Defining Metrics & Aligning Goals Between Sales & Marketing with Tricia Gellman - Ep 32

This episode explores the evolving go-to-market playbook, focusing on the critical but often mishandled relationship between marketing and sales, particularly concerning pipeline management. Tricia Gellman shares insights from her experience at Scale Venture Partners and as a CMO, emphasizing that companies often fail to properly align marketing and sales metrics, leading to muddy and ineffective pipeline strategies. Against the backdrop of companies commonly managing pipeline as a lump sum, Tricia advocates for segmenting it by new business versus expansion and by customer segment (SMB, mid-market, enterprise) to provide more granular visibility and enable targeted strategies. More significantly, the discussion pivots to the importance of defining clear roles and responsibilities for pipeline creation, acknowledging that marketing's contribution may vary across segments, and the need for regular, cross-functional meetings to evaluate progress and adjust strategies. As the conversation unfolds, the panel highlights the need for a unified view of metrics, with marketing and sales operating from the same dashboards to avoid conflicting goals and ensure alignment with overall company objectives. Emerging industry patterns reflected in the discussion include the increasing importance of product-led growth and the need for deeper alignment between marketing and product teams, as well as the growing influence of peer-to-peer recommendations and community building in the buying process, underscoring the importance of brand and customer advocacy at the C-suite level.