NewsletterDan Bruce

ICYMI: October 8, 2017

NewsletterDan Bruce

What we wrote

Oldies but Goodies:

  1. Building Cross-Functional, Revenue-Focused Teams — 9-minutes
     
  2. Pete Caputa on the Sales Process — 17-minutes
     
  3. Joanna Wiebe on Writing Copy that Sells — 17-minutes

What we're reading

  1. Doug Kessler argues why revenue shouldn't be the only thing that marketers have their eye on, but rather to look down to the bottom-line. 

    |      "TLDR: Screw 'Pipeline', chase Profit." 

    Why revenue is the wrong marketing metric — 5 minutes
     
  2. Tomasz Tunguz put together an interesting piece on the SaaS industry and how it's become commodified with easy-to-use infrastructure, popular sales playbooks, and rising customer aquistion costs. He goes on to explain that this isn't a bad thing, not at all, but an opportunity. 
    Has SaaS Become Commodified? — 3 minutes
     
  3. Scott Vaughan explains that B2B marketing automation platforms are at a point of re-examination, which is a great thing. Marketing is changing from being brand-focused, to revenue-focused, and so marketing automation needs to make adjustments accordingly. Will you be ready for these changes?
    Ready to evolve beyond marketing automation in the next era of marketing? — 6 minutes
     
  4. Ross Simmonds gathered 50 useful B2B stats that could (and should) have you rethinking your Marketing strategy. 
    50 B2B Marketing Stats That Could Shake Up Your Marketing Strategy — 12 minutes
     
  5. Jason Cohen encourages product teams to have their eyes on an SLC (simple, lovable, complete), rather than the traditional MVP. 
    I hate MVPs. So do your customers. Make it SLC instead. — 5 minutes
     
  6. Ben Virdeee-Chapman wrote a post that Jason Lempkin fans will love, and everyone else will likely not understand. Click on the link accordingly. 
    I am not Jason Lemkin – A startup parody, parody. — 3 minutes

Meme of the week

It was World Architecture Day on Monday and ... well, Deanna Raybourn put it best: 

To see Cathedrals fight on Twitter, which we all do, go here. 

Marketing Coordinator at FunnelCake

NewsletterDan Bruce

ICYMI: April 2, 2017

What we wrote

Seth Lieberman, Founder and CEO of SnapApp, joined us to talk about how he sees Sales and Marketing working. We talk about team alignment, what he expects from his Sales and Marketing leaders, and (as usual) his favorite '90s dance song.
Seth Lieberman on what CEOs want from Sales and Marketing leaders — 12-minute read

Marko Savic wrote a guest piece on funnel volatility for our friends over at Engagio. 
How to Determine if ABM is Right for Your Organization — 6 minutes

Brandon Redlinger, Head of Growth at Engagio, returned the favor and guest wrote a piece on our blog that will help you to determine if ABM is a good strategy for your company. 
How to Determine if Account Based Marketing is Right for Your Organization — 6 minutes

What we're reading

  1. John Hurley talks about the rise of revenue ops, and how the teams that are succeeding most are taking a comprehensive and integrated approach. 
    Why Marketing & Sales Operations Make Growth Possible — 6 minutes
  2. Thomas Carney ran a pricing experiment that paid off big time. It won't work for every company, but the point the point to get out of this article is that spending just a few hours per month analyzing pricing could make a huge difference.
    How Quartile-Based Pricing Doubled This SaaS Company’s MRR Growth — 10 minutes
  3. Ada Chen Rekhi compiled some great benchmark numbers looking at conversion rates from a freemium/free trial offering to paid. How do you stack up?
    Freemium and Free Trial Conversion Benchmarks — 4 minutes
  4. The folks at Gong ran an interesting experiment on how men and women sell differently. Trust me, you'll want to see the results for this one. 
    30,469 Sales Calls Reveal Women Violate Rules of Selling, Yet Still Close More Deals — 5 minutes
  5. Andrew Nguyen delivers a data filled article looking at what metrics B2B marketers look at as their primary indicator of success. 
    13 Diverse Ways B2B Marketers Do Marketing Measurement [DATA] — 4 minutes
  6. Max Altschuler and Jorge Soto share the method they used to develop their sales stack and give some pointers that can improve anyone's outbound strategy. 
    Designing Your Sales Stack so that Customers Come to You — 16 minutes
  7. Jennifer Ross tackles the topic of marketing measurement and how the role of CMO can help to ensure measurement success. 
    Marketing Measurement: What’s the CMO Got to Do With It? — 3 minutes

