Grant Duncan

Before diagnosing missed revenue targets Many B2B SaaS companies only look at: - Overall CAC - General LTV - Surface-level metrics To dig deeper, here's what you should track: • Time to impact • Pipeline velocity • LTV by segment • Sales cycle length • Lead quality score • Expansion revenue • Net revenue retention • Feature adoption rates • CAC by customer segment • Customer acquisition cost payback period These metrics reveal hidden insights. Combining these metrics give you the deeper meaning.

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$8.1M in pipeline for a Series A healthtech co. in 6wks Here's how we did it with 1 BDR and systems. The client said they were struggling with leads What they were actually struggling with: • Competitors could easily put their name on messaging. • They were automating outreach like everyone else. • They were struggling with inconsistent positioning. • They glossed over their GTM motion. We took a different approach: • Human intelligence over automation. • Revenue operations fundamentals. • Revenue marketing strategy. • Scaled down tech stack. • Precise segmentation. The problem? • They treated all "providers" the same. • Generic messaging missed crucial nuances. • Engagement and conversion rates sucked. Our approach: • Redefined the "provider" category. • Segment by specialty and sub-specialty. • Develop tailored messaging for each group. • Taught social selling basics. • Cut off mass automation. We dug deep: • Sifted through industry benchmarks. • Gathered data on practice-specific KPIs. • Built business cases for each sub-specialty. • Addressed operational and financial outcomes. Our secret weapons? Perplexity and Telescope • Used these for persona-specific research. • Empathy maps + customer journey for EVERY persona. • Built out persona specific account approaches. • Opened the whole buying committee. • Uploaded directly to CRM for BDR reference. We systemized everything: • Lean tech stack focused on revenue ops. • Integrated call transcripts and outreach data. • Analyzed and refined strategies in real-time. Copywriting got a makeover: • Crafted messages based on empathy maps. • Uploaded scripts and FAQs to JustCall. • Enabled real-time conversation adaptation.    The tech stack was slim: • Lavender 💜  for optimized email crafting. • Close CRM and JustCall integration for consistency. • Clay insights available at every touchpoint. The results? • $8.1M in pipeline. • Higher engagement rates. • Increased conversions. Our edge? • Healthcare expertise. • Precise segmentation and messaging. • Systemized, quality-over-volume approach. Tools that made it happen: • HUMANS (not robots) leading campaigns. • Perplexity for up-to-date healthcare trends. • Telescope for refined prospect lists. • The Org to unlock buying committees • MillionVerifier for email validation • Clay for persona enrichment • CloseCRM as our central data hub. • JustCall for personalized cold calls • Lavender for crispy copywriting. The takeaway? • Generic approaches don't cut it. • Tailored strategies drive real results. • Human touch + smart tech = winning combo. Want to unlock revenue today? Then you need to work with experts. Shoot me a connection and a DM if you want to see the flow.

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Revenue is achieved through systems, not luck. Too many companies treat their GTM as an afterthought. Pump the brakes. Build a process to win. Skipping steps to get leads fast is a mistake. Weak value prop Wrong GTM model Rushed delivery Automating everything too soon All avoidable pitfalls. A solid system helps you know what's working and what's not. You're going to edit your system. But you need one to win. I've been building these for years. I've watched clients who adopt them win ... quick I've watched clients who don't ... fold. (unfortunately) Systems aren't complicated. They're not easy.

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Every GTM motion has a strategy. We're running 5 GTM motions for new business: 👉 Inbound 👉 Outbound 👉 Event-led 👉 Partnership/Referrals 👉 Community Revenue Growth leaders need to be disciplined and not "blend" the data. Yep, each motion has its own data and KPIs that is part of our overall GTM strategy. Getting granular is necessary to allocate resources properly but what needs to be improved, dropped or double downed on. And spoiler alert, it can vary. This year, we had more inbound than the last 2 years combined. This is why there is NO magic bullet, and the best leaders let the data and market guide decisions on strategy. You need to be able to connect the dots and pivot. How many motions are driving your Revenue Engine? Thanks to GTM Partners for the graphic in a recent newsletter. #GTM #leadership

