The age of the connected customer 

“It’s no longer just about acquiring information, but knowing how to act on intelligence. And the most intelligent way to use intelligence as a B2B GTM professional is to drive customer retention.” – Yamini Rangan, CEO at HubSpot

Back at Inbound 2023, Jill Rowley sat listening to Yamini Rangan’s talk on the age of the connected customer.

Rangan’s point was clear: the best companies will understand their customers so well, that they’ll be able to create a truly connected customer experience across the entire lifecycle.

But as the talk went on, Jill noticed an oversight.

Where were partners in this conversation (especially since HubSpot is so partner-centric)?

The talk made it seem as though Yamini believed that the best way to gather intelligence on customers is through generative AI.

There’s a problem, though.

AI is extremely useful, but AI is limited to the touchpoints you control.

As Jay McBain explains,

There are roughly 28 touchpoints in the customer journey, and most companies have control of about four of them. This means that the other 24 are controlled by the people, communities, and watering holes [what Chris Walker calls “dark social”] that the customer is living in.

You can’t fully tap into your customer’s context with only 4 touchpoints (especially in the early stages). As Jill explains, 

While AI can offer data insights and help speed up the sales cycle, it cannot create the personal relationships and connections with your buyers that are essential for success.

That’s where layering nearbound into your inbound and outbound activities is critical to company and customer success.

The real customer connection equation.

Read Jill’s full piece to learn tactical plays for true customer connection.

Use this partner recruitment deck

Nelson Wang, your partnerships mentor, put together a Partner Recruitment deck with 26 slides that have helped him get meetings after meeting with CEOs from partners.

Click here to get the deck.

And in his recent Partner Principles article, he shared the 5 key components of partner recruitment.

Here are five things to consider as you do partner recruitment:

1. Who is your ideal customer profile and what does their customer journey look like?
    

2. What are the main challenges your customers have and how can partners help them?
    

3. Based on #1, what would your ideal partner profile look like? If you need help ideating on this, you can use Nelson’s free IPP template here.
    

4. What are the main benefits you’d give in a partnership (leads, monetization opportunities, better solutions, etc.)?
    

5. How would you customize the messaging to the specific partner you’re reaching out to? Make it super specific to them.

Fast AF company transformations

Sangram Vajre shared a lagging indicator that proves more companies are starting to upgrade their GTM motion: job title.

6 months ago there were about 20 jobs with GTM in the title.

And today, there are thousands.

Why?

Because leaders recognize that to drive results, they’ll need to do things differently.

Internally, this means breaking down silos and uniting teams around revenue and the customer.

Externally, this means a unified go-to-market, nearbound surround, and approaching customers the way they want to be approached.

Read the comments on Sangram’s post here.