Alexandra McKay

Community is everything. Just got off a call with Marion Siboni who's building La Creme de la STEM ™ - female founders support system, and we kept coming back to this point. Looking for a new tool/platform? 👉 we ask our community Deciding on a new agency? 👉 we ask our community Hiring for the team? 👉 we ask our community Looking for #inspo? 👉 we ask our community Need a new nail salon? 👉 we ask our community Everything comes down to people we trust. ^^ something to remember when planning GTM '25 strategies, too. 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐆𝐓𝐌? 🧡 build a product people love and talk about with their peers 🧡 foster a community amongst our customers and audience 🧡 genuinely help our customers, audience, and partners 🧡 PARTNERS - build relationships with peer brands and gtm together 🧡 get to know all of these people (customers, prospects, partners, peers, etc) BEYOND work, outside of our to do lists. As people. At the end of the day, building trust and relationships is what drives impact (and hey, revenue is nice too). #tbt to last week @ Pavilion's GTM2024. Misssss you all! 🧡

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If you're thinking about selling your SaaS company, this is THE episode to listen to. Huge thanks to Francois Lanthier Nadeau for telling his story from start to finish with 0 holdbacks 🙌 This episode is about your power as a seller, necessary buyer due diligence steps, questions to ask your acquirer to determine cultural fit, things to do before signing the LOI, figuring out what "dream exit" means for all the stakeholders, and much more. Live in 2 weeks.

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Acquisition offers often start by having initial conversations.   But what happens when those initial conversations evolve into something much bigger? Here's how Étienne Mérineau and the Heyday team’s journey unfolded: Etienne was approached by a product manager from Hootsuite interested in a demo of his platform. At the time, it seemed like a straightforward request, with no hint of M&A on the horizon. But shortly after, Hootsuite went silent. During this period of silence, Etienne received inbound interest from other players in the market. Some discussions even progressed to term sheets and offers, though none were compelling enough to move forward. While Hootsuite remained quiet, it turned out they were busy finalizing an acquisition of a company adjacent to Etienne's. When the news broke, he assumed they were out of the picture.   But Hootsuite had a different strategy in mind—they saw Etienne’s company as a perfect fit to build upon their recent acquisition and bolster their story ahead of a potential IPO. It wasn't until Etienne directly confronted them, clarifying that he was already in talks with other serious investors and potential buyers, that Hootsuite made their intentions clear. The takeaway from Etienne’s experience?   In M&A, timing, patience, and strategic insight are key. It's essential to remain open to all opportunities while also being direct about your expectations and goals.   It's not just about the demo—it's about understanding the bigger picture and navigating the complexities with clarity and purpose.

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SaaS tools focus on product differentiation so much they forget the one thing that actually matters... Distribution advantage. In today's Whiteboard [Thurs]day, I'm diving into: 1. How the launch of our FRMT couture line highlighted the difference in distribution advantage opportunities between DTC and SaaS. 2. How SaaS can achieve high growth using its distro opps. [ICYMI: We launched FRMT, our luxury couture line called "Style As A Service," taking ordinary pieces of clothing and blending them with timeless craftsmanship. Link below to check it out.] Aside from being an experimental marketing campaign sold through FERMÀT funnels, this venture accomplished the hardest thing in the sea of software: Being memorable. How? "Moonshot marketing" - Rabah Rahil, CMO of FERMÀT. Within DTC, the distribution advantages are a dime a dozen. You've got: ➝ Meta ➝ Influencers ➝ Riding the wave of cultural moments ➝ And so on... Within SaaS, you have fewer options: ➝ Truly fresh ideas (like an outlandish couture line) ➝ Product-driven distribution trick (+1 product that makes you want the primary)  ➝ Partner-driven distribution trick (I.e. what eBay is to Paypal) Our FRMT line has taught me SaaS has these 3 major options. So experiment within these to figure out your distro advantage and product differentiation (aside from good engineering). It's how you'll be top of mind and make a high-growth company grow even faster. For us, it's so far so good on FRMT. I'll let you know how it goes.

