Why Are Traditional GTMs Dying?

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome back to the Marketing in Minutes podcast. I'm your host Colby Klusherman. And I'm not going to say I'm super excited to be here today, but I am, um, um, because we are joined for the third time by Matt Bullion, who is the co founder and CEO of Super so Matt, welcome back.

Speaker A: I am even super bound, more excited. There we go.

Speaker B: How many puns can we fit into an intro? Um, you haven't listened to our episodes from earlier. Ah, we've talked about HubSpot CRM versus other CRMs. We've talked about demand generation and demand capture super great conversations. And we're going to wrap up these convos with Matt with a good one. And that is why our traditional GTMs or go to markets dying. So let's, let's jump right in. Matt, what are some key factors that you think are contributing to the decline of traditional go to market strategies?

Speaker A: There are a lot of ways to define go to market. Uh, I think here when we say the word traditional, we mean things like outbound, um, or inbound, uh, or uh, channel led. Right. There's all these different things to think about. Those I'm going to. When I, when I hear the word traditional, I think outbound sales, right? Like cold outbound outreach. And so he said what is. So I'm going to define it as that. So the first off, what is that then? That is me taking a list of people and sending them emails to generate leads. Why is this dying? So first off, I'm going to say, uh, let me give you again, I love stories. So let me tell you stories is, um, I looked at my phone the other day and I maybe I should. I looked at my phone and I looked at my call list, I looked at my missed calls and you'll see you can't see this, you can't see this number, you can't see my phone, right? But you see this red. You see all those numbers, they don't have names. Those are called cold calls. I have not answered a cold call in maybe three years. Me. And because it's a personal space and the phone is a personal space meant for my friends and my family or those that I have invited in. So when we think about these traditional, like what has led to that? What has led to this being a place where I don't want anyone but my personal friends and family going to. Before the Internet, this is. Sounds like a big story before the Internet, uh, is sales. Sales and businesses owned the sales seller journey. Like they could go to event on a person and see the entire and they could control how people consumed because they would give them flight like they controlled how people consumed. Uh they control uh. They controlled how they interacted with you and they controlled when they interacted with you you and they owned the entire journey. There's also not. You also own pricing. It was a black box like customers did not own that anymore. With Internet you have a perforation of the ability to search. You find Google search, you find the ability and over time this idea and you've heard if you go to the demand gen versus demand gen and lead capture so you think about marketing and the idea of lead capture and and then sales and sales has lost control of the buyer's journey. And um what you traditional if you think about waterfall math it is again the same thing. You say I need to make this number of calls and this number of calls will have this conversion ratios to SQLs and this number of SQLs will have this conversion ratios to opportunities. It's the same waterfall math that says I need quantity and then from quantity I can create quality deals and just consumer patterns. Call it the Amazon Amazon Amazonification of consumer buyers but it's of B2B buyers has fundamentally changed the way people buy today. And if you cold call somebody or you cold LinkedIn somebody that's never heard about you they are less likely they'll actually X you from you even have an opportunity. And the conversion ratios for outbound anything have even email opens have just seen a dramatic decrease. And so traditional go to markets with this outbound cult approach have been dying as journeys become non linear in a dark social because it's an attention and where it's a demand gen first attitude that wins.

Speaker B: So when we talk about how companies who have in the past use traditional GTMs and we talk about them evolving into this new the customer dynamics and the very much nonlinear buyer's journey where do what do you say to them? If they say I want to keep up, I want to do what I can but they just don't know where. Where do you point them?

