- If you've got a SaaS business
and you've got some revenues,
but you don't have enough pipeline being generated
to really hit your growth goals,
then you need to revamp your go-to-market strategy.
In this episode,
I'm gonna walk you through the three principles
that you absolutely need to know
to revamp your go-to-market strategy,
generate more pipeline,
and accelerate your path to that next stage of growth.
Intro.
(dramatic music)
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to Unstoppable.
I'm TK, and on this channel,
I help SaaS founders like you grow your SaaS business faster
with an unstoppable strategy.
Now, if you're new to this channel, welcome.
I drop an episode every single Sunday
with actionable strategies and tactics
from the trenches on how to grow your SaaS business faster.
So be sure to hit that subscribe button and that bell icon.
That way, you'll get notified
every single time I drop an episode with the TK energy.
Now, if you're already part of this channel,
if you're part of this community,
if you're part of my SaaS go-to-market coaching programs,
my people, welcome back.
It's really awesome to see you over here.
So I remember with ToutApp,
this was my last company,
we started the sales engagement space
and we hit a point where we educated the market,
sales acceleration and sales engagement.
Outbound automation was a thing.
We knew who our ideal customers were.
They were growing companies with inside sales teams
that wanted more pipeline.
We knew who we needed to target.
It was the VP of sales and the head of sales development.
We knew exactly the messaging that was resonating,
but there was a point where we didn't have enough pipeline.
We literally could not send enough outbound emails
to generate enough demand.
So we really needed a holistic go-to-market strategy.
This is where I learned the idea of conversation dominance.
Over the course of a year,
we grew 300% and then raised money from Andreessen Horowitz.
But in order to get to that point,
we revamped our go-to-market strategy
to drive pipeline in an immense level.
So in this episode, with everything that I've learned
in my 15 years of SaaS businesses
and helping over 250 SaaS companies build
and execute on their go-to-market strategy,
I'm gonna walk you through the three principles
that you absolutely need to know
to take your current go-to-market strategy or lack thereof,
and really set it up so you can scale it
and achieve conversation dominance in your target market
and accelerate your path to that next stage of growth.
So that we can start digging into this principle number one,
go and smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
It really likes it when you do that
and let's dig right into it.
So principle number one that you really wanna focus on,
and I talk about this in the channel all the time,
is to really define your ideal customer profile.
These are your happy customers where when they discover you,
they're like, "Oh my God, I totally need this."
That's principle number one:
your ICP, ideal customer profile.
Once you have an ideal customer profile,
the second principle that you need is the message.
This is the thing that actually resonates
with your ideal customer profile.
We call this the manifesto.
And a manifesto breaks down into some specific things.
It's your value prop,
the value proposition statement
that you would put in a cold email
or in an ad or in a LinkedIn post.
It's your messaging.
This is essentially how you explain
exactly what your product does,
the story that you tell,
and this is also your strategic narrative.
The strategic narrative really comes together
in your sales deck.
This is when they book a call,
or if you're product-led in that welcome journey
that you take customers through to educate them
on the exact transformation your product helps them achieve.
This is all your manifesto.
This is your messaging.
And with these first two principles,
and I'm going fast on this
because I cover this on the channel all the time
and you can watch more videos on this channel
if you're literally brand new
and you just discovered me
to learn more about ICP and manifesto,
but this is kind of table stakes
for our go-to-market strategy.
Because what you're looking to do
is actually bring your manifesto to your ideal customers
on a consistent basis,
and that's what really gets the pipeline going.
So principle number one is
to have a well-defined ideal customer profile
of exactly who's gonna buy your product,
why they're gonna buy it.
Principle number two is to have a proper manifesto,
a proper messaging where when you approach them
through any of the different channels that exist,
they're like, "Oh, this is super interesting.
I actually wanna talk to these people.
I feel like I can trust these people.
They know what I'm talking about.
They know exactly about the problems that I'm facing."
And they're gonna engage with you in your sales process
or your product-led process depending on where you're going.
So those are the two table stakes.
If you just don't have an ICP,
I mean the properly well-defined one,
if you don't have a proper manifesto,
this is your messaging, your value prop,
your strategic narrative,
then you basically don't have a go-to-market strategy, okay?
And there's nothing wrong with that.
It just depends on the stage you're in.
Maybe you got all of your revenue so far
through your existing network
and now you can't get any new customers.
Or you kind of locked out
and you had something that went viral
and you got a bunch of stuff
or you were product ton
and now you're like, "Hey, what's my more scalable way?"
Or maybe you have some version of this
but it's not yielding enough results.
You're not actually driving enough pipeline.
Regardless of where you are,
the first two steps are the same.
You want to flush out your ideal customer profile
and you wanna flush out your messaging.
These two things are the raw foundational ingredients
to a proper go-to-market strategy that drives growth.
Now, you might be wondering,
"Okay, TK, what do I do with that?
Do I just send a thousand cold emails?"
No, not quite.
This is where the principle
of conversation dominance comes into.
