The Moneyball of Go-To-Market (GTM)/AJ Gandhi, Omar Akhtar - Benchmarker, B2B Recession, Coachella ~ Spark of Ages Ep 47 - Spark of Ages

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Omar Akhtar (00:00):
What does good or average marketing look like,
specifically in terms of numbers?

AJ Gandhi (00:04):
Because companies do marketing very differently
depending on who they're sellingto, how big they are and what
channels are important to them,and so if everyone's doing the
same thing, if everyone's usingthe same channels and the same
kind of techniques and tactics,you know they're not going to be
effective anymore.

I don't want to sound a fear monger, but we're
effectively in a B2B SaaSrecession or at the cusp of it.

AJ Gandhi (00:26):
If only 20% is really spent with sales teams, but
you're spending 70% of yourgo-to-market resource on sales.
Well, that's a problem.

So I'm going to say something a little bit sort of
maybe controversial, but bringit.
Yeah, I don't think AI is goingto change the way that people
are measuring much, and notbecause AI is not this
innovative way.
Think of it this way I think AIwould make a good marketer
better and a mediocre marketerwill stay mediocre.

AJ Gandhi (00:53):
I mean, you look at SEO the traffic's down
significantly because people onwebsites much less.
You look at PPC and just theconversion and the efficiency
rates are down significantly.
So it's just like, hey, theincremental dollars don't make
sense and just search volume'sdown as well.

You look at big trade shows.

AJ Gandhi (01:08):
It's like you know, you're not getting the yield
there either.

There was an era where you know, when we were
getting better at digital, whereyou could do more with less,
where you could put out morecontent and you could get more
ads and you could personalizethings, and there's a lot of
good technology that helped usdo that.
I think we've reached the limitof doing more with less.

Rajiv Parikh (01:30):
Welcome to the Spark of Ages podcast.
We're going to get into thenitty gritty of one of my
favorite subjects, which isgo-to-market money ball.
It's how data-driven insightsand tactics from inside the
marketing and sales trenches arerevolutionizing the way
companies drive growth in an AIworld.
This conversation isn't aboutincremental campaign
improvements.
We're talking about rethinkinghow you build go-to-market

(01:52):
engines and about buildingstrategies that deliver results
where traditional playbooks arenow falling apart.
Two amazing guests today hugeexperts in this field.
Aj Gandhi is a distinguishedgo-to-market leader and an
executive community builder.
He's the co-founder of theGo-to-Market Leader Society and
recently served as chief growthofficer for Marlin Equity

(02:13):
Partners and held significantroles at Salesforce, Ring
Central, Bain and McKinsey.
He's also on the board of anumber of firms, including Plum
Acquisition Corp.
AJ is an alumnus of UC Berkeleyand Harvard Business School.
Omar Akhtar is the founder andprincipal analyst at Benchmarker
, leading research on marketingexcellence for B2B technology.

(02:33):
Previously, he was head ofresearch at Altimeter, where he
advised Fortune 500 companies,including Microsoft, salesforce,
adobe and Netflix, on marketing, data and content strategies.
Omar got his undergrad degreein economics from Ohio Wesleyan
and then got a master's injournalism from Columbia.
Gentlemen, welcome to the Sparkof Ages.

Cool Rajiv, great to be here.
Thank you for having me on.

All right.
Well, aj Omar is in the BayArea right now and AJ is
currently having an amazing tripin Italy, so thank you for
joining us late at night fromTuscany.

AJ Gandhi (03:08):
Greetings from Florence.
A Firenze, buona sera.
Lots of good pizza and pastaand blowing my tummy every night
.

Lots of wine and gelato, and gelato, oh my God.

And you never feel full.
That's the amazing thing aboutit you never feel full out there
.

It's fantastic.
Will you not feel full?

AJ Gandhi (03:28):
Probably drunk the Italian wine is good.
Chianti Classico makes all yourproblems go away.

I'm melting away.
All right, let's definego-to-market a bit.
What does it mean anyway?
All right, let's definego-to-market a bit.
What does it mean?
It's really this evolutionthat's occurred, where we are
taking sales, marketing,customer success and even
product, where everyone workstogether to get the solution to
market and works together tobuild growth and understand what
customers are saying.
It's like we had Chandar, who'snow chief go-to-market officer

(04:01):
at Workato, previously on ourepisode, so there's even people
taking that on as a title, andso it's a real, real amazing
movement and we just love havingtwo amazing leaders in the
space.
So, omar, I'm going to startwith you.
You have recently published the2025 B2B SaaS Marketing
Spending and PerformanceBenchmarks Report, and it
provides a unique data-drivenlook into the current state and

(04:22):
future direction of go-to-marketstrategies, so maybe you can
help us set the stage and talkabout what your core findings
are.
Key takeaways anything thatchallenges conventional wisdom.
Just highlight key areas ofinnovation.

Yeah.
So just to give you a bit ofcontext, my company Benchmarker
I formed it to take onspecifically the marketing
portion of that go-to-marketcabal that you're describing,
and what I really wanted to dowas to figure out a couple of
things.
One, what does good or averagemarketing look like,
specifically in terms of numbers?

(04:54):
Because companies do marketingvery differently depending on
who they're selling to, how bigthey are and what channels are
important to them, and I wantedto be able to give them that
data to say that, okay, ifyou're this type of company,
this is what marketing or goodmarketing looks like for you.
I didn't think that there was aone size fits all sort of way of
doing things, and so I go outthere, I collect data, I do
interviews, I do surveys ofdifferent companies and I split
that data and I do it across avariety of topics.
At the beginning of the year, Ilooked at budgets, then I

(05:15):
looked at performance metricsand I'm looking at things like
AI adoption and how that's goingto affect things like headcount
and a few different components.
What I found with the two mostrecent surveys that I did one on
budgets and spending and thenone on marketing performance was
that we're effectively I don'twant to sound a fear monger, but
we're effectively in a B2B SaaSrecession, or at the cusp of it

(05:38):
, and what that means is thatthe growth rates that we were
used to, which used to be northof 30%, the median growth rate
now is 11 to 20%, and so thecompanies that are doing better
than that are in the north of20%.
That's a big decrease from whenI did the survey last year 21
to 30%.

That's pretty recent.
Right, it's a pretty recentchange.
Aj's talked about this.
It's an explosive growth,post-pandemic pandemic,
post-pandemic explosive growthand now things have cooled
tremendously.

Yeah, I think that's part of the whiplash for
this and, aj, I'd love to kindof see your perspective on this
where things went so fast and sohard and then AI comes onto the
scene and everyone thinks it'sgoing to be this big sort of
SaaS renaissance, but what we'reseeing is a lot of contraction
Now.
Part of it is, I think, that alot of incumbents have just
grown big and big companiesdon't grow very fast.
They grow at around 10%.
That's about healthy for bigcompanies, but the thing that
was concerning to me is thathalf of these companies are

(06:28):
below 50 million in annualrevenue and they're not growing
at the rate that you wouldexpect them to.
There's a few different factorsthere, but that was sort of the
big finding to me.
The second one was that we'realso in an era of marketing
inflation, where the same amountof spending gets you worse
results, and so where companiesare spending more amounts on

(06:49):
their channels like LinkedIn,like Google and on email
marketing, but cost per lead isgoing up, but the amount of
leads that they're getting backand the conversions they're
getting, the rates, are evenlower.
Part of that is saturation.
Part of that is just thechannels that they're on, just
don't work as well as they usedto, and that's a real reality
that we're facing, for if you'rea SaaS executive, and if you're
a SaaS marketing executive inparticular, which is, you have

(07:10):
to know the kind of scenariothat we're operating in right
now.
It's not what it used to be andthat requires a different
playbook.

AJ Gandhi (07:16):
Yeah, I think there's a lot of market problems out
there right now.
So I would concur, omar as well.
I think the biggest one is look, there's been a huge amount of
consumption of SaaS products andif you look at any mid-sized
enterprise company, how manydifferent SaaS applications do
you have, even within a functionfinance, sales, marketing the

(07:37):
number is incredibly voluminous,and so that's one problem is
there's already a ton in thetech stack.
Another problem is many of thesetools don't actually work well
together.
So you may have all these tools, but because the information
and data isn't shared amongstthe tools, they're actually not
that effective.
I think the third thing thatwe're seeing actually is

(07:57):
commoditization, so you can lookat certain categories and just
see, hey, what used to be a bestof breed play, that was
superior.
You know.

