Business Strategy

Transform with purpose: Technology drives change, but people power success Don’t commit one of the 𝐒𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐬 of digital transformation! 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞: While technology is certainly an important aspect of digital transformation, it’s arguably more important to consider how the changes will impact employees. Strong leadership and good change management will help ensure employees are inspired, motivated, and aligned with the digital strategy. 𝐍𝐞𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: Customer experience must be at the heart of digital transformation. Process optimization and cost reduction will help improve the business, but they won’t change the game. Leveraging high-quality product, customer, and market data allows companies to create new business models that provide better product/service performance, customer experience, and business outcomes for customers. 𝐃𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞: Adopting and implementing a variety of new technologies that need to cohesively work together while simultaneously modifying processes and managing cultural changes is a tough undertaking. Very few companies, if any, have the expertise and experience in-house to pull it off. Partner with experts you trust! 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲: As organizations adopt new technologies, it's important to consider the security implications, both for the organization and for the customers. Cybersecurity is too important to be considered an afterthought in the digital transformation process. According to Microsoft’s Digital Defense Report 2022, Manufacturing at 28% had the highest ransomware incident and recovery engagements of any industry. 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐥𝐞: Very few large-scale transformations go exactly as planned. In addition, technological advancements and market conditions are changing so fast that failure to react and adapt quickly can be catastrophic. Embrace digital and cultural agility to foster an environment of continual innovation. 𝐋𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 & 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲: A good digital transformation strategy should describe what success looks like, how it will be graded, and how the combination of technologies will be integrated across all systems and processes to transform the business. 𝐋𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 & 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭: Digital transformations are designed to be disruptive and can often be costly. Company leaders not only need to agree on the digital strategy, but they also must be fully committed. Otherwise, digital initiatives will run the risk of goal and priority misalignment, high levels of resistance, and loss of funding. To read the full article: https://lnkd.in/eJF383Yi

If you lead others for your living, there's one simple rule you cannot succeed without. That rule is to always "prioritize your work." Influential leaders understand that their time and energy are valuable resources and prioritize their work to maximize their impact and productivity. They develop strategies to ensure they focus on the most critical tasks to maximize their abilities at the right time. Here are the key ways to prioritize and make work happen: They start by defining and reminding their team of the vision for their organization. They collaborate with their people developing goals that align with the vision and quickly know which tasks and activities are essential to reaching these objectives. They understand the difference between what's urgent and important. Urgent tasks demand immediate attention, but essential tasks contribute significantly to long-term success. Striking a balance between prioritizing important tasks while addressing urgent matters efficiently is necessary. Effective leaders recognize they can't do everything on their own delegating projects to competent team members, empowering them to take ownership and develop their skills. Delegation allows you to focus on responsibilities that align with your expertise. They use time-blocking techniques to allocate specific time slots for completing their work. By scheduling blocks of time for your work, you avoid distractions and can maintain a focus on the most critical organizational priorities. Leaders that prioritize base their decisions on data and insights. They gather relevant information, analyze it, and use it to make informed decisions about where to invest their time and resources to achieve the best outcomes. They remain flexible in their approach to work prioritization, recognizing that circumstances may change and other needs may arise. Learning to adjust priorities requires never letting go of long-term goals. They pay attention to their physical and mental well-being, ensuring they have enough rest, exercise, and relaxation time when needed to boost productivity and decision-making abilities. As a leader, you must learn to prioritize tasks that leverage your unique strengths and expertise. You provide the most significant value to your team and organization by doing what you excel at, achieving better results. It's not enough to show up at work "as the boss" wanting to extract the organization's priorities from those on your team. You must organize, prepare, engage, and do your part, often leading by example. By implementing these strategies, you can lead with purpose, efficiency, and effectiveness, ultimately guiding your teams to individual and organizational success. If you're not thinking about your work priorities, neither are the people on your team. #ceos #leadership #priorities #execution To learn more about strategy execution and other leadership topics, subscribe to my newsletter at: https://lnkd.in/gKaqqhPC

