CMO of 6sense, taking the guesswork out of predictable revenue growth with the power of AI and insights to uncover buyers already in market.
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As a parent, I want to open up possibilities for my kids. But I’m also painfully aware that no amount of parental support will make them achieve a goal they’re not committed to. Which is how, in my household, we coined a motto: “You gotta wanna.” I tell my boys, “I can buy you the best soccer shoes. I can sign you up for lessons. I can practice with you in the yard. But I can’t make you play your heart out and earn that MVP trophy. To achieve that goal, you gotta wanna.”
This motto applies in the professional environment too. You can have all the tech, resources and support possible, but in order to achieve big goals, you gotta wanna.
Marketing teams can unlock possibilities we couldn’t have dreamed up a few years ago thanks to new tools that are available. But you gotta wanna change the game. You gotta wanna tie your efforts directly to predictable revenue growth. You gotta wanna transform how you see yourself and your role.
The Straightest Line From Marketing To Revenue
Most marketers want to make a big impact and be closer to revenue. But many are hindered by old-school beliefs about marketing: like that we’re just here for demand generation or that our connection to revenue all neatly falls into the “marketing-sourced” bucket.
But the fact is that marketers can future-proof bookings, therefore directly tying their efforts to revenue, by predictably developing the best pipeline—even if the typical “marketing-sourced” motion is not the most efficient way to do it.
As marketing leaders, we should zoom out and think about all the places pipeline can possibly come from to focus on what’s likeliest to close fastest with the best conversion rates. We are the stewards of pipeline.
That’s a big change of perspective, and it’s one that marketers gotta wanna take the lead on to link their roles more directly to revenue.
Measure The Right Things
Being a steward of pipeline requires changing how we measure the success of our efforts. Rather than gauging success with marketing-qualified leads (MQLs), we should look at metrics directly tied to pipeline, starting with the sales velocity formula, which includes:
• Win rates.
• Conversions.
• Cycle times.
Optimizing your sales velocity formula—measuring on the aggregate, and by source, vertical and region—is the best way to provide value. That means ensuring sales works the deals that will close faster, at a higher average selling price and with better win rates.
By keeping a close eye on these metrics over time, you can pour gas on what’s working or fix what isn’t.
Embrace The Quota
Once you’ve made the switch to focusing on pipeline, it makes sense to have quotas based on that. But pipeline quotas aren’t as straightforward as sales quotas.
In sales, goals are often set by company leadership or the board. As the steward of overall pipeline, not only do you need to achieve your goals, but you also have to manage what they are based on changing conditions. If your cycle times are increasing, pipeline goals might need to increase. If conversions improve, pipeline goals might need to be adjusted downward.
Marketing leaders can adjust to ever-changing conditions by focusing on the sales velocity formula, which is key to determining how much pipeline their teams need to create and by when. Reassess your goals quarterly (at least). Inspect every go-to-market segment and channel. Determine what percentage of pipeline will come from inbound, outbound and channel marketing and the corresponding sales velocity formula for each. This way you can see whether you need to adjust your assumptions to create your pipeline quotas.
Find The Red
Another benefit of looking at pipeline performance frequently is that it allows you to address shortfalls early—before you get to a sales forecast, where there are fewer levers available to address shortfalls.
Identifying issues as they come up requires a culture of “finding the red.”
That’s a practice that doesn’t necessarily come naturally to marketers, who tend to focus on the wins. I love that about us, but to protect pipeline, we should shelve that tendency.
As a leader, you can condition your team to come to you with problems as well as successes. Let them know that you don’t just want to hear the good stuff. You want to know what’s going sideways too so you can help get it back on track.
One key to finding the red as a revenue team is to share a common, transparent revenue operating model with a shared understanding of all the calculations that go into it. That way, you don’t waste time debating the validity of your numbers. You can clearly see what’s red and already be on the same page so you can address it.
I recently saw the benefits of this approach when, in examining conversion rates with my sales leader, we saw a trend we didn’t like. We dug in deeper and realized that when we had six or more individuals in an account involved in a deal, win rates doubled. So, we enacted a series of revenue plays to engage the right number and type of contacts at each stage.
These included marketing and sales plays that all had the same goal: to increase revenue. And it was only possible because we take a whole-team approach to finding the red.
So … Do You Wanna?
If you want to do your best work as a marketing leader today, there’s no way around it: You have to change the way you operate. It won’t be easy. Systemic changes require a special kind of leadership—the kind that elicits buy-in not just from your own team but also from your peers and company leadership.
To drive change, you’ll need to adopt the mindset that you gotta wanna be the steward of pipeline. To be honest, that’s probably more challenging than the role you currently hold. But it can also give you much more impact on your business overall—and on revenue specifically.
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