Ben Ard (00:55)
back to another episode of content to close. And today I'm joined by Launa Launa, welcome to the show.
Launa (01:01)
Thank you for having me. I'm really excited about the conversation.
Ben Ard (01:04)
Yeah, Launa, this is going to be a ton of fun. think this is something a lot of people are going to really care about. But before we dive in, let's get to know you, your background, all that kind of fun stuff. That way the audience gets to know who you are before we dive in.
Launa (01:17)
Thank you so much. My name is Launa. I have about 18 years in technology services sales. So I've been doing this since the early 2000s and I've seen it all change and all go in a different direction. recently, I started my own firm to provide fractional sales enablement, go to market for companies that are trying to navigate a very enterprise driven sales motion.
Ben Ard (01:44)
Love it. And that's exciting. And that's what we're going to really focus on today. What we're going to talk about is how SMBs can build a real go-to-market motion without enterprise tools or budgets. And I think that's a caveat here that a lot of people need to hear. That is what they are tasked with doing. And honestly, a lot of people are scratching their heads trying to figure out how to pull this off. So I think it's really important. So Launa, to kick things off, when an SMB is starting to do go-to-market work,
What should they focus on before they go out there and start saying, I need this tool and that tool or this or that. Where should they really start their work and effort?
Launa (02:17)
Yeah, I think the brand, the brand has to be foundational. It doesn't have to be complicated. doesn't need to cover everything. But when I go to your website, I need to absolutely know who you are. And I find a lot of companies struggle with that because they're trying to capture as many different types of business as possible. But I need to understand quickly, how are you providing value? And it's not about price and value. It's about what are you how are you going to make my
business better. So I think that's the first thing people really need to know. They also need to know that brand extends to LinkedIn or other forums like that. So being aware that that is really an enabler because if you can't sell off that, you have to build that first and then sell off of that. And don't worry about constantly updating it or anything. We just need something foundational. I think that's the first thing you look at. think
The one thing I would say I see a lot of leaders doing is going to chat GPT and asking how to run sales. Don't do that. It's wrong. I've talked to it plenty. A lot of things are changing. We have to be far more innovative. So, you know, really it's more about talking to your peers about what's working, not chat GPT.
Ben Ard (03:27)
I love that. And it's
so cool that your first piece of advice is to build a brand. mean, years ago, I know that people, they had said that recommendation, that their lead generation revenue, go to market function started with a brand, they'd be laughed out of the room, but people are finding that is absolutely the case. People have to know you, trust you, recognize you all before you can start any of these other efforts. So I love that that's the answer.
First and foremost, because I agree with that wholeheartedly, but time and time again, think brands are really proving this out. So I love that. I think it's a great start.
Launa (04:00)
Yeah,
it's trust. It's what you just said. It's trust. So, you you have to capture that as quickly as possible.
Ben Ard (04:06)
Yeah. So as you're working with businesses and people are in different stages of the go-to-market function and launching that kind of muscle for the business, obviously they'll have picked up some tools along the way that they're utilizing and some elements that they're trying to incorporate. What signals do you look for to know if they're overspending on something and where it might be important to actually cut some things back?
Launa (04:21)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
So I think that you know you're overspending when you don't have clear KPIs. So when you are, when you, go to a QBR and NBR and all of these signals are turned into noise and we don't really know what the output is, we don't even know what the input is half the time. That's when you can confidently say we're overspending. And I understand how it happens. You know, it's like, we have this problem, this tool is cheap, let's buy it.
⁓ But when it doesn't talk to each other, then that means marketing doesn't know what's going on in sales. Sales doesn't know what's going on in marketing. We can't even exchange KPI. So we don't really have any understanding of how this is making us money or how we can fix it. So I would say that if you don't know very clearly, very easily what your KPIs are, there's something wrong with your stack. And I've been in the situation where it takes me a whole day to put together my QBR numbers. I've done that.
It's wrong. I something's broken, so it needs to be fixed.
Ben Ard (05:29)
I love that and how that that spend or tool or everything plays into the mix is so important. I think that's really cool. OK, taking a step towards the direction of OK, we know that we need to build a brand. We know how to maybe cut and trim some of the fat from tools and resources we don't need. What are you seeing actually work organically to drive real revenue for SMBs today? ⁓
Launa (05:43)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Ard (05:57)
Regardless of the spend, but more so for people that don't have crazy budgets, what is actually working in the organic space?
