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#42: Overcoming 'No Decision' Outcomes and Boosting Buyer Confidence (Part two)
How can small B2B software and service companies overcome the growing trend of 'no decision' outcomes? Join us to find out why traditional go-to-market strategies are struggling to keep up and how incremental improvements can lead to significant growth. Our conversation highlights how educating buyers—not just selling to them—can guide them toward the most suitable solutions, ultimately ensuring a smoother sales journey.
Welcome to the GTM Pro Podcast, your essential audio resource for mastering go-to-market discussions in the boardroom. Here we share insights for revenue leaders at B2B software and services companies, especially those with less than $50 million in revenue. Why? Because the challenges faced by companies of this size are unique. They are too big to be small and too small to be big. This dynamic pushes revenue leaders into executive leadership without a lot of help or support. We are here to provide that support. Your journey to boardroom excellence starts now. Welcome back to GTM Pro.
Gary:Okay, we covered a lot of ground last week, and so consider this part two of a two-part series podcast, which, honestly, wasn't intended. But we realized that we were going way deep last week and we just flat out ran out of time. So we created a part two to this Um, and so I'm going to do a quick recap and you guys jump in if I missed anything, andy and Tiana Um, but the. So one of the observations that we've seen over and over again is that everything that used to work is harder than ever Like all of the usual motions and go to market, used to be very reliable, got less and less so, and now they all seemingly fell apart at the same time, and I think we're all in this perfect storm of trying to figure out what, what works and how and why, and everybody's looking for the silver bullet. A lot of discussion about AI and how to automate things, and I think we all believe that those are inevitably going to fall to the law of shitty click-throughs, because if everybody's doing it and I'm the recipient of it, you can sniff through it and figure out. You know it works today and it may work at the margin, but I wouldn't build a business on that. Necessarily It'll become part of the motions. But so what do we do?
Gary:Well, a big thing of what we're seeing in the market today, if you combine some forces here, is a big no decision. And let's actually start with that. Like, why are we seeing no decision be such a pernicious outcome for so many deals that we're coming into? And I would argue that it's understated, because we actually see the deals that actually get to the point where they want to talk to a salesperson. That ended no decision. We would argue that there are far more that die in the vine before they even get there because they've realized that there's so much to dig into, there's so much to learn they haven't properly identified the inputs, that they never, especially when 60, 70% of a buyer's journey is done before they ever reach out to sales. So it's understated for sure, but the factors that affect decision confidence are beyond our control and getting worse. And it's no doubt an overwhelming number of companies in any particular segment or options, but also alternative options or tangential options.
Gary:If we think about AI, again, excessive information we just talked about that. The amount of information that people are pushing out into the world makes it extremely difficult for our buyer to wade through. What should I actually be looking at? What can I trust? How do I think about this? What speaks to me? And, frankly, a lot of work is placed on them because of that. More isn't better.
Gary:And then, lastly, the increased risk of failure is higher than it's ever been because organizations are lean. Many of them are struggling to hit specific growth targets. Frankly, a lot of them have had previously failed implementations or conversions or flip overs, rip outs of previous systems. It may be completely unrelated to your system, but the scar tissue is still there, either personally with an individual or with an organization. So all of this is mounting, and not just bad today, but getting worse. That leads us to no decision. And so our entire engine, our everything that we do is in service to two things bringing decision, confidence and trust in us. And so how do we get to that decision confidence?
Gary:Well, buyers are thinking about three different questions. How do I know I'm making the right choice? And we go into a lot more detail in the previous podcast, so I'm not going to do it now. So listen to last week's podcast. We'll put the link in the show notes. Have I done enough research? What am I missing? And I think that's a big challenge for a lot of organizations, because we tend to think of it as direct competitors that often come up in the conversations that we have, but the buyer doesn't look at it that way. They're thinking about all the ways to solve the problem. Have they really thought through it and what are the alternatives that I have beyond just our direct competitors? And then, lastly, how can I be confident I'll actually get to the promised outcome? And that's one that comes with some cynicism because of previous experience. So those are the biggies.