Look in the forecasting space, look in the
sales engagement tool space, soforecasting you know, clary
dominated sales engagement.
You had sales loft you hadoutreach dominating.

AJ Gandhi (08:16):
You looked at conversational intelligence, you
had Gong and you had ForeheadChorus and these were individual
tools and you could go out andthose companies would sell them
for 150 bucks per month per userand they all got big.
They got to two, 300 million.
But a big issue that they foundis that suddenly, you know,
gong has built all thisfunctionality for all three

(08:37):
categories.
You've got companies like Avizothat have cropped up and
they've built all these thingsplus, you know, know, customer
success tools and plus many newai tools, and they're actually
undercutting the marketdramatically.
So you're seeing the marketprice for these tools just drop
by 50 to 60 percent.
And so you combine all thesefactors plus.

That's where you've got a problem the last thing I
would just say, and I really dothink it all starts with the
buyer is look, you don't competeagainst other people in your
quote micro category.

AJ Gandhi (09:08):
You're actually competing for the attention, for
the relevance of the persona ofyour ICP and there are just
dozens and dozens of companiesgoing after that persona.
So it's just noise and buyersare just more discerning because
they bought so much.

Yeah, you're probably seeing similar things
in the research, right?
You're seeing that the buyinggroups are.
Because of this proliferationof software packages, the buying
group has gotten larger, right?
I think Forrester talked aboutit earlier this year where buyer
group has now moved from sixpeople to as much as 14 people.
Right, and because there's somany things that touch so many
functions and before you want todeploy something, you want to
make sure it's going to trulywork in your environment.

(09:42):
You just don't want toaccumulate these gigantic tech
stacks.

Absolutely, and I love the point that Adria just
made about competing forattention, because that's really
the problem Head-to-headcompetition it's not as much of
a concern, it's just likegetting into the inbox of the
person that you're trying totalk to.
And part of that is becausewe've sort of lowered the
barriers to entry for messagingand AI sort of made it easier
for us to put content out atscale.
And if you think about theaverage executive and I talked

(10:06):
to them and I'm sure you guysare part of this think of how
many messages you get everysingle day.
And those are just the softwaresales messages.
This isn't even counting allthe other advertising that
you're seeing just on yourcommute to wherever you're going
.
And that's a real reckoning formarketers who are tasked with
the sole purpose of gettingthrough to people.
And when the product market issaturated.
But the messaging channels arevery, very saturated and

(10:28):
breaking through is the onething that the research is
showing, which I'm happy to talkabout, is what's old is new.
Again, the stuff that you can'tscale is the stuff that's
working the events, the inperson, the one on ones, that
highly proprietary piece of datathat you release as thought
leadership.
That's the stuff that'sbreaking through and
increasingly that's the kind oftactical growth that we're going
to see is in those areas.

So your digital spend, your LinkedIn, cosper,
cosper Lead or Cosper Connect isgoing up right and just because
people are seeing more of thesethings and they're not clicking
.
And so you need to find ways toconnect with people more
intimately.
So are you seeing a shifttowards events from the spend
data, from the marketing spenddata?

Yeah, it's going up .
So I think the median wasaround 18 to 20%.
But on the high end people arespending 30% of their marketing
program budgets on events and,the thing that was interesting
when I talked to them, itdoesn't necessarily mean big
marquee events.
What we find is that they'respending on sort of smaller
boutique events where they'regetting together a few
executives, prospects and veryintimate affairs, kind of like

(11:29):
what you guys do withGo-To-Market Society which I got
to say is a really greatblueprint for how to do this
thing where you're gettingauthentic conversations.
It's not overly salesy.
There's a lot more listeningthan talking Companies that are
investing in that are ravingabout the results, whereas
you're like, yeah, if you getpeople together, give them a
good time, why wouldn't they beengaged?
Right, it seems simple, butit's like, oh, people are waking

(11:49):
up to it now.

When they're raving about results, is it
because they feel good going tothe event or are they actually
seeing it in their movement intoopportunities?

Absolutely moving at opportunities.
I mean, think of it the sameway.
I went to an event.
There was a vendor there thatwas sponsoring the event and
they did the event and it was anice enough event.
They weren't very pitchy, butI'm going to take their
follow-up call because you knowwhy wouldn't I?
They were nice enough to callme over.
That's just kind of humannature.
If I eat your food, I'll takeyour call.
So in the smallest microcosm ofthings, it's harder for people
to reject you when they've seenyour face.

(12:19):
And if and try to scale it,you'll see that that's where
most of the marketing is workingtoday.
That's amazing.

I mean, this is definitely something you've
really built up AJ.

Yeah.

AJ Gandhi (12:33):
And I think there are a couple of things to kind of
get into here.
So the first one is related tokind of what tactics are working
in demand, gen and look.
Marketing, at the end of theday, is about being
differentiated as a way ofactually kind of engaging a
prospective customer or yourexisting customer, and so if
everyone's doing the same thing,if everyone's using the same
channels and the same kind oftechniques and tactics, you know

(12:53):
they're not going to beeffective anymore.
I think this is where you knowUdi Ledergore and his courageous
marketing has done a nice job.
It's like the unique programs.
That's what really works andthat's why what's old is new
again really applies.
I think what you also have todo is you know, when you are
engaging people part of thereason I came in at the end of

(13:14):
that dinner that you were a partof, and you know the solution
provider definitely you know,created a nice quality
experience but they alsoprovided, you know, some really
tangible value, what they didfor every company that attended.
this is a solution providerthat's doing kind of SEO and
kind of LLM search optimization.

AEO.

AJ Gandhi (13:33):
Yeah, AEO GEO, whatever you want to call it,
A-E-I-O-U.

We had a whole AJ.
We had a whole show on that alittle while ago.
Good, good good.
And we've had Udi on the showtoo, so yes, For those kinds of
things.

AJ Gandhi (13:47):
So you know that company did an assessment for
every attendee and they actuallyhad it at the printed out kind
of asset.
It was given to everybody.
So I think the reciprocityprinciple does apply, as Omar
highlighted.
But you know, I think it goesback to some core principles
these come back from like CraigRosenberg and Topo days, it's
like you want to be tailored,relevant and have a high value

(14:10):
offer.
So that's what kind of engagespeople.
That's great.

I think one of the things you've definitely talked
about, aj, is the notion aboutproactively educating the market
, shaping a category You'vebrought folks on that will help
you differentiate from the seaof sameness.
There's that positioning andthere's that understanding, so
maybe you can describe some ofthat.
And then how do we benchmarkthe value of that?

(14:35):
You're at Marlins, you had 50companies in your portfolio and
you do a positioning exerciseand then from that you look at
the spends and marketing andsales and all that.
So talk about how folks arecreating, basically educating
the market, shaping a newcategory and then selling into
it based on differentiatedpositioning.
Yeah, I mean.

AJ Gandhi (14:52):
I think it starts with just why does your problem
matter?
And making sure that you'retruly understanding if you're
trying to sell the financialservices midsize financial
services companies or enterprisemanufacturing companies.
What do they really care about,you know?
Is it inventory management?
Is it compliance?
Why is this an executive levelpriority?

(15:12):
I think the problem that mostcompanies are having today, and
the reason that all themarketing metrics and sales
metrics, frankly, are justtanking, is because you're
selling it to a mid-level buyerwith a solution for which there
are other competitors, andthat's not your only competition
.
You're also competing against.
You know, five to seven othercategories of potential spend

(15:33):
that that same target personacould have.
So, yes, they could spend oncompliance software, they could
spend on financial reportingsoftware, they could spend it on
, you know, some sort of taxsoftware or workflow software.

It's like well, which one do you?

AJ Gandhi (15:45):
pick so well what matters and why, and so I think
this is where it comes to thepositioning and messaging
challenge.
So you really want to beselling the problem and really
elevating the importance ofsolving that problem to the
executive buyer I'll give you anexample there's a company that
I spent a lot of time with inthe past year, and it provides

(16:08):
service supply chain software.
Okay, well, who cares aboutservice supply chain?
This is kind of like so sexy.
It's super sexy, right.

