Dec 6, 2017 | Go To Market Dojo
Tim Eades, CEO of vArmour made for a compelling guest at our Dojo Meetup on December 5th. Though we promised “Vegas Rules” on specific antidotes and people, here’s a few of the nuggets of wisdom I took away from our chat:
- The future is NOT “4-legged” sales calls, it’s high velocity, value delivery driven, product led, low touch sales – Think AppDynamics, NewRelic, Atlassian NOT Oracle, SAP or Peoplesoft
- Leadership is about giving – you need to give to get, and what you give will come back many times
- Leaders don’t put themselves above, they stand “Shoulder to Shoulder” with those they lead
- Give innovators permission and space, and you’ll be amazed at the transformative things they can deliver
- There’s never been a better time to be a marketing leader, but you better know your stuff!
- Put your customer at the center of everything, and marketing can make that happen
These are just a few of the takeaways I had. What did you learn?
Ken 12/06/17
Dec 4, 2017 | Breakthrough Marketing
Last week proved once again that the cybersecurity market is alive, well and kicking for investment activity and returns. Three transactions of significance happened last week and now that we’ve caught our breadth, let’s take a look at what we can learn. First, in case you were on vacation or not watching the market
- Barracuda is being acquired (NYSE: CUDA) by private equity investor Thomas Bravo for an all cash deal of $1.6B, a 16.7% premium on the pre-announcement share price.
- KJR Client Skyhigh Networks is being acquired by McAfee for an undisclosed amount. According to publicly available sources, the private funding of SkyHigh was at a valuation of $400M. And while I have ZERO insider information, one would assume McAfee paid a decent if not large premium over that funding valuation.
- Another lesser known KJR Client, Weblife.io made big news when it was acquired by Proofpoint (NASDAQ: PFPT) for $60M. According to Crunchbase, Weblife had only raised about $3.5 M in venture funding, well done!
So, what lessons can we learn from this. First some of the obvious ones
- Investors love software, especially high growth companies. Just compare the financials of Barracuda and Proofpoint. Barracuda has last 4 trailing quarters of about $280M in revenue and are profitable, but revenue growth is flat and profit down in last reported earnings. Proofpoint on the other had, has about $350M in last 4 quarters of revenue but with incredible growth from $76M to $98M quarters in Q416 and Q317 respectively. But, they are still not yet profitable. However, the market loves software and rewards growth, and Proofpoint’s market cap sits at nearly $4B, more than double that of Barracuda. (BTW, these companies sell similar solutions, Barracuda’s being hardware mostly hardware based and Proofpoint’s being software and SaaS, but Proofpoint is also more of an Enterprise provider, and Barracuda a small to medium business one)
- Security vendors that can grow can take advantage and consolidate other complementary solutions. Proofpoint has a great currency and is buying up smaller tuck-in solutions at a rampant pace. The company also closed their $110M Cloudmark acquisition last week. Security vendors that can grow can take advantage and consolidate other complementary solutions.
- Early stage security solutions can yield big returns for investors. As noted Weblife.io only raised 3.5M, with their seed funding barely 2 yrs ago. Clearly, Proofpoint saw something in their solution, their story and their traction that was very attractive to them. Some of the competitors in the broader “web isolation” category that Weblife is part of have raised 10x or more than Weblife and while still early, seem to be struggling to find a path to liquidity. Simple formula, find a problem, solve it, and sell it to customers, but do so without massive fundraising and your outcome can be great.
One other factor I must point out, and this one may not be quite as obvious, is the value of story in building, capturing and gaining market leadership and investment returns, which is how I helped both Skyhigh and Weblife.
- Skyhigh’s original launch positioning centered on Shadow IT is a perfect example an “All Pain No Gain” story as discussed in my book, Launching to Leading. This story, launched at RSA in 2013, allowed them to claim, grow and be recognized as the leader in a new market segment call Cloud Access Security Broker, or CASB for short. The outcome speaks for itself!
- Weblife’s positioning around Securing, Empowering, Simplifying (Employee Web Access) demonstrates the value of what I call “A Brave New World” outcome in Launching to Leading. And it is also an excellent example of moving beyond feature function and benefit and focusing on value in order to tilt the market to your solution.
I’m very proud of the work that I did at Skyhigh and Weblife. As they say, success has a thousand authors, and I am happy to just take my 1/1000th portion of credit for their success, as I know that they did at least 999 more things right to get these outcomes. But story matters, and these are two great proof points (pun fully intended) to prove just that!