Gary:So why do we tackle all this? Well, if we think about how difficult it is today to get a net new eyeball to our site, to our ecosystem, however they may come in. Then we recognize that once we get especially if it's an ideal customer profile who is in some form of open to learn, open to change or open to buy we can't afford to miss anywhere in that process to deliver decision, confidence and trust. And the way that we can do that is to look at each specific zone and be making those improvements, and by zone. We'll get into that in a second.
Gary:But these small compound improvements a 3% improvement in a demo request getting the opportunity, a 3% improvement in win rate, a 2% improvement in the ACV, because we've eliminated discounting, because we've established value, we've provided more confidence in their ability to get to the desired outcome. And because of that and doing that and being proactive and anticipating their needs, not only specifically with the champion but in the buying process we can take seven days as an example off of the sales cycle those little three, two and 3% improvements compound to deliver a 35% new business growth annually. Like pick any one thing that you think you could do, that you believe would deliver 35% growth. Like everybody's looking for the easy button or the silver bullet, but it's sitting there right in front of us in stitching together these compound improvements. So that's why we do this and that's what we're going to dig into. So, before we dive into how we do that, what would you add to that, andy and tiana? Or correct modify that?
Andy:was. That was pretty darn comprehensive. I mean, I'm ready to jump into defining the zones and explaining that. We've kind of had a lot of this wrong um all along, but I I think what really struck me, as you were saying that was we're giving a lot of work to people and I don't think it's gotten worse, I don't think that's gotten better. I think we're not really being helpful, we're not really leading that process very well. We have this curse of knowledge where we know our products so well, intimately, all the features why everybody should use every single one, and we want to get that out in the world. But that's not very helpful and actually it's confusing and it gets people stuck.
Gary:Yep, yep, okay, let's do that, let's dive in. So before, before we dive into how to fix that, we first need to define for whom are we fixing it. And that is a solid definition of who is the buyer. And a lot of organizations will say they have a handle on their ICP and their buyer. But it is helpful, because if you were to go around and I suggest everybody do this go around and spot check the organization and randomly ask people can you tell me who our ideal customer profile is and their buyer and see what kind of answers you get back? My guess is they'll be wildly divergent. It's thematically the same, but the devil is in the details. So let's talk a little bit about how we define.
Gary:Let's start with ICP, which is a company profile, ideal client customer profile. There's two levels. We refer to it as level one, which is the observable metrics, and these are the ones that we can often go out into the world and do our Zoom info filters and find some candidates. The most likely are firmographic variables industry size, location, things like that. The next number of locations, even the next, would be technographic, which in many cases we may find that we need a certain technology set of technologies that need to be deployed. That indicate maybe it's a proxy or maybe it's very directly like we're built on top of Salesforce.
Tiana:So if you don't have Salesforce, this isn't going to work as an example.
Gary:And then there's a third observable that we call attributes and signals observable that we call attributes and signals, and by this we mean back to the structure of the organization, the kinds of customers to whom they sell. They're growing because they're adding headcounts, they just launched a new product, things that are out in the world that you can see, that may actually be points in time variables that help us understand those attributes. So that's the level one, kind of observable set of information. Level two, then, though, is what we would call under the hood, and that takes an analysis of our existing customer base to really identify the next layer down that's a little less visible and helping to clarify, for example, who is their customer and how do they make money. And that may or may not be specifically relevant, but there may be some dynamics they're associated with.
Gary:It's the kind of maybe that is an industry, or it could be multiple industries, but it's a certain type of customer. Perhaps it's an enterprise buyer, perhaps those organizations sell into, say, healthcare and financial services, highly regulated industries, as an example. The fact that they sell to those types of companies has an implication for their business that creates a set of problems that your product is perfectly suited for. Sometimes you could call that firmographic, but we need to understand that it's actually their customers that they sell to, because we may have multiple industries actually that sell into those end verticals. And then how do they make money? Are they selling widgets? Are they selling subscription? Are they selling usage? That will have an implication as well. So that's one example. Another is how the business is organized. Sometimes, if it's essentially, we may have two businesses that look exactly the same, but if one is centralized and one is decentralized, the decentralized organizational structure is actually important in the dynamics that create the problem in the first place, whereas a centralized structure may have less of that problem, as an example, centralized structure may have less of that problem, as an example.