It's just like I'm just getting ugh yeah exactly.
Hair standing on end here.
Well, guess what?

AJ Gandhi (16:23):
You know that.
Operations manager for servicesupply chain.
You've got to imagine they'rethe most powerful person in a
company, right?
It's like in thesebillion-dollar manufacturing
companies.
However, when you actually takea step back and you actually
really understand, that is hey.
If a piece of equipment breaks,how long does it take for you

(16:51):
to get replacement?

parts out to you know, make that equipment
operational again.

AJ Gandhi (16:52):
Imagine that you're like a 10, 20, $50 billion
company with thousands ofproducts all throughout the
world that have been producedover the last 40 years.
You know.
Imagine you're a Honeywell.
Imagine you're, you know anAmerican Airlines.
Imagine you're theseappointments as a doctor, Huge
losses.

It's not just loss for revenue, it's actually like
life's at risk as well.
It's poor service for yourpatients, right, exactly, but
you know that inventory carryingcost.

AJ Gandhi (17:35):
You know you could be carrying hundreds of millions,
if not billions of dollars ininventory.
So what's the right level, andwhere do you put it?
So it's not just a cost issue,it's also very much a service
and customer satisfaction issue.
And then the issues can be evenbroader.
When you elevate it up that way, it actually becomes a much
higher value problem.

When you're elevating it like that, you're
finding particular places wherethat persona is really going to
care, and then you werehighlighting that right.
You're saying to them hey, ifyou don't solve this problem,
here's the big problem.
If you don't solve this problem, you could be out of a job,
right.

AJ Gandhi (18:09):
Well, it's actually much higher than that because, I
mean, great Services directorfeels, but do they have the
budget Do they have the ITpriority?

So you have to make it an executive level.

AJ Gandhi (18:19):
Yeah, you want to get to.
I want to get to at the veryleast sort of the you know the
FP&A lead for kind ofmanufacturing.

I help them recognize hey, we're talking
about hundreds of millions ofdollars of working capital.

AJ Gandhi (18:28):
That's being wrapped up in inventory costs and
there's actually even extracosts.
Well, let's say, I'm trying togo fix something and I don't
have the part, well, that's anextra truck roll and that may
take an extra few days, an extra.
So there's a big expense thereas well.
What's it take to actually getthat fix?
And then there's the customerexperience factor as well.

(18:51):
So when you roll all thosethings up and you actually take
it to an executive level, thenyou actually start to hit very
large numbers.
And that's the kind ofeducation that you need to go to
those senior executives andhighlight hey, these are
problems that exist and how areyou managing them?
And it kind of helps when youknow someone like McKinsey or
Bain you know, writes a reportthat actually documents this,
and so this can be part of theplay as well as hey, let's get

(19:13):
experts to validate that this isa multi hundreds of million
dollar problem that really needsto be an executive priority,
and so those are the kinds ofways that you know once people
recognize they have the problem,then they'll engage much more
than just saying, hey, this isgoing to be better inventory
management and at that point themore exclusive event actually

(19:34):
adds more value.

Exclusive event with the right kind of targeting
If you can make it high enoughlevel right as a problem.
Then you can have that amazingexperience and you can afford to
market in the right way tobuild that buyer group Right.
So that's where thispositioning exercise really
matters.

AJ Gandhi (19:50):
Yeah, no, no.
So, yes, I mean, I think thatthe mechanism of how you
activate it across the buyer'sjourney is another thing, but it
starts with what is the problem?
Why does this problem matter?
What's the business value ofthe problem?
And I would actually highlight,you know, from all my work with
companies, I think thepositioning messaging thing is
way too me too, in mostcompanies, and then the value

(20:13):
measurement part is actuallyanother area that's acutely
broken in most companies.

Awesome, and so let's talk a little bit about
measurements.
Omar, maybe you can give us alittle bit about how, in this
age right, we have so much morethat we can do with AI.
Yeah, we can measure many morethings.
So what are advanced frameworks, next generation proxies used
to measure the impact of thingsthat might have been
unquantifiable in thego-to-market space, like grand
affinity, authentic humanconnection, thought leadership?

(20:39):
They're still looking atnumbers.

Yeah.

Having a great experience at an event may not
be enough, right?
So how are you seeing companiestake these intangible
strategies and then turning theminto something measurable?

So I'm going to say something a little bit sort of
maybe controversial but Bring it.
Yeah, I don't think AI is goingto change the way that people
are measuring much, and notbecause AI is not this
innovative way.
Think of it this way I think AIwould make a good marketer
better and a mediocre marketerwill stay mediocre, and what I
mean by that is saying thatpeople that were already good at

(21:11):
measuring or already had a goodframework for measuring the
value of what they were doing,are using AI to get faster at
putting that information out andmore accurate at putting that
information out.
But AI on its own isn't givingus any new framework for what to
do.
So marketing 101 is stillmarketing 101, which is, how
many people did you reach andwhat did they think about you?

(21:34):
And when they think about you,do they know what you do, which
is everything AJ has talkedabout, and people sort of don't
do those bits.
They jump to sort of the AIwill help us prove the numbers,
but the stuff that they need tofigure out is everything that I
just said.

That's right.
Maybe it's not giving you a newmetric right, but now you can
personalize the content that yousend to people or personalize
how you connect with people.
How are you measuring that?

It's the way that you've always measured it, which
is that how many people reachedthis and when they think of a
category do I come to mind?
And if there's a shortlist, amI on that shortlist?
There's no amount of AI that'sgoing to change that metric,
especially in SaaS.
In terms of what you should bemeasuring, and those are the
only things that matter, I'llpush you a little bit on this.

I mean, you're doing these amazing surveys,
right?
You're getting in-depth withthese B2B, mostly SaaS firms,
right.

Yeah.

So, and you're tracking, I think, the
difference between those who areleaders in the space versus
those who are laggards in thespace.
So are you seeing data therethat this personalization
oriented strategy or this betterpositioning, or how are you
seeing this in the numbers?

So the personalization bit I don't want
to speculate because I don'thave the numbers on that to say
that people who arepersonalizing are doing better.
I think other companies havedone that.
Here's what I can tell youabout what the companies that
are growing faster.
That's what they're doingbetter.
The number one thing is thatthey're spending more on
marketing.
That's sort of the one thing.
That's kind of the bigseparator.
So companies that were growingfaster that's north of 20% and

(22:56):
hit their revenue targets lastyear, those companies are
spending sort of 10 to 12,sometimes even 13 to 15% on
marketing.
The companies that didn't hittheir numbers are spending
around 7 to 9% of their annualrevenue on marketing and if you
get bigger than that, then thenumber sort of goes down.
But if you're a B2B SaaScompany that's in the 100 to 500
million annual range and you'respending in the single digits

(23:20):
on marketing, that's going tohamper you.
There was an era where you know,when we were getting better at
digital, where you could do morewith less, where you could put
out more content and you couldget more ads and you could
personalize things, and there'sa lot of good technology that
helped us do that.
I think we've reached the limitof doing more with less,
because now we've sort of cutmarketing to the point that we
can't actually sustain that samelevel of reaching eyeballs,

(23:42):
which is the only thing thatmatters for marketing is how
many people are you reaching?
The single biggestdifferentiator is that you can't
sort of cut your way to growth.
You can either choose to be anefficient organization and try
to stay profitable or you cantry to grow beyond a certain
limit.
It's really really, really hardnot impossible, really hard to
cut your way and then achievethose growth figures.
The second difference that Ifound was that companies that

(24:03):
were growing were spending aboutsort of equal amounts of their
marketing budget on brandmarketing and demand marketing.
Brand marketing is stuff thatbasically there's no click
afterwards, it's purelyawareness marketing, purely for
eyeballs.
We don't care what they didafterwards, we just want them to
see the thing that we did.
And demand generation the waythat I classified in this survey
is stuff that's more guaranteedto have them click on something

(24:25):
, convert on something, takesome sort of quick follow-up
action, really demand capture.
And I think in the past fewyears, because SaaS was such a
hot category and people werebuying software, we started to
think that demand generationworked a lot better than it does
.
What happens is that youcapture people that were already
in market and a lot of peoplewere in market, especially post
COVID.
You're going after low hangingfruit with demand Going after

(24:46):
low hanging fruit and youcapture a lot of that stuff.
But that's like a drug.
It's like it is like a drugJohn Miller called it a gumball
machine where it's like dollarin and $10 out and what we found
is that sort of that well isdrying up and people neglected
to do the top of the funnelstuff.
And when you neglect the top ofthe funnel the effects aren't
immediate.
They happen sort of nine, 10,12 months later.

