Best of LinkedIn: Go-to-Market CW 20/ 21

00:00:00: This episode is provided by Thomas Allgaier and Freitas, based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about GoToMarket in calendar weeks twenty-and-twenty one.

00:00:08: Freitas is a B to B market research partner helping ICT and tech providers identify niche channel partners By compressing the full journey from identification To qualified first meeting into four or five weeks.

00:00:21: You can find more info In the description.

00:00:23: So if you're joining us today we are taking A look at The top GoTo Market Trends seen across LinkedIn.

00:00:29: Yeah, exactly and you know we really wanted to cut through the fluff of calendar weeks twenty-and-twenty one.

00:00:34: oh there's so much fluff out there right?

00:00:36: Right!

00:00:36: So were just extracting what is actually moving The Needle in strategic B to be marketing.

00:00:40: today

00:00:41: I mean we're talking everything from AI agents moving into real production all the way to this massive simplification of text acts

00:00:48: which is huge.

00:00:49: And speaking of AIAgents that's our first big cluster insights.

00:00:54: agentic GTM Is Moving Into Production demanding governance.

00:00:58: It

00:00:58: really is, it's not just a sandbox experiment anymore?

00:01:01: No!

00:01:01: Not at all.

00:01:02: Sara Soleimani had great post about this.

00:01:04: she built a voice activated pre-call sales assistant.

00:01:10: Oh wow how did you put that together?

00:01:12: so she used an MCP Claude gmail and Google Drive.

00:01:16: basically the agent reads recent emails in docs synthesizes them.

00:01:24: That sounds incredibly useful.

00:01:26: It is, but you know she was very honest about the trade-offs which I appreciate.

00:01:30: She pointed out that using MCPs causes massive token bloat.

00:01:33: Right because you're just feeding it so much raw background tax

00:01:36: Exactly and that leads to context window degradation.

00:01:39: The AI basically just forgets the main instructions Because the conversation history gets too long Which is

00:01:44: a real problem when your dealing with actual revenue rate.

00:01:47: Oh its get worse.

00:01:48: Sergey Grizzly posted about A forty thousand dollar lesson.

00:01:51: his team learned of governance.

00:01:53: Wait, forty thousand.

00:01:54: What happened?

00:01:55: Yeah so his team deployed three AI agents.

00:01:57: the first two failed spectacularly.

00:01:59: Oh no!

00:02:00: yeah The first one actually hallucinated a competitor product launch and just spammed their internal slack with panic alerts.

00:02:06: That is this stuff of nightmares for a marketing director.

00:02:09: I mean people must have been freaking out

00:02:10: Totally.

00:02:11: And then second turned out forty seven completely generic blog posts in like... A weekend.

00:02:17: So

00:02:18: it's useless noise.

00:02:19: Did third work?

00:02:20: It did, but only because they implemented pause points before execution.

00:02:26: So a human in the loop system?

00:02:28: Right!

00:02:29: The system physically couldn't publish a post or send an email without a human clicking.

00:02:33: approve

00:02:34: That makes total sense And it really aligns with what Kevin Payne was saying

00:02:37: Oh yeah What was his take?

00:02:39: He argued that operators need to stop debugging prompts and instead They needed start managing AI agents like junior employees.

00:02:46: That is such a good shift in perspective.

00:02:48: It is, because you know it's like we've been treating AI Like this magical vending machine where just tweak the buttons

00:02:54: Right!

00:02:54: Just change an adjective and prompt And hope that works

00:02:56: Exactly.

00:02:57: But Kevin says We need to treat it like An eager junior intern.

00:03:01: They needed strict job description Product requirements Documents Scope contracts Even Sprint reviews.

00:03:09: Wow!

00:03:09: Sprint Reviews for an AI.

00:03:11: Yeah A manager has to sign off on their work.

00:03:14: You can't let them run wild In your CRM.

00:03:16: Which actually makes me wonder about forecasting.

00:03:18: If we have these AI interns touching everything, how does that impact the revenue forecasting process?

00:03:26: Well, Serania Roy had a brilliant insight on this.

00:03:29: she said that AI agents won't fix your forecast.

00:03:33: they will expose it

00:03:34: Expose it.

00:03:34: what did you mean by that?

00:03:36: think about every call transcript Every micro change in a CRM field is now logged data.

00:03:43: It completely eliminates those fuzzy hiding spots reps used to use.

00:03:46: Oh,

00:03:46: like sandbagging a deal?

00:03:47: Exactly or relying on a gut feeling.

00:03:50: Serranya points out this demands whole new layer of revenue.

00:03:54: truth Revenue

00:03:55: Truth!

00:03:55: I liked that term.

00:03:56: Right because even with all these data You still need human sign-off.

00:04:00: The AI exposes the reality, but a human has to own it.

00:04:03: That makes perfect sense.

00:04:04: and you know managing these highly governed AI agents is so technical.

00:04:08: now It's actually creating a completely new role in the BtoB marketing org chart.

00:04:12: Yes GTM engineering that is becoming a core operating model

00:04:16: Exactly.

