more about the prospect or the customer, which is, you know, we're going to take this, multi pronged, I hesitate to use the word channel because it's more than that, but like multi channel approach to engage the customer. And I think that's right on. 

The other thing, I just comment on is the word personalization,
is a good word. It's an accurate word. I think a lot of people think of personalization as messaging, and it's not just messaging. It's actually the offer that you put in front of the prospect. You know, you were talking about segments and cohorts. It's like, we admit we may have a segment that's so valuable to us, that we want to put a really valuable, expensive offer in front of them. That's a form of personalization, but it's not messaging, right? 

John: One hundred percent. 

Scott: That's like, yeah. So it's like, no, we're going to fly out, see you run a day long workshop that has nothing to do with our product or service that we offer. We just want to be helpful and see if we can get to know people at the account.
That's a valuable account for us, so we're willing to do that. Another account, we might not be willing to do that. So I totally agree with those four things, and I'm sort of, I'm kind of hard pressed to add to that. I think that's really good.
John: Yeah, that's interesting though. Your point about personalization, it's personalized experiences is what I'm hearing you say. 

Scott: Yeah, I think that's a great point.

John: It's not email, subject lines, necessarily. 

Scott: Which is what everyone talks about, right? 

John: Yeah that's totally it. You know, I'm going to pick up kind of,  I'm going to pick up on the,  you were talking about there, there was the era of marketing and sales totally on an Island. 

Then we moved to the era of demand gen powered by marketing automation. Thank you, SIRIUSDECISIONS for the funnel graphic. Right? You know? And then that led us to the era of account-based. 
And I'm imagining that picture of like, you know, from monkey to man, you know, like the evolution. And so here with that in our minds, I think what we're seeing now is an explosion, seriously, an explosion of go-to-market. So like if you were to map it out, it would be, you know, marketing and sales on an island called V one V two, the era of demand gen or whatever, V three, the area of AB.
But now I think we're entering kind of a bizarre land of an explosion of go-to-market motion. So I, just to make my point, I'm gonna read,

Scott: Yeah, yeah, I want to hear this. 

John: I want to read what I think is the list of the current main go-to-market motions that I'm going to start calling, I'm going to call them the XLGs. It's the XLGs. 

Scott: Okay. All right.

John: Sales-led growth. Marketing-led growth, one to many demand gen, account based or ABX, product-led growth, partner-led growth, channel-led growth. Ecosystem-led growth. Marketplace growth. Customer-led growth, community-led growth. Inbound, outbound, near bound. Event-led growth. Peanut butter and jelly led growth is next, right? 

So, I don't mean to make fun, but I mean, at some point, you have to be like, wow. So my first question, with all this setup, Scott Albro, what does hearing me read that list make you think? 

Scott: I don't know. I feel greasy after hearing that. Like, I feel, I feel like, you basically, you know, we started the call by talking about me participating on LinkedIn. And, that makes me want to no longer participate on LinkedIn. Because I think all those things, I think the vast majority of those things you just read, are A uncommon, not prevalently used. B, they're just talked about by quote thought leaders, talking heads on places like LinkedIn. 
And C, they've been, actually, most of those things have been around forever. 
And D, perhaps most importantly, they're tactics. They're not strategies. You know, with all due respect to anyone who's talking about event-led growth, I am actually a huge believer in event-led growth, but it's not a go-to-market strategy.
It's actually, you know, a set of tactics that you go execute to target customers. And, it strikes me as being very, very differently than, account based or demand gen or or even PLG. And you know, the other thing I'd just say is there's money to be made in these acronyms and new go to market motions. And people get paid to talk about them, whether they're real or not. And people get paid to make a bigger deal out of them than they actually are. And so I'd be very, very cautious about all these new things.
And, you know, the other problem it presents is like, how many of those things can you actually do well? 

John: You're you're reading up. Yeah. It's like I gave you my script, but I haven't yet. We are so aligned. We are so aligned. I, can I, can I riff with you on this a little bit? 