(25:06):
But now we're sort of seeingthat is that the people if you
look at the SaaS that's doingwell, they're all incumbents.
The folks that have a big brandpresence, folks that got into a
category, defined a categoryand they're staying there.
People are still talking aboutSalesforce and HubSpot.
They're still talking aboutsort of the big players in the
market and if you think aboutyour Fortune 500, it's really
difficult to get them to go awayfrom stuff that isn't like top

(25:28):
of mind when it comes to brand.
And that stuff matters is whatI tell startups now is that if
you're a category creator, youthink you'll believe creating a
category you can't neglect, justlike what Clay is doing.
I got to admit, embarrassingly,I don't quite know what Clay
does.
That's so different and special, but people love it.
Yeah, yeah, People love it.
And I love their logo, yeah,and they're everywhere.
One day, when someone says, hey, we're looking for a software

(25:51):
for like I don't know something,go to market, et cetera, I'm
like I'll just go check out Clay, I don't know, Maybe they'll
work out not to plug them toomuch, but that's a great example
of of brand awareness.
Can I go?

AJ Gandhi (26:01):
back to the beginning of Omar's comment about
spending on marketing for amoment, because I actually think
it's a really important pointwhat percentage of the buyer's
journey is independent nowversus with a salesperson?
It's about 80% independent.
If you rewound 15 years to whenthe Challenger sale came out,
the big data point was 57% ofthe buying process was over.

(26:23):
Before ever talking to asalesperson.
Now people are saying well, net, net, it's probably 80%.
Is the buyer doing their?
own homework, talking to theirpeers.
They're not even going to theanalysts as much anymore, but
what percentage of the budget isspent on sales as a total

(26:45):
go-to-market effort?
It's still about 65% to 70%.

That's actually down from that.
I think in some of your studiesI was showing what 70% is on
sales.

Yeah, If you split.
Yeah, 70-30 split and likeyou're talking about Gen Z.

Nowadays, Gen Z is even more about self-education
than the Gen X buyer.

AJ Gandhi (27:03):
Well, so just look at the data again for a second
there, and that is if only 20%is really spent with sales teams
, but you're spending 70% ofyour go-to-market resource on
sales.
Well, that's a problem.

But then you just say well, okay, well, let me see
how the salespeople are doing.

AJ Gandhi (27:17):
The performance distribution is incredibly
skewed these days.
The top performers are stilltop performers, but 60, 70% of
the reps are not making quota.
It's actually more like 70% ofthe reps are not making quota
these days and averageattainment is way down and it's
increasingly bimodal.
So you can actually just loboff the second half of the sales

(27:38):
team and you would probablyonly lose 10, 15% of bookings.
So that's a big problem when itcomes to resource allocation.
So very much agree, there needsto be more spend on marketing,
but it's got to be the righttype of marketing the things to
think about are it really is allalong the buyer's journey.
So start number one with.
You know what's the problem, wetalked about that.
But then figure out how do youactually move people along the

(28:00):
buyer's journey and I think thisis where.
Salesforce really kind of nailedit back in 2010.
And I got to be part of theteam where I actually just kind
of learned this from mycolleagues.
But we did these like CIOroundtables and it was 12 to 15
executives.
We'd bring in three existingcustomers from Salesforce who

(28:20):
are CIOs, who believe in thecloud, and then another dozen
who are on the journey, andthree, four hours.
It was very much thoughtleadership.
It was very much an informationexchange.

That's what progressed the buyer's journey
and those are the winning typesof programs that works today.
Now, If you were to name like acouple, two or three of the, we
know Salesforce, they're thegiant they're going to kick butt
.
We're dream is right around thecorner.
They're probably going to do itbigger and better than ever
before, and a lot of the folksthat are probably listening to
us are saying, well, I'm notSalesforce.

AJ Gandhi (28:51):
Well, my service supply chain example, richie
even that's a company well under100 million revenue Same thing
applied and that is hey, let'sget service supply chain leaders
.
let's get finance leaderstogether and talk about hey, why
does this problem matter?
How do you solve it, how do youthink about integrating this
with a larger ERP?
And it's the same exactprinciple and that's what sort

(29:12):
of works and progresses.
It's the same thing that we'redoing with, like go-to-market
leader society dinners.
It's like, hey, let's have adinner table of eight to 12
people, let's have a couple ofkey topics it might be geo, it
might be something else andlet's progress and go deep on
that conversation point in kindof a structured manner.
And that's what.
That's what really kind ofworks yeah, that's great.

And then what do you do?
Like now we know that this work, you know, like omar started it
and you, you really built up onit about kind of going back to
some previous things whereyou're creating exclusivity.
So how do you get companies whoare so used to going the other
way to unlearn the old behavior?
Or they just get smashed in thehead from their board.

AJ Gandhi (29:49):
Well, I think you just look at the data points on
these programs.
I mean, you look at SEO, thetraffic's down significantly
because people are on websitesmuch less.
You look at PPC and just theconversion and the efficiency
rates are down significantly.
So it's just like, hey, theincremental dollars don't make
sense and he and just searchfarms down as well.

(30:10):
You look at big trade showsit's like you know you're not
getting the yield there either.
So you know attribution is notperfect.
But there are a lot of thesethings that you can measure and
you can just sort of see.
Even if you pick yourattribution methodology and you
say, whatever it is, let me justfollow it longitudinally,
you're seeing it just tank for alot of these kinds of programs
and when that happens, you justnaturally logically say, all
right, let me cut back whatdoesn't work and let me try to
innovate on some things thatwill actually capture people's

(30:32):
attention.
Here's what I would tell you.
I mean, companies have problemsjust as much as they ever have,
and so the question is what arethose problems and how are you
helping them?
And how are you helping them?
Think about it, and especiallyin this world of AI, companies
succeed and quote sell stuffwhen their customers are
struggling with high valueproblems and there's massive

(30:53):
disruption out there right now,so that creates actually a ton
of opportunity.
As long as you can actually beperceived as the party, that it
can actually help them succeed.

That's right.
So there's that whole notion ofAI washing.
There's new AI native companies.
There's a lot of stuff there.
Omar, do you see anything inthe data about this?
You said there's maybe a SaaSrecession.
Is that because of theseemerging AI companies and folks
potentially using thesealternative engines to build
solutions that supersede SaaSfirms, or is it something else?

I don't think it's the case where people are
building their own AI at scale.
I think individuals are usingAI agents to help themselves and
some companies are talkingabout some processes they've
solved, but there's nothing inany interviews I've done,
especially with companies thatare of a decent size, like if
you're very small, you can do it, but if you're a hundred
million dollar company, there'sno sort of building of AI agents

(31:42):
at a big scale and part of thatis sort of corporate culture.
It's tough to get these thingsand get buy-in for people.
Individuals are doing it.
I wouldn't say that a companyis doing it.

Okay.
So people are scared.
I know a number of VCs that arereally concerned about their
portfolio, but it's notnecessarily translating yet.
Aj, you want a quick point onthis Because I want to jump to
my next one At the end of theday, AI is about use cases.

