Alex Theuma is the Founder of SaaStock, a community helping SaaS founders scale to $10M ARR by connecting them with financing, industry experts, and peers. SaaSstock runs physical and virtual conferences, a virtual community, and produces educational content like workshops and a podcast. This year’s SaaSstock conference will be in Dublin on October 17th. Alex is the host of “The SaaS Revolution Show”, where he interviews Founders to share their stories and lessons. SaaStock achieves MLG via proper, modern, non-spam marketing.
Alex dons B2B buyers’ flip flops to share buying preferences for Marketing + Sales:
✅aware of vendors via peers/network/referrals/WOM/influencers via content/social/communities (tks to Marketing + Marketing’s influence on peers)
✅learn about/try/buy vendors via peers and website (tks to Marketing) w/OPTION for Sales
❌Turn off + tune out: telemarketing, email spam, LinkedIn spam, bribery via gift cards (Sales Development)
𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠-𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐯𝐬. 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬-𝐥𝐞𝐝 = 100% M
𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐯𝐬. 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 = 95% M
𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 (𝐀𝐄-𝐂𝐒𝐌 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝) 𝐯𝐬. 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐲 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐞 (𝐀𝐄-𝐂𝐒𝐌 𝐬𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐭) = RS
𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐲 + 𝐁𝐨𝐧𝐮𝐬 𝐯𝐬. 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 = FSB
Run similar exercise w/buyers + ownership + leadership as part of your analysis to make a business case to adapt your Marketing + Sales model to modern buyer preferences (i.e., MLG)
B2B stuck in outdated Sales-Led Growth model from 1980’s: Info a buyer needs to learn, try, buy artificially "gated" behind Sales. Marketing forced to constantly generate high volume of contact info of uninterested buyers (Marketing qualified "leads", MQL hamster wheel) via gated content. Then prioritize MQLs based on buyers’ engagement with Marketing ("lead" scoring, “lead” intent). That way, before Marketing can finish giving buyers info to learn, try, buy, or request to speak to Sales—Sales Development can “pro-actively” spam buyers to turn some buyers off and push some buyers artificially and prematurely to Sales. Less good leads, more bad leads. Premature buyers not well-informed, not serious b/c just looking for info they should have gotten from Marketing. "Tire-kickers", "just browsing". Sales Assembly Line for buyer handoffs among bloated Sales org of partial sellers via AE-CSM split etc. Quota and Commission to pressure Sales to pressure-sell, and for Sales to pressure Marketing to pressure buyers with spam (Sales Development)
❌Profit, growth, revenue, pipeline, CAC, CAC Payback, win rate, sales cycle, CLV, expansion, retention, market share, reputation, WOM
❌Mega resources🗑️ Marketing + Sales underperforming, high turnover, low tenure, low job satisfaction
𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠-𝐋𝐞𝐝 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡 𝐯𝐢𝐚 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐮𝐲𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥. 𝐀𝐝𝐨𝐩𝐭 𝐌𝐎𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐍 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 + 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐎𝐃𝐀𝐘, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝟒𝟎 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐠𝐨. 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤. 𝐀𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐭, 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡, 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐝𝐯, 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 + 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐬. 𝐉𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭
To learn more about the model, check out past LinkedIn vids or the book: “Marketing-Led Growth via The Buyer Centric Revenue Model”. Available on Amazon in ebook, paperback, audiobook.
𝐉𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠-𝐋𝐞𝐝 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡 (𝐌𝐋𝐆) 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 in a Slack forum/community to discuss and implement Marketing-Led Growth via The Buyer Centric Revenue Model. Insights, resources, jobs. Live Q&A Thurs at 11am PST. Sign up https://www.buyercentricrevenue.com/. Join the vanguard of progress