Gary:And then, thirdly, which is often overlooked as well, is what are the minimum capabilities of the organization required to get to the moment of value? We see this a lot with data-oriented products, where, in theory, the organization of a variety of sizes can get value from the product, but in order for them to really do so, they need some core capabilities on the data side. Whether it's the structure of the team, it's BI capabilities, whatever that may be, there's some core capability that's required, and if you don't have it, that means then that in order for them to get to the value, you're going to have to solve for that. And that's very difficult for a software to do is to come in and build up internal capabilities that are required there. So that is how we think about ideal customer profile and literally going through that with the team and putting that down on paper in a block that then can be shared with everybody. Like this is who we sell to, and this is why is very important.
Gary:So I'll pause there before we get into buyer group, anything you want to add there? Team.
Andy:Well, what we were talking about before we hit record was that that problem? The why is part of the ideal customer profile. So when you go around and you pull everybody at the company, what's the ideal customer profile? So when you go around and you pull everybody at the company, what's our ideal customer profile? You're typically going to get that firmographic first level. If you do get agreement at all, it's going to be probably on that, but rarely are you in sync with why you serve them. What's that MVP for getting to the moment of value? Because that's so critical? Because if we go back around and think about what we're trying to do here and get to decision, confidence that's integral to that. It's not selling a whole bunch of things to people, it's not starting big, it's starting with punch through and have people see that, have people see that promise as you just said that literally, a visual came to me and we'll post this as well.
Gary:That is, if you think about everything we just described in terms of defining ideal customer profile, it's like take that little block of information and then stick it in the middle of the ICP conditions that sit between desired outcome and problem statement. I think that's a good way to visualize it. Okay, so let's get to the buyer group then. So we obviously again almost a similar level one, level two. We have our traditional roles, so we have the champion, we have end users and then what we have we call shadow buyers, and these are pieces of the organization or departments, people, what have you that aren't necessarily formally part of the procurement process. So a lot of times we think of these as IT security legal. What have you? Literally just this morning got off a call deal review call with a client and one of the salespeople was lamenting that the IT security group of the division was really the conduit to the decision maker, which is the IT security of the parent corporation, and the IT security team at the subsidiary basically wanted our client to do all the work necessary to give them to the parent corp, even though all the information is already there. So that's a classic example of what's you know, procurement that we have to navigate. But there's also organization, uh, departments, people, individuals who are tangentially connected. There may be departments, sister departments, next to each other that can't necessarily, uh, champion the deal, but they can certainly kill it and that may come from simply just having a competing priority. So we need to we need to understand that as well, but being very clear about as we go through these buyer processes. This is part of decision confidence. If we have a strong champion that comes in and they, in order for them to have success with our product, they need the end users, the other stakeholders, to be on board and we don't provide them the ability to know that they can get that buy-in, then they're not going to be confident and we may very well end up in a no decision deal.
Gary:The next layer down is the why. So in this case, it's as we think about the champion. What are the goals? The department goals, personal goals, company goals? How do those all align? What is it they're trying to do and why are they trying to do it?
Gary:Also important, how are they getting this done? Today? This is a job to be done, it is getting solved. It may not be pretty, they may not like it, they may not even be able to articulate very well, but it is getting done in some way. And then what is it and this is really important what is it that makes the status quo tolerable? And this is where we don't want to go deep on jobs to be done theory, but we have a series of forces that are pushing us in the direction of the promised land and a series of things that are pulling us back. What are those pull forces that people are willing to tolerate a lot of pain if there is a perceived amount of pain on the change side. So we need to understand that as well. And then we now we understand the buyer group and what they're going through, and if we can articulate and put down specifically all those boxes, we now understand our ideal customer profile and better understand ICP and the buyer group. And better yet, we've memorialized it with depth for the benefit of the entire team. And now everybody has that clarity. So that's the first step.
Gary:So the next piece we talked about. So take everything we just talked about. Now we talk about how does the buyer define the problem, and I actually think I heard this morning that a problem well-defined is 50% of the solution, and this is a case that we, as sellers, often overlook. As sellers often overlook, and that is that when companies will often come in with because they're experiencing symptoms of the core problem and they often prescribe a solution, they've said well, these are the symptoms I'm having. So I think this is the problem and therefore I'm going to go out and get the solution. We hear the ingredients that we need to hear and we're really excited about it, and so we start talking about how we're going to solve the symptoms.