This is the game changing thing,
and I've been working with all of my clients with,
but before I go into that,
let me just pause here for a second.
Are you first starting to see the power in this?
What ends up happening is a lot of times,
people think go-to-market strategy is just a notion
of who they're targeting and what they're gonna say
and they jump to the execution.
The execution is sending a thousand emails,
giving Mark Zuckerberg a thousand dollars in ad money,
or doing a bunch of LinkedIn post
or doing a blog or hiring an SEO person
or hiring a fractional CMO who can't hold a real CMO job.
So they're doing this fractional thing
and then you waste six months of your burden.
That's execution.
But strategy work is, hey, who's our customer specifically?
Let's just say we're at a million in ARR.
We wanna get to 3 million in ARR.
Who are our specific customers that are gonna get us there?
And also, what's our manifesto?
What's the unique thing we can bring to the market
that differentiates us from the competition?
Where people are gonna like, "Oh, this is different.
I really wanna engage with these guys
versus the 50 other vendors that are trying to sell me."
Can you see the power of just establishing these two things?
Because this is the core of a go-to-market strategy.
If you're with me,
can I just get a yes in the comments below?
And also smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
It really loves it when you do that.
Also, if you're in that stage where you're like,
"Hey, actually I don't have an ICP" or "It's no good"
or "My manifesto's off.
My messaging's off.
I need to fix it."
And I encourage you
to check out my SaaS go-to-market coaching program.
Inside that program, I actually work with you one-on-one
to help you flush out these things.
You don't have to go anywhere right now
because point number three is really important
for everyone involved.
So let's talk about that
and then I'll tell you more about it
at the end of this episode.
Also, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
It really likes it when you do that and so do we.
We put a lot of love into these videos.
Okay, so principle number three
is what we call the Broadway show.
And I'm gonna explain what that is
and what's different about it.
The Broadway show is a consistent set of sales
and marketing activities that you're doing
on a weekly basis to bring your message to your ICP.
It's really that simple.
Here's a problem though.
What ends up happening is people end up being scatterbrained
in their Broadway show.
They end up doing a YouTube thing today,
and then they give up on it
and then do a blog post and they give up on it.
Then they'll do trial LinkedIn post,
or they heard about the TikToks, the next great thing.
Or they'll do a product hunt launch
or you know, they're just running some ads
and then they give up on it.
Like, that's not consistent.
Consistency is when you pick specific channels
and you consistently operate in those channels
and get better and better to bring your manifesto
to your ICP in a consistent basis,
and it compounds over time.
That's a Broadway show.
But if you are already doing some of this,
you don't just stop there
because we are now working with a lot of founders
in my go-to-market program,
anywhere from few hundred thousand in ARR,
upwards of a hundred million in ARR.
We're working with these three principles.
These principles still apply in that range of businesses.
We're working on what we call conversation dominance.
And the ideal conversation dominance is,
everywhere your ICP is going,
we want them to see your message.
That's conversation dominance,
and that's what a scalable Broadway show looks like.
So if you're just starting out and you don't have anything,
then where you wanna start
in your go-to-market strategy journey is
to really flush out your ICP,
really flush out your manifesto,
and start to test it in specific channels.
That's easy.
Once you get it going and once you know,
"You know what, TK?
My messaging is working."
Then you actually want to get to a scalable Broadway show
and that's where you achieve conversation dominance.
Let me explain what that means.
So if you think about your ideal customer,
think about one person.
Let's just call him Bob.
Bob is your ICP.
There's a thousand Bobs,
and if you land the next thousand Bobs,
you triple your revenues, okay?
So, pretty awesome.
You want lots of Bobs.
Well, if you think about Bob,
the first thing Bob has is a set of social feeds, right?
He's looking at social.
If you think about Bob, he's also got his inbox.
He's looking at his emails.
If you also think about Bob,
when he's sitting down
and he's trying to figure out how to solve his problems,
he's actually going in and searching for stuff.
So, there's search.
If you think about Bob, he's also got a phone.
He's answering calls on his phone and he's texting.
If you think about Bob,
Bob also has a calendar
and that means he's going to events.
And if you think about Bob,
Bob also knows Mike.
Mike is just like Bob, kind of like your ICP,
but guess what?
Mike happens to be one of your existing customers.
So Mike actually knows Bob,
and Bob has all these things.
This is where conversation dominance really comes in.
This is something that I've been working with
with specific companies in my program
where they've nailed the ICP
and they've nailed the manifest
and they're like, "Look, we just want more pipeline."
And this is companies upwards
of a hundred million in revenues.
What we're doing is we're saying, you know what,
Bob wakes up every morning
and through the course of the day,
he's looking at his social feed,
whether it's LinkedIn or Twitter or Facebook.
He's looking at his inbox.
He's looking at emails coming in.
He's searching for things.
He's actually calling people and receiving phone calls.
He is going to events
and he also knows people that we know that he trusts.
That's Bob.