Scott: Yeah. Yeah. Love it. 

John: And we'll unpack it together. So, A, I agree. B, it's like everybody in B2B rev tech and also just everybody in B2B go-to-market all read Play Bigger and we are gorging on category creation. 
Scott: I, I'm actually a fan
John: at scale.
Scott: for, for the right company. 
John: No, I am too! But like everything has a play. But my point is, that everybody is trying to name it so they can claim it, right? That's what's going on. 

Scott: Oh, I see. I see your point. Yeah. totally agree with that. 

John: That's what this is, Scott. That's what this is. If I can come up with, you know, whatever investor led growth, then I get to coin the phrase. I get to create the category. I get to write the definitive guide to investor led. I just made that up, investor led growth.

Scott: Yeah. That's actually, that is a thing. 

John: Wait, Hey, let's start a company! Let's start a category! You and m! Investor led growth. And then we create a website and then we create a community. And, down at the, what, to me, what is slippery about this stuff is that, these are not dumb people doing it. It's smart people, who have sometimes, could be the germ of a good idea that, who knows, over time it might prove, be proven into a legitimate strategic go-to-market motion.
Or, it might be, what you pointed out, which is a tactic. Look, if event led growth is a strategy, then, banner led growth is a strategy. Then, right? Outdoor sign led growth is a strategy. And I just, it ain't. Right? 

Scott: Totally agree. 

John: Or it's just hype. It's just empty, shallow hype. And I think we see all of that right now. 

Scott: Or, it's an effective, it's a very effective tactic and we should just call it that. Right. And we shouldn't try to make a mountain out of a molehill. Right? There's nothing wrong with event led growth. You know, it's like, should a company put all its eggs in that basket, right? 

John: No, well see, and that's the, and that's where I've been. As I've been thinking about this myself, I find it useful when you're staring at that never ending list that I jokingly read out earlier. I think it's helpful, and I'm actually doing this now in my head, is I'm organizing them into four categories. 

So when you hear the next XLG, I think what we should do is ask ourselves, is that a primary go to market motion defined as I would bet my mortgage on it, it's proven. 

Scott: Yep. 

John: I can pay my mortgage with that. It's a primary. Is it a secondary? I think there are secondary go to market motions. They're legitimate.
They're proven. But they tend to accelerate or be additive or expansive in combination with a primary go-to-market motion. Right? So an example might be, we've been running a one to many demand gen, sales and marketing led motion. And because we're moving up market, we're going to add an ABX secondary motion to that. Potentially.
That would be an example. Potentially. 
I think product led growth in combination with, kind of a demand oriented or even an account based motion is a really good example of two primaries or a primary or secondary. So that's, those are two that I would throw out. The third category I think would be emerging unproven go-to-market motions.

Scott: Yeah. 

John: And then the fourth, I'm just going to call it hype. Or tactics. 

Scott: Yeah. Yeah. 

John: Right? Well, what do you think about that? 

Scott: Well, I think that's good. It feels like you're talking about a couple things across those categories. One is impact. Like, how big of an impact can this have on my business? 

John: And how proven? Yeah. It's like a two by two. 

Scott: And then two is like maturity or, you know, provability or whatever, you know, whatever. Whatever you want to call it.
But those are the two things you're talking about there. And that makes a ton of sense. I mean, you know, look. I think, one way for an organization, like for like a marketing or a sales organization, to think about this stuff is like what programs in my, you know, not programs, what go to market strategies do I support today?
How well do they work? Do I need another one? And if I need another one, you know, let's go through a priority.
John: That's a great question. Do I need another one? And that should probably be defined as, "Am I achieving my growth goals now and into the midterm? And if everything's working pretty well, but I need to optimize, do that." Right? 