There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to GTM. Maja Voje and I studied 12 leading B2B SaaS companies. (including interviews with their teams) Here’s what we learned: 1. PLG is eating the world >80% of the companies in our study employ PLG in some fashion. Even enterprise companies like Snowflake and Salesforce are adding free trials & freemium. It’s the new normal. Why is this working for them? In 2024, the best marketing is often your product. Users rarely want to lock in a $500K+ contract without trying the product first. But you do need to layer on a strong product-led sales motion to make enterprise work. 2. Dominate one at first, then layer on many Every company we studied got one GTM motion massively right. And, in each case, they still use that GTM motion in some form today. But, they layer on other motions over time. The ideal way to layer is symbiotically: • ABM couples nicely with outbound • Inbound supports outbound • Partnerships amplify PLG For instance: Dropbox grew at first massively on referrals. Now, other channels are much more important. 3. ABM and Outbound are pillars of enterprise For 5- and 6-figure deals, it’s difficult to rely on inbound or PLG alone. The buyer is used to a different process. They want to be hand-held. This is where motions like ABM and outbound shine. That’s why you still see the Snowflake’s and Salesforce’s of the world focusing on them. They’re the bread and butter of enterprise. So… bringing it all together, here’s where to start based on your buyer. If you’re selling to consumers or prosumers: • Lean into PLG, community, and partnerships early on • Layer in paid marketing as you find product-market fit and have budget to scale If you're selling to SMBs: • Blend inbound and outbound motions to build awareness and relationships • Paid digital can accelerate pipeline generation as you dial in your ICP If you're selling to enterprises: • Focus on targeted ABM and partner ecosystems • Inbound is great for air cover, but outbound is crucial for landing large accounts If you have a complex or technical product: • Make sure you have developer docs, free tooling, and community support from day one • Don’t underrate channels like partnerships & paid digital; they can still be crucial support And above all: 1. Remember what works at one stage may not work another 2. Remember the law of diminishing returns 3. Be willing to pivot when necessary

Just looking at Intel Corporation’s earnings... Some quick takes...   Intel continues to struggle with the PC market even as it is twice the size of its data center group, where it showed some improvements. Next gen chips for laptops are due soon and that should help boost that segment for Intel, but headwinds still remain as it’s not clear how much enterprises are willing to invest in updating their devices given the uncertainty of the economy and government actions. Intel’s new server chips did give them a boost, including in powering NVIDIA #AI systems. And they believe their revenues will gain for the next quarter, which is a good sign. We’ll see how much.   Intel Foundry has improved somewhat but is still a major drain on revenues and profits. They announced some additional cost cutting in foundry like not building in Germany and Poland as they previously announced they would, and as LBT put it, they are only going to build out capacity as customers demand it and not invest in expected future demand that may not materialize.   They claim to be nearing the end of their employee reductions, so that should help with profitability both with fewer impairment charges, as well as simply reduced costs of payroll. It's sad for the workers that are let go, but Intel needed to prune the payroll and cut back on peripheral programs. It's also leveling the management structure so that should help with overall efficiency of all functions in the company. They need to get back to the no holds barred engineering excellence they once exhibited but which has diminished in the past several years.   Intel also has been struggling to produce good margins on their sales. They used to be able to get 50% - 65% margins on their sales, but those days are gone. So I expect continued cost cutting to get those margins back to industry-competitive levels.   Finally, it seems like new management is committed to keeping the fabs as they’ve announced several plans and programs around them, including getting 18A up to full production capacity and making sure 14A gets up quickly and is appealing to external customers – something they need if they want the fab and 14A to be profitable. It's till possible they could divest the foundry business, but I see it as less likely than it was several quarters ago.   The bottom line, Intel is getting better but still has a ways to go to get back to full health. Reorganizations, product and people eliminations and investment adjustments should pave the way for return to profitability in the 1-2 quarters, with significant opportunities presenting themselves in the next 1-2 years that Intel can leverage including Edge Computing with AI at the edge (not competing directly with Nvidia and AMD is the stated strategy and I thinks it’s the correct path), IoT, and renewal of the PCs necessary for advanced functions like onboard AI. That will boost both the CCG and DCAI businesses, provided there are no big shock’s in the international economy.