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i want to talk about "admin flavors", something i start to notice, is how Shopify is secretly replacing many business and ops tools. many brands we worked with at Autrement, have one way or another a business tool, a custom built technology that reflects team expertise, some brands use ERPs, some have it in-house, some use both, especially in b2b, or retail. a tool that unifies many aspects of the business, each business is unique thus each business stack has its own challenges, its own flavor i call it. what's the relation between this and that? good question. the concept of "admin flavors" is a key outcome of this approach. a flavored admin is a customized version of Shopify (operating commerce system and backoffice), tailored to meet the specific needs of different businesses especially verticals. - for instance, fashion retailers might have integrated size guides and lookbook and e-merchandising management tools inside shopify. - while food and beverage businesses could benefit from recipe databases and nutritional information blocks. - electronics retailers might have specialized warranty management and technical specification tools built into their admin interface. these customizations improve operational efficiency and allow brands to maintain their unique workflows. shopify is an open and extendable platform at its core, they give you the building bricks (extension components and apis), a map where you add them (extension points) these blocks act as bridges between shopify and other business tools, enabling seamless integration of various operations. as this process unfolds over time—an admin extension here, another there—you end up with a unified operational system. a tool that centralizes everything you use across different platforms. instead of switching between tools, which can cause significant issues, especially regarding privacy and permissions at scale, you have a single, controlled environment. in a disjointed system, a staff member might be denied access to a resource in one platform but inadvertently granted it in another for a specific task, leading to potential security breaches. a unified system helps mitigate these risks, that will ported by shopify. looking to the future, we may see the emergence of industry-specific apps offering pre-configured admin flavors for different verticals. I've personally observed this in fashion, where some solutions have moved outside Shopify to build this up, because Shopify's current admin extensibility state isn't yet mature enough to fully accommodate these tools. However, it's only a matter of time before it will be.

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Marketing may be a funnel but product marketing is a cycle, and the goal of growth makes it even more complex. At the PMM Summit, Toronto on Nov 20th - join me to learn more about: - What elements make up growth product marketing. - How product marketers need to evolve into growth product marketing in order to stay competitive and relevant. The team at PMM Summit have generously given me some passes to share with you all, so simply enter 'SPEAKERS500' at checkout for C$500 off your ticket. Thanks Calum Harris & #ProductMarketingAlliance for having me. #PMMSummit #PMMAlliance #Productmarketingtechnology #Toronto

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It's now increasingly possible for founders who are technically capable - and smart enough to realize that experience is a more important differentiator than ever - to pull back some of their tech stack. People are going to continue to move away from Shopify to consider the alternatives - especially as Shopify does away with third-party integrations - or they're going to push Shopify to its limits by focusing on building a custom front-end that better serves their needs. Even though Shopify is technically "built for CRO," it's also a lowest-common denominator scenario, because there's simply no way they can address all the potential use cases in play. Therefore, if a differentiated experience is a premium for your brand, gravitating toward no-code builders and a headless CMS as an alterative as Shopify is a reasonable way to maintain greater control. What are your thoughts about Shopify and its alternatives as no-code improves and technical founders want to take more control back? Tell me about it in the comments below. --- 💎 Hi, I'm Jonathan, the CEO of Boom Labs. 💎 We're an outsourced solution for those sticky Growth Marketing problems that need an experienced resource. 💎 I write about accelerating the growth of your eCommerce business through testing, optimization, and a measured approach to incremental wins. 💎 Follow me for more!

