Best of LinkedIn: Go-to-Market CW 06/ 07

00:00:00: This episode is provided by Thomas Allgaier and Franos, based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about go-to market in calendar weeks six and seven.

00:00:07: Franos is a B to B Market research company helping enterprises gain the customer competitive and positioning insights needed to drive GTM success.

00:00:16: Welcome back to The Deep Dive We are looking at really specific slice of time today.

00:00:21: Weeks Six And Seven Of Twenty-Twenty-Six

00:00:25: Right.

00:00:26: Just two weeks boiled down the vibe on LinkedIn.

00:00:30: during that time, it would be this.

00:00:32: B to b marketing is no longer about art It's about engineering.

00:00:36: Engineering?

00:00:37: That sounds a little cold doesn't?

00:00:38: I mean?

00:00:39: we usually talk About engaging content and brand voice but you're saying The conversation shifted To what wrenches in blueprints.

00:00:45: In a way, yeah.

00:00:46: The sources we're seeing aren't talking about random acts of marketing anymore you know?

00:00:50: You post the video and just hope it goes viral.

00:00:52: The spray-and-pray approach

00:00:53: Exactly!

00:00:54: They were talking building a machine A system where inputs or outputs are predictable.

00:01:00: Okay, Building a Machine sounds great in theory but usually that means buying more software than nobody ends up using.

00:01:07: So before we get too cynical what's evidence?

00:01:09: What is first signal things actually changing?

00:01:13: The biggest signal Believe it or not, a job title.

00:01:16: A job title?

00:01:16: It's

00:01:17: the rise of the GTM

00:01:19: engineer.

00:01:19: Okay I've seen this popping up but i have to ask is This just a fancy reran for marketing operations...I

00:01:26: thought that too at first.

00:01:27: You know The person who manages email list gets new title and suddenly a pay raise.

00:01:32: Well, it's actually distinct and the market is valuing it very differently.

00:01:36: Maja Voje flagged this.

00:01:38: she noted that GTM engineer as the fastest growing role in B to be.

00:01:41: right now

00:01:42: how fast are we talking?

00:01:43: We're seeing two hundred five percent year-over-year growth And the salary isn't entry level either.

00:01:47: It's averaging around a hundred twenty seven thousand five hundred dollars.

00:01:50: Okay, two hundred and five percent growth is right.

00:01:52: That's hard to ignore.

00:01:53: but going back to my skepticism What does a gtm engineer actually do?

00:01:57: that a revops person doesn't?

00:01:59: Alessandro Fiamingo had a really sharp definition on this.

00:02:02: He argues that traditional rev ops is often about reporting, you know looking back right at what happened.

00:02:08: Right

00:02:08: dashboards and shirts.

00:02:09: A GTM

00:02:10: engineer is about infrastructure.

00:02:13: Think of it as the plumbing of revenue

00:02:15: The plumbing of Revenue.

00:02:17: I like that!

00:02:17: Right alessandra points out It's not sales And its' Not marketing.

00:02:21: Its the layer That connects them.

00:02:23: So instead of a marketer manually downloading a CSV of leads and emailing it to a sales rep, which

00:02:29: takes like two days

00:02:30: at least.

00:02:31: A GTM engineer builds a script where a pricing page visit triggers an alert in the CRM Instantly.

00:02:37: It connects the technology The data in the process so

00:02:40: they're the ones making the tools talk to each other.

00:02:42: Okay But here's the problem I see with that title.

00:02:44: Engineer implies you need to be really technical

00:02:47: for sure

00:02:48: but go-to-market implies You need to understand sale psychology?

00:02:52: Danny Kim pointed out that companies are trying to hire unicorns right now.

00:02:56: Oh, the job descriptions aren't possible!

00:02:58: Right.

00:02:58: Danny says companies want someone who is like a third developer... ...a third marketer and a third sales rep.

00:03:04: That person does not exist

00:03:06: And if they do They're founding their own company Not coming to work for you

00:03:09: Exactly.

00:03:10: And Danny notes The failure mode here Is usually that You hire a developer Who can connect the API But y'know They can't write a coherent email to save their life.

00:03:20: Or you hire a marketer who tries to edit the code and breaks the entire database.

00:03:24: Wait,

00:03:25: that's other side of it.

00:03:26: So

00:03:26: what is this fix?

00:03:28: If we cannot hire this mythical wizard do just give up.

00:03:31: No!

00:03:31: You stop looking for superhero.