Nov 14, 2017 | Go To Market Dojo
It all started with a conversation with my friend, colleague and mentor Donna:
Donna asked, “so you’re going to the RSA Conference, why aren’t you speaking there?”
“All the people would want to hear me, are all busy with speaking to their customers,” I replied, “We really don’t have a great place to gather.”
“Well, then you create the space,” she replied.
I also had quite a few chats with colleagues; CEOs, Investors and CMOs who expressed how challenging it was to identify and grow the next generation of go to market leadership in their organizations. And the up and comers expressed to me the difficulty of getting either formal or informal mentoring and advice.
That was the really beginning of the Go To Market Dojo. Now, about 6 months later, we’ve had 4 meet-ups, connected with more than 400 Go To Market professionals, and had some of the brightest minds in the Silicon Valley as panelists and guests.
Our mission is simple yet ambitious; “To Create a Community of Practice Dedicated to Go To Market Excellence”. A place to network with like minded leaders and learn and share best practices. We are creating both a physical space in Mountain View where we are holding events like meet-ups, workshops and mentoring sessions, and now we have just opened our free virtual community at www.gotomarketdojo.com , so join today if you please.
We even have a set of 6 founding principles –
- Share and Learn, Don’t Sell
- Excellence, Practice, Collaboration
What’s in the future? We are looking for partners to begin Dojo branches outside of Silicon Valley – email the Dojo Business Manager Maggie if you are interested. We are planning drop in hours at the Dojo too! And in the Spring we are expecting to hold our first ever Go To Market Basho, a whole day event dedicated to networking and learning and sharing. How cool will that be – Details to come in early 2018.
Until then, hope to see you in person or virtually at the Dojo!
Ken
Oct 25, 2017 | Go To Market Dojo
About 50 practitioners, panelists and sponsors gathered to chat about Sales and Marketing Alignment at the Silicon Valley Go To Market Dojo on 10/24. The food and the discussion were excellent, and a special thanks to our night’s sponsor, DWCC Global.
Panelists BJ Bushur, Jim Wilson, Franco Azini and Craig Hooper brought some amazing insights, even if they were haunted by the clown lurking behind them thanks to the Halloween decorations from gracious host UserTesting. Some of the highlights included:
Our panel discussed sales and marketing alignment, despite the scary clown lurking in the background, who was rumored to be the CEO of one of the attendees!
- All four panelist agreed that Sales and Marketing Alignment was both something to do, and something to achieve. Franco, who currently runs sales ops for Xactly, pointed out that this goal is always moving forward, and there is always more to do.
- Jim, who is an operating partner at Costanoa Ventures, provided a great framework when he emphasized that alignment really had to be along 3 dimensions, Strategy, Planning and Execution.
- BJ, founder and Sales Optimization Architect at Foundation6, talked about how critical metrics were and the need for regular, ongoing communication and consensus. Especially around the “Ideal Customer Profile”
- Craig, founder and CEO of DWCC added how to move from early market to scale, how important it was to make sure that marketing was defining and communicating, and enabling sales to tell the right story, and how important customer value was.
All of the panelist seemed “aligned” on some other key items, including the importance of “street cred”, domain expertise, and customer intimacy for marketers.
The Dojo crowd had great questions on topics ranging from metrics, to analytics, to organizational challenges, like CMOs and Sales leaders who don’t get along, building trust and commitment, and what to do when the sales leader all of the sudden is running marketing too.
At the end, Frank summed it up nicely, when he said the number 1 skill that marketers need to align with sales is EMPATHY. This was a great summary comment for a panel that while they believed heavily in analytics, metrics and technology, still seem to place a greater emphasis on communications, team work, and integrity.
Hopefully this summary captures some of the key highlights, but to really get the most out of these meet-ups, you have to be there. And I hope to see you on December 5th for our next meet up where we will be chatting 1:1 with vArmour CEO Tim Eades, on what it takes to lead. For more info on meetups, workshops and other cool stuff, visit and join the growing community at www.gotomarketdojo.com
Oct 11, 2017 | Program Announcements
My Winter 2017 Go To Market Leadership Practice Group is now open for enrollment. In these small groups of 4-7 participants, we will map out your path to building your leadership impact within your organization and beyond. This group work is perfect for early to mid-career marketers who need mentoring and a plan, or those making later career changes into marketing and other Go To Market leadership roles. You’ll chart your personal road map from Novice to Expert to Leader to Master and leave with both tangible results, a long term plan, a strong peer network, and a mentor relationship.