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It's now increasingly possible for founders who are technically capable - and smart enough to realize that experience is a more important differentiator than ever - to pull back some of their tech stack. People are going to continue to move away from Shopify to consider the alternatives - especially as Shopify does away with third-party integrations - or they're going to push Shopify to its limits by focusing on building a custom front-end that better serves their needs. Even though Shopify is technically "built for CRO," it's also a lowest-common denominator scenario, because there's simply no way they can address all the potential use cases in play. Therefore, if a differentiated experience is a premium for your brand, gravitating toward no-code builders and a headless CMS as an alterative as Shopify is a reasonable way to maintain greater control. What are your thoughts about Shopify and its alternatives as no-code improves and technical founders want to take more control back? Tell me about it in the comments below. --- 💎 Hi, I'm Jonathan, the CEO of Boom Labs. 💎 We're an outsourced solution for those sticky Growth Marketing problems that need an experienced resource. 💎 I write about accelerating the growth of your eCommerce business through testing, optimization, and a measured approach to incremental wins. 💎 Follow me for more!

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Are you ready to unlock the full potential of Product Operations? 🔍 Only 2 weeks left until Product Ops: 101 - Getting Started with Product Operations on October 30, 2024, led by Denise Tilles! With only 2 spots left, this hands-on workshop will give you practical tools to implement and scale Product Ops strategies. By the end, you'll have a clear roadmap to drive better outcomes within your organization. Secure your spot now: https://lnkd.in/exBcs2V5 🎟️ #productops101 #productoperations #productmanagement #workshop

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Building a new category is tricky, and it's come to my attention that people don't know what FERMÀT is. So we asked...how would they describe it? Maximilien Langlois answer (Founder of HYPE10) was fascinating: “(FERMÀT) is a landing page solution that necessitates very little time to validate ideas and prove theories for an e-commerce brand.” Max isn't wrong. We build landing pages. But we're not a landing page solution; we're a full-funnel solution. And we help you do it quickly. With FERMÀT, you can spin up funnels at the same speed as ads. That’s the category we’re creating. I'm happy to see that Max is using the tool to experiment, innovate, and push boundaries. It's a testament to the versatility and power of our platform. So whether you're looking to validate theories, optimize marketing strategies, or boost conversions, FERMÀT is here to help you achieve your goals with efficiency. You can catch our chat with Max on our FERMÀT Friday channel, and his full answer in the video.

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Every day I speak to Finance teams - both customers, and prospects - and am blown by how administrative and manual work tools they use are. I'm talking about 200-1000+ employee businesses that spend upwards of 50-60 hours a month: - Sending wire payments (usually in RBC Express - anything but 'express') - Collecting invoices and receipts - Manually coding 1,000s of transactions in a gsheet - Moving back and forth between 8-9 different applications (banking, receipts, AP, accounting, etc) Finance teams everywhere are being robbed of precious time they could be spending doing this instead: - Closing their books in 1 hour not 100 - Identifying cost-savings - Identifying growth opportunities - Identifying ways to better serve customers - Going home before 10PM What are the WORST experiences you are wasting time on as a CFO, VP Finance, Controller or AP manager? http://floatfinancial.com/

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Your current customers are the biggest potential source of business 💛 I'm talking about building a Customer Success Revenue Factory with Nieves Canada. Unfortunately, Customer Success (CS) is often treated as an afterthought and seen as not so sexy by most in sales and marketing. BIG mistake. Nieves builds strategic CS teams with Ops / Product and Sales/Marketing, so that the customers get the BEST and the business grows because of that. So... how DO you drive growth with your exicisting customers? 👉 Have a clear strategy. How can you best service your customers? What is the goal and how are we going to get there? 👉 Who's on your CS team? What kind of skills do you need? When? In what phase? 👉 Is CS siloed, or is there collaboration with product/ops and marketing/sales? Nieves, I loved your MASTERCLASS. This was definitely more than a podcast. Check out this snippet and keep an eye out for the next episide of Growth Bites. Usually on Thursday, but this one's coming on Sunday 🚀 And of course, come nerd out with me some more with Growth Tribe. We're always sharing inspiring and instructional content to help you succeed as a professional and a business 🎯 #sales #marketing #customersuccess

