Stop the Sales Drop Podcast with Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber

Send us a textDavid Anderson (Co-Founder and COO at SellingInnovations) joined Eric Gruber and Kristina Jaramillo to discuss how GTM teams can drive greater stage progression and avoid accounts going dark - an issue that many companies like Uniphore struggle with today. Listen to this podcast to see how you can enable buyers to overcome their fear of risk, failure, disruption and spiraling costs. Learn how you can help buyers become uncomfortable in their current situation -- and comfortable with making change. 

Send us a textOn this ABM Done Right Podcast episode, Eric Gruber sits down with Jodie Lail (Revenue Marketing Leader at GE Healthcare) to discuss why teams need a revenue marketing organization if they are engaging in ABM. Eric also digs into the GE Healthcare ABM program and discusses what's working for them - and where there are opportunities to have a stronger revenue impact. 

Send us a textTwice in a row, Angie Assennato, Senior Director of Growth Marketing at Signifyd, came into a marketing team that was already doing ABM but was getting limited returns.  In this podcast, she discusses with Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber the challenges they had, the reasons behind the failing programs and how intent data/ABM tech were not effectively being leveraged. As leadership at Signifyd also wants to go upmarket, we'll also discuss the changes that need to be made to engage and close higher-value deals. 

Send us a textMarta George, Head of EMEA ABM at Ping Identity, joined Eric Gruber and Kristina Jaramillo on the ABM Done Right Podcast to discuss the change management that needed to happen for them to win with their big bets, what their 1:few and 1:1 ABM program look like for their big bets and how they select their big bets. She also talked about the need to scale back to scale up the impact you have on revenue with your big bets.

Send us a textMegan Bowen (CEO of Refine Labs) mentioned  on LinkedIn "The most important discipline that mid-market and enterprise B2B SaaS companies need to be cultivating is...Change management This is especially true for successful companies that have been around for 1-2 decades, that have been able to more easily manage the recent turbulence in B2B SaaS over the last few years and are still executing an outdated GTM strategyThe relative success of companies at this stage is hiding GTM inefficiencies so many don't even perceive it's a problem. This is the biggest risk for these companies - they are not seeing and acknowledging this is a real threat to their long term survival. If companies don't start to change now, their ability to grow sustainably will degrade with increasing speed"At Personal ABM, we believe that change goes beyond evolving just the digital marketing strategies and it must include a mindset shift, a measurement shift and changes across the entire GTM strategy and execution. The issue we often see  is that GTM teams retrofit ABM on top of existing sales/marketing processes, content, messaging and experiences. They make it about better targeting vs. changing the account experiences that are delivered. ABM should change...How you think about your businessHow you differentiate from competitorsHow you package your solutionsHow you communicate your valueHow you engage buyers across the organization across the buyiong journey and customer lifecycleHow you structure your GTM teamsHow you win, protect and expand accounts as 1 teamHow you measure success.Plus much more...During this episode, Kristina Jaramillo, Eric Gruber and Joel Harrison (Founder and Editor-at-Large at B2B Marketing) discuss the changes that ABM should bring. 

Send us a textIn this ABM Done Right Podcast episode, Peter Mollins (a 2X guest on the podcast and CMO of Nooks) joined Eric Gruber to discuss the "signals" that GTM teams should pay attention to that go beyond intent data. 

Send us a textOn LinkedIn, Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber have been talking a lot about teams not being ABM-ready. They are simply retrofitting ABM on top of existing processes, content, messaging etc -- and they are not making the changes they need to land and expand high-value accounts.  As a result, they struggle with accounts going dark. They struggle with accounts becoming stuck or disengaged,. They struggle with accounts churning. Within this podcast, Mark Osborne and Eric Gruber talk about the GTM assessment that needs to be done before you even think about ABM,  

Send us a textAt Personal ABM, we believe that ABM is not really about accounts. Everyone focuses on tiering, segmentation and prioritization of accounts but ABM is really about improving the interactions that teams have with the human buyers in the accounts we want to win, protect and expand. It's about improving the account experience for these human buyers. In this podcast, Sal Vilardo at Maverick Solutions talks with Personal ABM CEO (Eric Gruber) on how GTM teams can humanize ABM. You will learn:1. How ABM programs are going sideways because they focus on the "brand" or the organization (the larger picture) and most GTM teams forget about the people within the account we need to engage. They're missing the human aspect on what the buyers think about, care about, want, need -- and how they interact. If you are not connecting with the people in the right way - you have a great chance of losing despite how aligned you are with the organization.2. We need to put a stronger focus on "buyer enablement" as teams are losing the internal conversation and it's because teams do not have the right content, messaging, stories or the business case where each buyer sees how the gaps impact them personally, each of the contributors, and the collective business. We need to help buyers evaluate information, prioritize various sources,  quantify trade-offs while helping the buyers come to their own conclusion on why they need you to fix their challenges, fill their gaps, and achieve their strategic objectives. 3. Teams are not thinking about that month or so where buyers "say" they'll move forward and they are going through legal processes or conversations with the CFO. Too many times, sales and marketing teams go dark during this time or follow up with continual check-ins vs. giving them the resources they need for conversations with the CFO and legal or giving them the resources to help them get things in order for onboarding. Again, it's about enabling the buyers. 4. Why Sal hates intent and why he says it's a lagging indicator. With all the tools that are pulling intent from different places, everyone is using it. You run off the same information that everyone else has and in many cases, the intent is lagging behind action by the time it gets to us. Because the platforms are capturing intent, it doesn't mean that the process stopped between when it was captured and when it was delivered. Also, if they are showing intent, then they most likely have their short-list selected and they have predefined needs which automatically result in smaller deal sizes. Intent is also not predictive of an account landing and expanding with you. We need to understand the account story and the buyers within that account.5.  Most GTM teams are not thinking about the cohesiveness of the account experience throughout the buyer's journey and customer lifecycle. We have to think about the cohesive experience that Disney provides that makes every touchpoint and interaction feel magical. Disney understands that the experience that one team delivers that will impact the experiences that the other teams deliver. It's the same thing when it comes to ABM. If sales and marketing teams do not create the right account and buyer experience then customer success teams will have a challenging time trying to retain and expand the accounts. 6. Marketing needs to be able to provide thought processes and insights to allow other teams to further cast the buying vision with target accounts and their buyers. This is where account insights and understanding the account story is important. It's about giving content for specific sales conversations and internal conversations. It's about providing the account POV so teams can come to each buyer interactions with a POV about their business. It's about shar