Gary:The problem is they move on and they look at other solutions, which they will do. I mean, if they're looking at you, they're looking at other solutions and that the, the, the pursuit or the evaluation of those things, or it could be. Why are you looking at? It could be a friend. Why are you looking at those? We solved it this way. It causes them to go back to the. Well, I'm like, wait a minute, have I actually what is my problem? Have I defined that well? So this is why a thorough problem statement is so important, that we understand that. How are they defining it? And that is a result of the conditions that we just talked about Macro forces, company forces, departmental dynamics and the current solution all come together to I have a desired outcome. Apply those conditions on top of it and out comes the problem statement and that is often overlooked that we, how diligent we need to be to get to that problem definition, because if we don't, they're not going to be confident they're making the right decision.
Andy:The example that comes to mind there is when, in the real life case of people looking at solutions in the HR tech space, is they come to a demo call, for example, having looked at multiple solutions to your point.
Andy:They're always going to do that. But when they're pretty disparate and when in fact they don't make sense to be even comparing to one another, you quickly recognize there's an element of education that's required here for them just to be in the right ballpark to say if your problem is this and that's where it's really important to extract that as accurately as possible from them really understanding their situation to either be able to say that other one that doesn't make sense to even go with us makes more sense for you, or ours does. And it's for these reasons, how refreshing would that be just to have somebody guide you, like that, you know, on a demo call where it's like you know what they're actually better. Never happens and probably wouldn't but directionally. That's what people are looking for these days, not just to have a bunch of features thrown at them, but to actually be guided.
Gary:Yep, it's that analogy. The analogy that pops into my head is makes you think of somebody who's looking for a car. And they say they, you know, I have it because I need to. You know, get my kids around to youth sporting events and carpool and stuff like that. And they say what are you looking at? Well, I'm looking at a a little two door, four cylinder coupe. I'm looking at, you know, a Jeep and I'm looking at a Suburban. Well, theoretically, you can solve the problem with all three of those solutions, but you, we're, we're. We have clearly defined the problem differently. So let's unpack what we're really, what we're trying to get here. What is it? What is it your problem? Well, yeah, we could, we could run that specifically.
Andy:obviously one of those can be eliminated right out of hand.
Gary:I'm partial to Jeeps, but Don't buy a Jeep for that purpose. That's again defining the problem. Okay, so all right. So now, great, we have those as what we would call core components or pillars of how we think about this. What do we do with this? So the next thing is something we call buyer zones. So to help define that, let's contrast it with a buyer journey. A buyer journey, everybody intuitively understands, but the problem with a buyer journey, in terms of practical application, is there is no practical application. The buyer journey, in terms of practical application, is there is no practical application. We don't know where somebody is in their journey and we can see less and less of it as their word of mouth and they're on quote dark social and communities and Slack channels and all of those things. We don't know how they bounce around and sometimes even retrospectively, we can get to a deal and we can look back at all the touch points across our systems, but there's a bunch of other touch points outside of our systems that we'll never be able to see.
Andy:We definitely know. It's not linear, it's not linear and that's a fallacy. Right To draw this out and have this in this. These steps are what people? They never follow. Those steps in sequence, they never do.
Gary:And the much frequently shared Gartner chart of the buyer process and how it bounces around is a great example of that. So, however, what we can see and actually control are what we call the zones, which is the experiences that we effectively force our buyer into, and by those we mean we have everything from entry points, which are our website landing pages, even outbound, our own social channels what have you? There's a variety of entry points that we have, that they can come into our ecosystem, that we can see or influence or measure, and then we have what we call doors Actually, I would say that the team at Fletch probably coined that, but something we were right there with which are these avenues, these vehicles, these pathways, if you will, in order to pull people into where they need to go. So this is use cases and case studies and product pages and feature pages and additional white papers and information all of those ways that we can move people who are open to learn into deeper learning. Then we have some conversion point, and that can be either a typically some form of book, a demo, but can also be a get started, a self-service path, or both, and that creates some challenges as well, but there's an entire experience around that and then what happens immediately after that and what happens before the sales call. Then there's the sales call itself and then you can run through the sales process for the sales call. Then there's the sales call itself and then you can run through the sales process. Every one of those is an experience that we create and one builds on the next.
