B2B GTM Live #02Why Martech Cannot Fix a Broken Model

Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Storm's gone, sun's out, happy days! Intro done!

Let me start with some interesting facts:  To set the scene  we've designed and sell a B2B Operating System.  So we replace  GTM tools and MarTech systems, it does the all work, generates the assets, hundreds of them, tracks, and drives traffic, does work salespeople have to do - so it's quite broad and wide-reaching.  And it costs a fraction of your existing GTM costs, and I mean a fraction. You get the picture right? 

When we first started this project, we thought along the lines of calling it a replacement GTM system and so pursued those naming conventions like GTM this and GTM that  but as this evolved,  we decided that the GTM label would not serve us  because most of us  have had it up to here with GTM labels or tools, mainly because most businesses are struggling with GTM and any mention of it  either means more money or  more effort  but  not more revenue.   So we finally got round changing the description to the 'B2B Operating System'.

After last weeks' live show I uploaded the stream video to YouTube, because you can't copy from live to video.  So it was set up on our website along with the transcript and summary.  On Monday I searched for B2B Operating Systems on Google search.  

As I expected, Google placed us in the B2B Operating Systems category and also drew from multiple references from our website.   As well as us being in the first position on the organic SERPs (the search engine results page) it also placed our video in the first position too.  

And whilst some SEO people will set up obscure H1 page titles and say Oh! look aren't we clever - this is what you paid for - getting on page one!!!  But seriously - supercalifradulisticexpealidocious - you're gonna get on page 1 lol. 

The relevance of this is to show the problem that us B2Bs face.  I mentioned we sell a physical product  but there are other businesses out there who also use the same term  B2B Operating System.   One of the businesses sells a set of documents and will act as a fractional CMO. Another sells a scape and process set of scripts, so that's LLM related only, probably Claude or GPT.  However, our is not just a set of documents or a guide,  it's a physical platform that is both local server-based and web-based.  . It actually generates assets and tracks and lots more beside.  We're using it now and you can view everything on our website.

But  if you were selling a consumer product, say jeans or trainers  and you did a search  you would get a ribbon across the top of the search page, and you can make your selection.  It's not as easy for those of us in B2B.  

You could say "Ah, but there's pay-per-click". And you'd be right, and now we're back into Martech driven GTM practices that demand  contact data from prospects who don't want to give it and want to remain anonymous.

Whether its SEO, or PPC everyone wants their ducks, and most people would be happy with our results.  But for us B2Bs  once you understand the SEO 'trap' and indeed the PPC trap, you'll begin to see the logic in moving away from MarTech dependency.

If like so many businesses, adding more GTM tools has not improved predictability in revenue generation, the issue is not technology. It is the model.  After 20 yrs, I'm pretty sure we can say that MarTech is not working for B2Bs.  

But no one can simply acknowledge this truth and then in the next breath, dismiss it and continue using the SaaS and hoping for the best - You  or should I say we  have still got next month’s figures or next quarter's figures to consider!  It's not true, but people say Einstein said, " The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result".

The point of these live shows is, over the next few months  to explain and challenge what has happened in digital marketing and why businesses are not seeing the results they expected.  And yet the costs keep rising.  

One of the fundamentals is that marketing is not held to account or to the same set of rules as salespeople are.  And this is the most  complete explanation of the dichotomy  between sales and marketing  and why they keep blaming each other.  

Business owners, founders and CEOs have been sold  on the promise  that an expansive marketing mechanism is essential to success.   Yet to fully understand the mechanics of the digital marketing ecosystem  one has to track everything  and every stage  and then in parallel  track the entire sales process, and its behaviour and its influences.  And finally  to bring it all together  it has to be compared to what happens in the consumer markets.  If you only look at B2B, you won't get to fully understand as to why  digital marketing doesn't fly with B2Bs.  What I am saying is if you know its origins you'll understand why it doesn't work. 

Driving this expectation was a collective effort, which was or is genius, starting shortly after the 2000s and the dot.com boom bust. There was this search engine called Google, and it was one of many at the time  came up with the idea to charge advertisers to appear at the top of the search page. 

