Dennis Moss

Join Me this Thursday 6PM with Nate Zaru for Creating Product Videos that Drive Sales Workshop. PLUS networking happy hour at Gambit Lounge. Learn and mingle with the top marketers in the San Francisco SaaS world! Join us for a workshop on how to jump into 2025 with an unforgettable product video. You’ll learn what makes the best product videos and what mistakes to avoid. Bring your projects and case studies. Hosted by Nate at MyProductVideo.com with yours truly. AGENDA: 6:00-6:30 Welcome and networking 6:30-7:15 Workshop Presentation 7:15-8:00 Happy hour networking What You’ll Learn: The New Opportunity of Product Videos Why SaaS is different and how to leverage it The Story Comes First Crafting a narrative that defines your brand Work Backwards from Your Dream Context and Formats Planning with purpose for maximum impact Focus on One BIG Idea and a Strong CTA Simplify your message for clarity and action Show People—People Love People Harnessing the power of human connection Show the Product Without Showing the Actual Product Building intrigue and interest creatively Remix and Repeat Strategies to keep your content fresh

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Awesome SaaStock workshops yesterday led by Kevin "KD" Dorsey on how he operationalizes his sales teams and keep them up to date, Rita Jhaveri on the importance of customer onboarding with a fun workshop (Team Monkey FTW!), and Jake Dunlap for new insights on creating a effective buying experience. My biggest take aways from the sessions were: Our buyers' environment is changing and how they buy is changing. Are your internal processes staying up to date to meet your buyers where they're at? At startups I think of my sales org processes within a constant loop -> What's our.... TAM -> SAM -> SOM -> ICP -> Buyer Persona -> Pain Points for said personas within the ICP -> Does our product solve those pains points -> relevant messaging for marketing + disco + demo -> win customer -> case studies -> renew -> apply case studies and stories to new business sales cycle -> repeat The challenge I hear often is that people don't know what their ICP should be and so everything after that falls flat. But why is this so hard to figure this out? It's going to sound ridiculously simple..but it's your industry tags. Read more on why and how to fix it in the comments below and if you’re attending SaaStock today let’s meet up! #saastockusa2024

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Want to elevate your sales game and win over C-suite executives? 📈 Learn from the best with ZoomInfo's top sales tips, including insights from our CEO and Founder, Henry Schuck!  Discover the definitive guide to selling to the C-suite in 2024: bit.ly/4aSCL3i

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** Harnessing Executive Sponsors: The Underutilized Force Multiplier in GTM** An often overlooked resource in GTM is the power of executive sponsors. Many GTM leaders hesitate to leverage this, but when done right, it can be a game-changer. Imagine the impact when top leadership advocates for your initiatives—it's a true force multiplier. Take Check Point Software, for example. They don’t just stop at executive support—they even involve their CPO, CTO and even CEO to advance the pipeline. Yes, a $21B company tapping into the power of their top exec to move deals forward. That’s the level of commitment and influence we should be aiming for. But let’s go beyond individual account sponsorship - leverage your technical and product leadership for broad GTM initiatives, content creation, thought leadership and turn this from a 1:1 to a 1:many play. They have tons of valuable knowledge and insights they can share. In our Value-based GTM world, these assets are foundational, not optional. Here’s what Hillel Zvi SEO & ABM Lead at Checkpoint had to share about it at our last event. If you’re not already harnessing this resource, now’s the time. The right executive sponsor can open doors, build trust, and accelerate your GTM efforts in ways that are hard to match. How are you leveraging your executive team to support GTM?