Send us a textDavid Keene, the European CMO for Wipro, recently joined Eric Gruber (CEO of Personal ABM) on the ABM Done Right Podcast to discuss his ABM hot takes including:1. How ABM shouldn't replace demand gen and brand marketing pillars.2. How we shouldn't think so much about MQLs or even MQAs and how we need a narrow view of the funnel where we are focused on accounts that have a very low chance of losing and a very high chance of moving to revenue at a high ACV 3. How 1:1 ABM is about the people inside the accounts we want to land and expand so it's important to incorporate personality-based marketing into your ABM program.

Send us a textHonni Marks (1:1 Strategic ABM Lead at Red Hat) joined Eric Gruber on the ABM Done Right Podcast to discuss:1. What it means to take a strategic 1:1 ABM approach.2. The role 1:1 ABM should play in an account-based GTM program and how it should be used to expand key accounts.3. The executive engagement that's needed for a 1:1 ABM program and how we should enable executive engagement teams.4. How to leverage data to tell the account story5. The 1:1 ABM content that's needed. 

Send us a textIntent should not be your biggest factor when it comes to account selection for ABM. In fact, intent-qualified leads tend to result in lower deal sizes as everyone is reacting to the same signals and predefined needs to the point that it becomes a cost-based decision for buyers. By focusing on the ICP, you can identify those accounts that are a best fit, match your business problem profile and are most likely ready for your solution even though they may not be showing intent. With these accounts, you can create the need and greenfield opportunity that leads to larger deal sizes.Adam Schoenfeld (CEO of Keyplay.io) joins Eric Gruber on the ABM Done Right Podcast to talk about:1. Intent leads vs.  ICP opportunities -- what is better2. How teams are ineffectively defining their ICP3. How the ICP should be operationalized across the organization4. How we should engage the ICP

Send us a textLast time on the ABM Done Right Podcast, when he was at Clari, Tyler Pleiss shared why he was taking a 1:1 ABM approach to penetrate 3 markets that were years behind when it came to RevOps. Now, Tyler is at Movable Ink and is shifting the perspective on ABM and the triangle. Listen to the podcast to see how the ABM triangle is no longer relevant.  

Send us a textMost of the ABM content and insights being shared on LinkedIn, on podcasts and in webinars are redundant so we challenged Lindsay Baggett (ABM leader at Tanium) to address some hot takes that others haven't thought about. The ABM hot takes that Lindsay and I talk about are:1. Most organizations are not ABM-ready when they launch their ABM pilot.2. ABM is not about better marketing. It's about taking a different approach. What are we doing differently with ABM that other functions can't because they are forced to do things at scale?3. Your buyers are the drivers -- and GTM teams are the pit crew helping buyers get across the finish line. But too many customers are being left hanging half-way through their journey. 4. We have to score our GTM teams that will benefit from ABM  just like we need to score the accounts we put into the program.5. If you're talking about campaigns and plays then you're doing random acts of ABM. 6. Alignment is not enough - we need integration. We can align on the ICP, account lists, activities etc -- but if we do not have the integration then accounts are likely to go dark. We need to work together to create the account experience that buyers desire so we can speed up sales cycles, increase deal size sizes and drive more closed/wons.  7. Marketing is often reactive once accounts are in the pipeline -- we need to be proactively equipping sellers and GTM teams to move buyers in their journey and keep them from stalling. We need to think about what buyers need right now to get them to the next stage. This is what Lindsay calls ABM-as-a-Service and what we at Personal ABM call account-based enablement.8.  ABM teams need to understand sales approaches and methodology like Challenger. If you do not know how sales plays the game -- how can you help them win.9. If you're letting intent data dictate your account selection process and your ABM program, then you're not ready for ABM.

Send us a textWhen you hit the core with the right content and messaging, that's when you'll see win rates jump, deal sizes go higher and the greatest lifetime value increases from your future and existing customers. But most GTM teams do not have a clear understanding of who their core is and why. Most ICPs suck as GTM teams do not dig deep enough so that the ICP is predictive of the accounts that will most likely move forward and deliver the greatest revenue growth. As a result, GTM teams are always guessing who to talk to next.In this ABM Done Right Podcast episode, Jonathan Spier (CEO of Rev Inc) discusses with Eric Gruber (CEO of Personal ABM) how to get the ICP right.  

Send us a textInside this ABM Done Right Podcast, Eric Gruber (CEO of Personal ABM) talks to Briana Evans (Head of Global Enterprise Marketing and ABM) about their move from ABM to ABX,  During the conversation, they discussed:1. How ABM is not about marketing ownership of accounts -- and it's not about marketing supporting sales. It's a cross functional GTM strategy that stretches across the entire GTM, where all teams are an equal partner in driving account-based revenue growth.2. How GTM teams should create a cohesive account experience and how teams should unify where they are one company, one team. They share how "one company, one team"  should be represented every time teams show up and engage with future and existing customers. 3. How we should be nurturing from a leadership, sales, marketing, customer success and product perspective. 4. The 3 key pillars of Meltwater's ABX program.5. How Meltwater is taking an account-based GTM approach to ABM integrating 1: many, 1: few and 1:1 vs. just using ABM as a tiering, segmentation and prioritization strategy. 6. The role that 6sense and intent data should play, 

Send us a Text Message.While teams are increasing efficiency with ABM tech and AI -- sales and marketing effectiveness have not increased at the same rate. Within this podcast, Erin Mills (CMO of Quorum) and Eric Gruber (CEO of Personal ABM) discuss how we should be leveraging these technologies in the right way so GTM teams do not just see efficiency gains. 