Scott: And I think this is less common in sales organizations, but I think marketing organizations tend to want to experiment and explore new ideas. And I think that's great. That's one of the coolest things about marketing. But that can also get you into trouble, right? Like, you know, worst case scenario, you read some LinkedIn posts from a thought leader is like, yeah, whatever LG is the greatest thing.
And all of a sudden you're spending time and money on that. That's not a good decision, right? There are other ways to make that decision.
John: And I think that, not to put words in either of our mouths, but from the last five or 10 minutes of this conversation, I think that might be one of the key takeaways, right? Which is, hey, there's a time for exploring, innovating, considering. Um, but when it comes time to pay your mortgage, so to speak. 

Scott: Yeah. Or take your job. Yeah.

John: Or hit your growth goals. Be careful about that decision. 

Scott: Can I just make one, one final point, which is it seems like a good way for a CMO or CRO or, or VP of sales, whatever it is to lose their job is to make a huge bet on a new go-to-market strategy that does not work, right? Like, that seems like something a CEO and board of directors would care about.
A lot of other stuff. Probably a little bit under their, you know, their radar. But that, feels like a killer. If you make a mistake there. 
John: But that's why I wanted to talk to you about this. I think there's a lot of, playing around happening, which is for the people who are purveying the latest LG, the latest XLG. It's low stakes for it's only upside for them if they can get you to come. 

Scott: They get paid if people start using it. Right? 

John: But lose your job if you bet wrong on something as serious as a go to market motion. 

John: B2B rev tech used to be pretty simple. A website. A email platform. Some data. Those days are long gone. You know it. I know it. If you need an expert B2B RevOps partner, go to IntelligentDemand.com and schedule a free consult with one of their RevOps strategists. They can help. 

John: But I want to move on to talking about an equally big topic with the time we have, which is the impacts of technology, data, and AI, on B2B sales and marketing. 
And there's a million podcasts already out there about the generic macro stuff about AI. That's not what I want to talk about with you. 
You literally are the founder of a new company called Goldie.ai leveraging these technologies. So like, I want to make sure that we stay very rooted in B2B go-to-market usage of tech data
and AI. 
So first thing I want to start with, what is your take on the current B2B revenue technology reckoning that is underway? Reckoning meaning Gartner, your former organization that used to work at, just recently put out the latest of its annual, how much do we think B2B marketers are actually using the capabilities of their tech stack?
And it's now plummeted to 42%.
Scott: Yeah.
John: What's your take on the revenue reckoning? Revenue technology reckoning that's happening right now? 

Scott: I think it's very real and it's, you know, I think I wrote about this a few months ago, the most important thing that's happening in RevTech right now is not AI. It's actually tech stack consolidation. 

John: Boom. 

Scott: It is real. It is happening. And by the way, I am not incented to say that at all.
I'm the CEO of a sales tech company, right? Like I should be out there saying, "Oh, everybody's buying sales tech right now." That's not true. And you know, so if I give an example, well, let's talk about sales tech first, right? Like if I give an example from the world of sales tech, basically we spent the last 12 to 15 years throwing everything we had at our sales reps, all in the name of growth at any cost. 
Lots of new technologies. Data that nobody ever asked for. All kinds of enablement. A new sales methodology every year. Right? Like we just threw everything we had at the sales organization, and we had really good intentions, right?
Like we wanted to improve, think of it as like we wanted to, you know, grow faster, but we also wanted to improve sales productivity, and those are perfectly logical things to go do if you want to improve sales productivity. Well, we ran into a couple issues. One is, we ended up spending a lot of money. Doing that. 

That's the primary issue. And that's why you see a lot of end user sales organizations trying to correct that and consolidate their tech stack. We also ran into issues around rep adoption. That's less of an issue in a marketing organization. But in the world of sales tech, the number one challenge with sales tech is getting 500 different people or a thousand people or 5,000 people to actually use the damn stuff.
It's really, really hard to do. And so it turned out, you know, to your, the number you shared about Gartner, that's probably an even bigger problem in a sales organization, if you do that on a per user basis, right? Like sales reps are hard to, it's hard to get them to use these different sales technologies.