Meme of the week

So over the past week, James Comey (Director of the FBI) let it slip that he has a secret Twitter and Instagram account. 

One reporter, Ashley Feinberg, took it upon herself to track down these mystery accounts. 

Take a look at what she was able to dig up here. 

Meme of the week

So over the past week, James Comey (Director of the FBI) let it slip that he has a secret Twitter and Instagram account. 

One reporter, Ashley Feinberg, took it upon herself to track down these mystery accounts. 

Take a look at what she was able to dig up here. 

NewsletterDan Bruce
NewsletterDan Bruce

ICYMI: April 30, 2017

What we wrote

Marko Savic gathered with hundreds of fellow Sales Ops, Marketing Ops, and MarTech pro's when he attended the TOPO Summit a couple weeks ago. Here's 5 things he learned:
Five things I learned at TOPO Summit — 6-minute read. 

Bruce McKenzie, a friend of ours from 2-Minute Explainer, wrote a piece for our blog on using video to create conversational content in an ABM strategy. 
Account-based marketing demands conversational content – 9 minutes

What we're reading

  1. Lena Shaw explains the current state of Sales and Marketing stacks with companies invested in a number of siloed tools and platforms, and how in 2017 we should be looking to trim down with "best of breed" tools that should lead to better efficiency through the funnel. 
    Making MarTech Consolidation Work for Your Business — 3 minutes
     
  2. Ayaz Nanji points out the top three Sales challenges of 2017; too much time on non-sales activities, finding the right assets to assist in their sale, and spending time with prospects and clients. 
    The Top Sales Challenges of 2017 — 2 minutes
     
  3. Jeff Epstein talks about one of his favorite things about running a startup ... watching his employees grow and rise through the ranks. 
    8 Ways To Fast Track Your Career As A Startup Employee — 3 minutes
     
  4. David Skok shares a simple model of a SaaS business and highlights what key levers a CEO can pull that will have the biggest impact on funnel optimization. 
    Optimizing the SaaS Funnel from Top to Bottom — 37 minute [video]
     
  5. Allison Pickens and Nick Mehta tag-team a brilliant article on strong revenue growth, not from the straight-and-narrow pipe, but the Helix. 
    The Chief Revenue Officer’s Guide to Customer Success — 8 minutes
     
  6. Jim Brodo explains something that almost all of us have experienced: marketing fatigue. You know, like when you download some content and in return your inbox and voicemail gets filled up. Jim includes five marketing strategy areas to reconsider in order to avoid giving your prospects marketing fatigue. 
    Your Buyers Are Experiencing Marketing Fatigue; Here's What to Do About It — 9 minutes
     
  7. Casey Renner talks with Joe Sexton about preparing a startup sales organizations for going public. Great tips in here about sales enablement, using a formula-driven approach to scaling, and that everything starts and ends with the customer.
    Preparing Your Sales Org to Go Public — 13 minutes
     
  8. Antoine Buteau suggests that we rethink the idea that extraverted salespeople are ideal, and to start looking for ambiverts (a person whose personality has a balance of extrovert and introvert features.)
    Rethinking the Extraverted Sales Ideal: The Ambivert Advantage —  4 minutes
     
  9. Nikky Hofland offers some tools you should consider when developing an effective customer feedback flow.
    How To set Up A Customer Feedback Flow That Works — 7 minutes
     
  10. Tomasz Tunguz tackles the tricky question of how to structure the compensation sales teams should get and how developing sales motions, customer success sophistication, and compensation structures to enable growth is a key area for a SaaS businesses. 
    How Much To Compensate SaaS Sales Teams — 4 minutes