Launa (06:03)
So it's partnerships. There's a lot of SMBs out here fighting the good fight. Let's partner together. Let's create like an ecosystem. I find that having conversations outside of your specialty is probably the best way. I work in cybersecurity for a long time. I don't have a ton of value going to cybersecurity conferences. I have more value going to legal conferences.
manufacturing conferences. So get out of your sector, like don't you know, it's a great group of people in my cybersecurity space, but I know them really well. So get out of your sector, start making new friends, and then get those people in, start referring them around, you know, give them if you can't solve their problem, find someone in your network who can so that all this like goodness that we're passing around to each other continues.
I think that's the easiest thing you can do organically. definitely believe in things like thought leadership, know, speaking events, all of that works too. But to go back to your point, the buying motion is your brand. That's really just your brand, right? You as a person need a brand, the company needs a brand. So really, it's about getting people who aren't already in a saturated part of your business in
and helping them and trying to find solutions. It doesn't even matter if you make a dollar on it right now, you will be remembered for that, for helping.
Ben Ard (07:24)
I love that. So just to double click on that, how have you found really good partnerships? You talk about going outside of your space a little bit, meeting people. I also love the approach that you're almost building these relationships, it sounds like, by saying, how can I serve someone else? And I'm sure it'll come back and benefit me at some point in time. But how do I go out there and provide real value to my network and actually grow that organically? Is that kind of the approach? And if so, how are you
Launa (07:32)
What?
Mm-hmm.
Ben Ard (07:51)
actually stepping outside of your industries and your space to find these adjacent partners that potentially can help you drive revenue.
Launa (07:58)
Yeah, I think a lot of it is events, local small events, right? Like I really appreciate those the most, because then you find other people like yourself, right? Even if it's a commerce event, know, Chamber of Commerce event, those are business owners in your community who are trying to survive just like the rest of us. So that's a really good way to find like minded business minded people. I also just
share what I do a lot. And I naturally get referrals, you know, I am, I don't even know how I got one of my contacts that I've been talking to quite a bit recently. But I've he introduced me to his dad, who's a business person, he introduced me to someone he knows who lives here. And all of that is just like, little baby leads, right? Little things that I'm staying top of mind on what I can do and how I can help. So I have a lot of those conversations.
I also just reach out to people on LinkedIn. I have 8,000 followers. I've been on the social media from day one. And just check in and have conversations. And when I think of them, say something or bring it up and be very authentic about it. So I think to wrap it up, authenticity is really important. You have to be extroverted. I'm not extroverted, but you have to be. ⁓
Getting out there, meeting people, or proactively reaching out to people you know is where a lot of my partnerships are coming from.
Ben Ard (09:24)
Baby leads. I've never heard the term before, but I absolutely love it. It's those seeds that you're planning, helping people move along before they're ready to be full on leads. I think that's so cool. When we're talking about SMBs, a lot of the times it's not just resources for advertising or tools. It can be head count. And you're typically working with a small marketing department, a small sales department. They're wearing a lot of hats.
Launa (09:25)
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Ben Ard (09:52)
they
need to coordinate and work together. How do you kind of encourage that inside of a business where everyone is already wearing a ton of hats? How do you get the collaboration between the different departments that honestly are feeling the pressure of being understaffed?
Launa (10:07)
Yeah. mean, I really think that, so for legacy companies, bigger companies, I see this, it's so painful, right? If you're an SMB, just, I would just be cautious to not put sales and marketing into separate silos because that was the traditional way of doing it. And it has become, a monster, quite frankly, like it's so sad. I
really say that it comes with weekly collaborations. And I think there has to be a lot of empathy too between what marketing does and what sales does. Because for me, when I was growing up in the business, marketing served sales, right? But that's not how the world works anymore. Marketing is critical, especially if you can invest heavily in it to ⁓ inbound leads and your brands and everything. So I think that there's not there and
marketing also in the past, like, why aren't you closing our leads? And we're like, well, they're not good leads, right? So there's not a lot of empathy that's been going on between the two teams for a long time. got to get there. And then we got to figure out how we can move things along together. So I think that that a hedge head shift, mind shift is the biggest thing that needs to change first and foremost. And then leadership needs to be involved too, because again, whatever comes out of the engine,
A lot of times we don't know what happened. We don't know how we created it. then there's a bad month, a bad quarter, and all of a sudden the questions are popping up. So leadership needs to be more involved, not just when something's disappointing.