AJ Gandhi (32:03):
It is not like oh use AI and your whole business
transforms.
To be honest, I would actuallysay this the workflows of
companies haven't changed verymuch.
I mean the workflow as aninsurance company.
It's still the same thing.
But here's the issue.
So much of the work in thatworkflow is manual, has variance
and exists in big volumes so ifyou can use, ai to actually

(32:27):
automate much more of that.
That's a huge benefit.
That makes that workflow, youknow, much more efficient.
I would say the same thing whenit comes to abm and outbound.
We were kind of talking aboutthe point earlier about, well,
what's the impact ofpersonalization?
Well, when I was at RingCentraland we were doing outbound, we
were like, oh, okay, we'resaying, hey, you should buy a

(32:47):
phone system on the cloud in2016, because most people still
had PBXs, at least in the marketenterprise, and that worked to
a degree.
But it wasn't differentiated Ifwe said, hey, if I'm selling to
a law firm, here's the valueproposition.
If law firm, here's the valueproposition if I'm selling to an
accounting firm here's thevalue proposition construction
firm here's the valueproposition of whatever, having
any device and linking all thesesites the conversion rate went

(33:09):
up two to three x.
But the problem was you justcouldn't reliably do that for
every micro industry that wasout there.
It was just too time consuming.
When you think about thecontent and the, you know, back
then we were doing sequences andcall scripts and all that stuff
.
It was just too much work.
But now you can say you knowwhat?
there are 20 industries that Ican sell horizontal software

(33:31):
into.
I actually tailor to the 20industries and I'm actually
going to tailor to the fourdifferent personas.
The finance persona theoperations, persona, the
whatever persona, and I canactually achieve all that
because the AI tools make thatpossible.
So does the AI itself justmagically turn into massive
bookings?
The answer is no, because otherpeople can do it as well, but

(33:53):
it makes this part of the workmuch more automated.
So I think you want to thinkabout what are the use cases?

I think that's a great point to make.
I mean, I can tell you at leastbefore, when I would go into a
meeting with a potentialprospect or even a current
client.
It would take us a good amountof time days, maybe weeks to do
the research and put together amessaging strategy.
Now we can literally walk inand say well, here's something I
put together for you, andhere's all your personas, here's
your industries, here's yoursolution, here's how we think

(34:23):
you can reach the market better,and here's even a simulation of
results, and you can be readyto go much faster Now.
There's a lot more work to doafter that, but the richness
that you can get you can walk inwith way more insight is the
short answer and stimulate

a much better conversation.
I'll give you one more example.

AJ Gandhi (34:38):
There's this niche category called value selling
software.
It's like ROI, business casekind of stuff.
So there's a company out therewhich can actually analyze all
your case studies and all yourcompetitors case studies and
synthesize it into what are thekey value points and which
company actually does a betterjob on what types of metrics in

(34:59):
terms of driving business value.
And you can do that outside injust by analyzing all the case
studies that exist on the web,and they can do this for any
company.
So now, any company they gointo, they go and do this
analysis, preliminary analysis?

Yeah, it's amazing .

AJ Gandhi (35:13):
Of their five competitors, plus the company.

That's going to wake you up, Omar.
Is there something you want toadd to that?

No, I think it's a fair point to say and I'm all on
board with this kind ofpersonalization.
I think the key thing torecognize is most companies do
not do it in the sophisticatedway that both of you are
describing it.
They'll put in their firstdraft and use that as their
personalization technique.
I mean, I get emails all daylong people calling me Jennifer,
so it's how?

did they get from Omar to Jennifer?

Yeah, you tell me.
I mean, it's one thing if itwas also a similar South Asian
name, but it's a completelydifferent paradigm.
Yeah, so, most people don't dothat and I think that's a huge
part of the reason they don't dothat is because of the constant
pressure to do things quicklyand at scale and not put that
sort of strategy behind it,which is why I feel like your AI
is only as good as the personwho's developing the strategy

(36:00):
for it.

You really have to sit back and think about it and
get moving.
All right, I'm going to moveinto our next section.
I hope you guys have a littleextra time because I have a
bunch of stuff for both of youand I think it's going to be
super fun.
So, okay, we're going to talknow about brand versus demand.
I'm going to get your thoughtson this.
So here we go.
In the marketing world, a fiercedebate is raging.

(36:21):
On one side, you have thechampions of demand gen, who
live and die by the numbers ROI,the dreaded MQL and immediate
revenue.
For them, marketing is ascience of direct attribution.
On the other side are believersin brand, who argue that the
real value lies in buildinglong-term trust, recognition and
loyalty Things that don'talways fit neatly into a

(36:43):
spreadsheet.
They see marketing as an art.
We've compiled some interestingprovocative opinions that
challenge the core assumptionsof both camps.
So here we go.
I'm going to bring these up.
I'm going to ask you to take abit of a side.
I know you can give verynuanced answers, but take a side
.
So here's the question.
Brand marketing is a luxuryexpense designed as strategy In

(37:04):
a downturn.
It's interesting.
The first thing to cut is brandand advertising.
And the last is demand, jen,because only demand directly
contributes to the bottom line.
Quick thoughts Omar Omar'sshaking his head.

Completely disagree .
It's like trying to drain yourgas tank before you run a race.
It makes no sense to me thatyou would call brand a luxury
item when it's the fuel ofgrowth.
Yeah, I hard disagree.

All right, AJ.
Guys like you keep cutting adspend during a recession, Go
ahead defend it.

AJ Gandhi (37:32):
I think the reason the ad spend is getting cut
Rajiv is because it'sdiminishing in its effectiveness
and that's whatever attributionmethodology you're using.
So people will cut and shouldcut things that have less value.
What I think is kind of key isjust in this world of LLMs,
people shortlist much morequickly.

(37:53):
So if you're not gettingshortlisted, you're not in the
game, and that's where I thinkbrain comes in and it's sort of
having a distinctive point ofview.
If you're not playing there andyou're just running off of you
know all this funnel metrics, Ithink you're going to lose a lot
of the opportunity and you haveto keep in mind the funnel
metrics you know, for you knowmid to long sales cycle.

(38:16):
You don't really see the outcomefor quite some time six to 12
months, so you may not really beseeing what's actually going on
.
So your other question earlier.
I think the biggest incentivechange that's required is
actually just getting allgo-to-market teams to measure
the full funnel.
And that is really kind of morebowtie-esque to use the you
know Jocko from Wedding byDesign's terminology.

(38:37):
So it's not just acquisition,it's very much focused on
expansion and retention, which Ithink most companies.
There's so much more data forexpansion and retention, but
it's leveraged so much less thanthe acquisition metrics and I
think there's way more juice tosqueeze on expansion retention
standpoint, but only if youfocus on customers getting value
, and that's the lack ofsophistication on the right side

(39:00):
of the bow tie is superdiminished.

Absolutely.
All right, I'm going to ask youthe next one.
I'm going to have some fun withthis.
Now we're going to go the otherway.
Spending on demand gen is afool's game.
You're renting attentioninstead of owning it.
A strong brand is the onlylong-term asset a company can
build, making demand gen nothingmore than a short-term fix.

AJ Gandhi (39:20):
I disagree with this strongly.
I think you have to considerthe whole buyer's journey.
To me, brand is actually reallycritical in terms of getting
into.
I'm less the marketer that Omaris, but to me I always think of
it as more top of funnel.
I'm sort of getting into kindof the consideration game and
then there are things that youneed to do to nurture that
buyer's journey as you gothrough the funnel.

(39:41):
And I think that's where a lotof the demand gen programs come
in.
But I think you need the brandupfront.

Awesome, Omar.
Quick response.

No, I disagree.
I completely, in the sense, Idisagree with your statement.
I agree with AJ.
Like, look, there's no sort ofhaving brand without demand.
Those things don't work withouteach other.
You can't cut one and thenexpect the other one to work.
They're just different motions.
They require differentinvestments, different tactics.
The biggest difference is thatit's easier to measure demand
and so we over-index some of thethings that we can measure
easily, and also it's quicker tomeasure it right.

(40:09):
Like you can measure a brand butthe effects are longitudinal
over many, many quarters as yousee the effect of it, and
sometimes that does mean cuttingad spend.
Not because you're cuttingbrand, it's because those ads
aren't working on those channels.
That's the way to sort of lookat it.
I'll give you an exampleCybersecurity.
They drive me crazy becausethey mess up all my data,
because they're such an anomaly.
They just don't do marketingthe same way that everybody else

(40:30):
does.
Their marketing is very muchevent focused, it's relational,
it's not spending ad spend, butthey're still doing brand
awareness.
They're just doing it in adifferent way and because that's
what's working for them.
The way that they get top ofmind is by doing events and
in-person stuff.

That totally makes sense.
It's very different for thatarea and it makes a lot of sense
.
Okay, here's the next one.
Investing in brand is a moralobligation.
In a world of aggressive,intrusive demand generation, a
company has a duty to build agenuine connection with its
audience, even if thatconnection can't be easily
quantified.