Gary:And what we have seen, if you go back to this compounding effect is that a lot of organizations try to solve for one place where there's a gap, when in reality it's the combination of these experiences that come together to create the problem. It's like we're throwing them forward from one experience to the next, but then there's a disconnect on what we say, which quickly erodes trust and confidence. Or there's even more questions that get opened up, and then we bring all that to the sales process and make them responsible for solving all of that. Bring all that to the sales process and make them responsible for solving all of that. And in cases where you have a sub even $50,000, certainly $20,000 ACV, you don't get many kicks at the can before they get to a decision that you may have one, maybe two calls and so to ask sales to solve all of that and deliver you. And deliver from starting zero to go to complete decision. Confidence is asking a lot because they only have so much time and they're only willing to invest so much.
Andy:Or said slightly differently, it's a lot to ask sales to try and steer the wrong buyer right, based on what they learned previously, which was essentially erroneous to their problem.
Tiana:Right.
Andy:Like and sales gets that a lot right. Sales gets these buyers that think the product does one thing for them based on stuff they read that you know it's got these features oh, it does. But in reality, and if you know sales doing their job, well, they, you know, they realize that's. That's not quite what the buyer was thinking in the first place.
Gary:Absolutely so now. Now, through the lens of getting to decision confidence, we can go in and look at each of these zones and think about the experience and begin to prioritize, also looking at the digital footprint that our buyers leave across these various zones to tell us where are the points of leverage that we have throughout this process, where do we see the leakage, what's the amount of effort required to upgrade the experience so that we are delivering this confidence and trust? And what might that look like? And you know, the one of the classic ways we talk about is use cases. People conflate use cases, case studies, testimonials. They are not the same thing, they are different. A use case is company agnostic and it is ideally.
Gary:If we go all the way back to the beginning, where we were talking about the ideal customer profile plus the problem statement, it is the merging of those two things. So we're talking about the conditions that an organization has that they're experiencing, which, by the way, are the variables that a individual will most likely relate to. Oh, I'm a company of X size, I'm structured this way, I'm trying to accomplish these things and I'm experiencing these company and department dynamics. Yeah, that sounds a lot like me. Great, because of that, you're probably experiencing this problem statement. Absolutely that that relates to me.
Gary:Now we can talk about how do we solve that problem, how do we get you to your desired outcome, given those conditions and given that problem statement. And that is a use case. And now we can start to layer in specific references to companies that have those exact same dynamics, regardless of industry, by the way, that have that use case and can talk through that. Now we can get to case studies where we are talking now more specifically about a company, a specific company, that has those same dynamics at play, but what was unique to their situation, and that gives somebody the ability to move from the context setting of the use case down to an individual specific situation in which they can see themselves, and then even further down as a testimonial, which is more about the outcome. It's more, you know, I would. I guess you could conflate case studies and testimonials, but that's Well.
Andy:Testimonials typically not going to get into the meat of the process like either a use case or a case study. It's going to be more fluffy. It's going to be like we like them.
Gary:It was great.
Andy:You got this great benefit from it.
Gary:Yeah, so that's really important, but those we're in the process of building again. What are we trying to do? Build trust and confidence, and one of the ways that we build certainly trust is by being transparent about here's actual customer, here's their situation, here's how they solved it, and confidence in not leaving out the gory details of what they went through, how they did it, and it's not just the product. It may be they had a unwilling group of stakeholders and here's how they got over that to get to the point of the moment of value. There's often so many things that we leave out that are actually the inhibitors to getting to confidence, that are outside of our product.
Andy:What do we see the most in a case study? Almost every single time it's a masked sales pitch for the product. It's a way to say, oh, somebody did this great thing and they use this product and it was magical. And it's very short on details. It's very because people are afraid that like, oh, if I get too specific and too prescriptive, it's going to omit a whole bunch of people that don't see it. That part of the bigger problem, which is we're putting way too much on the buyer to solve for and to figure it out, To try to figure that out.
