Startup Growth Expenses, Network Effects, & NDRs
We’re joined by Mac Reddin (Commsor) to share his insights on building authentic business connections, driving growth through introductions, and how new companies can tap into network effects for long-term success.
I think it's a no brainer.
I think anyone that isn't leveraging partnerships in their go to market is one
probably going
to fall off.
The right introduction can unlock so much for you.
It can unlock a job.
It can unlock a new customer.
It can unlock a lot.
That short term thinking destroys your ability to become a long term business.
Real talk backed up with real action.
This is GTM News Desk.
I'm Nick Bennett and I'm Mark Killins.
Let's see what's trending.
Welcome to the GTM News Desk.
My name is Mark Killins.
Thank you again for joining us for another episode.
I'm here with Nick Bennett.
Nick, what's going on?
It's a beautiful day outside.
It's a cute wave.
If you're watching the video.
Did you like that?
I always feel like it's so weird.
When you end Zoom or Google Me calls, do wave to people.
I'm always one that typically waves and I'm like, why am I waving?
I usually throw the peace sign.
Peace.
I wonder if there was a day to date around that.
I would love to survey a thousand people and be at the end of a call whether
you're
the prospect internally, whatever, how many people wave to the other side to
say bye.
Usually when you're in person, you shake hands or you wave or you do something.
I feel like it's a similar piece to that.
Yeah, I do a LinkedIn post.
I've seen a LinkedIn post about this.
Just doing it right after this.
You get some reactions.
Today is all about networks.
Talking about people, we're going to go deep on the idea of using networks to
get to that
introduction, to get to more revenue.
We get a great guest in the third segment today, Mac Reden.
He's a tech customer.
He's been working with Mac for a long, long time, helping him run his go to
market.
He has created what is called go to network.
The first two new stories we have today is around the insanely cheap, cheap,
cheap ways
you can start a business now.
Again, it is so cheap.
I saw a story the other day from wix, wix.com, and GoDaddy.
But both two different companies kind of play in the same space, Nick, that we
're saying
you can use AI and not to start your business.
Use AI.
They will build your logo, get your domain, file your LLC.
Hell, they might even set up a bank account for you.
So starting a business, it's so easy and you can do it.
The thing that's really hard is trying to grow that business.
So the idea is how do you use networks, the networks that you have, and then
maybe you're
founding team members have that your first few customers have.
If you have investors or friends and family that they have to get you some
durable growth
using the atomic unit of trust as a way to do that.
Because if you look at this Andrew Chen article, Nick, it unpacks the idea of,
yes, funding
has gone up.
It's obviously come down from the 2020, 2021 highs.
But at the end of the day, there's a lot of people being able to start a
business without
even needing any funding, forget like VC money, forget anything else.
You can just start a business.
But how do you get that product or the solution to that problem into the right
hands of the
right people?
It's about going to where the trust and the attention already exists through
getting an
introduction through someone else.
Today's episode is all about that.
And Andrew Chen, excuse me, has some great stats about that in this article.
That's in the show notes.
We should take a look at it.
And I first learned about this, start to read more about this early days Hub
Spot, Nick,
when Brian and Dormesh came out on stage back in some early days of inbound,
the inbound
event and said it's becoming easier and easier to start a business with so many
things that
you can do now with offshoring and dropshipping and all these things.
But how do you sustain the success and the growth of that business?
That is becoming much, much harder.
I think a perfect example of that is how we started TAC.
If you think about it, you and I have both had networks and relationships for
the years.
And most people when they start a business, regardless if you're selling
software or if
you're selling services, whatever it is, first couple of months, maybe even a
little
bit longer is tough.
Now if you look back to our own results, maybe we just caught the wave at the
right time.
We got pretty fortunate and our guest, Mac, who's going to be on air was one of
the first
TAC customers ever, but I personally think the way that we cultivated our
networks, the
way that we built that trust over the years, the way that we continue to
deliver value,
ultimately played a piece into building the business and getting it off the
ground and
feeling good about it, even in those first couple of months.
But to that point, we had distribution built in.
We had an audience.
We even had maybe a semblance of a community.
In fact, we actually built a community before we started the business
officially to test
the idea of what we could actually sell, how we could monetize us, who could we
sell to.
So it's the idea of minimal viable audience before minimal viable product,
which we've
definitely talked about just reiterating that, build an audience at the same
time as you build
a product or build an audience first, help you build a product versus building
a product
because the creation of something has gone down, not maybe to zero, but close
to zero.
The distribution of something has continually gone up over the last many, many
years.
Yeah, 100%.
It makes perfect sense to me.
And I think it's, like you said, I think AI makes it easier.
It's just, I don't know, a couple of years, five years from now, 10 years from
now.
