Hunt Club’s Post

🎉 Happy Friday! Who should you be following this week? We have three agency growth experts, each with first hand experience of scaling agencies. Chris Mole - his life mission is to support other founders to start, scale and sell their businesses. In 2021 Chris exited the Amazon agency that he'd started 4 years earlier when they were acquired by Brainlabs. He temporarily retired while working out what to do next, before realising what he really loved is growing businesses. There are various ways that he can be helpful to you, from his weekly blog to working with founders directly and even investing in those who want to start their own agency Oliver Duffy-Lee - founder of the Authority Agency, who help agencies scale to 7 figures per year. Over the last 10 years he's built 2 agencies of his own, worked as CMO in 2, helped 800 more and sold to global clients like Volvo, Porsche and Unilever. He developed the Authority Agency system to help agency owners attract high quality leads, free up their time to work on the business and get complete clarity on their positioning Simon Penson - a former journalist turned founder of one of the first digital content marketing agencies, which was acquired by NYSE-listed Interpublic Group in 2016. Simon now runs Scaled, a consultancy focused on helping the next generation of agency leaders build and grow profitable businesses all the way to exit and beyond! He also actively invests in smart founder-led businesses, both personally and as a partner in Haatch Ventures - an EIS fund. If you run an agency or dream of doing so then look no further for advice. #followfriday #ff

In the dynamic realm of business, where innovation meets opportunity, the essence of a Go-To-Market (GTM) Strategy emerges as a tool for unparalleled success. Why do we place such profound emphasis on a GTM strategy at Hone Ventures? Because it embodies the orchestration of market savvy, unique value, strategic marketing, and insightful sales tactics that elevate a product from concept to market leader. A GTM strategy is the compass, sail, and rudder of your venture, built on four foundational pillars: - **Target Market Profiles**: Knowing your audience sets your course. - **Value Proposition**: Distinguishing your offering is your battle cry in the competitive fray. - **Marketing Plan**: Your map to navigate the shifting currents of consumer attention. - **Sales and Distribution Strategy**: Understanding where and how to best reach your customers ensures safe passage to market success. Without these elements, a venture risks being adrift in an unforgiving sea of commerce. But a well-crafted GTM strategy does more than guide you to success—it weaves your offerings into your brand's narrative, building lasting connections with your audience and cementing a legacy that transcends mere transactions. At Hone Ventures, we see crafting a GTM strategy as the art of turning visions into victories and transforming innovative ideas into enduring legacies. We invite fellow visionaries to join us on this journey. Together, with our expertise and your unique vision, there's no limit to what we can achieve. #GoToMarketStrategy #Innovation #MarketSuccess #BusinessGrowth #HoneVentures

#Sales or #Marketing? The never-ending debate that just got settled: Sorry - buzzfeed style hook, but trying new things here... Anyway, now that I've got you! Here's what's so important about this post: IF you're a #Startup or #SME and are trying to find your first clients, you need to understand that they will never be your #IdealClients. You need an entirely different profile from the #ICP and as I saw it coined first from Maja Voje - the #EarlyCustomerProfile or #ECP is what you've got to be thinking about when starting out. These early adopters are the ones who are willing to take the risk on an unproven company like yourself. They are willing to see what you've got and they can live with the fact the system may be a little buggy at first. After all, that's why your pricing will be different too! When thinking about your first customers don't think you'll land Coca-Cola or Google. Think mom-and-pop shops, think startups and SMEs. They are the ones who are the risk-takers. Google will not bet on a company without a proven track record and public trust. Think strategically how you can use the names of your first customers too and leverage them to be able to find more. The visual below is by no means meant to say that every B2B startup should aim at founders at first but in my experience if you want the decision to be made quickly - that's who you're looking for. In larger corporations there is no such thing as a quick decision - processes have been put in place and approval takes time. That's why you need to build relationships with your counterparts or with influential people within the company known as "champions". These people are going to be advocating on your behalf to their colleagues when you're not there and again from experience - you'll often fail selling to any medium-sized or larger corporation without them! Work smart, not hard.

