Parthi Loganathan

The average tenure for a PE/VC-backed GTM executive is 17 months. At this pace, you'll work for 14 companies over a 20 year career. Here's the 7 things you need to achieve your professional goals in this environment: 1. Foundational training on modern Go-To-Market best practices.  You have to understand how the world is moving - doesn’t matter how big (or small) your company is.  You have to understand the new basics and what you learned at Salesforce in 2005 won’t cut it.  2. Functional training in your role from trusted outside resources (your company will NOT have the means to sufficiently train you on anything but their industry and their product). 3. A group of peers you can bounce ideas off of, stress test new approaches, and help you avoid common pitfalls.  You can’t afford to make big bets without asking a few people that don’t work at your company.  You are risking your job and in some cases your career. 4. Regular, centralized access to the newest sales and marketing technologies so you know how to use them and whether they’re a fit for your team.  AI is happening NOW.  You need demos, you need to be testing, and you need to know what's happening. The world is changing RAPIDLY. 5. Centralized access to top tier private equity and VC firms managed independently of your current employer’s financing strategy. You need to be in the room where it happens. 6. The ability to negotiate executive compensation with assistance from the world’s leading experts. The smallest tweak to your equity agreement could have a 5, 6, or 7 figure outcome on your net worth. 7. A permanent homebase filled with people that care about you and are looking out for your best interests without conflicts or obligations to anyone else. A place whose incentives are completely aligned to your professional success. That’s what we do at Pavilion. That’s what we’re building. It’s not about any one course. It’s not about a Slack community. It’s not about a big event in Boston.  Or London.  Or Austin.  It’s about helping you live a meaningful and fulfilling career. It’s about helping you sleep better at night, knowing that a community of 10,000 has your back at all times. It’s about landing in Sydney or Barcelona or Kansas City or Salt Lake or Seattle and knowing you can instantly plug into a group of operating executives that are there to help and support you. It’s about looking backwards in 5, 10, or 20 years and saying to yourself, “All things considered, that was a great ride and I accomplished what I set out to do.” If any of this sounds appealing. If you’re feeling lost or alone or adrift. If you want help with your career and resetting your destination to maximize wealth creation, impact, possibility, and fulfillment. Well then - join us! If you want to learn more, DM me.

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Consolidation is all the rage in SaaS. Don't confuse "All in One" in a mature market (RevTech) with "Master of None" in an emerging market (AI). ^ Yes, I realize there's a LOT of overlap there, but imagine workflows as mature and AI as emerging When a space is emerging (this seems to be especially true with AI) mastering product is hard. Focus is a super power. *Buyers - it's NOT your fault that this is confusing.* 1) When everyone calls their thing a "copilot" and makes the same claims... it's a lot. 2) Some functions from products sound the same. ex. "We pass something to ChatGPT and it generates text" NOTE: quality of output will be VERY different vendor to vendor. Maturity in AI tech is NOT the same as it is in workflow tech. Models change, inputs change, recipients change... it's not the same as a workflow where the task is the task. This is the BIG reason why product focus matters. Magic in a demo is VERY different than the maturity of workflows behind the scenes. How long have they been doing "AI"? Is this one of several models they need to upkeep? We're constantly testing and training models. Swapping them out against use cases with numerous variables being plugged in and tested. The workflows that the AI is housed in are important, and CAN be the difference makers when you're trying to make a decision on tech. But it's important to remember that when you are talking about AI products - if you build it and move on performance will not keep up. (PS. this focus on email quality is why I can point to multiple Lavender case studies with 20%+ reply rates) 3) Some functions from products are very different. ex. Ocean is different than Clay and Copy and they're all different from Lavender (That is a mean AI stack tho 😎) They're built for different problems... they just all happen to use AI. NOTE: It's good to explore what's out there. But, be sure... - whatever you buy actually maps to the problems you're trying to solve - you understand if it actually works for you (trials >>>) - implementation is clearly understood (Talked to someone that was 5 months in and they haven't sent a single email yet because of hallucinations... yikes) 3) Industry Maps are... vague at best Gartner put us (Lavender) in a "Cool Vendor" group and only one of the companies is remotely similar. VCs just lump "AI" and "Sales" into one big bucket Given the confusion in the space - my proposal would be to organize tools by the job to be done. Has anyone done this already? Would love to highlight others work here & help out where I can.

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Public SaaS sales efficiency metrics continued to UNINSPIRE in Q1 Our focal point as always: How much Sales & Marketing dollars are spent to acquire $1 of Net New ARR This figure has exploded from ~$1.50 two years ago… to ~$2.30 last year. As for Q1?  More of the same!  Barely moved.. (The chart also shows the same metric removing Stock-Based Compensation from S&M – a better benchmark for privates, since SBC is ~0 for them.) Stay tuned for more Q1 benchmarks and a tally of winners and losers. #SaaS #Metrics #Benchmarks #GTM