Space is limited, so to enroll or learn more, download and complete this Group Practice Interest and Enrollment Form and email back to inquiries@kjrassociates.com
The 6 month package includes:
- Chart your personalized roadmap to 5x impact on your results
- Four group Go To Market excellence sessions over 6 months
- Two 1:1 coaching sessions, after kick-off and at program conclusion
- Unlimited email feedback
- Private online discussion board
- All Sessions run by Ken Rutsky, with guest experts TBD based on group needs
Enrollment is open now and the first session will take place on November 16th at the Go To Market Dojo in Mountain View, remote participation IS an option.
Enroll or get more interest by completing this form: Winter 17 Small Group Mentoring Interest and Enrollment Form
(I also offer 1:1 mentoring and coaching for senior level Go To Market leaders, as well as custom programs for teams, email for more information)
Aug 28, 2017 | Leadership
It seems these days that all the rage is to be a “T-Shaped” marketer. The idea being that you should be deep in one skill, and wide in your knowledge. I think that’s solid, but kinda rudimentary advice. And, at the end of the day, if it isn’t flawed, it is over-simplified.
In a previous post, I introduced the Go To Market Skills Mastery model, shown again here:
Most marketers, especially early in their career fall firmly into one of the 8 segments. Or manage a team in one or two adjacent ones. For example, a Director of Corporate Marketing may have responsibility for Events, PR, Brand and Content and Social, while a Director of Demand Generation maybe handles Growth Marketing and Lead Generation. Adjacent spaces flow well together.
The idea of T-Shaped, means to get VERY deep in one area and be good in a bunch of others. Sounds good, but what’s wrong with that? Three things:
- While excellence in one area is good, if you aspire to true leadership, you need to be very good in a few things, not just one
- Picking your second, third and even fourth area of expertise is critical to your success
- The advice to be T-Shaped is generic and now specific
To grow your leadership you must become arrow forged, not T-Shaped. What’s the difference?
- First, the arrow-forged leader is not only a single domain expert, but they are cross domain expert with the skill 180 degrees across their tip. For example, the Lead generation expert should develop their expertise in messaging and positioning. After all, the best Lead Gen strategy in the world fails without the right message.
- Second, the arrow-forged leader develops skills in the two adjacent slides of the model. Our Lead Generation expert develops not only the cross-skill of Messaging, but the adjacent skills of Growth and Sales and Marketing Automation. By building their skills across and to the sides they position them-selves in all 3 of the 4 quadrants of the model, in a set of highly related skills.
- Third, arrow-forged leaders not only acquire skills, the seek out challenges to forge those skills into impact and results. Skills without real-world practice and flimsy and fleeting. Leaders don’t just shape their skills arrow, they forge it in battle.
Arrow-forged leaders consciously build their skills and expertise for maximum organization impact and career growth. So stop messing around with Ts and start forging your leadership arrow today!
Aug 4, 2017 | Client Success Stories
Challenge:
A small but successful provider of Cloud Treasury Services that help corporations proactively and efficiently manage their cash and investments, Treasury Curve needed to move beyond features and benefits to raise their visibility in the market and attract new customers. As a small team, the project had to be executed quickly with minimal demands on the team’s time.
Project:
Ken worked with the founding executive team to define a Viewpoint story that put corporate Treasury teams at the center of a transformative “Hero’s Journey” and made the Treasury Curve service the magic in that journey. This process was lightweight, with an intensive but rapid workshop engagement, respecting the team’s limited time while capturing its insight and expertise.
Results:
“Working with Ken enabled us to quickly understand and write the story of the Treasury Curve ‘Hero’s Journey’; which is our customer’s story, not our own,” said Co-Founder and CEO Aron Chazen, “Through this process, we found our ‘voice’ so we could have a dialogue with our customer from the their perspective, instead of simply listing our features and benefits.”
Ken then provided the team with a lightweight implementation strategy based on his story scaling framework.
“Ken advised us to experiment by posting bits and pieces of our newly created story on LinkedIn and other places. That simple experiment resulted in a dramatic increase in views of our posts, visits to our website, demo requests, and sales opportunities,” Chazen added.
Jul 31, 2017 | Client Success Stories
Challenge:
Sophos is one of the world’s leading providers of both endpoint and network security and goes to market under the tagline, “Security Made Simple,” critical to the mid-market customer focus. When Ken engaged with Sophos in mid-2015 they were finishing the technical integration of the two product areas with an innovative “Security Heartbeat” and what they called “Synchronized Security.” The big challenge was to communicate this highly innovative approach in a simple and straightforward manner, consistent with their go to market strategy.
