perception
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B2B buyers abandone vendor evaluations when they get lost and marketing materials don’t reflect current product capabilities. Meanwhile, engineering teams churn out features at sprint velocity. This disconnect isn’t just embarrassing—it’s revenue-leaking. I have seen content calendars still mirror org charts rather than customer problems. But, CISOs now evaluate vendors against three criteria: platform breadth,
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The 18-Month Payback Problem A SaaS CMO confessed over coffee: “We wasted £240,000 on LinkedIn ads before realising our average deal takes 347 days to close.” She’s not alone! Vendors now track pipeline velocity alongside lead volume. What changed? With VCs demanding efficient growth, the old “spray and pray” lead model collapses under 12-month sales
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For cybersecurity startups, breaking into enterprise accounts is a marathon. Procurement cycles are slow, trust is hard-won, and every new logo feels like a campaign. But there’s a shortcut hiding in plain sight: cloud marketplaces. Platforms like Azure, AWS, and Trellix Marketplace aren’t just where buyers browse, they’re where budgets get spent. Listing there means
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Why Interview Lost Customers, Not Just Happy Ones
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2 min read
I once had a client—let’s call him Alex— kept saying. “Customers love us.” One day I asked if he’d ever called anyone who quietly bailed. “Why would I?” he said. “They’re gone.” Exactly, I told him. That’s why you ask. So we pulled a list. Sent emails. Got two calls. The first was awkward. The
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One of the most awkward sales moments I’ve ever had started with good news. A prospect asked if we had iOS support. I said yes—confidently. He checked the App Store on the spot. “Last updated: three years ago.” Silence. It didn’t matter that the app was stable, low-maintenance, or lightly used. What mattered was the
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It was a crowded Thursday evening at The Ned. The live music stopped and the CISO goes: “I get 50+ cold emails a week from startups claiming to stop zero-days. I’ve approved one proof-of-concept in 18 months.” The math is brutal. But Why Enterprises Won’t Bet on You (Yet) Platform consolidation is accelerating. And SEC disclosure rules
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Michelin stars go to restaurants. Sure, it’s “Le Bernardin has three Michelin stars.” But we also say, “Eric Ripert has three Michelin stars.” The chef gets the glory. Not the dining room. Not the owner. The chef. Why? Because ownership of the outcome sticks with the person who made it happen. That’s the mindset that separates contributors from accelerators
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Support tickets are noisy, messy, and usually urgent. But buried in that chaos are patterns that tell you exactly what to build next. The challenge isn’t finding ideas, it’s filtering them. Sales want speed. Support wants relief. Product wants strategic bets. So how do you turn ticket noise into signal? You use a scoring model.
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Marketing automation works best when it fades into the background. In my own practice I see Marketo as the nervous system of growth, never a mere broadcast tool. Treat the platform this way and it starts becoming strategic infrastructure. Results follow silence. First of all, begin outside in. Intent appears before form fills. The moment