00:04:17: Niraj Kumar pointed out that there are over a hundred GTM engineer roles open right now.

00:04:21: That's massive, it is totally new title.

00:04:23: It Is!

00:04:24: Because theres this huge infrastructure gap.

00:04:27: You've got Salesforce for Sales HubSpot for Marketing Gong For Calls And nobody owns the mess

00:04:33: in middle Right.

00:04:33: The data just siloed Exactly.

00:04:36: But Niraj says one GTM Engineer Connecting these systems with AI Can cover the manual work of like five to six SDRs.

00:04:43: Wow five to six SDRs.

00:04:46: That's a huge efficiency game!

00:04:48: It really is,

00:04:49: but you know Racial Roundy made a great point about this.

00:04:51: she said the GKM engineer isn't just a rebranded marketing ops title.

00:04:55: it's not.

00:04:56: how was it different?

00:04:57: She says it sits at the exact intersection of marketing strategy operations and AI...it's a reflection of a much more technical reality.

00:05:05: that's

00:05:05: a rare skill set ...you have to understand the tech in the go-to market strategy

00:05:09: exactly and Adam Schoenfeld echoed.

00:05:12: He said AI is actively breaking the traditional go-to market org structure.

00:05:16: Breaking it how?

00:05:17: Like getting rid of teams!

00:05:19: Kindof, its reducing need for middle managers who just coordinate between silos.

00:05:24: It's paving way to these high impact ICs or individual contributors Who can own projects from end to end.

00:05:31: Okay but let me push back on that first.

00:05:32: second Sure Go

00:05:33: ahead.

00:05:33: Does this mean The Traditional Marketer Is Just Obsolete?

00:05:37: Or does this just mean that the marketing team of twenty-twenty six needs to look a lot more like a software engineering team?

00:05:43: I think it's definitely the latter.

00:05:44: You have to have an engineering mindset now,

00:05:46: which brings us perfectly into our third cluster because The first thing these engineers do isn't adding more tools It's ripping them out.

00:05:54: Yes, GTM Stack Simplification has become a massive strategic priority.

00:05:58: Huge!

00:05:59: Anas Fitlipna posted that in twenty-twenty six having ten plus tools and your stack is a massive red flag.

00:06:06: Oh absolutely A few years ago as flex now it's just bloat.

00:06:09: Exactly.

00:06:10: She says the new Flex is clean one tool per jobstack.

00:06:13: she mentioned tools like granola for notes clue for competitors an adio for pipeline.

00:06:18: Just simple and focused.

00:06:20: And we're seeing this at enterprise level too.

00:06:22: Jordan Brown shared an incredible example from Autodesk.

00:06:25: Oh, the Autodesks story was wild!

00:06:28: Right they simplified a tangled web of over fifty sales apps down to under twenty.

00:06:33: Fifty

00:06:33: down to twenty?

00:06:34: That's

00:06:34: huge cut.

00:06:35: Yeah and did it all on a unified Salesforce backbone in less than one year.

00:06:39: that change management alone must have been intense.

00:06:42: but Tim Rutten the CMO at Backbase led even more extreme exercise.

00:06:48: Wreckercats shared this one.

00:06:49: Oh, I saw that the delete and rebuild approach?

00:06:51: Yes they started from absolute zero.

00:06:54: They completely ignored sunk costs

00:06:56: which is so hard for leadership to do.

00:06:58: it Is.

00:06:59: but the results were undeniable sixty percent bigger deals.

00:07:02: eighty five percent pipeline growth at a twenty-five percent smaller budget.

00:07:07: That

00:07:07: is just staggering.

00:07:08: A smaller budget, but way bigger deals.

00:07:10: Right.

00:07:11: But it raises a question.

00:07:12: Most companies are terrified of deleting their legacy CRM because the sunk cost fallacy.

00:07:18: It's like hoarding old cables in a drawer Just incase you need them.

00:07:21: Oh

00:07:21: we all have that drawer We

00:07:22: do.

00:07:23: So how did teams overcome fear Of throwing out the drawer?

00:07:26: I

00:07:27: think comes down to realizing The bloated stack Is actually hiding your best targets Which leads us To fourth cluster Outbound.

00:07:35: GTM is being totally rebuilt around intelligence.

00:07:39: Right, because once the staff is clean outbound stops being a volume game.

00:07:43: Exactly it becomes an intelligence game.

00:07:46: Shawshank Chandrasekhar and shared a brilliant method for this.

00:07:49: Yeah The screeping workflow

00:07:50: right.

00:07:51: so instead of an SDR just looking at a stale LinkedIn one-liner He uses tools like spider in firecrawl paired with Claude.

00:07:58: And what exactly he's pulling without?

00:07:59: He pulls live competitor messaging pricing and fresh news signals.

00:08:04: And he does this for five thousand target accounts, for under five dollars.

00:08:08: Wait!

00:08:09: Five thousand account for five dollars?

00:08:11: Yes the cost of that level of intelligence has basically dropped to zero.