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Want to catch the WinsDay replay? Matt Calhoun and I chatted about... ➡ Pre-Sales Strategies ➡ Demand Gen: Avoiding Failure When Outsourcing ➡ First Go-to-Market: Pivoting Your Startup  ➡ SDR Success: Leaders' Role in Prospecting Some themes popped up.... ☑ being data driven ☑ getting your ICP right ☑ documenting your processes ☑ what does good like ☑ what clues does customer success tell us ☑ culture ☑ people first leadership ☑ know your worth (mindset) ☑ trust and candid conversations .....and so much more Check out the comments to catch the replay! #sales

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The AEs and SDRs from 5 years ago are the CROs and VPs today. This may sound somewhat self-serving, but here it goes. It’s been cool to see the goodwill I created with those AEs and SDRs over the years turn into meaningful opportunities, pipeline, and revenue for Copy.ai. This has never been the primary intent of my presence or content here. But I will say, it’s a nice benefit. Build trust, provide value, be kind, build your network. It’s worth it for many reasons. #sales #sdr #gtmai

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I was fortunate to spend a year in Dan Fougere's sales org at Medallia and learned at a rate I've never experienced at any other point in my career. Some of my key takeaways, which he also shares in this conversation. ➡️ A repeatable sales process/playbook is the foundation for scaling an Enterprise business. ➡️ The best Enterprise reps hone and maintain maniacal discipline around PG. They never let it fall off their calendar. ➡️ The most effective frontline managers spend more time coaching and supporting their team early in the sales process (i.e. Discovery & Evaluation) than they do in the later stages (i.e. Negotiation/Closing). Without explicit guidance from 2nd and 3rd line leaders, most tend to get this balance wrong. ➡️ Sales leaders (at all levels) have to be 'in it' with their teams i.e., involved in outbound prospecting, regularly speaking with customers, playing an active role in deals, being audible ready etc.. ➡️ One of your core responsibilities as a sales leader is to create a high performance environment where people feel like they are challenged, constantly learning, and being supported to achieve things they didn't think were possible (securing C-Level meetings via outbound PG, winning 8 figure deals, earning international career opportunities etc). If you work in sales, this Podcast is well worth an hour of your time. #sales #salesenablement #coaching #salesleadership

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Let’s talk SDR Health. A good SDR team would be running 7 to 35 sequences total. Much more than that and you’re not controlling your messaging enough. Much less and you’re not using sequences the right way… they’re supposed to be built for different scenarios, it’s imposible to have so few scenarios. I’ve now met a handful of companies with 10,000+ sequences on Outreach. If you have a content team that is looking for better data (yes, beyond reply rate) to optimize sequences, tag them below. I’ll be doing a small group Q&A in October for 10 content leaders on how to optimize their sequences. Let’s go! PS. Some data below, just so people see that this is real, and I mean real good.

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For RevOps & GTM Systems Pros: Why Normal Forms Are Your Secret Weapon You didn’t need a CS degree or IT certification to get where you are. You got here by building systems, untangling integrations, and owning the SaaS stack when no one else would. But as your org scales, so does the complexity of your systems—and your data. That’s where Normal Forms come in. They’re not just for database admins; they’re a framework to structure data, avoid duplication, reduce errors, and build workflows that won’t break. 1NF: Each field should hold one value, and every row should be unique. Example: Split a field like “Regions Covered” with values like “North, East” into separate records or fields. Why? Filtering becomes impossible when you cram multiple values into one field. 2NF: Every field should depend on the full primary key. Example: If you’re tracking “Deals” with a key like “Account + Deal Name,” don’t include unrelated data like “Rep Hire Date.” Keep that in its own table to avoid bloated data. 3NF: Fields should depend only on the primary key—nothing else. Example: If “Pricing Tier” determines “Discount Percentage,” pull Pricing Tier into its own table rather than calculating downstream. Keeps dependencies clean and reduces unexpected errors. 4NF: Don’t store multiple, independent sets of data in the same record. Example: If a customer has multiple “Preferred Products” and operates in multiple “Regions,” split these into related tables. Keeps relationships consistent and scalable. 5NF: Break down tables into the smallest meaningful pieces while keeping relationships intact. Example: Use a junction table to track reps managing multiple accounts across multiple territories. Makes data modular and easier to maintain. You’re already making these decisions every day—whether something should be a custom object, a related table, or a simple field. Normal Forms give you a framework to get it right, helping you build cleaner systems that scale with your business. How are you handling data structure challenges today? Let’s compare notes in the comments 👇