For the simple reason that there's just lots of salespeople. Which again is different than marketing. And then the other challenge that we had is some of the technologies just didn't work, right? Like they just didn't, didn't live up to the promise. At least in terms of outcomes, right?
Like, 'hey, we're going to impact conversion rates this way,' right? Well, did that really happen? In many cases, the answer is no. And so we're seeing rapid consolidation of the sales technology stack right now. And in my opinion, it's healthy. We want our customers to be happy. We want to deliver results and outcomes to them. 

And I think we can all honestly just acknowledge, I've been in the sales and MarTech space for probably the better half of my career at this point in time. We oversold. We just did, we just sold too much stuff to these organizations. And, look, grow up and just admit that. That's the market reality right now that we're operating in. 

And so there's solutions to those problems, but that consolidation thing is real and it's absolutely way bigger than all the hype around AI that exists. 

John: I'm going to ask you about RevOps really quick. Just, we'll keep it quick. Is RevOps needed? I'm talking about, you know, the RevOps concept, the RevOps philosophy of getting data and tech stacks out of silos, out of organizational silos, so that there's one RevOps, one technology, one data, one process. 

Center of excellence in a company's go-to-market stack. So it unlocks better alignment, better orchestration, better analytics. Right? So that's RevOps. My question is that needed more than ever or is it a fading concept in your opinion? 

Scott: Yeah, well, I don't know, I'm not sure it's needed more than ever, but I also don't believe it's a fading concept. I think it's really important. It's the progress that we have made with RevOps over the last few years, I think is one of the best things that's happened in sales and marketing. If for no other, and I tend to think of the, there is an alignment benefit here for sure.

There's a breaking down silos benefit for sure. But what I really love about the RevOps movement, I'll call it, is it has made the previously existing operations functions, marketing ops, sales ops, whatever it is, way more strategic. And I'll just give you an example again from the world of sales if that's okay.

But like sales ops. You know, what that used to be is the VP of sales had this person in their org where they could just go ask them any question that they had, and that sales ops person would go run the data or do whatever and get the get the head of sales the answer. RevOps is very, very different than that.
So like that, where we opened the conversation from growth at all costs to efficient growth. Imagine trying to make that transition with sales, right? Instead of Rev Ops, Like imagine how hard that is. 
And so, part of that is the silos. But for me, the bigger part of that is we have a RevOps professional class out there now where these people are really strategic and really critical to the business. 

They're not just like, 'go run this report,' right? They're really thinking about how to run the go-to-market function in a scalable, repeatable way. And so for me, it's, I don't know if it's more important than ever, I do know it's really, really important.

John: All right. So AI, I want to just at least, I can't do this interview with you without at least talking about AI a little bit. And my question is, how should enterprise and mid market growth teams who are under relatively strict privacy and security policies and concerns, and rightly so. How should they be safely testing and learning and thinking about AI? 

Knowing that AI is in the air, it's in the water, it's entering our infrastructure, every single technology platform is adding AI features. Should they just wait for it to sort of come and be a kind of a middle of the pack adopter? Or would you say no, lean in to AI, and if so, how would they do that safely? 

Scott: Yeah. Well, look I think there's still some questions that we don't have good answers for yet. And in some cases, we don't even know what questions to ask. It's very early days here at Goldie, but we do have some customer. And our best customers, the best customers we have, have created these AI working groups, inside of their organizations, that are trying to figure out what questions to ask and what what should the answers to those questions be. 
So I'll give you one example, I can't name the customer, but i'll give you an example. We love this customer, not only because they're a customer but because we learned so much from them in our sales cycle with them. They weren't even using the product yet. We were trying to sell them and they basically put us in front of this working group or committee that had about 10 people on it from legal, from IT, from the CSO's office, from the sales organization, from sales ops.
And they came at us with these spreadsheets that just had lists of questions in them. Think of it as like, you know, security assessment, AI security compliance assessment 1.0. Just a raw spreadsheet that they threw at us. And we answered all the questions. And then we got on a call and we talked about it. 

