Week 23: how to create demand versus harvest demand

who ever creates, has the opportunity to lead

last week, i shared the launch of GTM Partners as my new venture and the fact that we signed 15+ customers in 30 days.

i got a lot of questions on how we did it.

so in this note, i will share the idea of how we CREATED demand versus simply HARVESTED.

here’s a step-by-step process that we followed:

Forcing function: we created a forcing function of Inbound (Sept 7th) - why? there needs to be a reason for people to make a decision. No matter how good your product is, if there is no immediate pain or immediate ROI, chances are, there is no sense of urgency. You are simply noise.

example here for Keynote at Inbound (standing room only)

Align on goals: Almost every company right now is focused to think “efficient growth” - well that is what we wholeheartedly believe we want to sever our customers with. So our message is not about us, it’s about them and their needs.

Comprehensive Guide to Go-To-Market in collaboration with 15 companies (500+ downloads in the first week)

15 custom (yup custom) Press Releases and lading with each partner to continue to promote the Guide

Partnership Press Releases with communities - Product Marketing Community, Women In Revenue, and PEAK

Make it a line item: the reason new products don’t sell is that they are either a “me too” or not even a line item on the budget. Understanding from which line item your customers are going to pay is critical. For us, the Analyst and Demand Gen are two line items people can pay us from and that makes it super easy to talk about.

we are a data-driven Analyst firm partnered with G2 given instant credibility of what we do and how we operate

Flex on payments: In the beginning, it’s about being empathetic to your customers and finding ways to work on their terms. The goal is to make sure you have the contract and agreement, not to squeeze money but rather to help them in their process. Become a true partner in the process. We are not trying to build a “double- double-triple-triple” SaaS business model that really is “growth at all cost.”

we are building a sustainable and efficient growth model that will drive our business outcomes in alignment with our customer outcomes.

example we are doing annual or quarterly payments to make it easy

that’s it.

---

on a personal note, as we drove to Alabama for my son’s tournament (about 5 hours in our car each way), it was fascinating that neither of the kids asked even once for a phone or to watch something.

now, these kids are 12 and 8 and when i got close, it occurred to me that we didn’t set any rules or didn’t ask for that to be true.

of course, as a family, we talked a lot, put on some sermons, and worship songs along the way, but mostly just talked.

we have always said car time is talk time and not tech time.

but that’s 10 hours total in 3 days of car time and i was amazed at these kids.

i don’t know if this will continue but i sure hope that we continue the legacy of talk time no matter where we are going in life.

in some way, the car ride was forcing function for us to connect more deeply and i am grateful for that time.

leaderpoint: forcing function creates momentum and momentum creates outcomes.

so if you want great outcomes, create forcing functions.

comment below with your forcing function that is creating momentum.

love,

Sangram

FYI - i started this letter series with zero customers and zero ideas of where we are really going and put a goal of trying to hit a million in revenue in 12 months. We are right at 6 months and also thank God - we are also halfway to our target revenue number. That’s another way to think about forcing function.