The Goats of Growth – Details, episodes & analysis

On today's episode of The Goats of Growth, I have Michaela Dempsey, Chief Marketing Officer at Levelpath, an AI-powered procurement platform, to explore the concept of “delightful procurement” and how AI is transforming the procurement process.

Michaela dives into how AI can streamline procurement and marketing, boosting efficiency and enhancing the user experience. She also shares her views on the essentials of marketing fundamentals, the impact of LinkedIn in B2B growth, and why balancing short-term wins with long-term strategy is key.

Tune in to discover Michaela's insights on:

Delightful Procurement: How AI can make procurement processes smoother and more enjoyable for users.

Retargeting and Visibility: The power of retargeting ads in boosting brand awareness.

Facing Challenges with Confidence: The importance of confidence and resilience in marketing leadership.

Iteration in Marketing: Balancing data-driven insights with gut instincts for effective decision-making.

Long-Term Vision and Sales Alignment: Why aligning marketing and sales with a clear vision drives growth.

Join us for this episode packed with actionable advice on AI, marketing strategy, and leadership from a top industry CMO!

Michaelas Linkedin Profile

LevePath Website

Chapters

On today's episode I sit down with Jamie Walker, CMO of KeyFactor, to explore the strategic marketing initiatives that fueled the company’s growth from $15 million to $100 million in ARR.

Jamie shares her insights on the importance of predictable marketing strategies and how balancing short-term wins with long-term goals can drive success. She also dives into the significance of cross-functional collaboration and building a high-performing marketing team that adapts to the evolving needs of the business. Tune in to hear Jamie's perspective on:

KeyFactor's Growth: How the company leveraged a strong product-market fit to scale rapidly.
Marketing Predictability: The role of SEO and forecasting in generating a predictable pipeline.
Cultural Integration in M&A: How to navigate and blend different company cultures during mergers and acquisitions.
Data-Driven Decisions: How data guides product focus and growth strategy.
Investing in People: Why employee satisfaction and strategic planning are key for future success.

Join us for this episode filled with valuable lessons on scaling, leadership, and marketing strategy from one of the industry's top CMOs!

Jamies Linkedin Profile

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to KeyFactor and Jamie Walker
03:02 Strategic Priorities for Growth
05:47 The Importance of Predictability in Marketing
08:53 Long-Term vs Short-Term Wins
11:49 Cross-Functional Collaboration and Trust
15:09 Building a High-Performing Marketing Team
30:33 Radical Candor and Accountability in Growth
32:49 Blending Cultures: Education and Training
34:41 Reshaping Company Values and Messaging
38:35 The Long-Term Impact of Culture on Growth
42:44 Strategic Planning for Future Growth
46:20 Motivation and Goal Setting
48:43 Learning from Success and Failure
51:34 Balancing Work and Family Life
55:23 Trust as a Key Quality in Leadership

In this episode of The Goats of Growth, I interviewed Bobby Touran, Co-Founder of Rainbow, an insuretech company focusing on the restauant industry. 

One of the biggest questions I had for Bobby was about the keys to raising money in 2024, given that it;s much more difficult than it was just a few years ago.

Enjoy the episode!

Bobbys Linkedin Profile

Timestamps

I didn't interview a guest for this episode. Instead, I give a summary of my recent trip to San Francisco at the SaaStr event where 10,000 people got together to network, learn and have fun.

It was worth all the time and eevry day. 

I also give a quick update on The GOATS of Growth, which is a book I'm working. on.

Rob Stevens is one of the people that I consider to be on my personal Board of Directors, who’s made some fantastic introductions and opened up others doors along the way–including helping me with getting guests for this podcast. 

We met on the heels of his successful 7 year run at Kiva Systems, which culminated in a $775M acquisition by Amazon Robotics back in 2012. He then led sales, marketing and business development at 2 more successful start-ups (both acquired) and is now advising other early-stage Founders on their go-to-market strategies. 

Something I found particularly interesting is how he navigated his way to leading 4 major functions within 5 start-ups, including sales, marketing, product, and professional services.  In this episode, we cover how he developed that breadth of skill and what he learned along the way that he is now sharing with his clients.

In this episode you will hear me highlight the 10 most cited traits, mentioned by my guests this year, that are present in top salespeople they've managed. I was reluctant to do it in order of most cited to least cited, because they are all paramount to the success of top sales reps, but I did it anyways to make it more interesting. 