This is the sneakiest trap entrepreneurs fall into: (I've personally fallen into this one multiple times) It's called: Optimizing the Useless Elon was once asked: "what's the biggest mistake engineers make?" He said: "Optimizing that which shouldn't exist." Now, if you find it really easy to fall into this trap (like me), then here's a simple framework that we used to build our first 8-figure business that I think you'll find useful. It's called D.O.W.N.T.I.M.E. This framework (borrowed from Lean Manufacturing) is all about learning to identify and eliminate WASTE within your business. Here's how to use this acronym to optimize your business: 1. DEFECTS If you don't have time to do something right, then when will you ever have the time to fix it? Defective products are a margin killer. Defects costs material, time, energy, morale, customer satisfaction, reputation, and more... 2. OVERPROCESSING Determine the customer's expectation of quality. Exceed it by ~15%. Diminishing returns kick in beyond this point. Want to increase quality? Increase price and your customer's corresponding expectation. Want to decrease quality? Decrease price. 3. WAITING Teams become increasing inefficient as they grow. People waste large amounts of time waiting for somebody in some other department to complete a task before they can move forward. Combat this by creating "simultaneous" (not "sequential") processes whenever possible. 4. Non-Used Employee Genius Your people are your most valuable resource. Treat them as such. Make sure they're not only sitting on the right seat, but that you're tapping into their unique genius (whatever that may be). 5. TRANSPORTATION The excessive movement of a "product" or "material" through a process. When moving things through a facility, straight lines are your friend. When moving things through a work cell, the "u" is your friend. 6. INVENTORY Necessary evil, especially in a world with next day delivery expectations. We're a "just in time" manufacturer, so balancing "enough" inventory with "too much" is one of the hardest problems we've had to solve for. 7. MOTION The excessive movement of yourself through a process. Example: Walking 10 steps to get the hammer 10 times per day. 10 x 10 x 280 (working days /year) = 28,000 steps 2,000 steps/mile 28,000/2,000 = 14 miles /year Move the tool. 8. Excess Production This gets turned into Inventory, but it's the unintended result of a process exceeding demand. Don't get this one figured out and you'll drown in inventory. This concept of D.O.W.N.T.I.M.E. works in ANY business, but it all comes down to culture. Training new employees in this concept is the most important thing we do. Why? Because once you know how to identify waste, you start to see it everywhere... Even in areas you know nothing about (like me in manufacturing). And once you control for DOWNTIME... your UPSIDE is practically unlimited.

90% of salespeople run terrible discovery calls. At best, they "check the boxes." At worst, they annoy the hell out of buyers. Use these 5 tips for discovery calls that buyers actually THANK you for: 1. "Prime" the call for success. Bad discovery calls start with bad expectations. You do one thing (ask questions). Your buyer expects another (demo). Get the first 5 minutes of the meeting right: After a few min of small talk, say "Do you mind if we talk about the agenda?" Then ask: "Here's what I have in mind for this call. Lmk if you're thinking something different. This meeting will be successful if ________________. Does that feel right?" Fill in the blank with an objective. THEN set the agenda to get there: "The way we'll accomplish that is first by talking about X, then Y. Anything to add or remove?" Do that, and you're ahead of most sellers. 2. Match your questions to the buyer's journey Meet your buyer where they stand. If they're exploring solutions, ask: "What's driving you to explore this category?" If they're not, and they're still crystallizing their challenges, ask: "Let's talk about the top challenges in [you area] that would be an issue if you didn't solve in 6-12 months." The point? Your first few questions should "meet them where they stand." Match your questions with the buyer's journey stage. 3. Firm up the 'why' When your buyer gets off the Zoom call: - they have 100s of emails - they have missed phone calls - their Slack is lit up like a Christmas tree They'll forget about you. Unless you get to the 'need behind the need.' Ask this: "What's going on your in your business that's driving [challenge they shared] to be a priority? What's the origin story of how this challenge got prioritized?" That question is as close to magic as you'll find. 4. Banter on the root cause Bad salespeople do nothing but get information. Great salespeople *create value* in the sales cycle. Here's how: Help your buyer think through the 'root cause' of their problems. - Offer new perspectives - Share what you see with customers - Ask challenging (but tactful) questions Business problems are messy. They're hard to figure out. If you help them do that, you create value. 5. Quantify the value 'Quantifying value' is misunderstood. Most sellers: Do it because it serves you, the seller Great sellers: Do it because it serves the buyer When you help your buyer quantify the value: - you help them appreciate the full magnitude - you help them know what they can ignore - you help them set priorities Try asking: "What metric will improve the most if you solve this issue?" That will start the process. - What tips would you add for better discovery calls that buyers enjoy? P.S. I've kept a list of 39 questions that sell over the last 12 years. These come from watching 3,000 Gong calls, and running over 1,000 discovery calls myself. Here's the free list of 39 questions that sell: https://go.pclub.io/list