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Should CRO’s even exist? Not if they’re going to be: - Super expensive glorified head of sales - With no marketing or CS experience - Compensated like an account executive  - No focus on ICP or aligning the entire GTM motion - No coordination with peers in cross-functions - No P&L fluency or ability to read a P&L  - Only focused on new business with no understanding of recurring impact - No knowledge of the bowtie or systems designed to deliver ongoing customer value - Have a short term view and only care about the quarter CROs should absolutely exist if they: - Can come from Marketing, CS, or RevOps not just Sales - Have foundational understanding and respect for other functions - Are compensated like all other executives - Are focused on driving tight alignment across the GTM motion - Are focused on collaborating across Sales, Marketing, CS leveraging data generated from RevOps - Are focused on a customer journey that begins when the prospect lands on the website and continues through at least 3 annual renewals - Have a deep knowledge of the bowtie  - Have built expertise as revenue architects - Have a long term view that balances short term urgency with long term enterprise value Revenue generation is a team sport. Recurring revenue is driven by recurring impact. If you’re leading the revenue function, you have to understand that and you have to be an expert at driving tight alignment across the customer journey to deliver that impact. This is the way.

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What we were promised: a unified ops function for all GTM teams. 😎 What we got: a new name for sales ops. 😔 The labels aren’t really the issue here. It’s the fact that alignment across functional ops teams still seems elusive in many companies. These are some common objections to creating a unified RevOps function: 😰 Functional leaders are worried about their ops teams becoming less responsive 😰 MOPS and CS Ops worry about getting swallowed up by Sales Ops and losing autonomy  😰 Marketing and CS worry their needs won’t be prioritized if RevOps reports to a sales leader These concerns are legitimate and need to be addressed. But they don’t change one simple reality: a lack of alignment among operational teams is usually just a mirror of the lack of alignment among the GTM functions. And these silos harm business performance. Instead of focusing on the challenges, let’s look at what a business can GAIN when ops teams are strongly aligned or unified: 🗺️ A holistic view across the entire revenue process ⚖️ Initiatives prioritized by business impact rather than executive fiat 🥰  A more unified and seamless customer experience 💰 More efficient tech spend with fewer redundant tools 🤝 All revenue teams rowing in the same direction 🤗 Pooled ops resources and mutual support 💪 A stronger ops function that can manage performance rather than just close tickets These teams DO exist, and this week on RevOps FM, I spoke with Julia Kim, who leads one of them at Electric. Julia leads a very mature RevOps function that supports marketing, sales, CS, and partnerships. Not only does this org structure work—her team is a driving force behind the business, which wasn’t at all the case when ops teams were embedded in their functions. In this episode, Julia shares: • The scope and structure of her team • How they plan and prioritize • How they balance running the business as usual with innovation and strategy • How RevOps can have different objectives at different stages of maturity • How she finds efficiencies across the tech stack • And much more Episode link in the comments 👇 —--- P.S. a unified function is one way to achieve alignment, but I don’t suggest it’s the only way. At my company, for example, my team supports marketing and BDR Ops and reports into marketing, while all other ops teams are centralized. This still works very well because a) The marketing leader also reports to the COO, ensuring consistent priorities b) Marketing ops still works closely with other ops teams, has regular cadences, shared OKRs, etc. So the key factors here are a centralized reporting structure and close collaboration. P.P.S. I feel like I've seen the meme I used before somewhere. If you created it first please raise your hand and I'll gladly give credit 😊

