Making the Shift to Profitable, Efficient Growth with Sam Jacobs
Sam Jacobs has spent over a decade at the forefront of the revenue leadership community. As the founder and CEO of Pavilion, a support network for revenue leaders, and the co-host of the popular Topline podcast, he's helped shape the go-to-market (GTM) conversation.
In this discussion, Sam shares his hard-won wisdom on aligning teams, building solid foundations, and leveraging AI to drive efficient, profitable growth.
The Critical Importance of Aligning All Go-to-Market Teams
Growth can't be an uncoordinated effort. Sam emphasizes that achieving "efficient, profitable growth requires aligning all go-to-market teams (sales, marketing, customer success, etc.) around a laser focus on the ideal customer journey and use case."
Lose that focus, and you risk unsustainable bloat and inefficiency.
"And that's where this phrase go to market has emerged, which is just a specific intentionality that sales marketing, customer success, revenue operations, the CEO, and even product, depends what kind of motion your business is, but all of those teams need to work together because revenue generation is a team sport."
This intentional cross-functional alignment is the antidote to what the market calls "GTM Bloat" - the accumulation of inefficiencies that have hit many go-to-market teams over the past 5-10 years as they've scaled without a cohesive strategy.
Prioritize the Ideal Customer Journey
At the heart of effective go-to-market alignment is prioritizing the ideal customer journey and use case.
As Sam explains, do you truly understand "the mechanism through which you work towards less bloat? And this is where it's not about a piece of tech. It's really about prioritization, you know?"
Defining and optimizing for your highest-value customer segments enables focused execution across all functions, from marketing's targeting to sales' messaging to customer success' retention plays.
The Rise of the Chief Revenue Officer
This need for intentional cross-functional coordination is driving the rise of the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) role.
As Sam notes, "Everybody is becoming more aware that...to become the we're having this conversation about like CRO. What is the path to CRO and what is the drawback or downside of a sales leader moving up through the ranks to become CRO?"
Effective CROs can provide the leadership and strategic vision to break down organizational silos and harmonize go-to-market efforts.
Building Solid Foundations for Long-Term Success
While rallying teams around the ideal customer journey is crucial, Sam also stresses the importance of "invest[ing] patiently in building the right foundational infrastructure." This means having "high-quality data, seamless processes, and the right mix of specialization vs. generalization" in place.
"The biggest lesson besides stop making stupid decisions and ask your customers before you make big changes, the biggest lesson is patience."
Sam cites examples of companies that tried to grow too quickly without these foundations, leading to dysfunction.
One company was "adding more bodies, no enablement, no even defined TAM, right? So bad data, so SDRs were spending 70%, 60%, some meaningful percentage of their time researching data because they were getting bad leads."
In contrast, companies that take the time to implement best practices around data quality, process optimization, and role specialization set themselves up for sustainable "GTM Velocity" - the ability to efficiently convert prospects into loyal customers.
"[You don't] want an SDR to do any research on who to call. [You] want to provide a lead list that is as clean as possible with as close to 100 % connect rate as possible."
Rather than chasing short-term new bookings through brute force, this patient investment in foundations maximizes customer lifetime value and paves the way for long-term, efficient revenue growth.
Leveraging AI to Enhance Personalization at Scale
Of course, simply having the right processes and specialization isn't enough. Companies must also find ways to enhance personalization at scale across the entire customer lifecycle.
This is where Jacobs sees "GTM AI" (go-to-market AI) playing a vital role. Copy.ai CMO and Future Proofed host, Kyle Coleman, noted:
"Different people are coming to the website. They all have different backgrounds and experiences. We're using AI to understand what those experiences are, understand and search their LinkedIn profile, their online presence, and then to customize and tailor appropriate personalized responses that are specific to them as individuals."
From using AI to dynamically tailor website experiences and sales outreach based on visitor profiles, to automating customer marketing journeys, to proactively identifying churn risks, Sam emphasizes that "personalization at scale is doing exactly what you said...But we are in the first inning of AI application. The first place we're looking is around depersonalization. Outreach said and SalesLoft said personalization at scale and that was not true because there was no dynamic emails that were being sent."
As AI capabilities continue advancing rapidly, Sam sees enormous opportunities for companies to deeply understand their buyers' needs and seamlessly personalize interactions at every step of the journey - a powerful driver of "GTM Velocity."
How to Accelerate Your Go-to-Market Efforts
To capitalize on the opportunities Jacobs outlines, go-to-market leaders should:
- Rally all customer-facing teams around a clear, prioritized definition of your ideal customer profile(s) and use case(s). Break down organizational siloes and coordinate execution.
- Invest patiently in building world-class data, processes, and role specialization. Resist the urge to grow at all costs without these foundations.
- Embrace "GTM AI" by systematically identifying high-impact use cases for leveraging AI to enhance personalization at scale across your entire revenue engine.
With these steps, companies can accelerate their "GTM Velocity" - aligning teams, building solid foundations, and leveraging AI to deliver efficient, high-value revenue growth for years to come.
The payoff, as Sam outlines, is the ability to avoid "GTM Bloat" and instead drive sustainable, profitable growth by delivering exceptional customer experiences. It's a long-term game, but the rewards for getting it right are immense.
Conclusion: The Future of Go-to-Market is Efficient, Personalized Growth
Sam makes it clear the future of go-to-market belongs to companies that can align all their teams, build robust data and process foundations, and then layer on AI to personalize the entire customer experience at scale.
It's a multi-year journey, one that requires patience, cross-functional coordination, and a relentless focus on delivering value to your highest-priority buyers. But the potential payoff is a revenue engine tuned for "GTM Velocity" - efficient, high-value, sustainable growth fueled by exceptional customer experiences.
For go-to-market leaders ready to start accelerating on this journey, Sam's advice provides a powerful roadmap. Prioritize your ideal customer profile, build solid foundations, and start exploring AI for enhancing personalization. It's how you'll avoid becoming another casualty of "GTM Bloat" and instead join the ranks of modern revenue leaders driving their companies into the future.
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