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Want to make #RevOps automation easier? We've got you covered. 🚀 Join RevGenius exclusive webinar on Sept 5th, where Yvonne Yi, VP, RevOps at Nintex and Jake Gertjan Hofwegen, VP, Global RevOps, Enablement at Contentful will talk about the common automation headaches and how to fix them. We’ll also share some tips to help you tackle those issues! Here’s what you’ll get: ▪ The lowdown on the top five automation challenges that could be slowing you down. ▪ A super handy guide packed with practical tips, training hacks, and ways to keep things running smoothly. ▪ Simple strategies to streamline your RevOps tasks, work more efficiently, and boost revenue with ease. Sign up now (it's free!), join live or watch the replay whenever works for you! ▶ https://lnkd.in/dApWuR4x This RevGenius event is powered by our partner: Nintex #revopsautomation #businessautomation #freewebinar #commonpitfalls #commonmistakes #thingtoavoid #revenueoperations #gtmteams #RevenueTechnology #AI #B2B #revops #revenueenablement #ML #techstack #aienabled #aipowered #artificialintelligence #llms #revenuetools #revenueleadership #salesorganizations #revtech #gtmtech #gotomarket #gtmleadership #RevGenius #SaaS #onlineevent #freeevent #business #companies #startups #gtm #entrepreneurs #ceo #cxo #founders #scalingup #scalingbusiness #businessexpansion #gtmmotion #gtmplays #growthjourney #salesenablement #cro #technology #organizationalleadership`#technology #organizationalleadership #businessapps #aiapps #aiadoption #aienabled #growthjourney #growthdrivers #growthlevers #revenueboost #automationstrategies #bestpractices #expertadvice #revenuegrowth #revenueintegrity #revenueintelligence #revenueanalytics #revenuegeneration #revenueengine #valueengine #expertpanel #processautomation #workflowautomation #automation

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A big thanks to AI guru Nicole Leffer for taking marketing leaders from Cervin Ventures' portfolio companies through her "Harnessing the Power of Gen AI for Marketing" seminar today. Every time hear Nicole speak I come away with a dozen new AI tips and tricks -- and she delivered again by showing us how to build foundational skills in our marketing orgs. I won't steal her magic but here are a couple of Nicole's context-setting observations: 🤖 AI is a great assistant, not a replacement for marketing. AI can't do ALL of your marketing, especially in these early days. (So don't even think about taking humans out of the loop yet.) 🤖 Marketers using AI think they are further along than what they really are -- mostly because they don't know what they don't know. (Good news, if you're incorporating AI into workflows, you're still ahead.) 🤖 AI and the models are currently the dumbest they will ever be. If you can do great things with them now, think about what they will be able to do in the next 3-5 years. Thanks to all the Cervin companies who participated! cc: Christine Vidal, Daniel Kish, Crystal Mendes, Josh Dreyfuss, Jeanette Belashov, Justin Mota, Marwa Mhtar, Kristi Tutt, Tyler Fridley, MBA, LingRaj Patil, Phoebe Wang, Ashley Daniels #marketing #ai

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Check out the latest GTM Secrets podcast by Identity Matrix with Saad Shaikh at CAST AI! He's a RevOps guru for both enterprise and mid-market orgs. Learn what he thinks we should be doing to accelerate the sales cycle, how to structure revops, and what it takes to rock in your gtm operations. Get the full episode on YouTube, Amazon, Apple, Spotify, and more! Link in the first comment. #gtm #revenueoperations #martech

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If anyone is in North County San Diego, on Thursday May 2nd, we will be hosting a tech entrepreneur and investor meet up at 5:30pm. We’ll have a couple speakers, one of which is a fin-tech start-up raising a round, followed up by a presentation on the state of the stock & crypto market. We host these events quarterly and usually get a lot of founders and investors to attend. If anyone is interested, please message me and I can send you the details. LaunchPad San Diego #startups #startupincubator #entrepreneur #investing #crypto #meetup

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The new episode of The Science of Scaling Podcast dropped today. In this episode, I speak with Ang McManamon the VP of Sales at Crunchbase. We dissect managing sales through a pivot, specifically how she managed the team as the market transitioned from one of the most bullish markets in tech in 2021 to one of the biggest down markets in tech in 2022. Example discussion points include: How to manage a board that is demanding an unrealistic revenue target? (1) Educate them on the current bottoms-up GTM model by showing them where the team has been performing on the key drivers of revenue outcomes over the past 2 quarters (i.e. the average productivity per rep (PPR), MQLs generated per month, average sales cycle and close rate on sales opportunities, etc.). We implement this framework with our portfolio companies Stage 2 Capital before issues like this even surface in order to establish the narrative from the beginning. (2) Illustrate where these metrics need to be to achieve the revenue outcomes they are demanding. Often this analysis yields the conclusion that the team would need to 2x PPR, MQL generating, and and close rates essentially overnight. Hopefully, they start to see how unrealistic the plan is and that the plan is going to lead to unnecessary burn and departures of top performers (3) Using the bottoms-up model, devise an aggressive but realistic plan that assumes say a 10%-20% Q/Q improvement in each of the performance drivers and the revenue outcomes that this performance would yield. (4) The board may ignore this line of thinking but at least we have educated them on the revenue mechanics and can use that framework to report back results at the next meeting. How to quantitatively assess whether a revenue miss is due to a macro condition, like the economy, or sales execution, like hiring and training the salespeople? An area few boards and leadership teams look at to conduct this diagnosis is the quarter-over-quarter performance of individual AEs, especially the consistent top performers on the team. If the company misses the target and you look under the hood and find that the historic consistent performers are still performing as usual and the miss was driven from AEs hired in the last year, we have a sales leadership execution issue. However, if we look under the hood and see that even the top performers' PPR decreased, perhaps at about the same time and about the same amount, then we have likely have a diagnosis outside of sales execution (i.e. economy, competition, product, etc.) Anyway, Ang is awesome and was completely open about this journey that so many leaders experienced over the past two years. Check out the episode here! https://lnkd.in/e2QiuPEH

