Accelerate: Calling Bullshit

Startups are a lot of work punctuated by moments of glory, some big and many small. Those moments keep us all going, fuel the next awesome idea and accelerate the trajectory of the business.

We *love* hearing about breakthroughs from the teams on the ground, doing the hard work every day. The Accelerate series details these wins and highlights game-changing enterprise tech trends as part of our commitment to help companies get to success, faster.

Calling Bullshit

Tom Wentworth, CMO of RapidMiner, wrote this fantastic post about the false sense of security created by gobs of MQLs. It’s the story of finding alignment around product, quality vs. quantity, and how to hit the organizational reset button. It’s a guide to replacing the MQL mentality with a PQL (product qualified lead) methodology.

And, yes, it’s a forceful hit on the reset button that shifts how the organization looks at roles, resource allocation, and success to focus on what really matters. The article does a great job breaking down the key learnings from RapidMiner’s experience and provides specific examples that apply to both SMB and enterprise businesses:

Lesson #1: Forget sales and marketing alignment. It starts and ends with product.

Lesson #2: You need a product-oriented sales team.

Lesson #3: Selling is helping

Lesson #4: How to scale helpfulness

Lesson #5: Documentation is the new content marketing

Lesson #6: Pricing and packaging have to scale with value

Anyone who has spent any part of their career trying to find the harmony between what you’re selling and who’s buying should DEFINITELY read this.