00:03:34: Danny solution is build feedback loops Let technical person build system but force them actually sit with sales team understand what converts It about collaboration not finding one person.

00:03:47: Speaking of technical people though, I saw a source from Benyamin that honestly terrified me.

00:03:53: He's talking about using GitHub for marketing logic.

00:03:56: I had the feeling you'd catch one!

00:03:58: Wait a second...GitHub?

00:04:01: That is for software developers.

00:04:02: It's where you store code.

00:04:04: Why on earth would a marketing team need a github repository?

00:04:08: Are CMOs supposed to learn how to commit code now?

00:04:12: Sounds super intimidating.

00:04:13: but think what we just discussed.

00:04:16: If you are building this complex machine, the system of automated emails and lead routing what happens when it breaks?

00:04:24: You panic.

00:04:25: And usually...you don't know what broke it!

00:04:27: Did someone change a setting in an email tool?

00:04:29: did they mess with their leads scoring criteria?

00:04:32: Benyman's point is that GTM logic-the rules to run your business should be treated like software.

00:04:43: Exactly, it signals a shift from marketing as a creative thing to engineering.

00:04:49: As the systematic one.

00:04:50: you aren't just doing stuff You're deploying logic

00:04:53: okay?

00:04:53: I can see the value in that even if the learning curve is steep.

00:04:57: But if we're building this machine We need parts we need tools.

00:05:01: and This brings us to the second big theme From those weeks The GTM stack.

00:05:06: And thank goodness the trend seems To be less is more

00:05:09: It really Is for A. while the Trend was buy everything.

00:05:14: Now people like Aslib S and Jack Mercer are pushing for what we might call the Magic Four, I think you really only need about four core tools to run a massive B-to-B operation.

00:05:25: The magic four?

00:05:26: Okay i have the list here.

00:05:27: let's walk through it because i think you need to understand how they fit together.

00:05:30: It is not just random lists.

00:05:31: its starts with brain.

00:05:32: right Right!

00:05:33: The Brain Is Clay.

00:05:34: In this modern stack, you don't just buy a static list of leads anymore.

00:05:38: You use Clay to find data but also to enrich it.

00:05:41: It's the operating system that decides who to talk to.

00:05:44: Okay so clay finds the person.

00:05:46: then you have the execution layer

00:05:47: That your tools like sales forge or lemlist.

00:05:50: This is hands and mouth operations What sends emails?

00:05:53: Sends DMs

00:05:54: Then need memory A place store at all.

00:05:56: That's the modern CRM Adios one getting all buzz right now Unlike Salesforce, which can feel like this clunky database from the nineties.

00:06:05: Adio is built for this kind of high velocity data.

00:06:07: and finally The Ears.

00:06:08: The ears.

00:06:10: Trigify.io.

00:06:11: This is for social listening.

00:06:13: It picks up on signals Like someone commenting On a competitor's post And it feeds that right back to the brain To Clay.

00:06:19: So the whole workflow Is?

00:06:21: Trigifi hears A signal clay Enriches IT and Finds the email adio records it and salesforge Sends THE MESSAGE

00:06:27: Precisely!

00:06:28: And That connectivity IS the key.

00:06:31: Ivan Falco and Marcos stew both made the point that teams don't fail because they picked The wrong tool right.

00:06:36: They failed Because they create isolated islands if your ears hear a signal But you're brain never gets to memo, but the opportunity is just

00:06:43: dead.

00:06:43: an Elliot O'Connor back this up too referencing Everett Berry.

00:06:46: It's just CRM clay dialer sequencer.

00:06:50: That's it simple.

00:06:52: Let's talk brass tacks money because usually when we talked tech stacks CFO starts sweating.

00:06:57: This is the best part.

00:06:58: It's actually incredibly lean.

00:07:00: Marco Strome, TIGBUCK outlined a stack using Apollo, clay smart lead hub spot and eight N. that costs about three thousand dollars a month.

00:07:09: Three thousand a month for the entire motion?

00:07:11: The entire end-to-end motion!

00:07:13: That's not bad for an enterprise yeah but Jacopo Tolini went even lower.

00:07:18: He claimed his stack is cheaper than a gym membership.

00:07:20: I loved that comparison, he's using Apollo's free tier Gmail and Google Sheets.

00:07:25: Wait can you actually build a pipeline with google sheets in the free account?

00:07:28: Is it

00:07:28: real?!

00:07:29: You CAN if focus on relevance over volume!

