In this episode of Future Proofed, Kyle Coleman, CMO at Copy.ai, sits down with Andrew Ettinger, Founder and CEO of Game Plan Partners, to discuss the evolving role of sales professionals in today's competitive landscape. Andrew shares insights from his extensive experience in enterprise software sales, highlighting the need for sellers to adopt a "mini-marketer" mindset. This conversation explores how the lines between sales and marketing are blurring, requiring sellers to create content, build communities, and drive conversions just like marketers.

Kyle and Andrew break down the "3 Cs" framework—Content, Community, and Conversion—demonstrating how modern sales reps can engage prospects more meaningfully by leveraging AI, data, and strategic thinking. The episode dives into how salespeople can generate demand by deeply understanding their buyer personas, applying data-driven approaches, and positioning themselves as thought leaders in their industries. They also discuss how leaders can support their teams in embracing this new approach, emphasizing the long-term benefits of combining sales and marketing techniques for maximum impact.

If you're a sales leader or professional looking to stay ahead, this episode is packed with actionable insights on how to blend sales and marketing strategies to elevate your success.

Here's a timestamped recap of the major sections discussed in this podcast:

00:00 - 02:11: Introduction and background on Andrew Ettinger's experience

02:11 - 05:46: Discussion of what worked for sellers in the past (10-20 years ago) vs. today

05:46 - 10:13: Breakdown of why individual sellers are struggling in the current environment

10:13 - 15:23: Introduction of the concept of "sellers as mini marketers" and generating demand

15:23 - 21:50: Explanation of the "3 Cs" framework: Content, Community, Conversion

21:50 - 26:27: Importance of understanding buyer personas at a deeper level

26:27 - 28:13: Role of leaders in enabling sellers to adopt this new mindset

28:13 - 31:46: Advice for leaders on implementing this approach, including leading by example

31:46 - 33:16: Additional benefits of this approach, including improved recruitment

33:16 - 34:07: Wrap-up and where to find Andrew Ettinger online

In this webinar, Kyle Coleman (CMO at Copy.ai) and sales expert Jenn Junkin reveal how cutting-edge AI is revolutionizing pipeline generation and empowering sales teams to sell more, faster.

You'll discover:

⚡️ How AI can automate up to 70% of the tedious research and outreach work for "PG Tuesdays" - freeing reps to focus on high-value selling activities

🔗 Powerful ways to seamlessly align your sales and marketing motions through AI-driven account intelligence and automated multi-channel plays

✨ The key to consistent, personalized multi-touch outreach at scale without sacrificing authenticity

Whether you're a sales leader, marketing pro, or rev ops specialist, this session will open your eyes to AI's immense potential for accelerating pipeline and driving explosive revenue growth. Join Kyle and Jenn as they draw from their extensive enterprise experience at companies like Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Clari. They'll share real-world examples and tactical advice for leveraging AI to gain an unfair competitive advantage. If you're ready to leave manual prospecting behind and embrace the future of intelligent selling, don't miss this must-see webinar!

Are you struggling to align your marketing, sales, and product teams around a cohesive go-to-market strategy? Join Kyle Coleman, CMO at Copy.ai, and Sangram Vajre, Co-Founder and CEO at GTMPartners, as they reveal the secrets to crafting a winning go-to-market playbook.

• Gain clarity on what "go-to-market" really means (beyond just marketing and sales)
• Learn how to shift from a minimal viable go-to-market to a differentiated point of view
• Discover frameworks to unify marketing, sales, and product around the total relevant market

In this podcast, you'll walk away with a deeper understanding of why having a unified go-to-market strategy is critical for driving sustainable growth – and how to get started.

The Path to Go-To-Market Mastery

The ability to align all customer-facing teams around a unified go-to-market motion is what separates the growth leaders from the laggards. Yet for many companies, executing an effective go-to-market strategy remains an elusive challenge.

In this session, go-to-market experts Kyle Coleman and Sangram Vajre will break down the core components of a world-class go-to-market playbook. You'll learn how to move beyond operating in silos to create a cohesive, customer-centric strategy that encompasses marketing, sales, product, and customer success.

Expand Beyond the Total Addressable Market

Discover why focusing solely on your total addressable market is limiting growth – and how to identify and capitalize on your total relevant market.

Leverage Account-Based Marketing: Unpack the power of account-based marketing and how a targeted, insight-driven approach can accelerate sales cycles and boost deal sizes.