Send us a Text Message.At Personal ABM, we believe that while 1: many and 1: few are an important part of an account-based GTM  - it's not ABM. In this podcast, Kristina Jaramillo, Eric Gruber and Nancy Harlan (former ABM leader at UIPath) discuss what 1:1 ABM is and how it should be used for account expansion. Nancy also talks about customer-sponsored 1:1 ABM where you have a champion that will help make the big deal happen and make it as big as can be. 

Send us a Text Message.Many GTM teams focus on their TAM and ICP but not the winnable addressable market (WAM) that provides you with the greatest revenue growth. At Personal ABM, we believe that your winnable, addressable market is:1. The percentage of your ICP that matches a problem profile, they have a strategic priority in place and will provide you with the greatest long-term revenue growth.2. Your *best* customers -- and your next best customers that can provide greater revenue growth if they change how they work with you, use your solution and/or buy from you. Edgar Baum, our guest expert, mentions that that winnable, addressable market is the intersection between your valuable customers and your winnable customers  (those that want to buy from you as you would be an ideal vendor). When looking at the ICP, many GTM teams do not consider if they'd be an ideal vendor for those in their ICP.Listen to this podcast to learn how you can uncover your winnable, addressable market.  

As most  ABM programs deliver minimal improvement to revenue KPIs, Eric Gruber (CEO of Personal ABM) and his guest Alex Pappas (Senior ABM Manager for Venafi) discuss how teams need to stop retrofitting ABM on top of current processes. During this podcast episode, you will hear:1. The ABM challenges Alex faced at both Riskalyze and Venafi and how he gave the ABM programs an overhaul.2. How Riskalyze didn't have the proper foundation for ABM -- and the readiness that was needed before Alex can think about ABM strategy. 3. How Venafi was treating ABM like account-based advertising and account-based targeting and how Alex evolved it. 4. Why Chris Walker is wrong when he mentioned on LinkedIn that ABM is a segmentation, tiering, and prioritization strategy and not a GTM motion (which we whole-heartedly disagree with.)  You'll hear how ABM is a GTM motion.5. How Alex is using 1: many, 1: few and 1:1 ABM and how he's  using intent data. 

In this ABM Done Right Podcast, Chris Rack (CEO of MRP) mentioned that most intent is nothing more than intent to learn vs. intent to purchase. By listening  to this episode, you will learn how to differentiate between the two different types of intent -- and what you need to do from an ABM standpoint based on where the buyer is in their journey. 

Eric Dates (Head of Marketing for V Comply)  recently joined Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber on the ABM Done Right Podcast. They discussed:1. Why previous ABM programs failed for Eric Dates -- and what he did differently with his most successful ABM programs.2.  The questions we should be asking internally before we even focus on building an demand gen strategy and an ABM strategy,3.  How GTM teams need to change their “mentalities”, “processes”, “interactions” and experiences so they can be more impactful.4.  How tech should support the ABM strategy vs. drive the ABM strategy.5. The ABM program that Eric Dates is  envisioning for V Comply.

Within this podcast, Scott Gillum from Carbon Design joins Eric Gruber (Personal ABM CEO) to discuss: 1. Why Challenger sales and marketing  and ABM goes hand-in-hand2. How GTM teams can deliver messaging that resonates - This includes how we should create our POV so we can come to each interaction with a POV about the customer's business, how we should create our account-based value proposition, and how to differentiate value from competitors.3.  How to connect with the human buyers in accounts we want to win, protect and expand. You'll learn how to shift the status quo prospects' thoughts in a way that leads them back to our solution.4. Personality-Based Marketing and the role in ABM. You will learn about the  4 different personalities, how 1 personality is most likely to start the process, another one is most likely to advance it, and another one is likely to stop the deal in its tracks. You'll hear how personality drives behavior, how the different personalities interact, and how teams should navigate deals based on the personalities that make up the buying team. 

In other ABM Done Right Podcasts, including the one with the CMO of Hushly, we talked about the state of ABM in cybersecurity and other industries that are in a crowded, undifferentiated space where transactional sales are prevalent. In this podcast with Michelle Radlowski (Senior Director, AMS & EMEA Regional Marketing and ABM at DigiCert), we explore:1. Why most ABM programs in cybersecurity are not leading to higher deals and greater ARR, GRR and NRR growth. There are 4 main reasons!2. Why many cybersecurity firms report 10% YoY drops in enterprise deals closed.3.  The role field marketing is playing in ABM, especially if you want to move accounts to revenue.4. How teams should be integrating and taking an account-based GTM approach.5. How DigiCert is taking a crawl, walk, run approach -- and the testing that the team completed before moving forward with ABM.6. The account-based enablement that's needed across the board for marketing, sales, field marketing and customer success teams. 

Most content does not support ABM nor sales and it's because most teams are skipping a very important step that must be done before you even assess your content to see what's missing. On this ABM Done Right Podcast, Tracy Wehringer (CEO and CMO at Moonshot Strategy) and Eric Gruber (CEO of Personal ABM) share the steps that teams should take when doing an ABM content assessment -- and what they should be looking for.  They also discuss the content that's needed for accounts that get stuck in the pipeline, for GTM teams that struggle to go upmarket, and for those accounts that continue to choose legacy platforms over you.  

Matt Brown (CEO of CustomerOS) recently joined Eric Gruber (Personal ABM CEO) on the ABM Done Right Podcast to discuss how to grow your best customers and drive profitability with your next best customers to create a compounding customer growth engine. They discuss how customer success teams are still reactionary and playing defense and forgetting the ABM fundamentals that that helped companies drive revenue growth in the first place as there are no processes, frameworks and data visibility to distinguish between a high fit and low fit customer. You will learn how to leverage the right data and ABM to reduce customer retention costs (a KPI that most teams do not track) and increase GRR and NRR growth. 