I'm sure it's even going to be easier.
Everyone's going to be popping up businesses, but I've talked to a lot of
people, even when
we got going, and it was just like people were struggling.
Some people went back in-house because of how much they were struggling, one
because
of the economy, but two, but I just think they just didn't have a viable
audience that
they built and cultivated over the years.
And I think that was one thing that we had going for us.
And I'm just interested to see how AI plays even more into this over the next
five, 10
years.
What's story number two, the second segment of today's episode?
Yeah.
So we've got the Harvard Business School.
So talking about network effects.
So when you think about network effects and everything about it, so you've got
direct network
effects, which is the users on one side of the platform.
And then you've got the indirect network effects, which is more users on one
side that
improve the experience for the users on the other side.
So basically, like you say, sellers versus buyers.
So it improves the overall platform's value.
And I think having Mac on, I mean, he talks a bit about this and how, you know,
CompSour
has kind of built a lot of this.
And I think they're a perfect example of someone that has seen both direct and
indirects kind
of network effects of everything.
Because ultimately what that allows you to do is you optimize the user
experience using
those network effects, because I mean, it's word of mouth, dark social,
whatever you want
to call it.
If someone has a good experience, they'll tell their network that all those
people in
their network are going to go sign up.
And it's how all these apps and stuff start to go viral.
And it's like, you know, I told 30 people in tech insider and all of a sudden
30 people
go to download something.
And it's like those 30 people tell another 100 people.
And it's like, it just kind of continues to compound, which goes into kind of
my last
two pieces from this article talks about building a community.
So how do you create a community around your platform where people can engage
with it?
You know, obviously we did tech insider.
I know there's a lot of other communities that kind of use that as a way to get
others
to engage to ultimately move into other pieces and strategic partnerships.
I mean, that's partnerships is at the core of people first.
Everything that we do distribution amplification is with the partner.
And so the article talked to a lot about like, how do you collaborate with
complimentary
services to expand your user base?
It's just co-marketing at the end of the day or co-selling, however you want to
look at
it.
I think it's a no brainer.
I think anyone that isn't leveraging partnerships in their go to market is one,
probably going
to fall off.
But two is just missing you a huge opportunity.
Well, yeah, network effects, if you dumb it down, it's not exactly this, but
just to say,
you know, to make it easy to understand it's word of mouth.
Like how do you create leverage to help you create some type of effect that
compounds
typically, right?
And there's many different types of network effects and they can be driven
through one
flywheel like you create one type of network effect.
And you know, for example, Amazon has many different network effects that are
built
to these different flywheels because they have people that are selling stuff.
They have people that are the shippers and they brought more and more of this
and how
it's about like they have people that, you know, sell, ship, distribute, they
have advertisers
out, advertise, like everything they kind of do is created a network effect
into the
other thing to self-perpeturate the other things growth, which is ultimately
what you
want to do, right?
You want to say, well, yeah, I'm going to do this community.
There's network effects there.
That's going to help me grow this thing.
So that's going to help me do this, right?
So it's like these mini flywheels almost, if you will, you know, and every
business is
trying to create network effects.
I mean, you definitely are because traditionally a good network effect reduces
the cost of
acquiring a customer.
And it ultimately a great network effect helps to reduce the cost of acquiring
a customer,
but helps you retain more customers because the effect of, hey, the more people
that use
this product will take LinkedIn, for example, the network effect there is if
more people
use it, there's more value because the users are the product.
Social networks are a very classic example of network effects.
Yeah.
Again, a lot of different types of network effects.
We're not going to go into great detail on that.
To your point, you covered a little bit on it, but you do want to try to find
and as you
think about, you know, going into another fiscal year, if you're thinking about
what
you can do to strengthen the defensibility of your business, trying to
understand how
to create some type of network effect that either helps you increase retention,
decrease
CAC or both is really important.
We used to talk about this all the time at HubSpot.
Like I'm sure they still do all the time Nick.
We would talk about network effects and how can we do it?
And like HubSpot Academy, when I was leading that effort and team, we really
focus on the
ways in which we create network effects within HubSpot Academy members and
users.
How do we get more people to invite friends, colleagues to learn?
How do we use certifications as a signal of trust to then create a network
effect that
says, oh, you have that certification?
That means you're more intelligent or smarter about something.
I need to get that certification.
Right?
So it's those types of things so they could be deliberately designed to help
your business
grow.
If you think about what it is, it's a network of either like, I mean, in many
ways, people
but of some type of signal that allows the network to grow and expand and kind
of self-perpetuate
itself.
100%.
Yeah.
I mean, it's really important.
I mean, I think a business, you know, if you're a marketer, seller, but
definitely someone
who runs a business CEO, like if you haven't looked into network effects or if
you haven't
looked into them recently, definitely something to look into.