Build Alignment Across Functions: Learn proven strategies to foster cross-functional collaboration and ensure marketing, sales, product and customer success are all operating from the same go-to-market playbook.

Meet Your Hosts

1. Kyle Coleman is the Chief Marketing Officer at Copy.ai, a leader in conversational AI for marketing teams. With over a decade of experience unifying marketing and sales departments, Kyle is passionate about eliminating "go-to-market bloat" and equipping revenue teams with the processes and playbooks to drive sustainable growth.

2. Sangram Vajre is the Co-Founder and CEO of GTMPartners, and the author of the best-selling book "MOVE: The 4-Question Go-To-Market Framework." A former marketing leader at Salesforce and Terminus, Sangram helped Pardot reach a $2.7B acquisition and has made go-to-market strategy his life's work through ventures like FlipMyFunnel and the Peak Community.

Timestamp

00:00.404 - Sangram explains why he missed Kyle and Alina at an event earlier.

00:29.432 - Kyle introduces Sangram as the co-founder and CEO of GoToMarket Partners. They discuss what "go-to-market" means and the importance of having a cohesive go-to-market strategy across the company.

03:08.974 - Sangram shares how the definition of go-to-market was expanded for him by Brian Halligan of HubSpot to include all business decisions, big and small.

07:48.441 - They discuss the need to ditch siloed "alignment" meetings in favor of inclusive go-to-market meetings where the best ideas can come from any function.

10:40.052 - Sangram explains the concept of the 15 go-to-market problems his research has identified that every company faces a subset of. Focusing on solving 1-2 at a time is crucial.

15:50.205 - Kyle shares how his previous CEO prioritized a few key initiatives each quarter to avoid getting pulled in too many directions.

19:21.731 - Sangram emphasizes that we are in a time of reinventing playbooks, and leaders need to get out of their traditional ways of thinking.

22:04.707 - They discuss the importance of having an opinionated, differentiated point of view in your content and thought leadership.

26:53.43 - Kyle asks about the challenge of go-to-market bloat and disconnected tech stacks at established companies.

29:22.033 - Sangram suggests focusing on 5-6 core integrated go-to-market tech solutions rather than a fragmented stack.

33:16.293 - They discuss the mindset shift required to do true 1:1 account-based marketing rather than mass blasting.

36:17.872 - Sangram shares research showing only 43% of leaders are confident they'll hit their numbers this year.

37:43.052 - Sangram explains why he signs emails with "Love, Sangram" based on his faith.

38:48.12 - Sangram recommends the book "From Strength to Strength" about focusing on loving people over things.

In this episode, Kyle interviews Sahil Mansuri, CEO of Bravado - the largest sales community with over 500,000 members.

They discuss:

- Why Sahil founded Bravado to support salespeople who often lack training
- What drove the sales slump in 2022-2023 and why most reps struggle in tough markets
- How great salespeople have unique styles and you should magnify your own strengths vs. copying an average process
- Why now is the time to hire aggressively to gain a competitive edge, and what to look for in reps
- Bravado's new AI sales recruiter that allows hyper-specific candidate searches
- The book "Stumbling on Happiness" and how understanding human decisions helps in sales

Time-Coded Show Notes

00:00 - Cold open and introduction
01:13 - Sahil's background in sales and why he founded Bravado
03:57 - The quality of Bravado's sales community and conversations
05:31 - Sahil's prescient prediction of sales layoffs in 2022
08:35 - Three factors that caused the sales slump in 2022-2023
16:00 - Why most salespeople struggle to sell in tough markets
17:32 - Bravado's data showing the slump is ending, time to hire is now
21:45 - Kyle's experience getting back into sales as a CMO
25:26 - Sahil's advice to be your authentic self in sales, not copy an average script
28:45 - Fast-casual vs. Michelin-star sales approaches
35:26 - Let your expertise shine through vs. generic discovery
44:00 - What Bravado's new AI sales recruiter enables

Enjoy this information-packed episode and implement the tips you learn to experience faster, more sustainable growth in 2024.

Want to take your SaaS to the next level? Don't miss this episode featuring Adam Robinson's hard-won insights on modern SaaS growth strategy.

Highlights:

- Why bootstrapping can be a better route than getting funding
- How to make your brand stand out authentically
- The metrics that actually matter for sustainable SaaS growth
- Actionable tips to optimize your free trial and drive more conversions

If you want to accelerate your SaaS business in today's competitive landscape, you need to watch this. Adam Robinson shares the exact growth strategies he's used to scale multiple SaaS companies to millions in revenue.