Speaker A: 100% of your actions represent 100% of your beliefs. So when I'm talking to a CEO um, it's hey, I hear you telling me that this is important for you to do but I look at where you're spending your money and you have just hired another SDR and you did not hire someone to make content for you. You do not believe this. Why would you guys sit there for a second like do you actually believe that hiring Another salesperson and them going pounding the street is going to generate. Is that the most efficient use of your money to decrease your cac. Do you believe that? And you have to sit there and you just have to look at it and ask and it's like, yes, you do believe that. The question is, are you wrong? I think you are. Here's why. Then lead them through that. So that's like, well, but it's like very start. You got to like just call people where they're at. Now you go to. Okay, what is right is. So this is, this is hard. Like you almost have to see the results it's going to take. Is um, you're hearing this new term, I think inbound was probably the first start of this. It's the ability to capture, uh, people's attention, uh, via Google search. It's to say inbound really means I want people coming to me to ask for help. I think a better term for this nowadays and you're starting to hear it is near bound, all bound. So uh, it's this. I am a planet and I have a gravitational pull and how do I increase the gravity so more things are rotating around me. That's really like. So it's this near bound, it's this all bound. So outbound is not bad. But what if there was a world where there was never such thing as cold outbound. Everything was warm. So example, let me give an example. I did a, um, a Revop summer school academy with HubSpot where I talked about go to market. And by the way, we defined it differently but I thought I talked about how to do go to markets in this full Revop summer class. And um, it is now, it was the most successful webinar that Westbot's ever done. It has the most views on YouTube. And I literally get people asking me now, matt, can you help me do this? I don't know who you are. I don't even work there anymore. And go over here and there's a gravitational pull of creating valuable content. Talking about the same subject over and over again with people in your ecosystem over and over again. You'll start creating planets. You might join a gap. Like you might join a, um, let's say you'll uh, have like a sun. The sun for me is like HubSpot or rotating around it. But then you have other planets that look like you that you're all doing together and you start to create a solar system. Then you join a galaxy and you have a universe. You just gotta understand where you fit within that and how you create gravitational pull. So how are you the biggest inside that do I know? So I'll stop there. So you ask questions. But there's a lot that goes into very tactical ways. Just like philosophically there's a change that has to occur.

Speaker B: Yes and no. That makes total sense. And I love the analogies that you have. I think those are super helpful in like getting people able to picture this is what has to change. So.

Speaker A: Or you can shoot meteors at uh, outbound, which is not helpful. I can just look at this. They're not gonna even hit. They're gonna burn up before they come in.

Speaker B: So it sounds like this kind of relates quite a bit back to our original conversation when we talked about demand gen and demand capture is if you, if you're pivoting from these traditional GTMs you gotta shift that mindset. But once you do, and I'm obviously easier said than done, um, you have to focus on demand generation and creating helpful content and creating communities and information that people want. Is that on base? Would you add anything to that?

Speaker A: Where people are and while they're consuming in non linear consumption patterns. So real example is that I produce a piece of content every single day on LinkedIn about four different themes. Which is HubSpot is an enterprise system. Your CRM is not a product, it's not a project is a product. The hub illusion is here and don't pay the salesforce tax. And I talk about those things every single day in different ways and provide valuable content. And I create. You create a gravitational pool of people who share those opinions and also somewhere to go and talk to such like that. That's a very specific way.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that's a great example. Obviously if you're listening to this, you're going to have to pivot that into what what's your like what do you want to be at the center of your universe and how do you create that pull to your planet? Like that's what you have to do for yourself is finding that value. Um, but I think just that example is a great place for people to start. So I'm gonna wrap us up here but I'm gonna give you the last word. Any, anything you want to add about these GTMs and how people need to evolve if they want to stay in the game, so to speak.

Speaker A: I love it. Pick your son that you will rotate around. That is your topic. That's what you known for. And if you are a CEO or a COO today and you do not have someone on your executive team producing content consistently. Stop and start doing that. Don't ask more questions.

Speaker B: Love it. Enough said. No more questions. So, Matt, thank you so much for joining us. These have been super informative conversations. Thank you. Everyone should go check out his LinkedIn. Um, you have lots of great stuff on there, so I'll certainly link that in our show notes. Um, but, yeah, thank you so much. We really appreciate your time.

Speaker A: It was a pleasure. Thank you.

Speaker B: Thank you all for spending a few minutes with us and we'll see you next time. Bye.