And they got some good examples here.
Like you said, right?
Like the partnership side, obviously social media, but it's also about like how
you design
your product in terms of like the distribution, you know, element or how you
think about
like, if you have PLG motion or a 50% type PLG motion, like how do you get more
people
into your product through, hey, I'm going to invite them to this, right?
Like through referrals, through these things, data is a network effect, right?
The more data you have creates a better effect because that data can be used to
then potentially
create other products or find other people, right?
So a lot of these data providers have built in network effects.
It's a really interesting exercise and I highly recommend people actually study
that.
Love that.
Cool.
Well, let's go jump into our next segment with Mac.
Excited to have everyone listen to it.
Let's go do it.
Welcome, Mac.
Read into our exclusive interview segment during today's show.
Mac, what's going on, my friend?
Oh, you know, at the usual having fun, keeping busy.
Yeah.
So I'm going to do a quick plug, Mac.
Okay.
Because Comm Store has been a longtime tech customer.
Mac and I are partners in crime.
I help Mac run the go-to-market side of Comm Store and folks, listening to you.
I go to New York side.
I help with marketing, go-to-market, go-to-Mac, ask him how I'm doing.
He'll give you the full and honest truth.
The good and the bad.
The good and the bad and the ugly.
Yeah.
But Mac, it's great to have you on the on the show.
We've been meaning to have you.
We're so philosophically aligned between what Comm Store is doing, what TAC is
saying and
preaching and teaching.
This is going to be a very exciting, fast moving conversation.
I want to keep it pretty specific.
I'll say that much.
So let's get into the details quickly though to tee everything up, give
everyone the one
minute definition of go-to-network.
Good network essentially is about two things, about building and activating
networks around
your business.
Some of those networks you happen to have naturally, customers and investors,
et cetera.
Some require building audience, community, et cetera.
And it's about building them and then leveraging them to get to the market.
So rather than a direct go-to-market approach of like, instead of standing in a
room being
like, hey, do you want to buy my stuff?
It's basically like, how do you get a subset of that room to come closer around
you, build
relationships there and then activate them to amplify your voice out into the
market?
So it's partnerships.
It's community building.
It's social selling.
It's like, it's really like a subset of go-to-market strategies that we've kind
of collected under
this umbrella of go-to-network.
Not bad.
I'll give you a B, a new B.
It's great.
I'll take it.
The key for everyone listening is you listen to what Max is going to talk about
in this
segment and then in the exclusive segment is around the idea of getting an
introduction.
The right introduction can unlock so much for you.
It can unlock a job.
It can unlock a new customer.
It can unlock a renewal.
It can unlock a friendship.
It can unlock a lot.
So getting to the introduction is what go-to-network is about.
So Max, early stage company listening to this show right now, what are two
tangible things
they can do with this idea of using go-to-network to help them unlock introdu
ctions?
Yeah, I mean, so if you're VC-backed, the low-hanging fruit is like, is tap
into your VC network.
And it seems so obvious.
And I can't tell you often I talk to a founder who's like, "Oh, yeah."
And you're like, "Yeah, like, you know, other portfolio companies that your VCs
have invested
in or they know people, like, just ask them."
And a very common play, I mean, I did this in a pre-comsore world, was like, "
You build
those when you send out your monthly investor update.
You take your top 20 accounts or 50 accounts you're trying to break into, and
you just
put them in a spreadsheet and you say, "Hey, investors, can you indicate which
of these
you can help me with?"
And then you just go through it and maybe 10 of them you can get help with, 20,
30, whatever
it is.
And then you write a affordable email for each one and hopefully get interest
that way.
The other one I'd say is, if you're not VC-backed, hopefully you have some
customers already.
I think if you're not, if you don't have like 10 customers yet, you shouldn't
be even like
building go-to-market strategy.
You're just hustling to get 10 customers.
There's not a lot of this like, concreteness happening yet.
If you have happy customers, which hopefully you've got 10 at this point,
leverage them
for alvequeline or reverse referrals, which is very often companies build
referral programs
and they go, "Hey, Nick, you're a huge fan of my company and my product.
Please refer people."
And then they sit back and they're like, "Is he going to do it?
Is he not going to do it?"
And like, very often you'll see referral programs.
They get a huge bump for like Q1, Q2.
And then by Q3, they're like, "Why is no one referring anymore?"
It's because you're not the first priority for your customer, right?
They're not thinking about who should buy your thing.
They're thinking about who should buy their thing or their service.
So the reverse referral is basically just asking.
It's an intro request, right?
But I think when it's a customer, it becomes more referral based.
It's saying, "Hey, Nick, I know you know Mark because you work with him or you
used to
work with him or you're connected on LinkedIn or whatever.