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In today’s fast-paced sales environment, keeping sellers focused on what truly matters is key. 🔑 With ZoomInfo Copilot, your sales team can zero in on the right accounts at the right time, with AI-driven insights to streamline decision-making and maximize impact. Hear from Tessa Whittaker, VP of Revenue Operations at ZoomInfo, on how Copilot is helping sellers boost productivity and efficiency. ⬇️ #ZoomInfoCopilot

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Folks who’ve reported to Sara Romero-Heaps at Seesaw Learning and Nearpod rave about working with her, and specifically how she develops talent by matching her team's skills and interests with the business needs. In the latest episode of Best Manager Ever, Sara shares her playbook for identifying the team's strengths and helping them grow – even in an ambiguous startup environment without clear levels or paths. My favorite parts of this advice: 1. Start every performance review by asking, "what are you most proud of?" 2. Notice and ask what other people are going to your team for -- and nurture that as a strength --- 🎧 Get more of Sara’s leadership lessons by listening to the full episode wherever you get podcasts (link in comments). --- Best Manager Ever is a production of Fort Light and Now It's Hear. If you enjoy the show, we'd so appreciate you sharing it with a friend or colleague who could benefit from Sara's wisdom. #Leadership #Management #BestManagerEver

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Prospecting just got a whole lot easier. ✨ ZoomInfo Copilot connects you to the right buyers at the right time, so you don't have to spend hours searching for your next lead. Request a demo to see Copilot in action: bit.ly/3Vj9RCS #ZoomInfoCopilot

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I recently listened to Zach Perret, founder of Plaid, on the 20VC podcast discussing his evolution in recruiting. His mindset shift resonated with me. Here are three key takeaways: ▶ Be yourself and do it. Cold emails and genuine curiosity unlock unrecruitable people. People love to talk about things they're passionate about. ▶ Embrace the hunt. The best founders love to compete for talent. They understand the value each person can bring and don't like losing. This skill will also translate into founder-led sales. ▶ Hire for "Spike". This is essential when building an early team. I often think of it as the shape of a "T"—someone with deep expertise in one area but is open and curious to learn and contribute in other areas outside their core strength.

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demandDrive, the industry-leading integrated sales and marketing agency, is transforming their prospecting efforts with the help of ZoomInfo. 🤝 🏁 ☀ AJ Alonzo, Director of Marketing at demandDrive and ZoomInfo Champion, shares how ZoomInfo WebSights helps his team uncover insights about website visitors' behavior — allowing them to personalize outbound efforts and improve their prioritization processes. The result? Millions of dollars in ARR. Learn how demandDrive is turning page views into pipeline with ZoomInfo: bit.ly/4dgBN1G