Over Quota is sponsored by the j. David Group, a retained sales search firm for lean start-ups. If you're looking to hire a sales leader for your next stage of growth, please visit thejdavidgroup.com. 

If you’re a Founder or an early-stage Sales Leader, you’ll appreciate and recognize many of the topics covered in my latest podcast interview with Brian Benedict, Global Vice President of Sales at Narrator. 

If you aspire to be, on the precipice of, or have just started your journey as an expeditionary sales leader, you’ll appreciate learning about the mechanics of what it takes to get the flywheel moving. 

And, if you’re an individual contributor aspiring to, or are currently working for an early-stage start-up, you’ll get a sense of what it takes to succeed and the expectations of you in such an environment. 

Some of the topics we discussed include:

GTM Strategy
Should you go up market or down market and why?
Pricing structure
What should you be focused on from day one
Securing the right meeting with the right people
How he had 5 meeting set before his first day at one company
What should your tech stack include?
Creating processes and systems
What goes in the playbook?
When to iterate or not
Who to hire first and why?
The challenges founders could experience if they hire for the wrong position first
What kind of experience should the first members of the sales team have?Which traits and core competencies should you screen for?
How do you assign quota (or not) in the absence of precedent and much data?
How to build a repeatable motion
When should you scale and how

Enjoy the episode.

Teaching and coaching enterprise sales reps to become HIGH-PERFORMING enterprise sales reps is difficult–to say the least. There are many variables to reaching greatness that sales leaders and coaches need to navigate.

Is a rep struggling because she doesn’t understand the value proposition well enough? Is a rep struggling because he’s in a new territory and simply hasn’t generated enough activity? Is your go-to-market strategy flawed? The potential roadblocks that can prevent success are overwhelming and endless.

With all the various reasons and possible impediments to success, wouldn’t it be nice if someone were to distill the complexity of true enterprise sales down to just a few pillars that can be coached and repeated—regardless of which sales methodology you’re using? Well, that’s what my latest podcast guest, Douglas Cole, Enterprise Sales Leader at LinkedIn, achieved in his new book, The Sales MBA–How to Influence Corporate Buyers.

In this episode you’ll not only hear when and how to incorporate these core pillars of successful enterprise sales, but you’ll also hear him talk about the mental shift CRUCIAL to mastering it all. 

Here is the link to buy the book on Amazon

(Republished from June 2020.)

I recently interviewed Samuel Clemens, Partner at Accomplice VC & Founder of Reprise, which helps customer facing teams capture, edit, and assemble the perfect demo every time. 

We discussed the 3 types of sales leaders critical to early stage start-up success. The first type is simply founder-led sales because they know the product best and should be able to close the first handful of sales on passion--as long as their is market fit.  The second type of sales leader is what he calls the expeditionary sales leader who can help create and define a repeatable playbook. The third type of sales leader is someone that is process based and can take that playbook, refine it, and then scale the sales team. 

Additionally, he shared the critical attributes needed in each sales leader, the one thing that he thinks really defines an organization's culture, the 3 big mistakes he's made in the past when scaling a sales organization, what sales leaders should NOT do during their Board meetings, and much more.

Whether I’m interviewing a GTM leader on my podcast or confidentially for a retained search, I tend to geek out over the “how” of how success was achieved by my guest.

It’s like when we first learned long division. It wasn’t enough to give the right answer, we had to show the teacher “our work”. How we got there, so they know it wasn’t simply luck, memory, or a hidden calculator.

From onboarding to strategic planning, to compensation models, to playbooks, I could do on and on but how success was achieved—or not, if I’m screening for a client.

But sometimes, what we’re capable of accomplishing simply comes down to "why" and the traits we have or the traits you don’t have.  In the case of my most recent guest on Over Quota, Ramsey Al Ramahi, 3 traits that came to my mind as I was analyzing the why behind his accomplishments were, curiosity, desire, and a bias towards action.

In this episode, you’ll hear how he went from selling Bakluvit (a family recipe) to a tech sales leader in less than 5 years.

Yes, we dug into strategy and execution, but those 3 traits, curiosity, desire and a bias for action were the hallmarks, from my assessment, as to why he just accepted a CRO role--achieving yet another professional goal.