Hard to agree.
I don't know if it's a moralobligation.
It's business whether that'smoral or not.
I mean, you could be selling avery immoral product and still
have to build a brand, but it'skind of a yeah, I don't see how
you exist without building that,but yeah, yeah, I think in a
noisy, noisy world you need tohave a brand to actually sort of
stand out.

AJ Gandhi (41:23):
And if we go back to the most basics of marketing,
like awareness and consideration.
I mean, that's what a brandgets you.
It gets you in the game.

Awesome, okay, the only reason brand building is
valued is because it'simpossible to measure.
It's a convenient excuse formarketers who can't prove their
ROI in a way to justify massivebudgets without accountability.

Yeah, hard to disagree and I think we know
where I'm going to fall on allthese.
But I think about ROI and thinkabout the stuff that you love
the most in the world, the musicyou listen to or the art that
you appreciate.
There's so many things in theworld that are great, have no
ROI or any quantifiable impactat all, but I think that's what
people sort of conflate asmarketing is art and therefore

(42:05):
should not be quantified, and Idon't think that's the case.
I think you should quantifyyour efforts and I think there's
this idea that you can'tquantify brand is also a
misnomer.
You can absolutely quantifybrand.
It just works differently inthe way and people have been
doing it for years.
You don't think Coca-Cola isquantifying its brand well
before demand generation?
Of course they are.
It just works differently.
So I disagree with that.

Great answer.

AJ Gandhi (42:25):
Yeah, aj quick, I think you very much can quantify
brand.
I mean, look at branded webtraffic.
I mean that's quantification ofbrand.
So I think there's very much anopportunity to do so.

Great answer.
I'll wrap it up with thissegment with this one Entire
brand versus demand debate is afalse dichotomy.
They're not two differentstrategies, they're the same
thing.
Every demand activity eitherstrengthens or weakens the brand
, and a strong brand is thesingle greatest driver of demand
.

AJ Gandhi (42:52):
No, I would agree.
I think if you look at any kindof buying decision that's made,
there are just so manydifferent kind of inputs across
that buyer's journey.
It could be some content, itcould be a website, it could be
a phone call, it could be anemail, it could be an event, it
could be a case study, it couldbe a conference, it could be an
analyst note.
So these are all.
They're just so many differentpieces.

(43:13):
I think it becomes a misnomerwhen you just try to say, hey,
I'm going to look at theattribution of this particular
asset or this particularcampaign.
When a customer makes a buyingdecision, they probably had
dozens of touch points frommarketing, from sales, from
others, and trying to assign adiscrete value on each one.

(43:35):
I think it's a false scienceand you have to think about it
just much more holistically.

I know you don't want me to give nuanced answers,
so I'm going to try to be assort of one-sided.

Have some fun with this Last brand versus demand
question Got it Absolutely.
Yeah, look, I think yes, it is afalse dichotomy because one
feeds the other, but the debateis real.
And the debate is real becausethere's pressures that are
coming from a lot of differentplaces.
A lot of CMOs want to do thingsthat are easily quantifiable, a
lot of boards want to seeresults, a lot of CFOs want to
see things that are sort ofnumbers-based, and what that

(44:09):
does is whether they're tryingto or not.
What that does is it means thatwe end up over-indexing on
things where we can show thenumbers a lot clearer.
So, while we know as marketingpractitioners, that that
dichotomy is false, the debateis very real, and the choices
that people have to make interms of the activities, that
they have to choose one or theother, is also very real, and so
I want to sort of empathizewith marketers who have to face

(44:30):
that choice in terms of the kindof tactics that they want to
invest in, because they feellike they have to come on one
side of that or the other.
So that's the only nuance that Iwould point out.

I would say that I've seen it with companies that
are going from earlier stagecompanies as they move up the
chain and get more and moremature.
If you have numbers you got tohit for your board or for your
VCs or your investors and thereis significant middle to bottom
of funnel opportunity, it's justeasier to do something that's

(44:58):
very quantifiable.
If you have a limited budget,it's easier to do that.
You can do as what AJ suggestshave a really good positioning,
really good way of showing yourproduct without having to spend
so much on high leveladvertising and brand building.
Think about a FinTech product.
If I need business loans, I needa freaking business loan and I
need money right now.
Who the brand is may or may notmatter if I need money right

(45:20):
now, but at a certain point I'mgoing to want to go to folks who
want a trusted relationship, along-term relationship, want
someone I can go back multipletimes and get that lending and
multiple financial services from.
Well then I need to trust youand therefore, having a brand
that's trusted and reasonable,that has a personality, et
cetera, is someone I'm going tocare about, I'm going to care

(45:41):
for.
Eventually you'll have to dothe numbers to show how one
drives the other.
And you can actually you canshow the explicit tie of your
brand advertising spendmarketing to reduced cost of
acquisition numbers because ofbrand recognition.
So it can be done, it justtakes some sophistication.

AJ Gandhi (45:59):
And you can also look at trends as well.
I mean, if you have a strongbrand, you would expect a bunch
of metrics to perform better, sowin-loss rates, sales cycle
duration, level of discountingdeal size these are all factors
to look at and if they're belowcertain benchmarks, you've got a
problem.
Or if they're showing a decline, you've got a problem and

(46:21):
you've got to do somethingthat's going to change the game
and it's not going to be justlike campaign mix that's going
to do that Right.

So we need to get the B2B version of Cynthia
Sweeney in.
That'll instantly increase yourdemand.
Okay, so here we go.
Let's go to the Spark Tank.
So you two are going to have ablast today.
Today we're thrilled to haveOmar Akhtar, a marketing
innovator with a fascinatingjourney that includes playing in
a rock band before becoming aleading voice in B2B SaaS

(46:47):
marketing benchmarks.
We're also joined by AJ Gandhi,a go-to-market guru and
community builder, who'smastered the art of creating
memorable experiences.
Today, we've got a fun twist onour classic format that taps
into the energy and culturalimpact of music festivals.
Why festivals?
You both have a deep love forlive music and we thought this

(47:08):
would be a fun way to play withsomething you both share a
passion for, not related to B2Bbenchmarks.
Here's how it works.
I'll present you with threestatements about music festivals
.
Two of them are absolutely true, no matter how crazy they sound
.
One is completely fabricated,designed to sound just plausible
enough to fool you.
Your job is to spot the lie.
After each round, I'll countdown three, two, one, and you'll

(47:31):
both reveal which statement youthink is fake.
So you have to do it at thesame time and you can't cheat
from each other.
So, omar AJ, you're ready toseparate fact from fiction?

AJ Gandhi (47:38):
Okay, all right, let's do it.
Fact from fiction.
Okay.

All right, let's do it, let's go.
Music festival time.
Remember two truths and a lie.
So two are true.
Here's number one.
At Bonnaroo, the CenterooFountain is known as a quote
perpetual source of happy times.
Every year, it turns into awild pool party, with attendees
in swimsuits or sometimes not,cooling off, dancing and
splashing in the illuminatedwater during the hottest days of

(48:03):
the festival.
Here's number two.
During Burning man 2025, thisyear, attendees participated in
a big wheel dildo joust anannual not-safe-for-work event
where costume competitors raceon oversized tricycles in
playful ruckus, battles forglory watched by laughing crowds

(48:23):
at the edge of the playa.
Number three at Coachella 2017,festival organizers
accidentally set off thousandsof biodegradable bubbles filled
with colored glitter, blanketingthe main stage and leading to a
rushed cleanup as headlinersperformed their sets.
So you ready?
We got Bonnaroo, burning manand Coachella.

(48:44):
You ready?
All right, I got one for AJ andthree for Omar.
So the AJ thought Bonnaroo wasfalse, omar thought Coachella
was false.
And guess what?
Omar, you win this round.
All right, yeah.

I decided to go with.
The most family-friendly optionwas obviously the one.
That was not true, yeah.

AJ Gandhi (49:11):
That's a good way of thinking about it.
I think you know anything andeverything happens at Barting
Day.

So while Coachella has featured elaborate art
installations and occasionaloutlandish moments, there's no
record of a glitter bubblemishap on the main stage, the
center route or, as it'sinformally known, for its pool
party atmosphere.
Festival goers often show up inswimsuits, and sometimes less,
and turn the fountain area intoa lively communal celebration
between music sets and then thequote-unquote big wheel dildo

(49:39):
joust is actually a legit thing.
Participants ride in oversizedtoy tricycles, don silly
costumes and participate inlight-hearted joust for the
enjoyment of festival crowds.

