We set very ambitious goals at Loxo. At most organizations, these would be the “stretch” goals that live beyond the “expected” goal and are simply there to appease the board or CFO.
Not for us. Our goal is the stretch goal. We want to accomplish something truly legendary, so settling for “good enough” and not pushing for excellence in ourselves + our team members is something that our leadership team vets heavily for during our recruiting and hiring process.
Q4 is slated to be our biggest quarter yet. But when I look at where we are today + where we need to be come 11:59 pm on December 31st, I sensed that what we’re doing now with our marketing isn’t going to get us where we need to be then.
So I’m getting back in the weeds. And honestly, I haven’t had this much fun in a while.
Sponsor: HockeyStack
We all know that ABM is much more than serving ads to target accounts. So as I’m fine-tuning our ABM execution + reporting, I needed dashboard inspo to monitor progress.
Enter: this brilliant dashboard from HockeyStack that outlines how ABM king, Andrei Zinkevich, visualizes what any GTM leader + practitioner should be monitoring with their ABM efforts
For anyone looking to level up their ABM reporting + get some serious alignment across your GTM team, this is the perfect place to start. Here are just a few of the items you’ll be able to see with this:
--> Net new revenue from ABM campaigns
--> Expansion revenue from ABM campaigns
--> Renewal revenue from ABM campaigns
--> Funnel metrics from current deals in pipeline
--> ABM penetration by stage
--> High-intent leads without deals
--> Account engagement by company
--> Website “high intent” account journeys
What got us here won’t get us there
It’s as simple as that. And today’s newsletter is going to illustrate that as it’ll be one of my shortest ones in recent months.
Our marketing and GTM team has done a phenomenal job of scaling the organization since I joined in the beginning of 2023. The majority of it came from getting a solid foundation laid + mastering the fundamentals.
No viral moments
No crazy experiments
No overcomplicated workflows
Just a good B2B GTM strategy executed day in and day out.
But as we planned Q1 to Q2 to Q3 to Q4 as a company, we didn’t model out linear growth. We modeled out exponential growth. And that’s precisely why I’m getting back in the weeds.
I need a fingertip feel for what is and isn’t working.
I need to ensure that every resource spent (time or money) is as efficient as possible.
I need to operate from a first principles mindset to truly understand the new levers we’re putting in play so I can see how they affect our larger GTM ecosystem.
I need to ruthlessly prioritize and focus what our team is working on + have daily check-ins on the status of them.
This may sound like a recipe for burnout, and it would be if I continued to operate at this pace in perpetuity + push the team to keep up. But we aren’t.
This is a period of growth.
Growth is uncomfortable. Growth is hard. Growth creates uncertainty. Growth has us questioning if it’s worth the effort.
But we can’t achieve this type of growth if we aren’t willing to shoulder the work it’ll take to get there.
So I’m back in the weeds.
Back to building.
Back to executing.
Back to optimizing.
Back to writing.
Back to editing.
Back to recording.
Back to failing.
Back to making bets.
Back to experimenting.
Back to basics.
Back to “old” channels.
Back to questioning the playbook.
And despite the stress, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t loving every second of this.
Podcast episode to listen to
I first listened to this podcast episode back in the end of August when David Senra released it on his podcast, Founders. And I’ve listened to it 3 more times since then.
Whether you love or hate Elon, what he’s been able to accomplish as a business leader truly is remarkable and there are countless lessons that we can learn + use ourselves.
From his operating principles to his five commandments to his ability to rally a team around a seemingly impossible timeline and achieve it, this is one of few podcast episodes anywhere that I will be revisiting regularly for years to come.
See you next Saturday,
Sam
P.S. I’m thinking about moving the day I send this newsletter from Saturday to Monday or Tuesday. What do you think? Enjoy reading it on the weekend? Would rather have it hit your inbox early in the work week? Vote below!