Go-to-market mavericks: Heath Barnett on GTM alignment, customer context, and more [video]

We recently talked to Heath Barnett, Vice President of Revenue at Mixmax, about taking a more holistic approach to go-to-market as part of our recent event: Scaling revenue: from PMF to IPO.

Here are three of the top takeaways from that conversation (check out the full recording above).

1. Think in outcomes, not departments

With companies prioritizing sustainable growth over growth at all costs, spending your way to value is no longer a viable option.

“VCs are not cutting the same checks that they used to cut,” Heath said. “They're expecting you to actually be more efficient with the money that you do have and the burn rate you have.”

The solution? Getting serious about GTM optimization, from top-of-funnel to deal closed-won to expansion and renewal.

Departmental silos stand in the way. Hence why top-performing companies are starting to insist on a more integrated approach to revenue growth.

“I think revenue teams are now a blend of operators and sellers,” Heath said. “And what I mean by that is the departmental approach of marketing does this, sales does this, customer success does this—those days are over. It's all about how to create this one fluid go-to-market motion that has everything connected.”

Put another way: It doesn’t matter if marketing hits its MQL number if reps miss quota. Every team should be aligned on what success looks like and how to get there, together.

“The end goal is the same,” Heath said. “How do we actually provide a delightful customer experience? How do we actually show recurring impact for that customer? And then how do we unlock value? The biggest difference between how we do that now is that it takes everyone being on the same page, where it's a one-team-one-dream mentality.”

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2. Share and share alike across GTM

To achieve alignment, all of GTM—marketing, sales, success—should engage in regular strategy planning and knowledge-sharing.

“Historically, we had this throw-it-over-the-fence mentality where marketing was like, ‘Hey, here're your MQLs, let me throw it over to sales. Sales, you go close that,’” Heath said. “Whereas now, I have conversations on a daily basis with my marketing team where it's like, ‘Cool, here're our MQLs, what were the conversion rates of those? Okay, why did those convert? Why did those not convert? What channels are they actually coming through? How can we then make sure that, depending on what channel they come through and what content they consume, they go into the right conversation with the sales team?’”

The more teams build a feedback loop, the easier it is for them to learn from and empower each other.

“It used to be that just marketing was focused on the customer journey,” Heath said. “We all know the different stages of buyer awareness. And what happened historically was marketing hit the nail on the head there, and then when it got to sales, it just went through another generic sequence where sales was like, ‘Oh, cool, okay, you want us? Let's have a conversation.’ And sales made a lot of assumptions rather than taking that goal that marketing was able to uncover and actually using that goal to have a meaningful conversation, a more personalized conversation.”

Today, smart sellers layer in personalized, relevant insights from across channels into each sales convo (and smart CS teams carry them through to onboarding).

This is why providing GTM teams with more context for every prospect and company is crucial.

“We're going from this kind of one-size-fits-all mentality to how do we be more adaptable and make sure that the conversations we have are the conversations that our customers care about?” Heath said.

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3. Meet buyers where they are

The VC boom times made it easier for reps to win over prospects who weren’t necessarily on the hunt for a new solution.

“I think the acquisition mentality was, ‘I'm going to convince you that you need my tech,’” Heath said. “And during that time, guess what? They had budget. So they're like, ‘Cool, I'll add it. Let's see if it actually works.’ Whereas now we don't have that convenience.”

Today it’s much more important to meet buyers where they are, not where you want them to be.

“Five years ago we tried to convince somebody why we should have a conversation,” Heath said. “Whereas I think today, if you're doing go-to-market effectively, you are engaging buyers when they are ready to be engaged and you have the right to have a conversation because they are showing you that they want to have a conversation.”

In other words: signal-based selling.

Sometimes prospects send out buying signals. Sometimes it’s the companies they work for. The key is to be able to quickly identify those signals and use them to craft outreach built around real wants, needs, and priorities.

“That's our whole goal at Mixmax,” Heath said. “How do we help sales and revenue teams actually know who to contact, when to contact them, what channel to contact them through, and then how to engage them in a meaningful way?”

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These are just some of the takeaways from our conversation with Heath Barnett.

Watch the recording for the full story.

And stay tuned for the next edition of Go-to-market mavericks!

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