And they learned a lot and we learned a lot. And I think this is very common in new technology markets. Like the vendors and the end users are kind of learning together in parallel and we forget about that. And then guess what happened? I think it was two weeks later they came back and they said, 'Hey, we actually have another set of questions that we just came up with after you responded to the initial assessment.' 

And we were like, great. Send them over. We'll work on them. We'll, you know, we'll be honest with you, candid about it. And so, so anyway, that's where we are in the AI market right now. And I think that's to be expected and really healthy. One thing I don't think you want to be doing is just sitting back and waiting for other people to figure that out for you. 

I really recommend it doesn't have to be 10 people. It could be two people, one person. It doesn't really matter, but like have some people in your organization that are proactively working on. You know, it could be security compliance. Another area we do a lot of work on with our clients is like actual use cases.

John: Yeah I was gonna say, how about use cases, right? 

Scott: Yeah. Like AI is this big fuzzy thing, this amorphous thing where I think people are really struggling to figure out, how do I apply this to my business? Well, let's work on developing some use cases together. Maybe Goldie can help with some of those. Maybe not. Maybe we just develop some cool use cases together. 

So I think that's how I'd approach it. 

John: That's great. That's great. That's great advice. That's great advice for the folks who are listening is, what I'm hearing you say is, 'Do not put your head in the sand and wait for everyone else to figure out AI for you. That's a mistake.' You didn't say this, but I don't think they could and I don't hear you recommending, like, buy every AI tool you can.
Get everyone in your company a login and cross your fingers and hope it doesn't go bad. 

Scott: Yeah. Don't do that. 

John: Somewhere in the middle is creating this cross-functional sort of AI, emerging practice, co-creation, test and learn team. With maybe a handful of vendors who are down to do it with you because let's let's just call it what it is;
we are co-creating, a new practice, a new way of doing things here. That's what I think that's what's happening. And that's what you just described to me is that your folks at Goldie were doing that with this customer of yours. I think it's great advice. 

Scott: We call the way we work with our customers today, we call that our charter customer program. We don't call them customers, right? Because there's like real design work happening. They're real feedback sessions that are happening. And so that's very different than release software, let people buy it and use it. Right? 
And, so that, I don't know, I may be myopic here. Like I've got these blinders on, on RevTech and what Goldie does. 
Maybe there are other AI segments out there or offerings out there where that doesn't make sense. But in the RevTech space for sales and marketing organizations, I feel like we're still in this kind of design slash feedback phase. 

John: Yeah, we should be. All right. We're drawing to a close here, my friend. We're now in the lightning round phase. 

Scott: Uh oh, I didn't know there was a lightning round. 

John: Yeah, I'm going to do a lightning round. So just trust me with this one. 

Scott: These are hard for me. I'm a very long winded person. If you couldn't tell from the last 58 minutes. 

John: Hey, it takes one to know one. This is why it's good for you and me, Scott. We have to learn how to shut up and talk. 

Scott: We're going to need AI to shorten this. 

John: That's right. We'll run this through chat or whatever. All right. So I'm going to ask you a short question and I want you to as much as possible give a one sentence answer. Okay? 

Scott: Okay.

John: Here we go. What is the single most important thing that being a startup founder and CEO has taught you? 

Scott: How important your family is. 

John: Give me one piece of advice for growth oriented B2B CEOs. 

Scott: Find product market fit. 

John: One piece of advice for B2B CMOs. 

Scott: Build a big brand. 

John: One piece of advice for a B2B CSO, CRO head of sales. 

Scott: Learn how to measure quality of engagement with your prospects. That was a long sentence, sorry. 

John: No, that was great. No, that was, you nailed it. All right. One piece of advice for a B2B head of CS or CX. 