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Let’s talk about intent data (one of the most popular topics in the B2B marketing world over the last few years). Marketers have been using intent data to help identify buyers based on keyword searches and website sessions. But in a sea of this data, what is most relevant? What data do you actually need? And is this data real? Is it actually indicative of someone being ready to buy? I’ve been spending a bunch of time with pharosIQ CEO Christopher Rack He was talking about how 75% of the buyer’s journey is now marketing driven. Buyers are conducting more research online and wait until they are closer to a purchase decision before engaging with sales (just this week I purchased a product without talking to sales until the very last possible moment; I did all the research and only reached out when I needed to). What I like about Chris is he makes this world simple. He says you need down-funnel signals based on engagements with decision-driving content like peer reviews, pricing guides, case studies, and human-verified project confirmations. Signals that actually identify buyers that are in-market for products like yours. And his company has a new product to help do this called atlasIQ. atlasIQ simplifies the process by providing you with access to the same insights and down-funnel signals that power pharosIQ’s lead generation solutions. This allows you to identify and prioritize high-potential accounts, understand the business needs of the buyers, and most importantly, position your product as the best fit. It’s like having a personal guide through the intent data maze. And it’s 100% free to use. Right now. You can use this tool to help identify in-market accounts for your business. Go now... Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/e-DqVRX9 *PharosIQ is currently a sponsor of Exit Five and this is a sponsored post. 😊

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As Hugh Hopkins and I are building 42ai, we're acutely aware that up until recently the trajectory in GTM tech has been veering exclusively to "market consolidation". Acquisitions like Hubspot -> Clearbit, Clari -> Groove or companies like Gong going full DIY are aimed at winning more wallet share and 'proving' market leadership... But more wallet share + market leadership for vendors doesn't always translate into whats good for the end customer and there are a lot of things we're not so keen on about this approach: 🔴 These companies want to own as much of their particular GTM Activity/Process as possible making them incredibly sticky 🔴 They roll out/acquire more functionality to achieve this and let's face it, it's rarely as good as the initial product 🔴 This not only locks you into their way of working, but is likely wrapped up in expensive per seat billing 🔴 And for a long time after implementation the data and insight these platforms capture only benefits the target persona in their own "walled garden" 🔴 Quickly these tools become inflexible and adapting them to the nuance of your business requires data and ops resources or manual workarounds 🔴 And maximising results is often about adding more headcount and functionality/features For post-sale productivity software in particular (gainsight, catalyst et al) these problems are particularly challenging because by this stage of the customer lifecycle, every company operates very different internally. That's why there are a gazillion top of funnel software tools out there today and just a few post-sale platforms. But there is another way... 🤠 There are a growing number of companies who believe in a different approach (Clay, Attio, 42ai as examples). A way where low cost of ownership gives access to highly adaptable workflows (AI or otherwise), leverages real-time data, and integrates with best in class tools so you can make the most out of your existing stack. All without tying you in to paying for seats or functionality you don't need. For the next phase of GTM Tech, more consolidation is not the default way forward - it has many downsides. While change may be slow initially, for some use-cases and segments of the market, value will shift away from these platforms into usage-billed workflows that address a wider number of vertically integrated problems - at a fraction of the cost of traditional saas. Try as they may, incumbents will struggle to go there...

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Interesting piece by WSJ on how adult companies struggle for talent. For tech talent specifically, in the late nineties, many of the highest traffic sites were adult sites. They attracted top talent interested in scaling challenges. And if you had worked on one of these sites, your skills were highly sought. Apparently, Nginx (popular open source web server) was honed on these sites. But the Google’s, Facebooks, and Amazons of the world long ago eclipsed adult sites. —- Would you join a hot tech company that has quintupled its head count in three years and pays an average salary of almost $600,000? Before you answer, consider this: The company is OnlyFans, the subscription website known for X-rated content. Adult entertainment is a $58.4 billion global industry on pace to reach $96.2 billion in 2032, according to Allied Market Research. Most of the open roles at these companies aren’t what you think. On job boards at Pornhub’s parent company and similar businesses, titles like “senior financial accountant,” “sales development representative” and “full-stack software developer” dominate. At a time when so much adult content is user-generated, and in the early stages of being created by artificial intelligence, career opportunities abound for fully-clothed, college-educated professionals. [link to full story below] #jobs #careers

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Our partnership with Brex now gives us unparalleled insight and breadth in SaaS purchasing reports

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Forging pipeline made easy: Salesforge 🔥 takes care of managing your sequences Mailforge - Cold Email Infrastructure 📈 & Infraforge - Private Email Infrastructure 🔷 cover email infrastructure Warmforge - Land In The Primary 🎯 boosts your deliverability Agent Frank takes on autonomous prospecting, outreach and booking meetings & more to come! Get ready for what’s next 😈

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