AJ Gandhi (49:50):
So here we go All right round two enjoyment of
festival crowds.

So here we go.
Oh, all right, round two I gotOmar.
One, here we go.
Number one at Lollapalooza 1995, testing your memory the band
Pavement was pelted with mud andsod by the crowd during their
set, prompting guitarist ScottCanberg to flip off and then
moon the audience beforestomping off stage an infamous

(50:13):
example of festival antics.
Number two Coachella 2018 wentTikTok viral after a group of
influencers attempted to campinside the festival's signature
flower installations, leading toa short-lived fairy camper
hashtag, fairy camper mini trendand safety warnings from

(50:33):
organizers.
Three a girl attendingMysteryland 2015 jumped off a
30-foot railing, survived onlywith minor injuries and became a
local festival legend, withorganizers later referencing her
in the official event guide.
I got Lollapalooza, coachellaand Mysteryland.
Here we go.
Which one's false?

(50:53):
Three, two, one.
Okay, I got two.
Threes.
Do you want to say why youthink it was three?

AJ Gandhi (51:02):
I don't think the lawyers.
Let you celebrate someone whojumps off a tree.

Well, guess what?
Guess what?
You're both both wrong.

Number two is false oh, man, oh, of course.
Number two would be falsebecause tiktok wasn't around in
2018.
I should have known that yeah,yeah.

Well, coachella.
Frequently trends on socialmedia with elaborate influencer
content and ephemeral microtrends.
There's no reports of peoplesuccessfully camping inside the
flower installations or anyresulting official safety
warning.

I forgot what life was like before influencers
ruined everything.

So yeah, so Lollapalooza's notorious
pavement incident in 1995included a crowd hostility
mudslinging in Canberra'smooning response cited multiple
Lollapalooza retrospectives.
That I can imagine responsecited multiple Lollapalooza
retrospectives that I canimagine, and apparently number
three 2015, notorious incidentwhere a young woman survived a

(51:59):
massive jump and was referencedin festival literature
thereafter.
So all right, here goes numberthree.
Aj, you have a good shot atcatching up here.

AJ Gandhi (52:04):
You should.

All right, here's number one.
Here's the number one potentiallie.
Summerfest in Milwaukeeregularly draws between 800,000
and 1 million attendees and isofficially recognized as the
world's largest music festivalby the Guinness World Book of
Records.
Number two at Outside Lands2014,.
A performer rolled across thecrowd in a giant inflatable

(52:27):
hamster ball, creating a surrealmoment that festival goers
still talk about today as one ofthe wildest and most unexpected
acts in event history.
Then there's number three AtEDC, the main stage was once
made entirely of ice that meltedduring performances, forcing DJ
sets to move indoors.

(52:48):
So we have Summerfest OutsideLands and EDC.

So you ready, oh man this is a tough one yeah.

It is a hard one.
Three, two, one I got oh, I gota split decision here.
So AJ is three, Omar is one.
Aj, why'd you pick three?

AJ Gandhi (53:09):
Well, I think one is true, just because it's so damn
cold in Wisconsin that theycelebrate the summers like
there's no tomorrow.
And I've heard it actually thatit's an extraordinary summer
experience in Milwaukee andSummerfest.
I think three is a lie.
Just because I imagine a stagebeing pretty massive and for
that to be completely made ofice and melt within the period

(53:34):
cleanly that you can actuallyhave a show.
It just seems like it wouldjust be completely chaotic.

I can't.

AJ Gandhi (53:39):
Imagine anyone would ever really plan to do that All
right?

Well, guess what, AJ?
Your logic is absolutelycorrect.

AJ Gandhi (53:45):
Number three oh, yay, finally.

I got a tie.

I'm actually kind of relieved that that's the case
.
That's good to know that therewasn't an ice stage, yeah evc is
famous for elaborate andcreative stage designs and
productions.

There's never been a stage made of ice that melted
and forced to move indoors.
You know why?
Because the festival takesplace outdoors in las Vegas.

AJ Gandhi (54:09):
So it'll be a little hard to handle desert climate.

But AJ's totally right.
Summer Fest regularly exceeds800,000 people over its 11-day
run, and Outside Lands 2014 hada moment where the artist bowled
over fans inside of a giantinflatable hamster ball.

AJ Gandhi (54:27):
That happens in the Outside Lands.

It's just a thing.

AJ Gandhi (54:31):
Right, you've probably seen that, right You've
been yeah, it seems like it'swhat it seems like that's become
a thing, that giant hamsterball things.

All right, here's the tiebreaker.
Oh man, okay.

Yeah.

So this is the main time I don't even have to
multiply the points on this.

So here we go.

This is all about Governor's Ball, so I hope you
guys know about this.

In New York right.

Yeah, yeah, all right.
So at Governor's Ball 2017, astreet performers sneaked onto
the main stage during a headlineact and began juggling flaming
torches, captivating the crowduntil a security officer
escorted him off.
The incident sparked a viralvideo and fueled rumors that
Governor's Ball had unofficiallystarted a guerrilla performance

(55:16):
tradition.
Number two at Governor's Ball2024, singer Chappelle Rohn made
a theatrical entrance, emergingfrom a giant apple statue,
modeled after the Statue ofLiberty, puffing on a blunt,
which quickly became one of themost talked-about moments of the
festival.
Number three In 2016, due toheavy rain, the last day of

(55:37):
Governor's Ball was canceled,prompting Kanye West to announce
a last-minute show at the1350-person capacity venue in
Manhattan, which led to chaos asthousands showed up,
overwhelming the small venue'scapacity.
So all three are governor'sball.
What was the first one?
Again, the first one is astreet performer sneaked onto

(55:57):
the main stage during a headlineact and began juggling flaming
torches, captivating the crowduntil security escorted him off.
So it was a viral video and hadofficially started this notion
of a guerrilla performancetradition.
So that was number one.
Number two is singer ChappelleRhone theatrical entrance giant
statue model after the Statue ofLiberty, while smoking.

(56:18):
And then number three was KanyeWest.
Okay, ready, three, two, one.
Oh, at least I got differentanswers, one and two.
So AJ's one, omar's two, omar,why do you believe two is right?
Two is the false answer.

I don't know.
I feel like I know Chapel RowanLike coming out of a giant
apple tracks, but smoking ablunt while coming out of a
giant apple, I feel like that'sa bit.
It's too many things thrown inthe same performance and the
other two just sound plausible.
Like you know, kanye West woulddo something reckless like that
and I would imagine thatguerrilla sort of performers is
a thing.

So that's where I went All right, AJ, defend your
point of view.

AJ Gandhi (56:58):
I think there's too much security in New York and,
as a result, you're just notgoing to let somebody get on
stage and actually perform.
I think the moment that theywould get on stage, that they
would get whisked offimmediately.

All right, they would get on stage, that they
would get whisked offimmediately.
All right, one of you got thecorrect answer, and so there is
a winner, and today, live fromflorence is aj, you're the
winner all right that's somesound logic chapel ruins
dramatic statue liberty apple.
Entrance was widely covered inpress and social media, making
her breakout governor's ballmoment in 2024.

(57:31):
And rain cancellations are apart of governor's ball history,
with 2016 final daycancellation resulting in Kanye
West's attempt at an impromptuconcert in Manhattan, documented
by multiple news sources.
Aj, you're the winner, but thatwas a lot of fun and kudos to
my staff.

AJ Gandhi (57:47):
Wow Good, so amazing.

Yeah.

That was so much fun.

All right, we're going to go to personal closers,
so I'm going to throw you atopic you can choose to comment
on it.
I would ask you to give mereally quick answers.
So you ready, I'm going tostart with AJ, then go to Omar
on this one.
What's something you used toreally be into that now you find
completely baffling about yourpast self?

AJ Gandhi (58:13):
I used to like working on spreadsheets Omar.

that's self-explanatory.

by the way, yeah, gosh, that's a really tough one.
I guess I used to really beinto fashion and I don't think
that's the case anymore.

You lost your love .
You don't read People magazineor whatever that is, or
Cosmopolitan or anything there.