Project:
Ken worked with the senior product, product management and product marketing leadership to drive the creation of simple yet powerful messaging for Synchronized Security. Critical was appealing to both the business buyer and the technical evaluator of the solution, including partners. Ken helped the product marketing owner to build and refine the story, and also authored both business overview and technical overview whitepapers.
Results:
Sophos launched Synchronized Security and Security Heartbeat late in 2015. This continues to be core to their value proposition, and is featured prominently in their go to market, including the use of the updated versions of both whitepapers. Since the launch, Sophos has achieved continued strong revenue and market growth.
In their July 2017 “Trading Statement” earnings release, CEO Kris Hagerman said, …”Our core strategy continues to be differentiated and effective: we work in partnership with our channel to deliver innovative, simple, and highly effective cybersecurity solutions for mid-market enterprises, synchronizing across end-user and network security” – echoing the importance to Sophos of this positioning.
Jun 22, 2017 | Go To Market Dojo
About forty Go To Market Professionals in cybersecurity gathered on June 21st for the first ever meet-up of the Silicon Valley Go to Market Dojo. I must humbly say the event was a great success.
Our guest speaker, Dr. Chenxi Wang discussed”Winning the Analyst Game- An Insider’s View”. A former lead security analyst at Forrester, Chenxi then worked for several security vendors including McAfee and Twistlock.
Here are three things I took away from Chenxi’s many insights:
- Don’t talk about your product, talk about problems you solve and how you help customers.
- Don’t expect, ask or treat analysts as an extension of your Go To Market. You have your job, and they have theirs.
- The best thing you can do is to teach the analyst something new.
Chenxi also referenced a great blog she did a few years ago – and here it is, “Be a Good Marketer and Win over Your Analyst with 8 Slides.” I was struck how similar that Chenxi’s advise on influencing analysts mirrors my advise to clients on messaging and positioning to customers. My belief is that all markets at their core are conversations. Conversations between vendors and analysts (and other influencers and interlopers) are different than vendor to customer conversations, but they certainly are related, and I’ll be blogging about this soon. So thank you Chenxi for being such a compelling speaker , a supporter of the Dojo, and an inspiration to me on new ways of thinking.
I was excited to give out a few of my new favorite books to luck attendees, including The Captain Class and The Undoing Project. These two books inspired me, and I wanted to share them not only in a recent blog, but with the Dojo community. Congrats to Doug and Horacio, our lucky winners, enjoy. And thank you to the all of meet-up attendees for being amazing participants in both networking and Q and A.
I have started the Dojo with the idea that we need a place to build a community of practice for Go to Market Professionals focused on collaboration, excellence and practice. If yesterday’s event and feedback was any indication of validating this idea, the Dojo has a vibrant and bright future. I couldn’t be more excited.
Our next Dojo Meet-up is for MarTech Go To Market Professionals, and will be on August 15th at 6pm, you can register here. Our panel is shaping up, and we will be entitled, “Landscapes, Stacks and Platforms, Oh My”.
Our next CyberSecurity Dojo Meet-up is tentatively scheduled for August 23rd, also in Mountain View. Early registration is now open!
Until then, may Leonardo, Yoda and MLK be with you on your Leadership journey! – Ken
Jun 22, 2017 | Breakthrough Marketing
A client of my recently lamented, “I was really hoping we’d find a silver bullet”. I asked her what she meant. She said, “You know, the ONE thing we could say, the one sentence that would set us apart”.
I said, “Well, there might not be a silver bullet(yet), but we’ve got a Golden Story!”. The story that connects your uniqueness to the customer’s context and creates market opportunity and leadership.
The Golden Story has 4 bullets in its magazine, they are:
- Your world has changed Mr/Mrs. Customer, and here’s what TODAY’S REALITY IS
- If you keep trying to solve your problems with the expected solutions, you will be THIS PAIN and/or MISSING THESE GAINS
- What if you SHIFT YOUR MINDSET AND APPROACH to solving your problems?
- Then you could be in a TRANSFORMED AND BETTER FUTURE REALITY
I also call the Golden Story your Viewpoint story. Notice who this story is about, NOT YOU! It’s about your customer. And here’s the really cool thing about it, that tag line, that one sentence, that catch phrase silver bullet, like Salesforce.com “End of Software” or Nike’s “Just Do It” often will emerge as you tell your Golden Story.
So forget the silver bullet and you’ll probably just find it hiding in your Golden Story, which I am happy to report, my client seems to have done as we revised and reviewed their story!
For step by step on building your Golden Story, read my book, Launching to Leading!, or even better, attend Viewpoint Story Hackathon and we can build it together!