Customer Success is very, very broken in many ways. This viral post below from a CEO churning off a SaaS product they spend 5-figures $$ on summarizes what’s been wrong with the industry for over a decade. If Churn (GRR/NDR) is at an all-time high, Chief Revenue Officers and Chief Customer Officers must maniacally re-evaluate their team's operating rhythm from top to bottom. They've been taught outdated practices from legacy products and monolithic vendors. Many of these organizations are doing these activities, just to do them. Not because they make a material impact on the bottom line. In this post, you’ll see one very common, old-school practice that single-handedly leans to churn, which negatively affects the most important metrics in the Board Room (Net Dollar Retention and Gross Retention)    This practice is called The QBR / Renewal Motion. The industry teaches you to schedule a useless QBR four times a year which ends up being about the vendor, not the customer. We’ve learned to “set it and forget it” with a workflow that sends an automated email to the customer 30 days before renewal, hoping they don’t see it to, lock them into their contract. Let’s not forget two critical points of the Saas Subscription model. Recurring Revenue (ARR) is driven from Recurring Impact.  Recurring Impact is driven daily. Not monthly, not quarterly, not yearly. What’s worse is CS and AM teams are single-threaded. The person the AE sold to isn’t the one in the QBRs leading up to Renewal. That Economic Buyer dipped ASAP after signing the DocuSign and assigned a person to implement and onboard. Then that person assigned another to the QBR because who has time to sit in that meeting with fake ROI metrics? Your CSM is now 3-levels removed from any sort of decision-making power and execs are acting surprised when their Churn Report on every Lost Account says “My champion told me we were good. Then CFO canceled for budget purposes.” FYI. That’s not a champion. That’s a coach at best. To avoid this, you must run a DigitalQBR motion. Capture your “Renewal Committee” and engage with them async / digitally / on-the-go regularly leading up to the renewal. Every touch point should demonstrate the value and ROI that specific user wanted originally. Then when it comes to renewal time… it’s not only a no-brainer, it’s an easy conversion to a higher-priced opportunity. Put it this way... Ever seen an AE close a 5-6 figure deal single-threaded? No. Ever seen a CSM renew a 5-6 figure account single-threaded? Not in this market. TLDR - If you keep running the same customer success 1.0 practices from a bull market, you will get dramatically worse results in a market where capital is expensive. Renewals are earned, not given. #customersuccess #sales #clg #ceo

Most “inbound” leads are not actually inbound. They just get tagged that way because they come from Marketing. It’s actually just because you have some data and have been able to architect that data to triggers Sales to reach out to someone that didn’t ask to talk to you. An MQL score is not an “inbound” lead. Neither is an e-book download. Neither is a webinar attendee. Neither is a PQL. And these types of “leads” make up 90% or more of the total “inbound” volume. ___ This distinction of “Inbound” and “Outbound” leads is super outdated for this exact reason. Instead, segment how Sales/SDRs follow up by: (1) Declared Intent - A qualified buyer declares intent to buy by asking to speak with your Sales team about buying (Demo Request, Contact Form, Talk to Sales, Get Pricing, etc.). This segment of buyers should entirely bypass the SDR role and go directly to an experienced rep that can truly help the customer and close the deal. Figure out what you need to do operationally to create an efficient buying experience for your customer and make it happen for your customer. Plus, stop sending your best prospects (declared intent) to your least experienced people (SDRs). (2) Not Declared Intent - A qualified buyer doesn’t specifically ask to talk to your Sales team about buying, but we have *signals* that drives Sales to reach out to try to get a meeting. This is a massive segment of buyers who have shown some *signals* of intent that should be queued and prioritized for outreach. Look at ALL the available signals across the entire GTM and optimize the timing, targeting, channel, message, and offers to this large pool of potentially in-market buyers. Build a Pipeline Architecture to track every single signal that drives Sales/SDRs to outreach and the disposition of that outreach all the way through the Sales process to Closed Won/Lost. ___ Most “inbound” leads are not actually inbound. They just get tagged that way because they come from Marketing. It’s time to break down the outdated department-level silo’s that prevent us from seeing the bigger picture and optimizing a holistic GTM strategy. The future is an ALLBOUND, INTEGRATED GTM Team. And that requires an entirely different set of KPIs, terminology, and analytics to plan, report, analyze, diagnose, and optimize the investments and strategy across all the GTM departments. #GTM #allbound #sales #sdrs #marketing #b2b