Recent ABM Done Right Podcasts have focused on using ABM to protect and expand key accounts as sales teams are struggling to bring in new business. Companies like Commvault report 8-10% drops in enterprise deals as budgets are limited or frozen. To sustain growth, companies need to protect and expand the existing revenue they do have. But because customers are not getting the experience they want with their vendors after the deal is closed, many companies are seeing churn and lost revenue – while not generating enough new revenue to replace it.  We've had guests like Kristi Faltorusso at Client Success and David Sakamoto (VP of Customer Success at Gitlab). In the podcast below with Peter Armaly (VP of Customer Success at ESG – Customer Success as a Service), we continue the ABM and customer success conversations we've been having.  You'll see how customer success teams need to evolve and grow up from a customer support function to a business relationship management function that drives retention and expansion revenue growth. 

At the center of each new, retention or expansion deals lies a series of struggling moments that need to be listened to, understood, catered to, reframed and solved. These are moments that most sales, marketing and customer success teams are ignoring as they focus on scaling vs. driving account-based revenue growth with the accounts that matter the most to the bottom line.On the ABM Done Right Podcast below, Doug Hutton joins Kristina Jaramillo (President of Personal ABM.) He and his team at Corporate Visions created learning experiences that give marketers, sellers, and customer success professionals what they need to win each and every customer conversation. He is now the EVP of Customer Experience at Corporate Visions and  he has the privilege of leading all post-sale teams for exceptional delivery of Corporate Visions' science-backed messaging, content, and skills. From Customer Success to Delivery, his teams orchestrate a customer experience that leads directly to revenue growth - their clients first and foremost, and as a result, their own. While Doug and Kristina put a strong focus on winning the retention and expansion sale conversations . because they find that many customer success teams are not having the right interactions nor delivering the right experiences to existing accounts, they cover the complete buyer's journey and customer lifecycle.

Dana Alvarenga (a 2023 Top 25 Customer Success Strategist and VP of Customer Experience at SlapFive: Customer Marketing) joins Kristina Jaramillo (President of Personal ABM to discuss:1. Why customer success teams struggle with the "why stay," "why evolve," and "why expand conversations." 2. How most customer success teams are taking a piecemeal approach -- and how Dana is building the customer experience and customer marketing function to take a different approach!)3. Why teams are failing to capture the customer story along the journey and what teams need to be more relevant to future and existing customers. 4. The role that customer marketing can play in retaining and expanding key accounts. 5.  What's wrong with most customer stories (case studies) and how it does not influence retention and expansion conversations nor support selling conversations with new accounts.6. How customer marketing teams should take an account-based approach and enabling customer success teams.

David Sakimoto (VP of Customer Success at Gitlab) joined the ABM Done Right Podcast to discuss:1. The state of customer success in most organizations -- what are they doing right, where are they getting it wrong, and where do challenges exist. 2.  Why many customer success teams struggle to keep VP and C-suite engagement after the deal is closed and where the process, conversation, and experience gaps lie that are keeping teams from retaining and expanding key accounts.3. Why he's pushing for ABM for customer success and what his vision is on how it would help his team retain and expand key accounts. 4. The account-based enablement that would help his teams improve the experiences they deliver to the human buyers in the accounts they want to protect and expand?

As ABM has become synonymous with ABM tech, many GTM teams are not seeing maximum returns from their ABM tech investment as they continue to struggle to move high-value accounts to revenue. Many GTM teams are seeing accounts go dark and we've been seeing reports of 10%+ drops in enterprise deals (the ones that ABM should be focused on!) In this podcast, Liz Ronco from Madison Logic joins Personal ABM CEO (Eric Gruber)( to discuss why ABM tech clients are failing to get the greatest returns from their ABM tech investments as pipeline accounts go dark. They cover:How teams are ineffectively identifying and prioritizing the right accountsWhy teams struggle with engaging VPs and the C-suite, which is what's needed to drive stage progression.  How teams are failing to get customer-centric and how they are not using data and account intelligence to guide content, messaging, and interactions. The need to go beyond personalization and become personal and how we should come to each interaction with a point of view about the prospects' businesses.How teams are failing to optimize for velocity, increased ACV, and stronger ARR, GRR, and NRR as they are looking to ABM to fix the pipeline vs. fixing the experiences teams are delivering across the buyers' journey and customer lifecycle. 

Despite marketers saying that spray and pray is dead, it is alive and kicking -- just in a different form as it's more targeted. Teams are still spraying messages and content out to their ICP hoping that it sticks instead of aligning with future and existing customers. There is no differentiation between a targeted demand gen motion and an ABM motion. Deanna Shimota joins Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber on this ABM Done Right Podcast to discuss:The difference between ABM and demand genHow the two functions should support each otherHow to build a strong demand gen powerhouse that builds a pipeline of strong tier 1 accounts that ABM should move to revenue faster at a higher ACVHow an ITSM firm used ABM to accelerate accounts to revenue

In this ABM Done Right Podcast, Mandy Cole (Partner at Stage 2 Capital) joins Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber to discuss:1. How the economy is not the main reason for why companies are seeing 10%+ drops in enterprise deals -- but instead is that GTM teams are not limiting sales execution risk. The economy is only magnifying the issues that exist across the buyer's journey and customer lifecycle and showing the cracks that teams ignore when companies are in growth mode and buying. 2. Where misalignments are occurring and how sales and customer success teams are not having the right interactions and delivering the right experiences to high-value accounts.3. How the traditional 1: few and 1: many outbound approach and a company's desire to scale is adding  sales execution risk.4. Why GTM teams are adding sales execution risk by how they are selecting key accounts to prospect, nurture and close. Plus, much more...

Matt Dixon (Wall Street Journal bestselling co-author of The Challenger Sale, The Effortless Experience, The Challenger Customer and The JOLT Effect, a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review and Founding Partner at DCM Insights) recently joined Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber on the ABM Done Right Podcast. During this podcast, you will learn why ABM and the Challenger Sale go hand-in-hand, why accounts go dark and how GTM teams can win against the status quo -- and indecisiveness.   

Gallup studies show that 82% of B2B customers are indifferent, disengaged or actively looking to replace a vendor. Yet, many companies still put a greater emphasis on building a pipeline vs. protecting and expanding key accounts.In this podcast, customer success expert, Kristi Faltorusso, joined Kristina Jaramillo to discuss the state of customer success and how account retention and expansion is an organization-wide issue. 

