PANEL TALK: How to create more pipeline in H2 2024
by Asya Kotler, Laetitia Ribier-Costa, Richard Schenzel
MODERATOR
Thank you Asya, Laetitia, and Richard for joining this discussion.
To begin with, I suggest discussing briefly the current context of pipeline generation. Where do we stand, and what are the key limitations?
ASYA
I will start with the fact that most companies are struggling with pipeline generation because it's harder and harder to create a unique value proposition and describe which gap exactly you are solving that is not a commodity.
To do that, you need to break through a lot of noise. Everyone is doing massive marketing campaigns and massive outbounding. And it's very difficult to get to the right personas, especially if you want to sell topdown. Those personas, they're already blind to any noise. Even if the message you’re trying to get across is valuable, they cannot hear it because it's just too muffled.
MODERATOR
How can companies cut through the noise to reach their personas?
ASYA
I think to build the right type of pipeline, you need to be hyperfocused.
Your ICP, beyond the fact that it needs to be revamped and reviewed all the time, has to grow beyond Persona and company signals to actual intent signals.
The data-driven approach of understanding who to reach out to and how to prioritize who you are reaching out to is key. Collect the data on certain product or marketing activities your persona did, and then help the sales population use this data.
RICHARD
Earlier, in the golden age of SaaS, there was a lot of money flowing through the market, and we created a system where things were kind of easy: we’ve built a demand gen machine, yet SDRs and AEs created their own whole revenue engine.
And now, when budgets are lower, you need to sell to more personas than ever and that takes longer. That's why it's so important to be laser-focused.
If sales teams are under pressure, what tends to happen is that they spread their horizon. But with this approach, you are diluting your message and setting yourself up for failure down the pipeline, wasting your time on wrong leads.
Today, it's really all about building that value proposition that makes sense. And that's why it's super important to have that clear ICP, perhaps going through a full ICP workshop with your entire organization to make sure that the product roadmap is aligned with the needs and the challenges of your buyer persona.
The old days of rolling out some email campaigns are over. You really need to specify where you make an impact.
LAETITIA
The recent tendency that we observe is B2B buyers demonstrating the same behaviors as B2C buyers.
They do a lot of research before going for a product, and we tend to contact them thinking that they don’t know much about our product and about the competition, which is a mistake.
There is something that we need to be better at in B2B, which is lead gen. People need to have more content, they need to be able to find documents online that they can consult to perceive you as a company of trust.
And here we can touch on the subject of referral as well. If your own clients are giving referrals for your product, it's actually easier for you to get new leads, and new leads will convert faster as well.
Another thing that we are noticing is increased personalisation. Now, when we send a message, we need to understand our buyer persona very well. We need to do research and see if they have participated in a talk / written an article / have been published somewhere; we need to see what’s on their LinkedIn page, and so on. We need to be very personal when reaching out to them.
It's not easy to do at scale. But trying to catch maximum leads in your net to see what comes out of it is not working anymore. Because these B2B buyers are becoming more and more aware and educated about what's outside.
And perhaps, for SMB prospects, there should be much more self-serve, while we focus our efforts on building a sales machine and a sales population ready to tackle enterprise and more complex deals.
MODERATOR
Could you specify when it makes sense to have self-serve, and when it doesn’t?
RICHARD
It comes down to the good old people-process-technology assessment.
It would make sense, indeed, to create a big demand organization if your customers bring 5K or 10K A/C on the yearly contract value. So, first of all, look at your ACV. Then, look at the seniority of your buyer. And, finally, at the complexity of the implementation. Those three elements together will decide what type of go-to-market motion you should have.
For your mid-market part, you have maybe a full sales cycle. We've created a world where we all have SDRs and AEs and where AEs become kind of lazy. The new generation of AEs was used to having those booked meetings on their agendas. But now the market is changing. You see, actually, that lower value deals are going through this process as well — there are a lot of handovers and it's a terrible user experience. You can lose a lot of information, and there are a lot of moments where prospects can drop out.
Now I'm slowly getting into the people part already because we need to move more to an outbound situation. And you have to assess if you have the right people in place — the ones who can actually prospect and hunt for new leads.
ASYA
I think many companies are trying to win on too many fronts simultaneously.
One of the things we notice is start-ups and scale-ups trying to do what they call PLG, which is not PLG at all, it's self-serve, but they use the buzzword for their investor's sake, I guess.
And then they are also trying to sell enterprise top-down strategic level value.
So, on the one hand, you need to be able to talk to VP or C-level buyers to learn about their industry before you can really start a meaningful conversation.
On the other hand, you need to build a self-serve journey with conversion points and intent signals.
They put the same AEs to do both things, and they use the same landing page or website content to generate leads from both ends. It doesn't work and this is where, in fact, over the last 2 years they saw the biggest break of the pipeline.
People were lying to themselves that if they didn't have a lot of enterprise pipeline, they would launch this self-serve and immediately get tons of leads.
First of all, people who are coming to self-serve are users, they are not buyers. So, you don't have leads — those are not leads.
And then obviously, you don't invest in the right type of content deliverables. So, you actually mess up on all fronts. That's what we’ve seen in startups that launched around 2018 onwards.
So, what I push my customers to do is to really evaluate if my product is highly adoptable and highly consumed. If the adoption is very high and fast, maybe you should pull all your bets on the self-serve go-to-market, and then, you need other sellers for mid-market and enterprise, as Richard said — and that's a different ball game.