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🚀 Go-To-Market: How Do You Actually Nail It? 🚀 If you’re in SaaS B2B, you probably know the standard playbook: 1️⃣ Marketing (Paid, Inbound, Events) 2️⃣ Outbound (AEs, BDRs) 3️⃣ Partnerships & Alliances But let’s be real—how do you actually decide where to put your time, energy, and money? Is it about win rates? Revenue? After 10+ years in the GTM game, here’s what I’ve learned: 💡 1. Look at your ecosystem Find out what’s working for others in your space. Networking is 🔑—building the right relationships will give you a huge advantage. 💡 2. A/B test everything Don’t make decisions off just one test or one person’s experience (e.g., one BDR, one event, one ad channel). Test, iterate, and then scale what works. 💡 3. Be patient Building a solid GTM strategy takes time. Don’t kill a channel too early—it takes time to see results and adjust. Play the long game. ⚠️ For a startup with limited runway, accurate visibility into spend and results becomes life or death. Tracking every dollar and knowing what’s moving the needle is crucial to survival.

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Tired of losing hard-earned deals? Solve for Revenue Leak. In Clari’s 2024 Revenue Leak Report, RevOps leaders said leak happens at every stage of the funnel. - Creating: Poor and slow upsell pipeline tracking - Converting: Unsure where pipeline is dropping off - Closing: Slipped deals Don’t let Revenue Leak drag down another quarter – or another year. Download the Revenue Leak Report for more: https://lnkd.in/g9gnGrdz  

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Want to compare YTD OB stats to identify trends? Emails sent: 10K - Opens: 48%, Replies: 12% Calls: 8K - Connect: 16%, Positive: 4.5% Opps: 155 OB Opps Created* Note: Not all opps created are yet qualified opps. How do these stats measure up to yours? We spend a great deal of time "sharpening the ax" to find the right people and ensure they get the right message at the right time. So I'm curious to hear how we're doing in comparison to other teams. Share yours in the comments, if you're open to it! Iron sharpens iron, axes sharpen axes.

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𝐖𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐀𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭? - 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐒𝐚𝐚𝐒 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 | 𝘔𝘺 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘈𝘐 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦: #RevOps, #MarOps, and #SalesOps. #AI is everywhere... The recent partnership with #Apple and #OpenAI somehow makes this even more real for me. It's not just the smaller companies looking to make a big impact; we're now seeing massive companies put real budgets behind the AI craze. #Salesforce, #Apple, #Google, #X... I've been in the tech space for over a decade now... My roots are in marketing automation (back then we called it email marketing), which turned into marketing operations... It's been stagnant for a while now... Too long if you ask me, and I think AI has completely reshaped it. I think, for better or for worse, it's going to jumpstart a new era for operations and products/services. And it's kind of a breath of fresh air. I've been staring at the same feature sets with minimal change for a LONG time now. Enter AI, and now every company is scrambling to push out new features. Are they ready for the market? Hardly... But it's nice to see big to small companies get scrappy and build great new things, even if they're not 100% yet. It feels innovative in the industry again. HubSpot & Salesforce stands out as leaders in this regard. I'm excited to see what's next. I'm just hoping it makes my life easier, not harder 😅. What do you think? #SalesOperations #MarketingOperations #AI #Salesforce #Hubspot #OpenAI #ChatGPT

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Dear HubSpot CRM, I love you, but . . . Why are your sequences so inflexible? Sales/Marketing require dynamic sequences. I'm not talking about integrating AI. It's a much simpler request. One that has been made for YEARS. Why do you force me to unenroll everyone, every single time I want to make a change to a sequence? Sequences are meant to be dynamic. We need the ability to change the subject line without: - Unenrolling everyone, - Then reenrolling everyone after we make the change. Sequences must be easy and QUICK to make changes to. While we are on it, 1 more request . . . If I want to enroll 1,000 people into a sequence And only send 25 per day, MAKE IT EASY! Don't make me select 25 people (40 times!) then select the exact day and time I want the email to go out. I still love you, HubSpot. You still make me more effective and efficient. However, we can all improve.