Meme of the week

On Wednesday, Beyoncé shared a photo of herself pointing at a menu, and (as expected) the internet did it's thing and quickly repurposed it into a quality meme. 

http://time.com/4757292/beyonce-restaurant-memes/

NewsletterDan Bruce
NewsletterDan BruceRevOps, A/B testing, pricing strategy

ICYMI: May 28, 2017

What we wrote

The RevOps Framework

Over the past twelve months, FunnelCake interviewed over a hundred B2B Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success leaders. With that data, we created the definitive framework for Revenue Operations – a new department that manages full funnel operations across the customer lifecycle.

The RevOps Framework 👈  check it out

Allan Wille, CEO of Klipfolio, joined us for an insightful chat about A/B testing price. 

"Pricing is one thing that unless you test it, you can never know for sure."

We talk through building a testing framework, different tests to do, and how Allan thinks about pricing strategy differently now. 
A/B Pricing with Allan Wille [Expert Interview] — 11-minute read

What we're reading

  1. Andrew Gaffney goes through the new Demand Waterfall introduced by SiriusDecisions this past week. The new framework features an increased focus on buying groups, rather than the progression of individual leads or inquiries.
    SiriusDecisions Unveils New Demand Waterfall Model — 4 minutes
     
  2. Dave Koslow talks about how Sales has gotten complicated, very complicated. From Sales leadership to Sales Ops, there is so much data coming from different tools, it's difficult for Sales to actually focus on selling. 
    How Sales Got So Complicated (and What to Do About It) — 6 minutes
     
  3. Greg Alexander interviews Christopher Fris from Ryder about how Sales Operations enables teams to achieve the sales plan. 
    The Sales Operations Guide to Revenue Growth Enablement — 13 minutes
     
  4. Danielle Poleski put together a great list of ten metrics every Marketing Manager needs to have a view into, and three to make sure are being monitored.
    The top 10 most valuable metrics for marketing managers — 9 minutes
     
  5. Amrita Chandra gives some very helpful guidelines to follow when it comes to experimenting with new channels and tactics ... without losing your job.
    How to Run Marketing Experiments Without Losing Your Mind (Or Your Job) — 6 minutes
     
  6. Courtney Buchanan gives four main takeaways about sales teams and product development staying focused. For the folks at Mattermark, it ties back to streamlining internal operations so teams work only on activities that have an impact and directly align with customer pain points.
    Why Marketing Automation and Problem Solving Should Guide Your Business Strategy — 5 minutes
     
  7. Tomasz Tunguz does a phenomenal job giving a quick walk-through on how to calculate bookings capacity for the Sales team. It's one thing to write a number down, but another to plan out how it's going to happen. 
    Hiring For Bookings Capacity In Sales — 2 minutes

Meme of the week

This week's meme comes from a photo taken in 2014 at a Miu Miu fashion show with Rihanna and Lupita Nyong'o.

Last month, a Twitter user posted the photo with the caption, "Rihanna looks like she scams rich white men and Lupita is the computer smart best friend that helps plan the scans [sic]." Even with the typo, the post went viral. 

Then, a Twitter exchange happened between the two of them showing their interest in making it happen. 

What makes this even better? Netflix jumped on the idea and landed the project that will star both Rihanna and Lupita Nyong'o. The untitled movie will be directed by Ava DuVerynay, with Issa Rae in talks to write. 

A round of applause for the internet for pulling this one off – 👏 👏 👏

For the full story, go here. 