The advertising blocks were called AdWords and were linked directly to landing pages where, the B2C's, the consumers  were asked for their contact details in return for free content.

This was great for consumer and retail industry, and by now everyone was trying to grow their e-mail lists.  In fact many organisations had their valuations based upon the email list multiplier to determine their overall value.  And some business owners made fortunes  simply based upon the premise that these email names would eventually buy something  maybe!!!

At this time CRM was already a thing for B2B's  but soon  around 2008, I think starting with Eloqua, now owned by Oracle  the Martech SaaS companies turned towards B2B's  And they we're more than happy to oblige  and started installing more and more SaaS platforms in the hope they could get a bigger piece of the digital action.

By 2016, B2B's were getting disillusioned with promises of success, or lack of it. Demand generation strategies were simply not working, so in came account based marketing - ABM, and the pitch was simple; the vendors, via marketing teams stated "10 to 15 people are involved in the buying process. So you need to be marketing to all the stakeholders".  

So if jumping through all the hoops the get the digital to work wasn't enough  from SEO, PPC, Demand Gen, and Lead Gen  now there was ABM. . And still, the businesses who were convinced to adopt this still failed.    Yes, there would have been a few good wins, but that's not going to sustain the future of any company.   

Understandably  Boards approved Martech expecting predictability.   Yes, marketing activity increased, so did headcount and reporting improved  but revenue predictability did not 

Looking at some of the basics elements - you have the whole broad expectation of marketing, and this narrative is  or was directed to CEOs and investors, in other words, they were presenting this SaaS demand to 'the money'.   And here's how it's presented  firstly they say you have to spend this money  or the investment  on all the SaaS so that we're comparing with  and can compete with  the so-called competition and then, there's all the associated costs like pay-per-click, remarketing, banner ads.

Some businesses, and a high percentage  once they get their hands on the investment money  spend up to 50% of it on marketing.  Let that sink in...   a massive 50% 

But no matter what the business did  marketers always routed everything back to the same mechanisms  demand gen  lead gen  and ABM  and of course PPC, remarketing and banner ads  Which.... meant vendors expected buyers to fill out forms  which we both know, neither you nor I will do because we also know the outcome - incessant cold calls.

So the whole marketing piece has become a vicious circle.  

This has created a Structural Failure.  There is constant tool layering without redesign. Attribution obsession  because marketing wants and desperately needs  to justify their position.  And now, with the explosion of AI, another obsession has emerged, i.e., scrape and span automation which is simply amplifying inefficiency. 

Not only do the fragmented GTM stacks exist, but they’re also growing  and when you consider the inexperienced marketers or GTM Engineers out there are designing AI platforms with the likes of n8n, Eleven Labs, Instantly and Clay, and then they add on AI voice platforms to actually do the cold calling   Imagine that.  Now we can upset our prospects with AI, but this time, the poor BDR doesn't suffer from rejection anymore, we're now able to upset our prospects at scale!  Honestly - you couldn't make this up.  

Even the scrape and spam  it requires multiple domain names so you can create multiple email addresses.  I think I read that Google had cracked down on this, so it made it a bit more difficult, but other providers will always try and find a way round this.  But spam is spam 

So what are people trying to prove?  It's one of those things - just because you can, doesn't mean you should. [32 Apps + 6 x AI Agents]. Triggered outreach = AI Email + AI Phone Calls!!

Pretty much everything about selling B2B is about building trust in advance - and at scale if you can - Anyone or should I say everyone in sales knows people-buy-people.  They always will  that is of course until you hand over your entire business and bank account to an AI who will make all decisions for you - and that's another story altogether.

But for now, we've got to keep this simple.  Let businesses know you exist.  Give them something you think they will benefit from  and invite them to get to know like and trust you - at scale.   And as sure as eggs-are-eggs,  those businesses who warm to you will first follow and then they'll buy.  It's been happening for decades, but until now,  big tech  Martech seemed to have cornered the market on this,  and we all followed the Pied Piper,  and dutifully bought into the whole  SaaS tech stacks.   I'm not saying we can go completely stack-less,  but we can bring it in-house, slash our costs  and more importantly  direct our efforts towards businesses  in a way that WE would actually buy.    In other words, treat them  your prospects  as you want to be treated. 