As many teams struggle with driving stage progression (accounts going dark), increasing win rates and ACV (many companies are reporting 10% drops in enterprise deals), protecting and expanding key accounts (82% of b2b buyers are indifferent, disengaged or actively looking to replace a vendor), we asked Steve Richard (SVP of Revenue Enablement at MediaFly) to  join us on the ABM Done Right Podcast to discuss: Know your number and what it takes to get there.In many cases, ABM is being implemented without the teams taking a good look at the business -- and seeing where there are gaps and where do we need to change interactions/experiences/motions so we can get to the number that leadership wants. You'll learn what teams need to look for to see what we need to fix and prepare sellers for.Why sales enablement is not enough. You'll see the gaps in most sales enablement programs, how revenue enablement differs from sales enablement and how we need revenue enablement and account-based enablement to drive ARR, GRR, and NRR. We also talk about what revenue enablement and what account-based enablement should look like.The key areas where sellers need help.We discuss key challenges that sellers and customer success teams have with multithreading, influencing internal conversations, driving stage progression, and getting larger ACV. You'll see how you can enable teams to accelerate high-value tier 1 accounts to revenue at a higher deal size.Driving GRR and NRR We discuss how most customer success teams are managing accounts vs. being in protection/expansion selling conversations. We talk about the challenges that customer success teams have -- and where the gaps lie in their conversations/interactions that have them losing the interest of the C-suite and VPs after the close. We also discuss ABM for customer marketing and how teams go onto customer calls thinking they'll be able to upsell/cross-sell, and the conversation quickly turns to saving the account for renewal and why this is happening.

As GTM teams are building pipelines with ABM but are struggling with accounts going dark (especially after sales engagement), Spencer Wixom (former SVP of Sales and Marketing and Chief Customer Officer at Challenger and current CEO at The Brooks Group) joined us on the ABM Done Right Podcast to discuss:1. The fundamentals that's needed for account-based selling that most organizations (both traditional and SaaS firms) are missing.2. What is absent in most sales teams' communications and in their behavioral profile that is limiting success in account-based selling with tier 1 enterprises that are stuck in status quo.3. How most sales enablement does not support sales teams and account-based selling -- and the account-based enablement that's needed to win the selling conversation and the internal buyer conversations that GTM teams are not part of. 4. Why buyer groups disappear -- and do not move forward in their buying journey5. How leadership, sales, marketing and customer success teams can drive greater alignment with key future and existing strategic customer accounts. 

There is confusion in the market on what intent data is -- and it's purpose. In this podcast discussion with John Steiner (CMO at Tech Target) and Bill Henry (SVP of Field Sales at Tech Target), you will learn:1,  Where the confusion lies and why it's happening.2.  What teams need to think about before they invest in an intent data platform - failure to do this will minimize the returns you get from intent data and ABM.3. How GTM teams are not putting the right processes in place to prioritize, segment accounts -- and how they lack the processes to leverage intent in a way that allows sales and marketing teams to deliver more relevant buyer experiences.    4. How GTM teams are not using intent data to create new greenfield opportunities that are not yet showing intent, to prioritize where opportunities exist within specific parts of your portfolio, to prioritize accounts within an ABM list and to protect and expand key accounts.  You'll see how marketing does not have precise enough intent data to enable sales to have the right interactions for each bucket. 5. Why teams need more than account-based intent and  why the intent data they are using in isolation is meaningless.6. How we should be using intent data as a springboard vs. something to react to and how GTM teams can increase their industry, company, persona, personal and customer relevance.7. How you need to keep sales requirements in mind when looking into intent data platforms and in building out your intent data strategy -- and how you should enable sales to leverage intent data to capture more revenue. 

Most companies have dived into ABM tech and other platforms that promised a path to greater growth with more focus and partnership with sales leaders. However, ITSMA, Tech Target and others report that only 17% have a mature stage 4 program and 69% of ABM programs under-perform when it comes to revenue growth.Most GTM teams are still trying to build the foundation. Unfortunately, even though we live in the experience era, GTM teams are creating disconnected experiences, wasting sales and marketing dollars and creating an anemic sales pipeline that goes dark after engagement. They're not thinking about how they make their future AND existing customers feel with each interaction and each touchpoint along the journey and lifecycle.In this podcast, Etai Beck (CEO of Folloze) joins Eric Gruber (CEO of Personal ABM) to discuss why experiences are disconnected and how to improve buyer and account experiences across all touchpoints (social, digital, email and live). After you listen to this podcast, sign up the webinar with Etai where we'll go into greater detail on how to improve buyer experiences:http://personalabm.com/improving-buyer-experiences-webinar

Most ABM teams and the marketing firms they are using are rushing into ABM and retrofitting ABM into existing processes vs. changing interactions and experiences across the buyer's journey and customer lifecycle. While marketing may be more targeted now than ever - and the focus is on high-intent ICP accounts that are more likely to buy, there is very little change in how teams go-to-market. Then companies wonder why accounts go dark, sales cycles are too long and deal sizes are lower than expected. They wonder why they struggle to protect and expand key strategic accounts and why there isn't significant business revenue improvement from ABM. The problem is that ABM is being used to fix the pipeline vs. fixing the red in the business (the red that RevOps should be looking for and identifying). In this podcast, Peter Mollins (CMO of Set Sail) and Eric Gruber (CEO of Personal ABM) talks about the role that RevOps should play when it comes to ABM.

Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber - (the hosts of the ABM Done Right Podcast) have mentioned many times that ABM is not really about accounts. It's about the human buyers in the accounts you want to win, protect and expand. This is why we need to stop thinking about campaigns and think about the moments we're creating along the buyer's journey and customer lifecycle. We have to think about the interactions we're having, including our social interactions. In this episode of the ABM Done Right Podcast, Kristina speaks to Justin Fordham (Head of ABM for 360Learning) about how to take a more humanized approach to LinkedIn to build relationships across target organizations. Some of the key points from this podcast is:1. Narrow the team's focus as many companies are throwing all ICP accounts at BDRs, which is impossible to scale without templatizing - and templatizing removes the personal relevance and authenticity that's needed to make connections. 2. It's on leadership to train BDRs and sales teams how they should think about humanizing the sales approach on social platforms like LinkedIn -- and many are not doing this as it's all about scripts, templates and getting things out fast that does not work in enterprise sales. 3. There is limited segmentation and a lack of relevance and intention on social platforms (from LinkedIn profiles, to content to messaging) to target accounts that show buyers how sales and marketing understands their specific needs, challenges, gaps, strategic priorities, and customers.   Too many teams just scratch the surface - they are not getting industry, company, rank, personal, customer relevance and connecting the dots. 4. Teams need to use LinkedIn to build relationships across organizations and create a buying consensus.  This includes leading with insights learned from other interactions and having social content that is written specifically for target accounts so you can influence internal conversations that many sales and marketing teams are losing. 

Account-based marketing and selling became a must for cybersecurity firms and others looking to drive higher-value deals in an undifferentiated, crowded market. In fact, 92% of B2B marketers have some kind of ABM strategy or program in place as companies dove into ABM tech and other platforms that promised a path to greater growth with more focus and partnership with sales leaders. However, ITSMA, Tech Target and others report that only 17% have a mature program and 69% of ABM programs underperform when it comes to revenue growth.GTM teams are building pipelines with ABM but….Accounts go dark after initial engagement – Teams are challenged with driving stage progressionSales cycle time with tier 1 enterprises are not accelerating - They're still way too longDeal sizes aren't increasing when it should be 2X-3X with ABM accountsToo many accounts are at-risk as ABM isn't being used to protect high-value accountsLimited impact on NRR as ABM is only being used for the pipelineIn this webinar, James Kessinger (CMO of Hushly) and Eric Gruber (CEO of Personal ABM) discuss:The current state of ABM in cybersecurity and how most are in the experimentation stage as they have not figured out how to orchestrate ABM across the organization to impact more than just the pipeline. They are doing ABM lite or targeted demand gen vs. what ABM is supposed to be which is about creating the right experiences and having the right interactions across the buyer's journey and customer lifecycle.  How teams are missing the mark with their ABM content and the experiences that are delivered to the buyers in the accounts teams want to win, protect and expand. What cybersecurity teams are doing right to build muscle memory and prove out the ABM model -- and where ABM is broken. Many cybersecurity GTM teams jumped into ABM before they built out the foundation. In ABM, you want to come to each interaction with a perspective about your prospect's business but this cannot happen because many cybersecurity firms and others do not have a POV about their business so GTM teams are pushing out the same content and messaging, just making it more targeted. Teams jumped into ABM  without looking across the buyer's journey and customer lifecycle to find the "red" in the business and see where ABM should be applied. It was automatically used to fix the pipeline when the pipeline is not the key issue for many cybersecurity firms. And, they didn't use any data to make ABM decisions including who they'd target.  Many ABM programs especially in cybersecurity are half-assed as there is no orchestration and they did not think about the complete digital, social, email and live experience. They are retrofitting ABM and doing marketing as usual vs. making the necessary changes that need to happen to drive desired outcomes from ABM. The challenges that GTM teams will face with ABM in 2023 as buyers are beoming more savvy where sales and marketing alignment is not enough. We need the teams to work in lockstep and to integrate to land and expand key strategic accounts., Marketing needs to shift from pre-sales support to helping teams to protect and expand accounts. 

Long sales cycles, low win rates, low deal sizes, limited impact to ARR, GRR and NRR. What's causing this... Misalignment with accounts and buyers as there is a lack of customer research. There's a lack of data so there are misaligned messages, content, interactions and experiences. In this podcast, Vladimir Blagojević, cofounder of FullFunnel.io, discusses with Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber 17+ ABM data sources that should be leveraged for creating the ICP, prioritizing accounts and guiding content, messaging, GTM motions, and prospect interactions. Here Are the Key Points to Remember From This Podcast:1.      One of the key root causes for sales and marketing misalignment is that most teams have a vague and broad ICP that was not driven by ABM data and account intelligence.  This vague and broad ICP is why sales and marketing teams are wasting resources, energy, and dollars on accounts that have low predictability of closing and why teams struggle to increase their ACV. By collecting the right ABM data, Personal ABM clients are seeing a minimum of 2-3X average deal sizes. One of Vlad's clients saw a 10X increase in deal sizes where they were almost getting 7-figure wins.2.       Many GTM teams use intent data for prioritization. But they do not use enough intent data sources to get the complete story. Studies from Intentsify show that the most successful companies using intent data are using 3 or more sources of intent data. You will learn about all of the different intent data sources and why 1st party data is the most important and most reliable.3.       Many GTM teams are reacting to intent data and sharing content based on where the intent was vs. using it as a springboard and uncovering the why behind the intent. They are not collecting the data that's needed to hypothesize what's going on inside target accounts so you can align with the prospect's story and vision to have a differentiated social, email and live conversation.4.       Account intelligence should guide content, messaging and interactions. During the podcast, you'll hear how a conversational AI firm struggled with accounts like Bank of America, TD Bank and JP Morgan Chase going dark because sales and marketing were telling generic “industry” stories vs. the individual bank's story. They didn't align with each bank's AI maturity, situation, challenges, gaps, and impacts.5.        How your podcast should be a source for prospect data and intelligence.  We previously showed how our ABM Done Right Podcast helped us engage and win accounts like Uniphore. Here Are the 17+ ABM Data Sources That Were Covered in This Podcast:·        1st party intent data·        Review sites like G2·        B2B media·        Bidstream data·        Co-op data·        Trending data·        Relationship info·        Engagement info·        Revenue analysis·        Key account analysis·        Customer research·        Your own podcast·        Firmographics·        Technographics·        Employee profiles·        Account research·        Buyer research·        Changes and events

As Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber have mentioned many times on the ABM Done Right Podcast: ABM is about changing the interactions teams are having and the experiences they are delivering across all channels and across the buyer's journey and customer lifecycle. This includes each touchpoint and each interaction. In this ABM Done Right Podcast. Eric Gruber and Impactable's CEO and CMO will discuss full-funnel ABM using LinkedIn and how you can win, protect and expand accounts using social. Here's a Recap of the Learnings You Will Uncover:1. The fundamental "setup" mistakes that many teams are making when implementing LinkedIn ads as part of their ABM program. 2. Why GTM teams are challenged with accounts going dark after initial engagement with LinkedIn ads. 3.  How LinkedIn ads are not being used to build trust with the human buyers in target accounts.  4. How teams are not using LinkedIn ads to drive demand across buying organizations and limiting deal sizes.  5. What it means to be intentional with your ad campaigns and how you need to think about: What do we want to change the prospects' thoughts on? How do we want to change their perspective? How can we tell the prospects' stories vs. a generic, industry story so we build trust by showing prospects that we understand their situation?  6. How account intelligence should guide your full-funnel LinkedIn ads, content and outreach.  7,   How too many teams focus follow-up outreach based on intent or what prospects engaged on within the ads vs. why there was intent. 8. How many teams are too short-term focused instead of staying on the human buyers' minds longer with a purpose including:Create demand with status quo accounts - show prospects a reason to change and the impact of inaction.Capture demand and progress it forward in your direction vs. a competitor Expand demand so you a buying consensus across the organization and infliuence internal conversations that happen behind closed doorsClose demand without discounting as you want to increase win rates, deal sizes and ARR with ABM no matter the channel you use.Retain demand to protect revenue from your tier 1 at-risk accountsPenetrate demand where you create, capture, and close demand across regions, business units and your solution portfolio to increase NRR.9.  How prospects should use video LinkedIn ads to create the human connection with target accounts and get key insights that can help you segment and prioritize key accounts. Plus see the video assets you should be using and when. 

In this podcast, Julija Noskova (a GTM and Growth Marketing Consultant) shares the ABM lessons she learned from working as a VP of Marketing for Medallia, SoftChoice and other companies. These lessons include:1. ABM requires change management across the organization, otherwise, you're just doing marketing as usual just more targeted.  This includes changes in mindset, measurement/KPIs, how we go to market, the content we create, the interactions teams are having, and the experiences that are delivered. 2. Alignment is not enough - ABM requires greater integration across the marketing organization and across GTM teams. We need to work together to win, protect and expand accounts as 1 team as ABM should start and end with revenue. Demand gen fixes pipeline issues - ABM fixes issues across the buyer's journey and customer lifecycle to impact ARR, GRR and NRR.3. Most content does not support ABM or sales as it's not driven by account intelligence, it's not aligned with where customers are, it doesn't reframe prospect's thoughts or ideas, it doesn't make an emotional connection, it doesn't build a business case, it doesn't teach for differentiation and it doesn't help with sales conversations including taking risk off the table to overcome indecisiveness.4. Most ICPs are not effective. ICP is supposed to be for your most ideal customers where you can get the greatest revenue growth, the strongest margins, and have the greatest impact. It's the ones where you have the best differentiation and the best stories so you do not have to worry about others winning on price. But most ICPs are too broad, they do not start with revenue and there isn't organization-wide alignment on what the ICP is.5.  Too many organizations are treating all ICP accounts the same - they lack processes for selecting, segmenting and prioritizing key accounts. This is why 2/3 of ABM organizations only do 1: few and 1: many programs vs. having a balanced ABM program. 6. Field marketing roles need to evolve. As field marketing and ABM should closely align since both should be focused on accelerating high-value accounts to revenue, Julija transitioned her field marketing team to strategic account marketers. 7.   ABM requires a middle enablement layer between sales, marketing and customer success teams. Sales enablement is not enough as teams need it at the account-level.8. While ABM supports a small portion of the accounts that sales and marketing target, the impact is far-reaching.  As ABM requires change management and a stronger focus on interactions and experiences vs. campaigns, teams should be gaining lessons that can be applied across all sales, marketing, customer success and GTM motions.   

ABM Needs to Be Personal to Drive Enterprise Account-Based Growth – Not Just Personalized, When you have complex solutions, lengthy sales cycles, accounts going dark after sales engagement, high annual contract value and “at risk” enterprise accounts, you need a more personal account-based approach that focuses on the individual social, digital, email, and live interaction. You need less automation, more humanization, and more relevance across all levels to tackle the group of struggling moments that sit at the center of every enterprise deal (before, during and after the close.)Moments just waiting to be listened to, understood, catered to, solved and reframed. These are moments that most sales, marketing and customer success teams are ignoring as they focus on scaling vs. driving account-based revenue growth with the accounts that matter the most to the bottom line.On this podcast. Kristina Jaramillo (President at Personal ABM) shares:1. How in most cases, you have one chance to win, protect and expand accounts you want. One communication misfire and one wrong interaction will result in unresponsiveness and inaction. 2. How GTM teams engaging in account-based approaches often speak at accounts with the same messaging and do not consider that value is different for each account and each person within those accounts. 3. What personal  account-based sales and marketing looks like as most 1:1 programs are camouflaged 1: few and 1: many programs.  4. What GTM teams need to do to build a personal experience5. How to go from personalized experiences to more personal interactions

In this quick, 9-minute podcast, Kristina Jaramillo shares why a call center conversational AI firm was challenged with accounts going dark. As you will hear, the content, messaging and outreach did not align with where target accounts were in their AI and digital transformation journey.  Our client wasn't aligning with the strategic priorities of the organization and showing target accounts their specific unconsidered gaps across the organization that would impact the achievement of the business vision. They weren't showing the impact their specific gaps would have on the different divisions, omnichannel operations, eCommerce, their GTM. product management, sales enablement, finance, customer service, customer experience, and customers. As Doug Landis mentioned in a recent Forbes article: “When selling to larger companies you must come to every social, email and live conversation with a point of view about their business...You have to know what they are focused on as those strategic initiatives for the business will trickle down to every department across the organization.” You need to show the role you can play in their strategic initiatives and the impact you will have, otherwise, you will just be another item on their list of things to do eventually. You'll also hear how a VR tech firm targeting the Fortune 1000 with solutions to help with employee training and engagement was failing to align with target accounts and the C-suite. 