But most companies — they don't have that. Most companies don't have software that is adopted like a flame in a field. So, then don't waste your time and resources and very big marketing budgets to acquire those self-serve users. Put everything into the right enterprise motion, and then, if you are going with an enterprise motion, don't try to win all industries.
And I think companies are not doing enough industry depth, which is unfortunate.
MODERATOR
Let’s dive into the verticals and industry specialization. What should companies consider?
RICHARD
I think it's extremely important to become your industry expert, building on what we mentioned before about the importance of providing value to customers.
This will help later on in referrals and case studies, and it can help with building a solid renowned brand. For B2B, it's extremely important to make that business case. First, create a clear vision of ICPs and then show them that you understand their challenges and present the business case to overcome them and achieve real impact.
LAETITIA
At the same time, though, companies need to be careful as well not to be too niche. It’s a delicate balance — while it's important to become an expert in your industry, you don't want to steer into being too niche; otherwise, if something happens with that specific industry, your business will suffer.
MODERATOR
Let’s deep dive into this for a moment, how can you recognize if you’re going after the right amount of verticals, and then, how can you define which verticals to tackle?
RICHARD
What you could do is look at your current customers, and where do you make the most impact. And you can look at this from two perspectives:
One is your go-t-market fit. On a scale from 0 to 10, how hard is it to sell to this company?
Then, you can look at your product market fit. On a scale from 0 to 10, how much impact do we make for this company?
LAETITIA
And then, once you have acquired a bit of experience, and you start to have a portfolio of clients, you can start diversifying as well. But step by step, as Asya mentioned, instead of trying to go everywhere at the same time.
ASYA
I can’t agree more with Richard about learning about your existing customers. Going forward into 2024 and 2025, improving your NRR will become more important because ARR has been, I would say, over-mooched.
And finally, I think people understand that, hey, we should grow the pipeline from existing accounts.
One reason is referrals, and it's my golden tip for everyone — don't stop asking for referrals from existing clients and prospects. Even if the prospect says you're not a fit, you can always ask if they know anyone who can benefit from it, like a referral.
But then the second reason — our customers always understand our value proposition better, so collecting feedback is crucial. And this is another golden nugget that I use often to acquire a new pipeline.
RICHARD
One huge trend is to create customer advisory boards or user advisory boards to really collect quality feedback. First of all, celebrate your users. And second of all, there are so many valuable tips there. That’s what we mean by becoming customer-obsessed.
LAETITIA
Companies mention this often, but they rarely actually go ahead and execute it. We see that they reinforce their acquisition team, and they don't do it for their existing portfolio clients. But it's so important to put all the effort into your existing clients. They are your backbone, and we need to nurture that relationship.
MODERATOR
How can companies safely invest in working with a pipeline of existing clients without having this parachute of a large number of new leads?
LAETITIA
I think companies should be relying more and more on data. Companies retain a lot of information, but most of the time, this information is not transformed into data. And most importantly, this data rarely turns into insights to help your teams make smart decisions. Instead, people rely a lot on feelings and perceptions.
RICHARD
I see a shift in the market where more and more companies understand that CS is not only about churn prevention and a supporting type of role. Instead, they can actually grow business as an actual revenue driver, if you actually train the team to sell.
ASYA
It’s very true. We haven't spoken about partnerships yet. What do you guys think? What is the role of partnerships today?
RICHARD
More important than ever.
ASYA
Why, what type of partnerships?
RICHARD
I think it's more about building an ecosystem together. I think in the past many companies were keen to go direct to control the full cycle. But you can only go so far by yourself, especially when expanding into new territories. Partners can actually help you because they have a network already. Yes, you need to give them a fair share, but I would rather have a small piece of a really big pie than a very small pie.
LAETITIA
If you have complementary strength, it works very well.
ASYA
I have a complicated relationship with partnerships, and I will explain why.
You need to have a lot of patience, and you need to invest a lot upfront before you get to build a strong partnership. You will only see fruit if you invest in the long term.
RICHARD
It takes longer, indeed. And I think that's why a lot of leaders were favoring the direct approach. I used to work for an e-commerce company, where we were expanding into Southern Europe.
The sales population was incentivized on the direct part, so we had to change the compensation plans, but it wasn’t effective enough. In the end, we had to split the team into a partner team and a direct team. So, the issue is also how do you incentivize your people because indeed, it's not something that will pay off straightaway.
LAETITIA
I think you really need the right people for a partnership manager position — people who thrive in relationship building and have a lot of patience, yet who are capable of making a sale at the right time.
MODERATOR
So, we can say that partnerships have to be approached in the right way, which implies resource allocation. Since not every company can afford to pour resources into partnerships, can we label it a nice-to-have option?
LAETITIA
Absolutely.
ASYA
I will share one interesting option of partnerships that emerged last year in the SaaS market here in Israel, which was a very shaky year and still is. But this is something very curious to learn from.
Many startups created technological partnerships. So, they actually brought together complementary value propositions and sold them as bundles. And this is something very unusual. We haven’t seen a lot of it, for example, security and cost optimization selling together as a bundle. It's almost like going back into services, selling packages as a whole assessment. This is how we can also maximize every dollar, every customer.
RICHARD
Yes, so the go-to-market motion is completely different from the direct model. I think that's where a lot of companies fail as well because they evaluate the growth rates of partnerships the same way as they evaluate the direct channel.
It really is a long game, but it's extremely powerful. And yes, bundles and partnerships with software complementary types of solutions are a great idea.