I mentioned at the beginning we have built a new  MarTech stack infrastructure,  not as an add-on  but a replacement. 

If you consider there are about 15,000 MarTech SaaS platforms available  and the same numbers of businesses keep going bust every year as they did back in 2000  some 26 years ago -  that's not progress!

For me, having started at the sharp-end  cold-calling, door-knocking, and telesales  to getting the appointment, doing the demonstration, presentation, getting the documents signed and ringing the bell  I known exactly what it takes to keep generating new business  and I can tell you 100%  it’s not more Martech!

It is about persistence-pays-off  But it's not about being clever in terms of the strategy,  but it is about getting everything functioning together  and it's about architecture and not simply a bit of integration here and there.  

I designed the OS because nothing else made sense to me - we all run businesses to generate revenue, not marketing analytics to keep people employed!

With our B2B Operating System,  first there's understanding the infrastructure and architecture shift  to grasp how and why the existing tools can be replaced. Then there's the behavioural sequencing within the OS of  STAGE 1  which we call sX Reach and it's the visibility engine  so it's all about how people gradually respond to both open access content on your website   and your posts and your emails and so on.   Once businesses gradually realise you're not stalking them, and your content is there to genuinely help them  the relationship changes. 

You've then got the explicit connection part  This live broadcast demonstrates STAGE 2 of the Operating System which is called sX Live.  So you could say this the 'know-like-and trust' stage.

And finally there's sX Connect.  So if you ever wanted a softer or more relaxed way of encouraging a prospect to start the process  but still respecting the fact they will always do it in their time, not yours  the best approach is to offer them the option of starting the process themselves 

If you take a look at our Audit page - the link is in the description and if you're on our website, its' the big green button below where our live stream is shown.   It's a pre-meeting form fill  no different than anyone would complete face-to-face,  so as you can imagine, it saves loads of time.  But the most important thing about this process  is for you to imagine your prospects doing the same.

Once the form is complete, they book a time and date that suits you - and then - hey presto! The OS does the research, generates reports, calculates the costs and comparisons, generates the proposal  the slide deck presentation, and delivers it to the salesperson before the meeting takes place. 

When the meeting is complete and any edits are done   Sales confirms the costs and delivery of the final proposal  and the results are then shown here - I get goosebumps every time I talk about this. 

This is all part of the sX Ops module which gives you this measurement clarity.  Cleaner forecasting. And massively Improved ARR per FTE

As you know, running sales meetings is one thing.   I remember having to shout up my figures in sales meeting  now you have a daily running total for pipeline.  You probably already have a platform for closed deals, if you don’t, we simply add it in.

But remember, this is an B2B Operating system, and it covers everything for new business  from visibility and exposure  through to engagement and face-to-face,  and ultimately full-on reporting or should I say telemetry.  I hope all that made sense.  

If you want to learn more - all the details are on our website.  But more importantly, I want you to know that there is an alternative - it’s not all doom and gloom.   

And to help,  we produced a three-part series of PDFs downloads - The Revenue Reset | GTM Landscape | GTM Audit  together they provide the foundation for what we're recommending  but more importantly  we know this takes time and it requires a different approach to sales  and a different way of thinking  The links to the PDFs are in the description and they're available on our website.

There is one final  or should I say  foundational element to this.  which is a primary catalyst for this 'transformation'  or maybe it's better to call it a metamorphosis  anyway  we've produced an online retraining course for your entire GTM team.  

It's 20 modules, takes about 30 hours  and our recommendation is for one or two senior commercial leaders to enrol into the OS Course.  They can then bounce ideas off each other  and also decide who else should complete the course,  before deployment of the platform.  

As you can see, we want your organisation to truly get this on the inside before making any significant changes.   and the best way to do that  is to do the course first.

That's all for now.  I'll be back next week when I'll be talking about this issue about constant visibility.  

We all want our businesses to become famous and for our content to go viral.  But I think more importantly, we want our businesses to be secure and successful.   Well, if that appeals.  Join me next Thursday, same time 11:00am - see you then, bye for now.