00:08:14: That is incredible...and you know Kyle Poyar and Dan Rosenthal talked about in their seven step modern ABM guide.

00:08:20: Oh

00:08:20: yeah what do they focus on?

00:08:21: They emphasize differentiation.

00:08:23: now only comes from deep context around a small set high value accounts.

00:08:27: You really have leverage.

00:08:28: first party intense signal

00:08:30: Which totally aligns with Revanth Riemann's concept.

00:08:34: He calls it the community funnel system,

00:08:36: right?

00:08:36: The Community Qualified Leads or CQLS.

00:08:39: exactly because buyers are leaving these massive intent signals on Reddit G to and developer forums way before they ever fill out a form on your site They're

00:08:50: essentially telling you their problems in public.

00:08:52: Right And ribbon says the goal is to listen and prioritize not just scream and spam.

00:08:57: but let me challenge that approach for a second.

00:08:59: Okay What's the concern

00:09:00: We have all this amazing signal data, right?

00:09:03: But are we just overwhelming our sales reps like how do we ensure that intelligence actually makes it into the buyer's hands at the right time without seeming

00:09:14: creepy.

00:09:14: That is the exact danger here.

00:09:15: if you hand a spreadsheet of Reddit user names they're going to send a terrible email

00:09:20: Exactly!

00:09:20: Hey I saw you complaining on forum

00:09:22: Right instant turn off and that brings us back onto our final theme buyer journey alignment, and commercial discipline.

00:09:28: Because all this tech is useless if it doesn't align with how a human actually buys?

00:09:32: Exactly!

00:09:33: Jamie Walsh provided great framework for this.

00:09:36: he said that buyers don't move through funnels.

00:09:40: they moved through questions.

00:09:41: They

00:09:41: move through questions.

00:09:42: I love how simple That

00:09:43: Is.

00:09:43: Yeah He laid out ten real-buyer questions across awareness consideration decision and advocacy.

00:09:50: What kind of question

00:09:51: things like is this problem Actually worth fixing right now?

00:09:55: Or can I defend this purchase to my CFO?

00:09:59: If your go-to market content doesn't answer those specific questions, it's just noise.

00:10:04: That makes total sense and Akshakshtra Vastava made a really interesting point related to this.

00:10:09: he said early stage GTM teams miss a lot of this intelligence because of broken incentive structure

00:10:14: Broken incentives.

00:10:15: how so well

00:10:16: sales reps are financially incentivized to keep moving forward.

00:10:19: right close the deal, move to the next edema.

00:10:22: Right

00:10:22: hit the quarter

00:10:23: exactly.

00:10:24: but by doing that they completely ignore the goldmine of data hidden in lost prospects and churned customers.

00:10:30: oh

00:10:31: because they've moved on.

00:10:32: yeah an oxshot said something i love.

00:10:33: he said churn customers have nothing.

00:10:36: Oh, that is so true.

00:10:38: They will give you the brutal honest truth.

00:10:40: Exactly and if you don't collect that truth You're missing the exact language you need to answer those buyer questions Jamie Walsh was talking about

00:10:48: which ties perfectly into Senki Zulu Sirak's warning.

00:10:51: He said that renewal risk Is a go-to market design problem not a customer success?

00:10:56: Problem

00:10:56: Wow.

00:10:57: So it starts way earlier than we think.

00:10:59: yes

00:11:00: It has set at the deal stage.

00:11:02: it all depends on how the product was positioned and whether adoption was designed into the initial motion.

00:11:07: So if a rep overpromises just to close a deal,

00:11:10: then customer success inherits a ticking time bomb!

00:11:14: You can't fix bad positioning twelve months later at renewal-time.

00:11:18: That is harsh reality check for sales leaders out there.

00:11:21: It requires massive commercial discipline.

00:11:23: Well before we wrap up this deep dive I want leave listeners something to ponder on their own.

00:11:28: This based really wild post from Deepika Sharma.

00:11:31: Oh, the anthropic experiment.

00:11:33: Yes!

00:11:33: Anthropic recently ran a live experiment where AI agents negotiated and closed one hundred eighty-six real deals.

00:11:40: Wait...real business deals?

00:11:42: Real

00:11:42: deals And there were zero human touch points.

00:11:45: That is insane Right?

00:11:46: Forester's actually predicting that ninety percent of B to b buying will be AI agent intermediated by twenty twenty eight.

00:11:53: Wow So here's thought for you as your listening today.

00:11:57: What happens to your perfectly engineered go-to market strategy when you're buyer is no longer a human, but an AI agent negotiating with your AI agent?

00:12:06: That

00:12:06: changes everything.

00:12:07: Are your cloud marketplaces and co-sell workflows actually ready for nonhuman procurement?

00:12:13: It's something we all need start thinking about!

00:12:15: Absolutely Well.

00:12:16: if enjoyed this episode new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:12:19: Also check out our other editions on account based marketing field marketing channel marketing martech social selling and ai in B to V marketing.

00:12:27: Thank you so much for joining us on this deep dive, don't forget to subscribe and we'll see.