Scott: Well, this one's obvious, but make it about retention and expansion dollars. 

John: That, no, that's it. That's fine. All right, here. Last one on the lightning round. What is the absolutely worst or most maddening take you've heard on social media about B2B go-to-market? Made you throw up in your mouth. 

Scott: Oh.. This one's going to get me into trouble, right? Because if someone listens and then they're like, well, I'm the person who said that, 

John: Blame it on me. Come on. Come on. 

Scott: Let's see. Okay. I'll give you one that's related to AI. I got in a, it was just a straight out argument. Like if we had been in the physical world, there might've been, you know, fisticuffs as they say. But, not really. 

But yeah, I got in a discussion with a bunch of fellows on LinkedIn several months ago, who were saying like, AI is perfectly ready for the enterprise, no security issues, no compliance issues. And I was like, you guys are absolutely nuts. That is so not true. So, there I've seen a lot of bad takes in, you know, on social media, but that's one that comes to mind.
It's made by several people. So hopefully I don't get in trouble. 

John: Alright. Last two and then we're done. I promise. Your job, your role, I know, is crazy. It's all consuming. You mentioned your family earlier in this lightning round. What have you learned, as a busy business person, about how to build and maintain relationships with your partner, with your kids, with your friends? What one piece of advice- 
Or not even advice, just something you're like, man, I do this, or I remember this? 

Scott: Well, I think a lot of people think of that as like a work life balance decision. And when they think of work life balance, they think about, how much time am I spending at work versus how much time am I spending with my family, or on personal activities or whatever. And that is very important, by the way, you have to do that. 

I guess the thing that I realized is, so you end up with these time buckets. And then the question is, how do you spend that time? The time piece is easy, right? You can block out your calendar and do that stuff. The question is, you know, your family time, is it super high quality time? And for me, I really try to pay attention to that.

Like, is the, you know, and that could be like a trip that we take together. Yeah, that's obvious. Hopefully that's high quality time, but it could also be like the dinner you have tonight with your wife or your kids or whatever. Like is that, even if it's just at the dinner table here, is that quality time? 

And you might ask, well, how do you make it quality time? And what I've realized, I'm older now, what I've realized is, you just have to be a good person. You just have to be a nice, it's really freaking simple. You just have to be a nice person to your family, to your friends, to your colleagues. It's not always perfect, right? But, you know, like blocking that time and then just being like this family to, and for that matter, this work time, I'm just really going to try and be a good person. 

Like I don't think we, I don't think people spend nearly enough time on that. And that's key. 

John: That was a great place to end this. Scott Albro, you're a good person. Thank you for being good to me and, spending an hour plus of your time on Growth Driver with me. I owe you one. This was fantastic. Thank you. 

Scott: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, John. I really enjoyed the conversation. 

John: All right, man. I'll talk to you soon.
Scott: All right. Thanks. See ya. 

John: Scott Albro just left. He is a thoughtful and deep dude. With such a great point of view. Those of you who have been a part of Topo or Gartner and seen his work already know that, but it's just so cool to get his take. I think my favorite moment was, you know, what was the biggest lesson learned being a founder and a CEO, and he said, the importance of family. 

That's just a mic drop. That's a mic drop moment right there. Great guy. So thankful he came on the show. I also want to thank you, our growing audience for Growth Driver for spending your precious time with me today. We are really trying to build something special, something valuable here for you on the show. 

I also want to give a shout out to the growth driver team, Brianna, Jeremy, Doug, Ben, Josh, and my co-hosts, Mike and Anne-Marie; y'all are awesome. Could not do this show without you, thank you for everything you do. 

And then the last thing I just wanna say is Growth Driver is brought to you by the talented and kind people at Intelligent Demand. If you are a B2B CMO, CRO, VP, Director who's got a big growth goal, and you need an expert partner, go check them out at IntelligentDemand.com. 

Alright, my name is John Common. Talk to you soon. Bye.