Andy:So that is an example of the problem we're talking about.
Gary:In a situation, in a world or in an environment where they are bombarded with information that all says the same thing, where they are bombarded with information that all says the same thing, like everybody's testimonials, everybody's case studies, even use cases, say all of these people got to these outcomes, but rarely did it describe how, with the depth necessary to provide me confidence that I now believe. How do I know I'm going to get to the promised land? Well, this is how. Let us show you how get to the promised land.
Andy:Well, this is how. Let us show you how, yeah. And then to get to that experience again, if we're talking about these discrete places that we interact with customers, we're referring to as zones, it's really the interface with the buyer, right? That's what we're talking about. We control that. It's discreet by necessity, like we have to have a start and an end to that experience. It needs to be relatively tight, and that's that's how it's done. But if, if we aren't, if we aren't specific there, um, that's where it gets, that's where we get lost, that's where the buyer gets lost.
Gary:Well, and I think the amplification, or compounding then comes when we consider the experiences and what comes next in the experience, and anticipating the next set of questions and providing them structure or answers, or what have you so? Very simple example I come to a use case page. Where do you send me next? What questions am I likely to have after I hit this page? Do you provide me pathways to get there easily, or do I have to go search your site and navigate for that?
Gary:When I get to a point where I want to understand a demo, when you send me to the demo page, are you helping me understand what's going to happen, what I'm going to get? Why is this valuable, even answering additional questions so that I have confidence that the time that I'm going to invest in this demo is going to be time well spent? And then, immediately upon submission, what is the experience that I have? Do you provide me additional confidence that this is going to be great? More information that you're anticipating the next set of questions Prior to the demo, before I get to the call? Are we continuing the flywheel by moving you in a direction of additional education, reinforcement, trust? What have you that's consistent with why you got there in the first place. I think one of the things that we see is that more is not better. In a world where too much information, just throwing information at somebody and forcing them to wade through it, is bad. It's actually worse than giving them nothing.
Andy:I think that's. I keep thinking about it through the lens of the curse of knowledge. So throwing more out there, not being specific and prescriptive, not really leading in the use case. We're talking about not trying to describe that, but we know, we know our business so well, we know everybody should use all these features right, it goes back to that and it's jargon. A lot of times we use our own jargon and we just think people should understand that and it's kind of like getting past that clutter and really realizing what matters to them and it's, you know, it is. It's the use case. I keep going back to that. It's. It's very singular and specific there and the people get wrapped up around. Well, it's too, it's too narrow. Um, I'm we're, we're, we're bigger than this, we're broader than this. We appeal to way more people than that, bigger than this. We're broader than this. We appeal to way more people than that. And that's the dilemma that people run into and honestly need to get past, because if you lean that way, you are not creating decision confidence.
Gary:Right.
Gary:You're actually getting too much work back on the buyer again, yep.
Gary:So by focusing on these zones and getting into that level of detail, we can now prioritize where do we believe we have the gaps that either don't enhance decision confidence or actually deter decision confidence?
Gary:Now we have the ability for the team to prioritize those and lean into those segments and, with no additional demand, with no new programs, no new employees, you have an ability to make these 2% and 3% changes and, taking some time off the cycle, that compound to make some profound changes and can be done fairly quickly. And so that's why we advocate for this process. Is that it, you know we're in an environment where, look, is it going to solve the bigger picture of? We need to be in front of our ICP, we need more awareness, not immediately, but I would argue that the process of going through this actually helps you better articulate exactly who your ICP is, who the buyer group is, how they define the problem, how they think about getting to decision confidence. And all of that information you're going to put together to help accelerate and improve the process of getting somebody who is open to change, to open to buy, to confidently buy is going to help you also on the awareness phase as well, because that is what they're seeking.
Andy:I mean, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. It will create a virtuous cycle around that, right, the better you speak to your ICP, the more your ICP will pay attention to your ICP, the more your ICP will pay attention. It sounds so simple and we do need to get into. How can someone do this right? So we just talked about the various outward facing touch points, that we've created these zones right, and there's three elements to that that we've we've been looking at Right. We've been we've been looking at the buyer, the ICP collected, with the conditions around that which form a problem statement. So those things are all intertwined and and then and then the, the, the use case for that. So we have that all together and the metrics associated with it.