"For instance, knowing that institutional capital is no longer guaranteed – even for buzzy brands – means putting up their own cash to get started. Some are also leveraging their own networks and existing skills, like marketing and PR, to save on vendor costs. This also impacts early decisions like hiring, wholesale expansion, and even choosing which paid marketing channels are worth investing in. Put together, these decisions are reshaping what the profile of a typical consumer founder looks like, as growing sustainably and profitably becomes a bigger focus." https://lnkd.in/eWKQwECJ

Being the CMO at a #techstartup isn't for the faint-hearted. It’s a whirlwind of branding, building awareness, generating demand, and fostering community from the ground up. Every move in an early-stage #B2Bstartup is about creating something from nothing, all while maintaining a people-first strategy because building a strong community is the key to success. The 1st 90 days are crucial. Here’s my playbook for Verchool Holdings, based on experience and best practices. Remember, in marketing, one-size-fits-none.  This is a starting point, not a blueprint.  —- Begin here, customize, test, learn, and adapt. 1. Discovery and Onboarding: → Met with the dynamic Verchool team and board to understand our products and services deeply. → Conducted a thorough brand and channel audit to identify strengths and areas for improvement. → Initiated competitive and industry analysis to refine our market positioning. 2. Strategy and Planning: → Developed a robust marketing and communication plan, aligning with our mission to "bring communities together". → Articulated our unique value proposition, emphasizing Verchool’s integration of Virtual Extended Reality (#VER) and #Spatial #Web3.0 technologies. → Created a comprehensive content calendar to drive engagement and brand awareness. 3. Execution: → We’ve successfully launched our Family Office Zone and now focusing on targeted GTM strategies for our VC and Luxury Assets zones launches. → Establishing key partnerships and exploring opportunities for sponsorships and joint marketing efforts. → Engaging with #VC firms to build relationships for potential seed round funding, ensuring a solid financial foundation for future growth. → Expanding our presence on social media channels frequented by our target audience, leveraging these platforms for increased visibility and engagement. → Participating in specific events to enhance brand visibility and network with prospective clients and partners. —- 𝐋𝐨𝐰 𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐭 Website: Updating website copy and implementing #SEO practices to improve organic search visibility, and user experience and attract talent, investors, and partners. Ads: Executing targeted advertising campaigns on LinkedIn and Google to reach key decision-makers and test our messaging and content. Content: Creating educational videos and interactive content that highlight Verchool’s capabilities. Boardroom: Organizing live Boardroom sessions to showcase the tangible benefits of our platform for #B2B communities. IRL: Allocating budget towards podcasts, events, and speaking engagements that place us directly in front of our audience, maximizing visibility and impact. —- 𝐋𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 As we continue to innovate and drive growth, our focus remains on: → PR → UX/CX → Social Proof → Social Media → Influencer Marketing → Launching new zones I’d love to hear from other marketing leaders!  What have been your key learnings from your first 90 days in a new role?