00:07:31: This point—and its'a vital one-is that If spend time to research ten prospects deeply...you can outperform about spamming ten thousand people…You just don't need expensive tools to be relevant.

00:07:41: That's good reality check.

00:07:42: Yeah But A lot of people do want to spam ten thousand, or at least they wanna automate the work.

00:07:48: Which brings us our third theme AI and Automation.

00:07:52: But let's look beyond the hype here.

00:07:54: We are not talking about chat gpt writing a poem.

00:07:56: No no we're talking heavy lifting.

00:07:58: Cody Schneider posted crash course on using clod code.

00:08:02: For those who don't know what is Claude Code?

00:08:04: Is that different from just talk into the Chatbot?

00:08:06: It IS!

00:08:07: Its capability where you can actually run code via the AI.

00:08:11: Cody used it to bulk create infrastructure.

00:08:14: We're talking about generating hundreds of Facebook ads dozens of landing pages and a hundred SEO blog posts in a single sprint.

00:08:23: That is both terrifying an impressive I mean that's scale the user require or twenty person agency?

00:08:28: Oh,

00:08:28: absolutely.

00:08:29: And Benjamin Lyons shared a similar example using N.

00:08:32: Okay we've mentioned NA a few times.

00:08:34: let's pause and explain what is nnn?

00:08:37: Think of it as the glue.

00:08:39: It's a workflow automation tool, kind of like Zephyr but its node based and way more powerful for complex logic.

00:08:45: Benjamin released twenty workflows that he claims can replace one hundred fifty thousand dollar RevOps

00:08:51: team.

00:08:51: One hundred fifty-thousand dollars team replaced by a piece software.

00:08:55: That is headline!

00:08:56: IT IS.

00:08:56: He automates lead ops cold email sequences pipeline management I mean all just running in background.

00:09:02: But wait if everyone uses Claude to write their blogs an NAN send emails Are we just flooding the world with even more garbage?

00:09:10: That is the danger.

00:09:11: And Julian Templesman warned about exactly this, he says AI email writers are becoming commodities.

00:09:18: If I can generate a personalized e-mail in one second and so can you The value of that E-mail drops to zero.

00:09:25: So

00:09:25: what's the defense?

00:09:26: how do you stand out?

00:09:27: Judgment!

00:09:33: Spencer Perique made a distinction here that I think is brilliant.

00:09:36: He separates AI into deterministic and dynamic systems.

00:09:41: Okay,

00:09:41: let's break down deterministic versus dynamic.

00:09:44: Deterministic for rules Routing a lead Checking for compliance.

00:09:49: If the lead comes from Germany route it to the German team.

00:09:52: You don't want an AI getting creative with That Right.

00:09:54: you wanted To follow The rule every single time.

00:09:57: You definitely Don't Want An Autonomous Agent Deciding.

00:10:00: I feel like sending this German lead to the Brazil team today.

00:10:03: Exactly, that's where you use deterministic systems but then you have dynamic or agentic systems.

00:10:09: these are for things that require adaptation Like drafting a reply To complex question Or researching a prospects.

00:10:16: recent news Spencers take away is Don't Use agents For everything.

00:10:21: You don't need autonomy to route A lead.

00:10:24: That really helpful guidance.

00:10:25: It about using The right brain.

00:10:28: And speaking of brains Jeff Ignacio even suggested treating the LLMs themselves like a tech stack.

00:10:34: Yes, he says stop using one model for everything.

00:10:37: use Claude for research and nuance.

00:10:39: It's great at reading long documents Like ten K reports but for data classification Use Gemini or GPT-FORO mini because they are way cheaper and faster.

00:10:49: So don't use the expensive thoughtful genius to organize your filing cabinet.

00:10:52: you got it.

00:10:53: Okay, so we've covered the engineer role.

00:10:55: The lean stack and these automation workflows but I feel like We're missing the most important part.

00:10:59: i mean you can have the best car in the world But if you don't know where you're driving You're just gonna crash faster.

00:11:04: that brings us to strategy and foundations And honestly this was the most critical part of the content from weeks six and seven?

00:11:12: The theme here is basically Don't automate a bad process.

00:11:17: TK Kader had a great framework for this.

00:11:19: he used the Charlie Munger method of inversion.

00:11:22: I love inversion.

00:11:23: Instead of asking how do we succeed, you flip it and ask How Do We Guarantee Failure?

00:11:28: So according to TK, how did we guarantee our GTM fails?

00:11:32: three easy ways.

00:11:33: first target everyone.