Yeah, just sort of like the obsession with keeping
up with it is like I find myselfthinking wow, why was this so
important?

Yeah, I guess that makes a lot of sense.
I call my friends for that kindof advice, yeah, and.
I'm about 10 years behind.

All right.

Omar, you start on this one.
If you had to choose a themesong that plays every time you
walk into a room, what would itbe, and what energy are you
trying to bring?

Gosh, you really should give me some more time to
think about this.
So there's a punk rock bandcalled the Hives and they have a
song called Come On, and it isjust two words.
The whole song is just come on,and it's just this raucous,
like two minute blast of themjust yelling come on, come on,
come on, come on, and I listento it almost every day when I'm
trying to pump myself up.
It's your hype song.

(59:21):
It's my hype song.
It's perfect amount of time forme to enter a room play it.
It's over in less than twominutes.
It's only two words.
Gets the message across.
That would be my song.
Yeah, what a great answer, aj.

AJ Gandhi (59:32):
Let's see.
I think it would be Get whatyou Give by the New Radicals
Just fabulous, good one.

What energy are you trying to bring to it, if
you?

AJ Gandhi (59:41):
kind of hear the lyrics to the song.
It's about overcoming somehardships and like doing the
right thing.

And when you do the right thing your life becomes
way better.

Those, to me are kind of inspiring words
Beautiful.
All right, Omar, here we go.
If you had to share yourexpertise on something you love
that has nothing to do with work, what would you teach?

Omar Akhtar (01:00:02):
Cooking.
I tend to get a little nerdyabout cooking techniques and
ingredients and being kind ofinsufferable about different
kinds of cuisines andrestaurants.
So yeah, if you want to lectureon the best way to cook a steak
that's not just throwing it ona grill, then I'm your guy.

Rajiv Parikh (01:00:18):
All right, so you are really good at it then.

No, I didn't say I was good at it.
I said I'll lecture you on.
It Doesn't mean I'm good at it.
There's a difference.

There's the teach and there's the do.
Right, yes, yes, all right.
Aj, if you could be guaranteedto be really good at one thing
that you're currently terribleat, what would you choose?

AJ Gandhi (01:00:38):
I would want to be a Cy Young baseball pitcher.
That's like I think it's themost commanding role in sports
and I just think it's like thecoolest job ever.
It's like you have a three-hourbaseball game and you basically
come in and out for like anhour and a half of it and just
mow people down.

(01:00:59):
I think it's the most powerfulposition in all of sports.

I love it.
That's a great answer.
All the attention's on you.
The whole game depends on you.
You got to precisely locate.
You got to study your batters.
It's beautiful, Omar.
What's a piece of technologyfrom your childhood that you
genuinely miss, and what wouldyou bring back if you could?

iPods.
I think about my iPod so muchmore and, for whatever reason,
my phone just isn't the samething.
That iPod was the mostcherished piece of technology
I've ever owned.
It had like what what 2,000songs, but they were all picked
by me, curated songs that Iwould listen to over and over
again, never get tired of it,and I just managed to hold it,

(01:01:39):
take it with me everywhere, andit was such a personal statement
to have that sort of in theback of my pocket and my phone
just it's not the same thingthat I can have access to every
piece of music in the world andmy phone it's just not the same.
And so I really miss my iPod.

You miss the ability to curate it.
It's your device, it's personalto you.

Yeah, you choose its color just to feel the
weight of it.

There's something about the wheel right.

Yeah, nothing has come close to technology that I
love as much as an iPod.

Yeah, great answer .
All right, aj.
What's a rule or boundaryyou've set for yourself that
other people think is weird, butyou're convinced makes your
life better?

AJ Gandhi (01:02:15):
I think I have to host two to four events per
month to feel whole.
So I think most people think.
I'm crazy, for between luxurysocial events, go to market
dinners, paella parties.
Watches and whiskey, yeah,watches and whiskey is what's
coming out.

It's fun.
I just like being around greatpeople.

AJ Gandhi (01:02:36):
It's such a busy, crazy, noisy world.
What I think you need to do iscreate truly distinctive special
experiences, and that's whatbrings people out Hear hear.

I think that's great yeah.

Well, there you go .
That's even a conventionalwisdom breaker, and that's great
, yeah.
Well, there you go.
That's even a conventionalwisdom breaker who would say
that they need to have fourevents a month to feel whole.

AJ Gandhi (01:02:56):
I mean sometimes I think eight.
It's crazy.
So.

I just want to thank both of you for spending
all that time today sharing yourexperiences, your wisdom, your
learnings, your research.
I deeply appreciate how muchtime and effort you guys put
into this whole field ofgo-to-market.
I love learning about whatmakes people buy, what gets them
there.
So having the two of you herejust a treat.

(01:03:21):
How thoughtful you both are andhow interesting you are about
it.
So thank you.
Thank you both for spendingtime with us.

Thank you, raji, this has been wonderful.
Yeah, it was great.

Great conversation .
Wasn't that a fun conversationIf you are into what makes
people tick and how companiescan build themselves up in this
rapidly changing technologyenvironment.
There's so much here,especially in this AI-driven
world.
So Omar was talking about howold is new again, that the
tactics of digital marketing,which we love so well and do use

(01:03:59):
so much, in a way have beenoverused and don't differentiate
, and so they need to complimentwhat's the more personal
aspects of connecting companiestogether.
So you take your brand, youhave a distinctive level of
positioning, you have adistinctive view of the world,
and then you make that case on aperson-to-person basis, in
events, in dinners, in curatedsituations, but the problem has

(01:04:23):
to be big enough for you to havethose discussions with people.
So it's about putting it alltogether and then what you would
think is not scalable has tobecome scalable, and it's what's
working for those companiesthat are growing faster than
others.
I think the other point about AIand personalization it's stuff
that we've covered somewhatbefore, but AJ, I think, laid it
out really well and when I'mtalking about those 20

(01:04:45):
industries and the five personas, I can build content about it
at scale and build thesesequences and the related
digital marketing around it toreally enhance the experience
and really get people to the end.
So tons of learning there.
And then the whole notion ofbrand versus demand.
At my company, we actuallyspend more on brand than demand,
even though we're buildingdemand and brand for so many

(01:05:06):
companies, and so one has toreinforce the other and we
forced a debate there.
But really it's about puttingthem all together.
But the pressure is still real.
If you are in a company and yougot to hit your numbers, it's
going to be easier to do what'smeasurable, but you have to have
a strong enough management teamand a strong enough group of
fellow go-to-market executivesthat are willing to pull

(01:05:26):
together with you to help makethe case for how brand and
demand work together to drivecurrent and future success.
So lots of great stuff there,and I know I do a lot of events
with AJ, but he definitelyoutpaces me, and who knew that?
He just needs that to make hisclock tick, and it tells you a
lot about a person you know sowell, and I think it's because

(01:05:47):
he likes connecting with uniquepeople and that's what these
events give him.
Love, having both guests here.
I hope you go to theBenchmarker report and subscribe
to it.
It's actually surprisingly veryreasonable to get a lot of data
about marketing for B2B SaaSfirms.
And, of course, take a look atGoToMarket Leader Society and,
if you can, please come orsponsor some of the events there

(01:06:09):
.
I've gotten so much from it.
We sponsor it at PositionSquared and we also lead it.
We do the website.
We do a lot for it, becauseit's really an amazing way for
people to connect and buildlong-lasting business and
personal relationships.
So this show is produced bySandeep Parikh and Anand Shah,
production assistance by TarynTalley as well as Rhea Bhutta.

(01:06:29):
It's edited by Laura Ballant.
I'm your host, rajiv Parikhfrom Position Squared.
We're a leading AI-drivengrowth marketing agency based in
Silicon Valley.
Come visit us at position2.com.
This has been an F and funnyproduction and we'll catch you
next time.
And remember folks be evercurious.

All Episodes

The Moneyball of Go-To-Market (GTM)/AJ Gandhi, Omar Akhtar - Benchmarker, B2B Recession, Coachella ~ Spark of Ages Ep 47

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Moneyball of Go-To-Market (GTM)/AJ Gandhi, Omar Akhtar - Benchmarker, B2B Recession, Coachella ~ Spark of Ages Ep 47