James Hanzimanolis’ Post

Growth at All Costs was killing SaaS And we're still not out of the woods yet. The Revenue Engine is still leaking everywhere. B2B SaaS invests millions to: - Generate MQLs that don’t close - Log outbound to the wrong targets - Generate pipeline that isn’t even real - Hire sales reps with unrealistic targets - Buy sales and marketing tools no one uses This results in: - Inefficient spend on marketing - Inefficient spend on the sales team - Inefficient spend on the revenue tech stack - Cost of Acquisition that is unsustainably high So, when easy capital stopped flowing, we got layoffs. But we didn't fix these problems overnight. Revenue Teams could no longer just throw money at ideas and see what works, but many simply cut budgets without a firm plan. We need to build the right foundation for the GTM Strategy, Process, Metrics and Systems to leverage resources and capital more efficiently. We broke down a framework in our Revenue Efficiency Pyramid. And we just updated it to make it even more clear. We shared this in yesterday's 📰 RevOps Weekly 📰 Get it here: https://bit.ly/4aT31de ✌️

For the 3rd time in 3 weeks, I saw layoffs—3 different IT consulting firms. The last one happened Tuesday, right before I jumped on a call with an account manager to talk shop. Before the call, I reviewed their website to learn about their BizDev efforts. This is what I saw: 130 Employees 11 Sales representatives 4 Marketers 94 SEO Blogs 4 Unverified Testimonials 0 Case studies 0 Unique positioning statements This is a team throwing people at a problem. They probably started with 2 - 3 SDRs who went through the meat grinder, trying to generate new business, finding minimal success. Then, they probably added more and more bodies, thinking that volume would solve the problem. But those teams have no value to share. If they did, it would be on the website instead of SEO blogs and generic positioning like (literally) “We solve challenges and scale growth.” Those teams have to work harder to close deals. Pressure increases because of higher overhead. That leads to desperate tactics. Prospects see desperation and run, making it harder to close. Everyone loses. As a marketer at one of these firms, you gotta fight for your team: Clarify your positioning, narrow your ICP, review client data, build case studies, verify testimonials, create sales enablement, and thought leadership. All this empowers your sales team, driving success—and protecting everyone's job. If you don't, your team will end up on the chopping block. 

What if I gave you all the leads you long for. Would your business fall apart? I won't be telling you that MQLs aren't the only metrics to measure marketing success. I've made my peace with this question at every pre-sale and end-of-month report and just nod along. But what if I gave it all to you. All 5, 10, 20, or 50 MQLs per month, just like that. → Would you close the deals? → Would you nurture the ones not ready to buy? → Would you respond fast enough to meet their needs? Often, we think the problem is 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 not having enough clients. No clients = no revenue. No revenue = layoffs. Simple, right? But more often than not, that’s not the real issue. It's a lack of strategic business direction. It’s broken delivery processes. It’s weak sales. Marketing doesn’t work in a vacuum. If your internal processes—sales and delivery—aren’t solid, marketing can’t swoop in and save the day. Prove me wrong.

Layoffs in Tech are slowing down But with the ZIRP mindset gone (thankfully, we can now get back to the basics of running sustainable businesses) as a CS leader we still need to be very focused on driving our companies forward. So, how can CS continue to add value? ✅ First, own your teams revenue targets. CSM’s should be owning their portfolio and the financials around their book of business. As a CS leader, you should be focused on driving these numbers. NRR, Expansions, Renewals are all a company-wide effort but the CS leader should be focused on driving the numbers ✅ Invest in your pipeline processes. A CS team should operate just like their sales counterparts. Having a weekly pipeline review meeting to cover renewals and expansions is critical. Have each CSM commit their deals and tighten up your process. Each deal should have concrete next steps and the right activity to keep it moving ✅ Focus on the cross-sell. For every account spend the time to map out the company and key stakeholders. Are there potential opportunities to have another division use your tool or another team? Dive into your accounts deeper to find cross-sell opportunities ✅ Do you have monthly accounts? Put together a program to convert them to yearly! Yearly customers have a 6.2x lifecycle vs monthly customers A majority of revenue in SaaS comes after the sale. We all know this and it’s still a big opportunity for many CS team to drive forward. What else can CS do to help drive the numbers? Let me know your thoughts 😃 