Ben Ard (11:36)
Yeah, no, think that's 100%. I'd love having the right mentality. Even if you're not physically in the same department, you need to realize and act like you are breaking down those silos and making sure that's a company wide initiative. I think that's so cool. So when it also comes to these systems, you know, going back to the tool side of things, I've always talked about, you kind of have to build things that don't scale and then you figure out how to scale them.
Launa (11:44)
Right.
Ben Ard (12:03)
How do you recommend go-to-market teams build repeatable processes or actions that are turning into results? And how they do that before they ever invest in tools or resources like that?
Launa (12:17)
a lot of tools and resources out there that are very affordable. So first and foremost, go that way, go month to month. And then once you figured out what is gonna be your ideal customer, then we will develop tools specifically around that. I would say to your point, avoid like the enterprise tools to begin with.
HubSpot is awesome. I've worked with it for a really long time. It is a beast. It does a lot of things, right? It's like a, like you don't really need a G wagon. You just kind of want it, right? So you get something simpler and then you can scale it out. But software sales is always about like selling you on features that don't quite exist yet. So don't get sold into something like that. Just start simple, start affordable month to month if you can, and then go from there.
And the motions are going to be all about whatever outreach you're doing has to come back to your brand has to come back to who you are as a leader as a company, all of that stuff needs to be pushed back to you. And I really appreciate signal based sales, you know, like, there's a reason I'm reaching out to you because I saw this or I know your industry so well, that's why I'm reaching out. That's going to be the best first bet on, you know, affordable tools.
that eventually once you know what signals work, what's working, we double down on that. So that's really testing it out before you invest in it is the best path to go.
Ben Ard (13:39)
I love that. Plus you'd be shocked what you can do in Excel, right? Like, yeah, I mean, you talked about HubSpot. I feel like your first CRM should be a spreadsheet somewhere.
Launa (13:44)
I love it.
yeah, for sure. And I started my sales career with index cards and I miss them every day. So it was so simple.
Ben Ard (13:58)
Yeah, it's pretty magical. Yeah.
And if you want flexibility, especially when you're trying to figure out what your sales cycle is, what your customer journey is to really have that flexibility of an Excel or any kind of a spreadsheet tool to build it out and understand it, reduce their friction and get to a point where you're like, okay, we need to scale this great. You know, here's your opportunity. But I think that there's a lot of times that people early invest because they've had it other companies.
or things like that, but there's always an opportunity to, even with AI, build something to prove it works and then go invest the money because you already know that you'll get a return on the investment. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Okay, I have to throw the curve ball. I got to ask the question. Everyone is wondering how are SMBs being impacted by AI?
Launa (14:35)
Right.
Yep. Yep. Totally.
Ben Ard (14:50)
Now, obviously we know kind of the major economic impact and a lot of those kinds of things, but when it comes to launching and running a go-to-market function, how is AI playing a role for better or for worse in this situation?
Launa (15:03)
I think a lot of people are using AI to run faster. That's great. I use AI every day. The problem is we're running faster on a system that doesn't work. know, like pushing on hundreds of emails a day doesn't work, you know, if you don't have that trust. so it's about how am going to build trust? So use AI to build credibility. Don't use AI to push.
noise into the market. Use AI to uncover signals. Don't use AI to just say, hit up every single one of my LinkedIn connections. So I think that AI is, it definitely speeds things up. We have to understand that sales has changed. Sales is not just about the new shiny thing anymore. It is about credibility. It is about trust. So use it to build that, not push the same machine.
⁓ I think SMBs will be empowered. think the bigger players that are going to get hit with the AI problem is the enterprise style consulting firms, a lot of enterprise companies because they're going to reduce a lot of work that needs to be done. But for SMBs, it's an enabler just as long as they don't stray towards pushing it in an enterprise methodology.
Ben Ard (16:14)
I love that. I think that's so cool. Well, Launa, I have loved this conversation as promised. These go by so quick. I think a lot of individuals working at SMB is really trying to nail their go-to-market strategies. Are going to absolutely love this episode. If anyone listening wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
Launa (16:34)
LinkedIn. I am Launa Rich. That's probably the best way to go. I started my firm secure quota this year. And I'm always happy to exchange ideas or, or give you free advice because that's how you're going to remember me in the future.
Ben Ard (16:53)
I love that for anyone interested in connecting with Launa, go to the show notes, find the links, click on those and connect. Launa, this has been amazing. Thank you for the time and insights today. Really do appreciate it.
Launa (17:00)
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