This is the most underrated shift in marketing, and no one is talking about it. - We talk about brand vs. performance - We talk about whether demand can be created or tapped into - We talk about zero-party data and the death of cookies But there's a bigger conversation we're missing: the fundamental SHIFT in consumers themselves. The internet's novelty has faded. It used to feel like a small town where everyone knew each other. Today, it's more like New York City, and everyone has to find their version of Cheers. (The bar where everybody knows your name!) Scrolling short-form videos is the new normal, but comments and public engagement are declining. In every keynote, I bring this up, and the audience nods collectively because they know it to be true. We consume publicly but engage privately – in Slack channels, LinkedIn DMs, Team calls, and good old email forwards. Marketers, wake up! We need to adapt to this new reality: 👉🏽 Focus on creating content that resonates deeply. Establish a POV, not just chase trends. Make viewers stop and think, even if they don't leave a comment. 👉🏽 Infiltrate the "private spaces." Find ways to reach consumers in their preferred communities through targeted messaging, earned media, and influencer marketing. 👉🏽 Rethink what engagement means. Likes and shares are just the tip of the iceberg. Focus on brand loyalty, third-party credibility, and positive word-of-mouth, knowing this happens behind closed doors. This fundamental shift in consumer behavior is the marketing game-changer we've all overlooked. To address it, we must embrace new rules of influence. #marketing #b2b #consumerbehavior #socialmedia #contentmarketing

I spoke to someone today trying to scale a CPG brand. And here’s how I told him to grow it: They’ve got an Olive Oil brand. Phenomenal product. Great story. In all Whole Foods. But he’s trying to scale and gain awareness around his product. His idea? Crank meta ads. Problem? His ad account is fresh. They don’t have winning creative. Hasn’t tested LPs or PDPs. Budget? Tight. So, here’s what I told him to do instead: • Seed Influencers/Creators • Invest in organic content •Turn on paid with winning pieces from creators and organic • Invite top creators and/or influencers to become ambassadors 1. Seeding Influencers/Creators And not just any influencers or creators. Go niche. Go deep. And find very specific creators who talk to very specific people aligned with your ICP. So instead of going for the foodie because they have a large audience. Go for the mom foodie, who lives a luxury lifestyle, and lives in a major city near Whole Foods that carries your product.. Next - hit 250 - 500 influencers a month. And two things will happen: 20-30% will opt-in to receive product 30-35% will post content about the product for free And you now have 30-90 pieces of content at the cost of goods. The goal is to build a lasting relationship with all of these creators. Hence, seeding them and letting the plant grow over time. 2. Now, Organic Content Key here is for influencers and creators to play into his content funnel. The influencer and creator content drives awareness and brings ppl into his ecosystem. But it’s his job to turn awareness into follows. Followers into fans. So, three options from cheapest to most expensive: • Hire an in-house creator • Build a lean content team around the founder • Build an entire content and marketing team for biz Regardless, approach the content like a funnel: TOF - How can I make people aware of me, brand, and product? MOF - How can I get people to follow me, brand, or product? BOF - How can I get people to become fans of me, brand, or product? He hasn’t built a content team so to start - I told him to have a testing strategy over a growth strategy. Have a lot of ideas. Test them. Set baseline KPIs. When a piece of content hits the KPI, take note and scale it. 3. Then Turn On Paid After months of influencer seeding and posting organic content, this will happen: You’ll now know what to run as paid ads. You’ll know which influencer posts drove sales. And you’ll know which organic pieces drove sales. Those will be the winners you use for paid as he tries to unlock it as an acquisition channel. And again - he’s lean right now. If the budget was bigger, then I’d advise throwing every piece of creative into the ad account. Launch dynamic creative testing. Cost caps. And refine, optimize and scale from there. Anyways, I hope that helps some of you who are in the same shoes and trying to scale a brand. Below is my favorite resource for finding the right influencers.