00:11:35: confuse your total addressable market with Your ideal customer profile.

00:11:38: if You try to sell To Everyone you sell to no one.

00:11:40: classic mistake.

00:11:41: what.

00:11:41: second

00:11:42: Second let chat GPT.

00:11:43: write your generic strategy just pure unedited AI slot.

00:11:47: And third in this One hurts hire an agency before you have product Market Fit.

00:11:52: Ouch, that's the outsourcing-the-problem strategy.

00:11:54: I don't know how to sell this so i'll pay someone else to figure it out for me.

00:11:57: And It never works.

00:11:58: You have to know the motion before you can scale it.

00:12:01: Alexander Esner added to this with what he calls The translation problem.

00:12:05: This one really resonated With Me.

00:12:06: He is talking about How The Strategy Stays Stuck In The CEO's Head Right

00:12:10: Or in some internal notion doc... ...You Have This Brilliant Strategy Document.

00:12:14: But Then Look At The Website or The Sales Deck and Its Just Generic Fluff The strategic positioning never translated into the actual market-facing assets.

00:12:24: And when that translation fails, deals stall.

00:12:27: Occamclaw had a stat that just blew me away.

00:12:29: Sixty percent of lost deals aren't lost to competitors.

00:12:32: They are lost to inertia.

00:12:34: No decision!

00:12:35: The customer stays with status quo.

00:12:37: That is real enemy.

00:12:39: It's not competitor it's customers doing nothing.

00:12:42: So how do we fight inertia?

00:12:43: Doei Western brought up a framework called SpiceD.

00:12:46: Yes.

00:12:46: Spice D, it stands for situation pain impact critical event and decision.

00:12:52: Walk us through that.

00:12:53: how does an acronym help me actually close a deal?

00:12:55: It forces you to find the driver.

00:12:57: most reps stop at pain.

00:12:58: Oh your current software is slow.

00:13:00: That's too bad.

00:13:01: But

00:13:01: spiced pushes you to impact in critical event.

00:13:04: So not just what but the so-what

00:13:06: exactly?

00:13:07: why doesn't matter that the software is low?

00:13:09: Is it costing money as there are board meeting next month where you need to show results?

00:13:13: I see.

00:13:13: so The Critical Event is the deadline that forces the decision.

00:13:18: Without that, you just get inertia.

00:13:20: You Get Inertia And Dao suggests using structured customer interviews to dig for this spicy D data and feeding it right into that CRM we talked about earlier

00:13:29: And B. John Henry offered a technical way of helping with these two.

00:13:32: He Talked About Using Tools Like RB To Be.

00:13:34: RBToBe Is A De-Anonymization Tool.

00:13:36: It Tells Who From Which Companies Is Visiting Your Website.

00:13:40: Bijan's point is that funnels need better systems.

00:13:43: If you know a specific prospect is reading your pricing page, You can take a sniper approach!

00:14:04: The rise of the GTM engineer, the magic force stack.

00:14:08: The need for human judgment in AI and the absolute necessity of a spiced it up strategy.

00:14:14: if you take one thing away from this deep dive what should It be?

00:14:18: I think that takeaway is.

00:14:19: tools like clay and an and Claude are incredibly powerful But they're just amplifiers.

00:14:26: If your strategy is solid They will amplify your success.

00:14:29: but if your strategy as muddy If you don't know who your ICP is or why they buy, automation will just help you fail faster and more efficiently than ever before.

00:14:38: That's a sobering thought.

00:14:40: failing at the speed of AI

00:14:41: It IS!

00:14:42: The winners in twenty-twenty six won't be the ones with best tech stack.

00:14:46: They'll use that to deliver a message that feels uniquely human and relevant.

00:14:51: Be the architect not just operator.

00:14:52: I love

00:14:53: it Exactly.

00:14:54: And here are final provocative thoughts for everyone to mull over.

00:14:58: If everyone has access to the same Magic Force stack, and every one has access of the same LLMs where does real differentiation come from next year?

00:15:06: I suspect the battleground is shifting back to things that can't be automated.

00:15:10: Trust brand and deep domain expertise.

00:15:13: The more robots we have,the more valuable humans become.

00:15:17: If you enjoyed this episode new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:15:20: Also check out our other additions on account based marketing Field Marketing Channel Marketing Martech Social Selling And AI In BDB Marketing.

00:15:28: Thanks for diving in with us.

00:15:30: Don't forget subscribe so don't miss next one.

00:15:32: Catch ya then!