And what we want to do is,
if we have a message that is working,
we want to bring that message all around Bob,
meaning that if you want Bob as a customer,
and you know when he sees this messaging,
he's gonna become a customer,
you wanna achieve conversation dominance.
And the way you do that is,
you make sure your message appears
when he's on his social feeds.
You wanna make sure your message appears in his inbox.
You wanna make sure that when he's searching
for specific things related to your message,
he's seeing your manifesto.
You wanna make sure that maybe you give Bob a call.
You also wanna make sure
that you're attending the events where Bob is,
or if he's expressing interest in an event,
he also sees your messaging.
And lastly, you also wanna make sure,
since you already know Mike and he's a happy customer,
you tell Mike, "Hey, can you introduce us to Bob?"
When you're running your Broadway show at scale
across all these different channels consistently
and measurably,
your go-to-market strategy not only gets revamped,
it starts to scale and starts to compound.
Going back to that one year where we were everywhere
and specifically our ICP was like,
we want every single technology company in San Francisco
because they're fast growing, they have inside sales,
they have SDRs.
We were everywhere
and we applied this same strategy.
This is the same strategy we apply even at Unstoppable
and all the clients we work with.
They go for conversation dominance
because once we know this is our ICP, like Bob,
and we know this is our manifesto and it resonates,
we want to be everywhere all over.
And when we do that, not only are we adding value
to Bob's life because we're all educational content,
we're teaching Bob about the transformation that's happening
with our strategic narrative.
We're giving him the messaging that we know resonates
with more people like Bob and they find value in it.
Then Bob likes us, trusts us,
and engages with us to buy our product.
And that's the power of a Broadway show.
So to recap, if you have some revenues
but you don't have enough pipeline
and you really want to make sure you're driving growth,
here are the three steps you wanna follow
to revamp your go-to-market strategy.
Number one, flush out your ICP.
Number two, make sure your messaging is resonating.
That comes in the form of your value property,
your messaging, and your strategic narrative.
That all falls into what we call a manifesto.
And step number three,
run a consistent set of sales and marketing activities
so that you're achieving conversation dominance around Bob
to make sure your message is reaching him,
educating him, activating him,
and getting him to say, "You know what?
I gotta talk to these guys because they understand me."
And then you actually get to serve Bob.
That's the power of a scalable go-to-market strategy.
And now you know exactly the three principles you need
to follow to scale your SaaS business.
What you may not know is,
"Hey, TK, how do I flush out my ICP?
How do I make sure it's any good?"
Everyone thinks they have an ICP until they work with me.
We have 29 different points that go into our ICP exercise.
Then it's like, "Hey, what's our manifesto?"
How do we actually tell the narrative?
How do we differentiate from our competition?
How do we make sure this messaging resonates with Bob
or whoever else is in our ICP?
Or how do I take my ICP and my manifesto,
test it, iterate on it,
and then drive for conversation dominance
across all these channels?
This is exactly why I created
my SaaS go-to-market coaching program.
Inside of this program,
we work together
to help you flash out your go-to-market strategy,
revamp it, and execute on it
so that you can accelerate your path
to that next stage of growth.
Specifically, we teach you exactly how
to flush out your ICP, build your manifesto,
and run a consistent Broadway show
so you can achieve conversation dominance
around Bob and anyone else in your ICP.
It's an incredible program.
We've worked with so many founders in the program.
We've had so many amazing success stories
that we published in this channel.
If you wanna work together and you wanna learn more,
just go to tkkader.com/gtm.
Tkkader.com/gtm,
and on that page, you get all the details about the program.
If you'd like to work together,
you just have to fill out a little form,
and we'll get on a call.
And on the call, we'll review all the details
on where you are.
The better the fit, the better the results.
And so if it sounds like we're a fit,
we'll tell you all about it
and we're off to the races
to revamp your go-to-market strategy,
flush out your ICP, your manifesto,
and then run a Broadway show
so you can accelerate your path
to that next stage of growth.
This is a framework that I've used in my own companies
that I continue to use
and that I've coached over 250 founders
on how to actually apply.
It's an incredible program
and I hope we get to work together.
Also, if you got values from this video,
please smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
That just loves it when you do that and so do we.
My team and I put a lot of love into these videos.
If you have a fellow founder,
a team member that will get value from this video,
please share this with them.
That way, we can serve as many SaaS founders
and leaders as possible.
That's really the goal for this channel.
And also, I drop an episode every single Sunday
with Asimo strategies and tactics from the trenches
on how to grow your SaaS business.
So be sure to hit that subscribe button
and that bell icon where you'll get notified
every single time I drop an episode.
And lastly, remember,
everyone needs a strategy for their life and their business.
When you are with us,
yours is gonna be unstoppable.
I'm TK and I'll see you the next episode
or inside the SaaS go-to-market coaching program.
I'll see you there.
Take care.
Meaning...
Woo!
(TK laughs)
From the trenches,
from actually being...
Wow.
Let's redo that.