NewsletterDan BruceRevOps, A/B testing, pricing strategy
NewsletterDan Bruce

ICYMI: September 10, 2017

What we wrote

See FunnelCake Speak!
Mastering Growth P2P #3: Using Martech to Close The Sales & Marketing Gap
When: September 15th
Where: Toronto, Ontario
Register

CMO Inflect
When: September 21
Where: Mountain View, California
Register

Guest post: Nis Frome, co-founder of Alpha, wrote a brilliant piece on our blog about how partnering content teams directly with sales can have a significant impact on revenue. 
Content Teams Can Drive Sales by First Empowering Salespeople — 7-minute read

What we're reading

  1. Tomasz Tunguz walks through the design of a successful sales compensation plan and explains how to create the right one for you and your sales structure. 
    The Theory And Data Underpinning Sales Commission Plans — 3 minutes
  2. David Premier offers advice on writing cold outreach that will have you rethinking the way you're doing it today. 
    Salespeople: Here’s How to Get Prospects to Pay Attention to Your Outreach — 7 minutes
  3. Jen Grant presents some key metrics you should be tracking, and to keep in mind that shouldn't only focus on Marketing metrics, but those that truly drive your business forward. 
    The Four Most Important Metrics for Any Business — 7 minutes
  4. Michel Feaster shares a story of how Usermind was created and how digging deep into your industry to find the most painful changes and connecting the dots is the key to creating (and owning) a new category of software.
    Creating a Enterprise Software Category — and Owning It — 5 minutes
  5. Ryan Law and Emily Smith looked at the top 250 most successful SaaS companies to create The State of SaaS Content Marketing 2017. There's a number of great stats in here worth checking out. 
    The State of SaaS Content Marketing 2017 — 12 minutes
  6. Brian Trautschold writes a piece centered around the role of SDR ... the most overlooked, misunderstood, and mistreated role in B2B Sales organizations. 
    Most SDRs Fail or Burn Out. Here's How to Fix That — 7 minutes
  7. Tracy Eiler talks with The Pedowitz Group about what it means to be a "T-shaped" marketer, where you should focus efforts in the funnel, and specific changes to make within your organization to get Sales and Marketing better aligned. 
    CMO Insights: Tracy Eiler, Chief Marketing Officer, InsideView — 15-minute video

Meme of the week

For this week, the headline says it all:

"Delta Airlines plane flies straight into Hurricane Irma – and out again"

NewsletterDan Bruce
NewsletterDan Bruce

ICYMI: December 17, 2017

What we wrote

Joel Burke, Partner and Analytics Practice Lead at Outshine, joined us to talk about Account-Based Marketing strategy and tactics as companies scale. This is a must-read. 
ABM at Scale with Joel Burke — 11-minute read 

What we're reading

  1. Julia Manoukian looks at a study focused on 900+ companies reviewing successful sales development structure, system, people, and pipeline. 
    How 900 Companies Build and Execute Successful Sales Development Teams — 3 minutes
  2. Peter Ostrow explains how for long-time B2B sellers, it's tough to balance individual success with what's best for the company.
    I've Been Selling a Long Time – Just Leave Me Alone and Let Me Make My Number — 3 minutes
  3. Mike Preuss encourages you to include PQLs in your organization as a way to increase alignment. Product team focused on building a great product, sales team focused on highly qualified leads, and the marketing team dynamically nurturing leads. Win-win-win. 
    Pull Levers in your Sales Funnel with Product Qualified Leads — 7 minutes
  4. Trinity Ventures compiled a number of #2018predictionsin5words. Check them out.
    2018 Predictions — TL;DR — 2 minutes
  5. Mark MacLeod shares four key insights he observed from his time in the trenches of scaling an SMB. 
    Key insights from scaling SMB SaaS companies — 4 minutes
  6. Jason Lemkin gives advice on how to deal with one of the most frustrating things for a growing company: a long sales cycle on a big deal. 
    How to Cope With Long Sales Cycles — 4 minutes
  7. Tomasz Tunguz explains how running an effective meeting boils down to respect for the time of others and so preparation is key. 
    Meetings Shouldn't Be Boring — 3 minutes

Meme of the week

If you're a fan of the expert interview series on the FunnelCake blog, you know that we end every conversation talking about '90s dance songs, because ... why not? As a present to you loyal newsletter subscribers, here are all the best answers we've come across in our interviews in one handy Spotify playlist – enjoy :) 

NewsletterDan Bruce