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Last week I posted about Lyzr's 0 to 1 journey and how we got to $3M Contracted ARR in less than 8 months. I received 300+ DMs enquiring more about our GTM execution. So this post is all about breaking it down - what worked and what didn't. Lyzr's Marketing Culture: Try Fast, Fail Fast Much like the product development sprints, we follow 2-week sprints to test out marketing campaigns, new ideas. Anirudh Narayan is championing this, given his vast experience in this space. Some experiments are short term, some are long term. Email Marketing (continuous) 📩 This is still the strongest channel. The ROI this channel sees is not comparable to any other platform, provided you get it right. Identifying your ICP, doing deep customer research, writing personalized emails, following up diligently are super key. We started dogfooding Jazon AI SDR internally, and now, in 3 months, we started seeing the promise this channel holds. https://www.lyzr.ai/jazon Influencer Marketing (short term) 🤩 This is an upcoming field, and very few have cracked it. David Park of Jenni AI has done a commendable job leveraging this channel for growth. For Lyzr, this is still in the build phase. It has not yielded any results so far. Manav Singh is trying to crack this. Blog Posts (long term) ✍ This is long term, but if it's done correctly, can drive traffic to your site in droves. Neha Paranjpe is killing it with the content generation and SEO optimizations. If you search for 'Agent Framework', Lyzr does come in the top 3 results (most times). And with Skott (https://www.lyzr.ai/skott/) taking over a ton of load, including research, drafting and SEO optimization, we are staring to focus more on new topic ideas. Paid Ads (short term) 💰 No wonder this always work. Our monthly paid ads spend is super meagre ($3000). From our results, we are seeing returns in below order. Google > Meta > Twitter > Linkedin No wonder Google is still the king of search. I would suggest start with $2000/mo budget, experiment and learn to understand what works. One major pivot we did was in pricing. Mark Goldberger, our GTM advisor, always urged us to play around with pricing and we did that, landed up in a comfortable pricing, ensuring we add 20x more value compared to our competitors. Nathan Latka's videos on real SaaS strategies are a must-watch. And lastly, the market is super large. Much larger than what you think. If you give it a certain number, the market is always 100x larger than that.

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BDRs are a CHANNEL within the GTM ecosystem. We stopped using the transactional lead gen playbook with them + adopted a long-term "demand gen" approach with them, and magic has happened 🪄 Let me share a few examples of when BDRs do + don’t work well to help get the point across: Cold outreach Don’t: give them a list of 100 new accounts every month to dial/email/DM away at, hoping that they can get 5% of them to finally cave in to taking a demo Do: give them a list of 100 accounts and tell them that over the course of the next quarter, they are to develop a relationship with each of them Remember: BDR stands for business *development* representative. Those relationships + being able to become a trusted advisor are why prospects will choose to go with you, not the fact that you have now slapped “AI” on your product. PLG and sales-assisted growth Don’t: give them a list of every prospect that signs up for your free product and assume that they are ready to buy Do: loop them into other efforts targeting this group. Marketing is likely sending a “welcome” or “training” sequence to each new signup to help teach them how to use the product and get them to adopt it. Product likely has datapoints around which signups are using the product, and which features specifically. Tip: Allow the BDRs to see this information so they can be more strategic and consultative with their outreach. This way they reach out to the signups actually using the product AND can be consultative in what they speak to based on what the signups are, and aren’t, using within the product currently. Lastly, lose the attribution obsession Like marketing, we have to lose the obsession on attributing every BDR activity back to BDRs. Embrace the “dark social” type mentality with this group so that they can align better to how today’s market actually researches and buys products. This means that you’ll probably see BDR activities lead to improved “Organic Search” and “Direct” attribution results because when the prospect is ready to start the sales process, they may just come straight to the website and submit the demo request form. That is ok! This past week, we had two examples of this occurring where a demo request came in and in the self-reported attribution, the prospect explicitly named the BDR who'd been in contact with them Our BDR approach is being helpful + consultative, not forcing prospects into the funnel early. They meet prospects where they are, provide helpful resources along the way, and say things like “hey, when you’re ready, just head to our website + fill out the form.” They recognize that not everyone is in the market today They recognize that prospects are in annual or multi-year contracts They recognize that even if they aren’t, they need to wait approvals But once the prospect is finally ready, they come back to us ready to move forward

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