In Blue Ocean Strategy, INSEAD business professors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne argue that the solution to business growth and success is to operate in an uncontested market. They use the metaphor of a blue ocean to represent an uncontested market, and they contrast it with a red ocean, a marketplace where fierce competition has stained the water with the blood of the combatants. According to Kim and Mauborgne, crowded markets and red ocean strategies tend to produce minimal profit margins, while blue ocean strategies lead to more profitable growth. In this podcast,  Kristina Jaramillo shares how teams should be taking a blue ocean approach when it comes to ABM.

During an ABM Done Right Podcast on Rebooting Content to Support ABM & Sales, Cassandra Jowett (PathFactory's Senior Director of Marketing) mentioned that she likes to compare the buyer's journey to the “floor is lava” game that kids play. This kids game also became a popular Netflix game show. Just like the game show you have all these jumping points to get buyers to the safe harbor and you want to make sure they don't fall into the lava halfway through their journey. You want buyers to jump from one rock to the next one and so on and you want to lay out the path to revenue in a very clear way.The problem is….Most GTM teams do not lay out the path. They focus on getting accounts into the pipeline and put little attention to what happens afterward…putting the blame on sales for not closing the account.In this podcast, Kristina shares:1. How there's often no thought about the content that's needed to drive the selling conversations that need to happen to create the a-ha moment and to influence the internal conversations that are happening without sales and marketing being invited into the room.2. How most teams are missing a middle layer that lies between marketing, sales and customer success teams. A layer that we call account-based enablement.3. Why teams need account profiles for their tier 1 must wins and the intelligence that most GTM teams do not have on their target accounts.  4. Opportunities for teams to demonstrate greater relevance across all channels5. How teams need content that meets specific buyer expectations - Brandon Redlinger recently posted that 78% of executive buyers claim the quantity of content provided does not meet expectations.6.  How teams need content for Specific Selling Conversations and the Internal Conversations That Sales Is Not Privy Too. In most cases, content is designed to support campaigns vs. the “selling conversations” and “interactions” sales need to close accounts. We're leaving sales to their own devices.7. How teams need account-specific buyer messaging - Richa Pande (Global Head of ABM and Content Strategy for HP) says that sales, marketing and revenue teams need greater customer obsession. The messaging should be customer-led. This means value props should be designed for specific customer needs, not what's available in solution stable to sell. Value props should be custom designed to the unique opportunity in each account. 8. How teams need account-based conversation support - In many cases, teams are providing the wrong training. Growth problem? Our reps must not understand the product well enough. Trouble scheduling meetings with the decision-maker? Our reps must not be explaining the value of our solution well enough. Losing on price? Our reps must not be showing why our product is better than the competition. All too often, we throw product training at the problem and wonder why we don't see results. All too often, we see executives complaining on LinkedIn about the sheer volume of product-centric or supplier-centric outreach hitting their inbox. No matter how much product training we provide - talking about our product rarely compels a customer to change when they don't believe they need to. What if we helped sales and revenue teams engage in a two-way conversation that helped future customers understand the gaps and the costs/risks of their current approach? What if we helped teams stop responding to pre-defined needs?  What if we actually helped teams go beyond piquing interest (which put them into the pipeline) and create the buying vision across the organization? Because there is so much focus on sourcing the pipeline with ABM, teams are missing the next steps, the interactions and the experiences that would drive stage progression, shorten sales cycles and accelerate higher-value deals to revenue. 

82% of B2B customers are indifferent, disengaged or are actively looking to replace a vendor. Yet companies are still focused on applying ABM to just source the funnel. For example,  Kristina Jaramillo (Host of the ABM Done Right Podcast and President of Personal ABM) was having conversations with a SaaS firm that recently got growth funding. They put a heavy focus on the pipeline and getting more opportunities. But...when looking at existing clients, there's a lot of red. There's a lot of account revenue at risk. And, there are very few opportunities to expand accounts. By failing to look at what's happening in the business and where misalignments are occurring, marketing is not able to change the motions of sales and customer success teams. They are putting long-term revenue growth at risk. They are buying churn.Here are Some of the Misalignment Issues Kristina Discusses in This Podcast That Are Limiting Longer-Term Growth.1.    There is no alignment around the supposedly unique value that sales and marketing is promising. For example, you will hear how a partner firm of ours created positioning and messaging for a joint venture between an accounting firm and an MSP. It was around aligning IT with the CEO, CFO and COOs growth ambitions. However, this positioning and messaging was not being carried beyond sales. The assessments that sales and marketing were pushing did not speak to the C-suite. It spoke to the IT managers and directors that did not have further purchasing power and it reported on where security risks may exist and what legacy systems should be replaced or removed. They did not go on-site and see where technology gaps existed and how it impacted operations, employees, finance and customers and how it would impact leadership's ability to achieve growth. Failing to align all communications and processes with the promised unique value leads to a breakdown in trust and the eventual loss of a customer2.       There is no alignment with the customer's KPI growth needs. Sales and marketing tend to react to the customer's predefined needs and predefined customer requirements that are communicated to them. Account management and customer success teams then create a solution based on the customer's checklist rather than all teams aligning on the customer's KPI growth objectives.3.       There is no alignment with the client's employees. Account management and customer success teams need to take a more personal account-based approach to drive adoption. If we want to prove to employees, managers and directors, their unseen gaps, impacts and how adopting the new technology or approach will benefit them personally, then we cannot rely on templates and campaigns. Failing to align with employees leads to little adoption, sticking with the status quo and non-renewal.  4.       There's little alignment, integration, and orchestration between sales marketing and customer success teams. Even though it's easier to sell and get a quicker sales cycle with existing customers, sales and marketing teams focus their time and resources on new logo acquisition. Because account management and customer success teams do not get the support they need, their conversations are often focused on activities completed and general benefits received. They are challenged to gain top-to-bottom engagement around gaps filled and the impacts at the company, division, rank, employee and customer levels. This is why vendors quickly become single-threaded with buyers after the deal is signed. This is why one of our clients, RGL Logistics, almost lost their P&G account to Ryder until we changed the team's interactions and the experiences they delivered to the P&G buying team.