From PLS pioneers and OSS innovators to cutting-edge enterprises, Go-to-market mavericks is where we talk to GTM leaders about the strategies and tactics they use to drive results.
We recently talked to Michelle Vu, Vice President of Sales, Customer at G2, about winning with context in B2B sales and a whole lot more.
Here are three of the top takeaways from that conversation (check out the full recording above).
1. ICP is about more than acquisition
Analyzing closed-wons. Arguing over dream logos. Debating firmographic fit criteria.
Revenue teams put a lot of time and effort into determining their ideal customer profile. It’s the basis of everything from lead scoring to account prioritization.
AI-powered lead and account scoringCommon Room’s signal-based scoring creates contextual lead and account scores based on machine learning-enriched fit and behavioral data. Scores—and the context behind them—are refreshed daily using your custom rules, parameters, and weighting.
But the focus is generally on winning new business, not necessarily keeping it around.
“It can be a very expensive mistake if you put all your eggs in one basket and that basket does not retain,” Michelle said.
Depending on your business model, you may not feel the sting of an ICP mismatch for multiple renewal cycles. But you will feel it.
That’s why it’s not enough to convince buyers to believe in what you’re selling, according to Michelle. You also have to make sure that your product or service delivers real business impact for your ideal customers.
This starts with talking to them. And while listening in on sales calls can be helpful, Michelle is a big proponent of letting others stakeholders—like product or marketing—take the lead.
Her view is that customers are more likely to be open and honest if they’re less wary of being sold to.
“I think it's human nature,” Michelle said. “Maybe just having been a salesperson, I know sometimes people are like, ‘What's she going to do? What's she going to ask me? Is this a leading question?’ So I think it brings the barrier down.”
2. AI wins compound over time
GenAI is everywhere, and it can feel overwhelming—especially if you’re starting from square one.
That said, if you’re not experimenting with how AI can help you in your day-to-day work, you’re missing out on potential performance boosts.
Michelle and the team at G2 approach it from the lens of consistently testing out different use cases, finding quick wins, and adding to them over time.
The organization has a Slack channel dedicated to ideas from teammates about different ways that they can use AI to get 10% of their time back or achieve 10% more.
“People are throwing in ideas all the time, like, ‘I tried this and I used this and this was the outcome,’” Michelle said. “It's just like, ‘What are you testing out?’ Because if you're not testing and you're not doing anything, you're a year and a half behind.”
Right now it’s standard practice for G2’s sales reps to use AI for call prep and call notes, important-but-time-consuming tasks that AI excels at.
Research agentCommon Room’s research agent scours the open web to answer any account-level research questions that need answering. Out-of-the-box and custom prompts let you instantly spotlight key information to power outbound, from earnings calls and annual financial statements to user sentiment and product feedback.
But Michelle’s just as excited about how AI can be used to quickly analyze accounts and help reps zero in on different signals and contextual details that may spur creative approaches to deals.
“Thinking outside the box of what you normally have been doing is a good use of AI,” Michelle said.
3. Deep context reduces deal risk
Comprehensive research and account planning takes more time upfront, but it pays dividends down the road. Especially for larger, more complicated deals.
But it’s not just about reading through 10-Ks and CEO interviews. It’s also about having frank conversations with prospects about the realities of the purchase process.
The last thing any rep wants is to get a verbal commit and then have the rug pulled out from under them because they didn’t dig deeper into internal decision-making procedures.
Michelle is a fan of getting the hard questions out of the way early in the deal cycle, from decision paths to timelines. The goal is to figure out your potential blockers as far in advance as possible.
“I think if we stop to do that, yes, it slows things down a little bit in the now, but it's going to definitely pay off in the future,” Michelle said.
This is doubly important at a time when it’s harder to get deals across the finish line without CFO sign-off.
Multithreading your way to the head of finance’s inbox can be a tall mountain to climb, but Michelle says it’s vital that they understand the value of what you’re selling and the pain it’s solving.
Prospecting agentCommon Room’s prospecting agent retrieves prospects and companies from a proprietary, constantly refreshed database of more than 200 million B2B contacts and accounts based on your custom filtering criteria. These people and organizations are then enriched via machine learning-powered models.
“The CFO needs to be your best friend,” Michelle said. “If there has not been a discussion about the head of finance or whatever it's called in that organization, they are going to look at [the contract] … the head of finance is looking at every contract [...] in most deals, no matter what the size.”
These are just some of the takeaways from our conversation with Michelle Vu.
Watch or listen to the recording for the full story.
And stay tuned for the next edition of Go-to-market mavericks!
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