Tiana:Sorry, so the ICP, the use case the problem statement and the metrics.
Andy:If we have all those for each of those places that we're touching a customer, we can first of all determine if they're present. That's phase one, right. And then we can continue to go down the path of how well are we matched to that from what we're getting from feedback from customers and so on, how well they're progressing from the metrics perspective, and then how well they tie together from what we would call one facet to the next. Although it's not linear, do they all make sense collected with one another?
Gary:Yeah, and that's the idea of prioritization, right? Is that? The reality is go through, we're there's. No, we're never done, we're never done with this process. There's always room for improvement, and so we'll.
Gary:The knee jerk reaction is there's all these places for improvement, let's go out to tackle it all. Well, the reality is there are some places that are going to have a bigger impact than others, and they may have a bigger impact sooner than others, and so let's spend our time there, and it might be that it's in one zone and the continuation of another, in those two different places where they don't actually even touch each other. But that's where we've identified, both in metrics and in substance, that we're not delivering what the buyer needs there. And so let's go get that done, finish it, start it, finish it, and then now we can measure it, especially if we're looking at a cohort basis, to see how are people matriculating through here as they go through the zones, and that's what now helps us understand, and then we can go on to the next piece and the next piece. That's how you get to the compounding benefit, rather than seeking to go tackle it all at once.
Andy:Yep and to prioritize, right. So where is that leverage? So where are those big areas? It might just be traffic volume If we're looking at an entry point, coupled with we just aren't speaking to our ICP here, we aren't talking to the problem, and that gets uncomfortable for people, right, they feel like it's too narrow. We're bigger, we're broader than this, but that's what needs to happen there and you know, the recommendation would be go ahead and try that, go ahead and speak more specifically there. You can start with one, even One good area where you will be able to see and detect whether there is a delta in the metrics.
Gary:And there you have it.
Tiana:There are different ways to actually identify where you're good at and to speak more specifically. So, if you just like to try to use your own product and see where exactly it applies, where the experience is the best, I feel like that's one way to actually understand what you're doing and how you're doing it at your best, and what are people feeling with their experience and with your demo or your product as itself. And the other way would be basically well, just as you have already mentioned, just having a clear definition of who you're doing this for and trying to use that product like they would use it, to see exactly how you would be feeling throughout the process. If you're trying to find, try to think of the people that would actually use your product at in their best experiences, to identify who is actually having the best experience there. Yep.
Gary:I don't know. Just some ways you brought up something really important, which is just walking through. The zones that we described are owned by different departments and often built up over time with people who come and go. We end up with nobody ever really walking through the process from beginning to end, like what is my experience? What am I getting? What are the? Am I getting the questions? And we have, andy, to your point, the curse of knowledge. Like we're looking at it from our perspective, like well, of course this makes sense, but we don't have the context of the buyer is coming to us having visited 10 other sites, all of which say something kind of the same, maybe a little bit different, and I've just created more confusion. So that's really hard to see and why we need to take a step back and put on our buyer's glasses and walk through our process.
Andy:Yeah, that's really and I omitted that piece, which is you want to lay this out visually as comprehensively as possible. And some of this is, you know there's little offshoots and we talk about the requested demo versus, you know, a sign up on the spot for a trial plan or something like that, as those are different paths from that point forward. Right, and you can get very convoluted, very complicated very quickly. But layout, starting with your entry points and starting with one of those action paths, visually what's going on there and then to that earlier point, really looking at, am I speaking to that buyer around their problem statement and, you know, am I measuring these properly as something that's pretty critical? And often, you know, am I measuring these properly as something that's pretty critical and often, you know, underappreciated. But laying those out and seeing, am I, am I consistent with that message?
Gary:also Yep, yep, very important, okay. Well, there you have it, part two. That is the complete process, and we'll be summarizing this in our GTM short. So, if you have not yet subscribed, check out gtmproco and, uh, we'll be back with more next week. Until then, bye, bye, thank you, gobeaproco, and continue your path to becoming board ready with us. Share this journey, subscribe, engage and elevate your go-to-market skills. Until next time, go be a pro.