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Reaching $10M ARR demands a GTM machine that converts $ input into predictable $ output. Here's how to build it: 1️⃣ Fuel your demand generation engine → Deeply understand your ICP's pain points and priorities → Foster a culture of continuous experimentation in marketing → Track metrics like lead volume, conversion rates, and CAC → Double down on what works, pivot quickly from what doesn't 2️⃣ Turn sales into a science → Break down your sales funnel into measurable, repeatable steps → Invest in tools to track each stage of the buyer's journey → Build a data-driven sales playbook that's constantly refined → Transform sales into a scientific process with measurable inputs and outputs 3️⃣ Graduate from MSP to "whole product" MSP (Minimum Sellable Product) is your initial, focused offering. But it's just the start. → Invest in security, compliance, integrations, and customer support → Understand your customer's entire journey, not just your core tech → Design every aspect of your offering for a seamless path to value 4️⃣ Obsess over customer outcomes → Embed your product into customers' day-to-day workflows → Capture granular data on how users engage with your offering → Use this data to paint a vivid picture of the value you're creating → Set concrete success metrics with prospects before they sign Building this GTM machine is how you evolve from founder-led sales to scalable growth. It's not easy, but it's essential. Want to dive deeper? My 'Graduating from Series A' article of the B2BaCEO newsletter unpacks every step to reach $10M ARR. You can find it at the link on my profile.

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If your solution requires behavior change of any amount, you require a top down selling motion. Why? Behavior change is too hard to do bottoms up. It just doesn’t work. A pretty large number of SaaS apps think that they can go middle up or bottoms up. Then they are frustrated that their “champion” or “power user” isn’t driving the change they want. If your solution requires change, get good at selling to the c-level.

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If you want to hit $100M ARR (and position your company for true scale), you must master enterprise sales. Here are the 11 critical skills your team needs to consistently close 6, 7 and 8 figure deals: 1. Understanding fundamental differences between transactional selling and enterprise sales 2. Developing the right pricing strategies to align with your customer 3. True multi-stakeholder and multi-threaded sales processes 4. High impact account-based marketing strategies including dedicated virtual programming 5. Field sales support and in-person program development 6. Territory design and comp planning 7. Building the team including pre-sale architects, reps, and customer success 8. Aligning the organization and staffing new functions 9. Building out services to ensure your customers solve their problems 10. Mutual action planning built around client outcomes 11. Deal management at the Board level These are all fundamental skills Pavilion taught previously but the scope and intensity are different when it comes to true Enterprise sales. That’s why Enterprise GTM School is so important and it’s become a foundation of our educational curriculum. We’ll teach you the entire enterprise playbook, give you the workbooks, tools, and processes, and prepare you to hit true scale. The course is included FREE with Executive Membership. It's an absolute can’t miss! And it starts TOMORROW Apply here: https://lnkd.in/ezspvCZe P.S. Not a member yet? DM me to get 10% off Enterprise GTM School

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There’s a dramatic divide in how GTM teams are setting up signal-driven outbound. Some teams are thrilled with a 2% conversion rate, and others expect 20%. Here’s why: It comes down to whether your motion is for SMBs or MM / ENT. Companies selling to SMBs have a massive TAM. Using Bluebirds, we found ~500k accounts in the US with less than 200 employees. With smaller ACVs and this large of a TAM, SMB motions need to rely on automation to make the economics work. Here are the benchmarks at an account level: - 0.3% meeting rate with just email sequences, no signals - 1% meeting rate with email sequences that are signal-driven (job change, job postings, fundraising, etc.) - 3% to 5% meeting rate with email, call, connection requests and signals It’s difficult to scale beyond these benchmarks without smaller territories and higher-touch rep involvement, which breaks the unit economics. Luckily this works really well if you can automatically touch thousands of accounts per week using tools like Smartleads, Bluebirds, Clay, dozens of inboxes, Orum / Nooks, etc. On the flip side, companies selling to MM / ENT have a much tighter TAM of ~50k accounts. After tiering, reps might be responsible for 100-200 accounts and need to drive $30k+ ACVs. Three VP of Sales running this GTM motion said they expect their reps to convert at a 15-30% meeting book rate, within 2 weeks of working an account. These teams still want signals to improve productivity and know where to focus, but don’t wan’t extreme outbound automation. Their tech stack looks more traditional, using Outreach instead of Smartleads, a moderate number of inboxes, and something like Bluebirds for signals. One approach isn’t better than the other, it just depends on your GTM motion. Feels like this nuance has been glossed over in the signal-driven outbound conversation on LinkedIn.

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NRR is a great SaaS metric, but it’s not the be-all and end-all—not even close. Hear me out... First of all, it's a big mistake to over-index on any single stat in business. The more you obsess over any single stat in business, the more you lose the big picture of how your company is actually doing. You get a distorted view of your company’s health and performance. Examples: - Focus too much on LTV → miss out of short-term revenue - Focus too much on MRR growth → attract bad-fit customers - Focus too much on churn → leave growth on the table NRR is no different. A big reason why? It treats down-sells as a "loss". Canceled subscriptions are a loss—that’s a customer saying, “I don’t need your product at all anymore." However, a customer who down-sells is telling you something *completely* different... “My need for your product has shifted, and there are certain parts of it that I no longer need. HOWEVER, the core of your product is still valuable and important to my business.” Through this lens, customers who down-sell should be TREASURED. Who knows? Maybe they're spending less in other areas of their organization in order to keep your solution. And if that's what they're doing, there's a case to be made that down-sold customers are your most loyal. ^Frankly, this is why so many of the best SaaS companies offer various plans/tiers—it allows their customers to better align the value they’re receiving with price points that they can manage. In short? Yes, NRR is a fantastic SaaS metric. No, you shouldn't obsess over it. #b2b #saas #churn #revenuegrowth #startups

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