Pumped to announce our investment into The Deal Lab, Kellen's GTM R&D company! I'd been looking to get more involved with Kellen for a long time. Here's why we did it: 1. STRATEGY RevenueZen (and thus Onfolio) coinvested alongside me, which is highly strategic for the agency. While I haven't managed the day to day operations of RZ in quite some time now, we *did* get our start as a sales dev consultancy back in 2017 (remember?!). We still have deep brand equity in the outbound sales function, locked away in the minds of everyone who saw us crush outbound back in 2017-2020. So it makes sense to start unlocking this by deeply partnering with one of the best in the business: Kellen Casebeer. We can introduce Kellen to our clients and vice versa, tying together the inbound, SEO, content, LinkedIn, and now outbound channels more tightly. 2. CAPITAL I and RZ injected capital directly into The Deal Lab and became shareholders. Our income from the investment rises and falls with the business performance overall. And yet I know how much harder and slower it is to build an agency when it's always a choice between take home income for the owners, and reinvesting in beneficial growth, infrastructure, and things that we pretty much know for sure are going to be fantastic investments in the medium term. A capital injection helps. 3. MENTORSHIP Time is our most precious asset. Kellen is someone I'm overjoyed to spend time with. His dedication, intelligence, and integrity are maxed out. I believe that not only I but also other RevenueZen leaders can help be a guide to The Deal Lab at critical points in their growth. Kellen's brilliance is all the more reason why mentorship from us is an accelerant, not a necessity, but what a beautiful acceleration it is toward a full vision of modernizing GTM, in a time of tumult in the world of outbound and sales dev. 4. PORTFOLIO I'm on the cap table in 3 B2B growth agencies, soon to be 4. And I've previously invested in multiple small, cash flowing private companies. The performance of these companies beats the sh!t out of the stock market, and I can positively influence the growth, profitability, and happiness levels of the companies as a whole including their owners. I'm not a day to day agency operator myself, which is good in that I can spend time reflecting on all that I learned, while still being an active advisor to RevenueZen, The Deal Lab, and a few others yet to be named. More people should invest in agencies and service providers in industries they're intimately familiar with. If I may ask something of you... Are you looking for help building, restructuring, or improving your outbound GTM ops? 🚀 Shoot me or Kellen a DM. We'll bring you up to speed for what's working TODAY, in H2 2024. Onwards and upwards.

🚨 Out Now: Leveraging Channel Partners: Key to Startup Success 🏔 In our new article, we take a dive deep into how startups can harness the power of channel partnerships to fuel growth, penetrate new markets, and enhance brand awareness. If growth is on your agenda, understanding the dynamics of channel partnerships is essential. Ready to unlock your startup's potential? Read our comprehensive guide from our channel experts here: https://lnkd.in/g8RcWAzh #StartupGrowth #ChannelPartnerships #BusinessStrategy

Who's Next? We are curating the Next 50 Series A startups who are shaking things up. Criteria: Series A or earlier in go-to-market tech (supporting revenue functions) Do you know any? Drop a nomination ➡https://lnkd.in/ddnVshSg 🌟 Meet the Next GTM Creators 🌟 We are introducing you to three new creators. You can check out the entire list here. ➡ https://lnkd.in/gA5AZH89 1. Bethany Stachenfeld - Co-Founder and CEO of Sendspark 🚀 Bethany is the go-to expert on scalable video for sales. She shares insights about the new way of doing marketing, and we can’t get enough because it’s shaping the future of B2B! 2. Brian LaManna - Mid-Market Account Executive at Gong 🚀 Brian drops his sales insights in a cool, inspiring, and natural way. He’s also the founder of Closed Won – He shares differentiated sales practices that set you apart from any seller your prospects have ever experienced. We’re totally hooked on his real-life deal stories packed with fresh B2B perspectives! 3. Brianna Doe - CMO at Verbatim, a women-owned marketing & personal branding studio 🚀 Brianna shares her thoughts on entrepreneurship, job hunting, and leadership. She’s all about content, influencer marketing, and personal branding, but most of all, she loves to amplify others! If you don't follow them on LinkedIn, do it right away! 💯

“Do things that don’t scale,” doesn’t apply just to your product. While most #founders take Paul Graham’s advice to heart for their MVP, it’s equally important to apply this mindset to your go-to-market. Just as it’s foolish for early #startups to invest prematurely in scaling features you don’t know users will value, it’s a waste of your limited capital to spend heavily on at-scale tactics—like buying search ads—without validating that your message even resonates. So get out there and talk to as many potential users as you can! Go to events, interact in subreddits, write personalized messages to reach out to ideal customers! Don't use your future need to scale as a crutch to avoid getting out of your comfort zone today and having direct interaction with customers! Get your messaging reps in—you need to FAIL to connect with prospects over and over, before you can learn what really resonates! --- Need to resonate better with prospects, but no budget for agencies or fractional CMOs? Sign up for a Positioning Sprint at the link in my profile.

How can your business stand out and maintain its competitive edge? Whether yours is a small startup or an established company, visit our latest blog for some tactics that will help carve out your space and thrive even amidst intense competition: https://lnkd.in/efs8Aijv #smallbusiness #startup #businesstactics