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We’ve exceeded our Q2 marketing pipeline goal with significant QoQ growth… as a team of 5. The lion’s share of our pipeline now comes inbound in the form of direct traffic to our website. We supplement inbound with a scaled outbound motion powered by 🎁 Adrien Pearson Joshua Westover How do we do it? Simple. 😂 In the last year, we’ve: ⚡️Pivoted from volume-based lead gen to brand-driven, quality-focused demand gen ⚡️Switched our core marketing goal from “leads” to qualified opportunities ⚡️Worked closely with Finance to set realistic, achievable goals based on historical data ⚡️Aligned sales and marketing around our ICP ⚡️Updated messaging and positioning ⚡️Launched a ton of amazing new product innovations (thanks Cody Farmer) ⚡️Invested in a consistent, authentic and useful presence here on LinkedIn (🎁 Katie Penner has led this community-first charge with heart, integrity and playful genius) ⚡️Launched our Real Retreat event series and Sendfluencer program with an incredible group of creators and operators ⚡️ Integrated brilliant marketers and agencies who operate like members of our core team: Liam Moroney Brendan Hufford Eduardo del Río Rachel Squire Hiền Lâm ⚡️Tightened up our operations: Austin Sandmeyer 🔥🎁 and Juhno Mann have prioritized cleaning up our data, updating systems and processes to optimize for clarity and speed, and streamlining scoring, opportunity creation and routing ⚡️Added new tools that unblocked the team, like HockeyStack for multitouch attribution, UserGems 💎 for smarter (hugely successful) signal-based outreach, Chili Piper to streamline our demo booking flow, Sequel.io to level up our webinar programs ⚡️Migrated our website 🎡(iykyk) ⚡️ Partnered with like-minded companies (Qualified, Mutiny, Navattic, Mobly) to create memorable events and actionable playbooks and webinars to help revenue teams understand when and how to use gifting and direct mail ⚡️Collaborated on a meaty report about the ROI of gifting to show the impact of gifting and direct mail on pipeline, deal cycles and revenue It took a year of doing the right things for the right reasons, and a ton of internal education and collaboration to get here. Anyone who tells you marketing is simple or talks about instant silver bullets is full of it. ☺️

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How to incorporate AI into your demand gen and marketing I watched this SaaStr video twice from Guillaume "𝑮" Cabane. Its that good. Instead of paying consultants thousands of dollars on how to leverage AI in marketing, CMO's should just take 30 mins and watch this since there is so much tactical goodness. Some key takeaways AI Automation in Outbound Marketing: Using AI to replace traditional activities carried out by SDR's , such as audience targeting and personalized messaging. The example with leveraging public datasets to build an automated campaign and the associated results is just incredible. The icing on the cake was that the AI over a few weeks ended up beating the SDR team that had been working on this for much longer. Deepgram’s SEO Enhancement: I actually attended Marcel Santilli 's amazing workshop that shows how he built this as a separate event. By leveraging AI for programmatic page creation, Deepgram automated the generation of SEO-friendly content based on keyword research. The AI analyzed keywords and used them to generate an amazing directory that's actually useful vs the usual programmatic SEO crap. https://lnkd.in/d3CdN86A

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Amandine Servain, VP Marketing at Wunderkind is more strategic and thoughtful than most when it comes to evaluating, implementing, and measuring AI tools for Marketing. I had the opportunity to speak with her in a recent AMA and here are some of the key takeaways: 1. AI tools are best adopted when solving specific pain points, not just for the sake of using AI. Start by identifying challenges, then find tools that address them. 2. The "pod" structure for sales and marketing alignment is highly effective. Bringing together an SDR, account executive, and ABM marketer creates transparency and improves collaboration. 3. Quarterly surveys are a great way to uncover pain points and potential AI solutions from your team. It gives space for people to voice opinions they may not share in regular meetings. 4. Brand authenticity is crucial when adopting AI tools for content creation. Ensure the platform can ingest your brand voice and tone. 5. Measure AI tool impact through improved engagement metrics like open rates and click-through rates. Always start small, test, and then scale. 6. AI is currently in the "co-pilot" phase but may evolve into autonomous marketing agents. Human oversight will remain critical for strategy, authenticity, and analytics interpretation. Check out more here - https://lnkd.in/gDDjrMNq #MarketingInsights #AIinMarketing #B2BMarketing