Few interesting discussions in the last few days -- How fast can a B2B tech startup achieve Product Market Fit (PMF). Can it be achieved within a year? Two years? Three? How about 6 months? Growth is an important indicator for PMF. However, there's another critically important indicator -- retention. Even more so -- retention over time. Not just one renewal, at the end of the first year. Retention over time shows customers really use the product (or service) and are satisfied with it, beyond their initial excitement. Let's explain with the following story that a colleague told. This happened in the last few years (numbers were changed a little). Company A grew its sales from $5M annually to more than $70M annually within 2 years. "Free" money was flowing in the market, and they sold like crazy. Everyone bought their product. That success and growth also led to a significant growth in their employee headcount. Did the company achieve product-market fit? And then the slowdown occurred. Customers started to reconsider every expense and cut budgets across the board. Company A took a huge customer churn on year 3. More than 40% of its customers did not renew their contracts. Sales plummeted. Massive layoffs followed. Does Company A still have a product-market fit? Did they ever? What do you think?

Things are slow. Deals stalling, layoffs, it's not necessarily getting brighter. But I heard a contrary opinion from Hannah Ajikawo yesterday She shared that there are companies out there spending big money to figure: ✅ how to make best use of AI ✅ re-structure their sales organizations, enable & train them ✅ opening their eyes to "new" methodologies like MEDPICC ✅ trying out new tools for go-to-market 👉 I'm curious to get more perspectives on this: ❓how are you observing the latest economic environment? ❓are they signs of recovery? ❓which sectors are spending money and which ones are bit more frugal? I hear more and more SaaS companies pursuing manufacturing, construction and real estate as traditional sectors to disrupt with tools and gadgets. Let me know

🚨 Public Service Announcement 🚨 You better get extremely good at what you do! In a world where layoffs are continuing to happen across the board And AI is not just a cool tool you play with on your phone every now and then Only the best will thrive! Here are 4 trends I am observing: 1. Lean - Startup Mentality Reevaluate how you do everything. From process to hiring to onboarding to training to prospecting. It all has to be reevaluated. "Doing more with less" is here to stay! Evaluate it, break it, innovate it, implement it, test it...Repeat! 2. Every role is revenue producing Yes, even you customer success 👀 Every role has a revenue responsibility. At least they do at the companies that are thriving right now. Every role owns prospecting. Every role owns setting meetings. Every role owns the pipe gen number. Every role owns the customer outcomes. 3. Close to the Business Im seeing a lot of orgs get extremely flat right now. The amount of times I am hearing "let me ping my CFO/CEO really quickly to run this by them" this year is INCREDIBLE. Hell, Im feeling it too. Ive spoken with and collaborated with my 4th and 5th line leaders more times this year than any other year in my career...COMBINED! Execs pinging me about about potential targets in accounts, where they can help, proactive outreach, leaning in on CSAT issues, etc. WORLD CLASS stuff! 4. Closest to the Customer It's no longer about meeting customer expectations. There is a MAJOR emphasis on exceeding customer expectations and beating the customer to the destination. You need to stay ahead of customers, ahead of trends, and constantly be working to communicate your perspective to as many stakeholders as you possibly can at your customers. If you are not in growth mode constantly looking to improve your mental game, your skillset, and your customer relationships, things may get weird fast What else are you observing out there?

Eventually every bad sales and marketing tactic developed over the past 20 years is going to be blocked and you’re going to have to revert to doing better sales and marketing instead of the lazy lead gen stuff that doesn’t really work.   Like hiring a hundred SDRs to hound people that opened emails.  But growth at all costs… despite a 100k cac with a 5 year payback and a 2 year churn.  Then everyone is upset when the company lays off a thousand people.    it’s really simple. If your company isn’t innovating the sales and marketing strategies right now, don’t be surprised when more layoffs occur in 2024 and 2025.