A holiday list only marketers will like

It's Buddy the Elf week, so let's get into the spirit

It’s holiday list season.

Christmas lists. Hanukkah lists. Kwanzaa lists.
Shopping lists. To-do lists. Grocery lists.

So in that spirit, I’ve pulled together a countdown list for us before we all head out for the holidays over the next few weeks…

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Sponsor: HockeyStack

Your CEO just slacked you: "We have our board meeting in 2 days. Send me a slide with what's working + anything they need to know."

Did your palms get sweaty reading that?
Or is this an easy ask because you can easily get to this info already?

I'm neurotic about forecasting + tracking performance. I have reports upon reports and dashboards upon dashboards.

So when Emir + Claudia over at HockeyStack asked me what my perfect dashboard would look like, I immediately started geeking out.

And when they sent this dashboard mock-up back to me yesterday, I was in nerd heaven 🙌

2025 planning is here. And it's also never too late to add some solid reports or views to your dashboard, so hopefully this provides some inspiration to any of you who are looking to level up your dashboarding game.

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12 people to follow on LinkedIn

We all see the same people being shared in these types of lists, but many of them aren’t what I’d call reciprocal follows in that they simply post to large audiences + don’t engage back. So I’m going to skip many of those “well-known” individuals and share the people I’ve connected with in 2024 and found to not only be sharing incredible thoughts + knowledge, but who I’ve been able to genuinely connect with this year through some invaluable back + forth exchanges on the platform.

From marketing to revops to leadership to recruitment and everything in between, here are 12 people worth engaging with in the new year:

• Ashley Faus

• Canberk Beker

• Claudia Ring

• Elie Daccache

• Isaiah Studivent

• Kacie Jenkins

• Lauren Price

• Liam Moroney

• Molly Gardner

• Morgan J Ingram

• Paul Stansik

• Trinity Nguyen

11 21 podcast episodes to listen to

Here are a handful of some of my favorite podcast episodes that I’ve listened to over the past year, either for the first time or as a repeat because it has so much knowledge and value in it. Topics range from marketing to business to health to general life advice, so there’s something in here for you no matter what you’re in the mood for.

10 things to watch over the break

Netflix

• The Gentlemen (TV show)

• The Last Airbender (TV show)

• Warrior (TV show)

• Nobody Wants This (TV show)

• Hit Man (Movie)

Amazon Prime Video

• Gen V (TV Show) (if you like The Boys, this is a spinoff of that)

• Reacher (TV Show)

• Tropic Thunder (Movie)

• The Beekeeper (Movie)

• Road House (Movie)

9 books to read

• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

• Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller

• Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram

• Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution by Uri Levine

• Red Rising (series) by Pierce Brown

• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

• The Fish That Ate the Whale by Rich Cohen

• The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life by Boyd Varty

• The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen (our little one’s favorite)

8 companies doing cool things in software/services

• AMP: turn founders into Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to drive business growth without the guesswork

• Clay: help your GTM ops team implement any growth idea

• Grove Cookie Company: enhance your most important relationships (with the best cookies I’ve ever had in my life - sorry, Mom 🙈)

• HockeyStack: helping marketers figure out what’s working

• Loxo (I’m biased 🤷‍♂️): recruitment has changed, and it’s time that tech enabled recruiters instead of holding them back

• Noble: social proof that really works. Goes beyond logos and shows you people you actually know using a product/service.

• Video Brothers: Memorable Ads. Unforgettable Results. Big brand ad campaigns without the big agency price tag.

• YOYABA: marketing + demand generation agency for B2B

7 of my LinkedIn posts that resonated this year

1. Years ago, I was sitting in a quarterly business review. The VP of Sales shared we missed the revenue goal. 5 minutes later, the CMO shared that we hit our “lead goal” the past 3 quarters. The CEO asked, “What happened?”

2. You can drive brand awareness without creating demand, but creating demand requires more than driving brand awareness

3. You can spend your way to brand awareness, but not demand creation. A simplified breakdown of the two

4. I got a DM yesterday from the VP of a large target account of ours saying they wanted to get a demo

5. We spent 25% less, yet drove 30% more revenue by changing our approach to the problem every company faces

6. "Yes, the lead that came through is from a target account, but their title is too junior so we disqualified them"
   THAT'S 👏 BECAUSE 👏 LEADERSHIP 👏 HAS 👏 THEIR 👏 TEAM 👏 DO 👏 THE 👏 RESEARCH

7. The best companies don't call themselves a family - they operate like high-level sports teams

6 newsletters to subscribe to

Same as with the LinkedIn follow recs - going to try and highlight a few you may not have heard of yet, but that I always open as soon as they hit my inbox:

• DemandJen from Jen Allen-Knuth

• DemandLoops from Kaylee Edmondson

• Hello Operator from Paul Stansik

• MKT1 Newsletter from Emily Kramer

• PMM Files from Jason Oakley

• The Reading List from Ryan Holiday

5 of my most popular newsletters this year

1. Ecosystems, not channels

2. I’m not data-driven

3. I’m going to regret sharing this

4. I’m rethinking BDRs

5. Demand creation vs. brand awareness

4 positions I’ll be hiring for in 2025

We’ll be adding to our marketing + GTM team next year as we continue our upward growth trajectory. Each of these roles will be the first in its function, so a great opportunity to make a huge impact. Keep your eyes out next year as we post these, but if you or someone you know is interested, being proactive is never a bad thing 😉

• RevOps Manager

• Product Marketing Manager

• Community Marketing Manager

• Content Marketing Manager

3 of my daily non-negotiables

1. Evening walk with the little one + our pup. Helps me to mentally separate the work day from family/personal time + decompress from the day.

2. Drink 16 oz of water within ~10 min of waking. I can’t stand the feeling of dehydration - tired, weak, headaches, etc., so as soon as I’m up I get ahead of it with this before getting on with my morning.

3. Read before bed. Some nights it’s 25+ pages, some nights it’s only 1 page. But I’ve learned that getting off screens + winding down with a book is a near guarantee for me to be asleep within 10 min of hitting my pillow.

2 biggest bets we made with our marketing last year

1. Killed off Google Ads in 2023 and kept them off for 2024 with increased growth goals. Here’s a quick post + video from Gaetano DiNardi where he and I spoke more about this.

2. Went BIG into TV via connected TV. Not just taking existing video assets and viewing them as “good enough” to be used on TV, but investing in a proper strategy and required assets to make real impact. S/O to Chandler Quintin at Video Brothers for the collab here. Next two quarters were our best ever in terms of pipeline production AND we saw an unexpected result in these bringing back some stalled deals when they saw our commercials on their TVs.

1 question from you

What’s on your mind in the marketing or GTM space? New problem you’re encountering, fresh ideas you’re looking to incorporate into existing things, etc. Here’s your chance to ask me anything!

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And that’s a wrap for 2024! I’ll be taking the next few weeks off to enjoy the holidays with friends + family. See you all in 2025!

Happy holidays,
Sam