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📍 Lake Louise | Banff National Park | Alberta, Canada How often do you take a moment to reflect on how far you've come? (I'm about to tie this to your company's RevOps maturity, buckle up) ↪ tl;dr you can skip ahead here to take our RevOps maturity quiz: https://lnkd.in/eA7rVeQ4 September always feels like my "new year" (birthday month), so August is always a time of reflection. Couple that with the STUNNING views I've been able to see on this trip -- I'm thinking a lot about the journey and the obstacles I've overcome these days: 📌 August 2020: COVID summer. Had just narrowly lost the most meaningful political campaign of my life with Suraj Patel. But so proud of what we accomplished. Figuring out the next campaign. Mixed emotions. 📌 August 2021: Two extremely painful personal challenges hit at once. Was running my own LLC (Cassie Communications) and consulting for a variety of clients. Starting to really feel the politics burnout. Proud of myself for going solo! 📌 August 2022: Reachdesk / BDR summer! Incredibly grateful for this time. Heart full with community, learning a new industry, summer memories in NYC. Had officially "made it" past the tough stuff - so I thought. 📌 August 2023: Landed in NYC from a month in Europe and fell into the worst depression of my life. So unsure about next career steps, so embarrassed about having depression. Makes no sense but I truly didn't see a way out. 📌 August 2024: Have a dream role at the intersection of content/community/events with RevPartners. Empowering personal brands. Road tripping across the PNW and Canadian Rockies. SO extremely grateful for this season and lesson that the toughest of challenges can have light at the end. I'm not sure if this is everyone, but I personally find a lot of meaning in reflecting on my journey over the years. I'm not perfect, I've made big mistakes, had incredibly painful seasons, and learned so much. And maybe that's the whole name of the game. ➡ Here's the classic tie in to B2B: reflecting on your journey isn't just for the personal stuff, you can also do so in your business! At RevPartners, our team has put together a RevOps maturity quiz to help you benchmark your current level of data visibility, CRM leverage, and KPIs to drive growth. ▶ ▶▶ Take it here: https://lnkd.in/eA7rVeQ4 My made up company received a Level 2... lots to work on, haha! If you take the quiz (or have some personal reflections), comment and let me know where you're at in your journey! Repost this one ♻ if only to reach one other person who struggles with depression. LinkedIn was a big part of my light in the darkness, and it's important to me to be that for others!

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Why is this collab fire? You now can have the next best content for every prospect right on the contact record in HubSpot and then engage that contact on LinkedIn with every bit of that engagement getting back to the contact’s timeline in HubSpot. So that you can send better emails, deliver better web experiences, and personalize your LinkedIn engagement. Forever.

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What does a day look like for a VP of Revenue at a fast-growing startup like Sendspark ✨? It's probably quite different from the same role at a larger, more established technology company. Here's a snapshot of my day so far: 6:00-7:00 - Final preparations for two major enterprise demos. 7:00-9:00 - Conduct the demos. 9:00-10:00 - Strategy session with our SEO consultant to refine our SEO and content approach. 10:00-10:30 - Edit copy for our upcoming website launch. At an early stage startup, there are 1m things to do at all times. Its what makes it so incredibly rewarding. Every day our team is shipping work that is making an impact on our end user base. Incredibly grateful! We keep going 🙌 🚀 #sendspark #growth

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