Learn how to position your product, find your best customers, and build growth loops that keep users coming back.

In this episode, Kyle Coleman sits down with Sam McKenna, CEO of SamSales Consulting, to discuss how sellers and sales leaders can future-proof themselves in the age of AI.

The key is maintaining human connection and relationships with buyers. Sam believes buyers still crave human interaction, even with the rise of automation. The most successful sellers focus on solving problems for buyers, not just selling to them.

Sam and Kyle dive into why many sales teams struggle to adapt their approaches, often due to fear of change and an over-reliance on tools and volume instead of quality outreach.

They discuss how AI can actually help sellers by compressing repetitive tasks, giving reps more time to develop consultative skills and business acumen. Sam also shares tactical tips like leveraging "strength of weak ties" in your network for referrals and always tying product benefits back to the specific "so what" for each buyer.

Timestamps & Key Points:

01:57 - Sam's background in enterprise sales and starting her own sales consulting firm
04:33 - Why sellers need to adapt to changing buyer preferences and focus on the human element
11:55 - Diagnosing why sales teams get stuck in their ways and rely on outdated volume approaches
16:13 - Using AI to streamline tasks and give sellers more time to develop real sales skills
24:46 - The power of leveraging weak ties in your network to find new opportunities
28:12 - Always connect product features to the "so what" for each specific buyer
33:54 - Book recommendation: "Unreasonable Hospitality" by Will Guidara

Guest Info:

Sam McKenna is the CEO and Founder of #SamSales Consulting. After 16 years in enterprise sales leadership roles, including at LinkedIn, Sam started her own firm to help sales teams and leaders sell in more modern, personalized ways that cut through the noise.

Follow Sam on LinkedIn for more of her insights and check out samsalesconsulting.com for their sales playbooks and training resources.

Key Takeaways:

- Content marketing is essential but challenging to scale due to inefficient processes and high costs 📝💸
- B2B marketers only create ~18 content pieces/month with 2-4 week turnarounds, spending $11k+/month on external resources alone
- AI workflows can streamline content creation, producing high-quality content faster and cheaper with the right strategy and inputs 🤖💡
- Results: 1 blog post/day, better SEO rankings, 3x demo requests, 5x time on site, 500k more social impressions/month 📈

Time-Coded Highlights:

00:00 - Introduction
03:30 - Nathan's background in content marketing
06:40 - Current state of B2B content operations
10:00 - Impact of using AI for content with Copy.ai
16:30 - How AI workflows automate content creation
22:00 - Demo: AI-powered SEO content workflow
31:30 - Demo: AI-powered use case content from sales call transcripts
36:00 - Demo: AI-powered thought leadership content from interviews
43:00 - Pitfalls to avoid when using AI for content

Guest Info:

Nathan Thompson is the Head of Content Strategy at Copy.ai. Connect with Nathan on LinkedIn, where his handle is "Nathan Likes Writing" (though he admits he doesn't write much any more, thanks to AI!).

Kyle Coleman is the CMO at Copy.ai. Find him on LinkedIn for more insights on using AI to scale content marketing.

In this podcast episode, Kyle sits down with sales leaders Scott Leese and Kevin "KD" Dorsey to discuss the impact of AI on the future of sales.
They explore how the sales industry became overly specialized and obsessed with speed, leading to degraded skills and reps being set up for failure. With buying becoming harder and competition increasing, they believe AI will automate repetitive tasks but leaders must invest the time saved into upskilling, not just doing more faster.

The group warns knowledge work and manual labor will likely become commoditized by AI, putting repetitive jobs at high risk.

Their advice? Sales leaders and reps must urgently learn about AI capabilities to stay competitive and not ignore how it will transform the industry.

Time-Coded Highlights

2:12 - How sales became overly specialized and siloed, degrading rep skills
5:47 - Leaders obsessed with speed over skill development
8:02 - Buying is harder now with more scrutiny and competition
12:14 - How AI can automate repetitive tasks like research
18:09 - Will leaders invest time saved into upskilling or just doing more?
24:17 - Jobs focused on repetitive knowledge work and labor at high-risk
29:51 - Sales leaders and reps must learn AI capabilities to stay competitive

Key Takeaways

- Don't ignore AI - lean into learning the capabilities to remain competitive
- Invest time saved from AI automation into skill development, not just speed
- Jobs focused on repetitive tasks, both knowledge work and labor, are at high risk of being replaced by AI
- With harder buying and increased competition, AI alone won't save you - skills are critical