Can you refer him to me?
He'll pay you the $1,000 referral fee I was going to pay you.
But now I'm just doing the work for you."
I was going to say, I like that.
And you know, it's so interesting.
That's a fantastic way to make extra money.
For everyone that's listening, I'm sure you all know Scott Lease.
I've talked to Scott but many times I know Mack knows him.
He was telling me a story about a month ago and he was just like, "All I did
was a quick
intro to a company and he made $35,000 off of a referral because it was a
percentage of
the amount that was closed.
All he had to do was make one quick intro."
He's like, "It literally took me 30 seconds."
And he's like, "Think about that ROI and the fantastic example."
That is 30 seconds a decade in the making though, right?
He's able to make the intro because of all the work that got in.
It's like, I can't just like forward an intro request to a random person.
They're going to be like, "Who are you?"
So it's overnight success a decade in the making, that sort of action, which is
also
why you should treat your network as an asset worth investing in, whether it's
going to
be a future hire, a future job or a Furl fee, whatever it is, it's an asset and
you should
treat it as such.
I love that.
So let's talk about what role does actually trust authenticity, whatever you
want to call
it, play when you're building these meaningful business networks throughout the
years.
I mean, the short answer is it's everything.
That's the whole point.
That's it.
That's the reason why it works so well, right?
The reason why cold calls or cold outreach have such low conversion rates is
you're trying
to brute force trust, like out the gate.
You're like, "Hey, Nick, you never met me.
You want to buy my shit."
That's like, if you really sum up like 99% of sales and marketing tactics, that
's what
it is.
Whether it's an ad or a cold call or a cold email, it's, "Hey, want to buy my
shit?
You never heard of me.
Want to buy my shit?"
That's why you see stats of like, you need 1400 of those touch points for
someone to
go, "You know what?
Maybe I will check out your shit basically," right?
But it's like 1400 of that's insane.
That's the average amount of outbound touch points, ads, emails, calls,
whatever.
To get a deal on the pipeline for B2B businesses today.
It's not according to hockey stack, Mac.
Do they say it's more or less?
Oh, hockey stack had this stupid ridiculous report that came out that just
people blew
up about over the last week or so.
Did they say more or less than that?
They said it's like 105.
I mean, out of a data set of like 100 businesses, like 50, 50 or 100 businesses
I don't know the exact thing, maybe Nick, you know.
Is that on a per deal basis or is that overall?
You see, these questions are so good because I don't know any answer to them.
First off, all I know is people roasted them because the methodology of this
like data
insight was somewhat, I mean, that's horrible.
To be fair, you could probably say like the methodology on almost like any of
these B2B
reports are always like, "That's right."
But let's crop for that, Pete.
That's the best.
Yeah, I mean, that's right.
I can write a post that proves to you that cold calls are the best way to sell.
I can also write one with data that proves that cold calls will never work.
Like it, I can do whatever I want, right?
Like my favorite set is the one.
One of the stats that everyone loves is that 57% of B2B buyers prefer cold
calls.
You see cold call advocates promote that all the time.
It's like, "Well, okay, it's a study from nine years ago."
Like nothing changed in a decade, right?
It only interviewed 120 buyers.
So like really tiny sample size.
And the actual question was, "Which channels are you okay being contacted on by
sellers?"
So actually only 57% are okay being contacted on the phone.
So 42% are like, "Do not contact me on the phone."
So the real number behind that stat would be half your buyers do not want you
to call
them.
It's actually how I would interpret that stat, right?
But everyone always uses it as they see, they prefer cold calls.
No, no, no, no.
The point you're making is extremely important.
It goes back to Nick's question.
Yeah.
All of that is garbage, noise, fake news, whatever you want to call it.
And maybe some of it is fact and whatever.
But the most important thing though is who do you trust?
It's who is the messenger, not what the message is.
That's only within your body.
Yeah.
Right?
Like we each have our own trust barometer, right?
And I think the point you just made on the messenger versus the message is
important.
The messenger is more important than the message.
Went together, they could become like this one plus one equals three effect.
But that is the day we live in these days.
You don't have to read any reports.
I think if you work in sales and marketing, you feel it in your bones that sh
its harder
than it was five years ago.
Like that's just I am not spoken to someone that works in revenue or go to
market or anything.
That wouldn't agree with that statement.
Maybe there's some weird outliers of like the hot new AI company right now and
they're
just like booming.
But in general, it doesn't matter what the reports say.
Everybody knows it's harder.
Everybody knows it takes more touch points.
It's harder to measure whatever.
But that's why it's like any day like whether it's you or anyone listening to
this, think
about the last time you bought something that cost you more than $10,000.
Think about the process you went through.
Did you talk to peers to get feedback like, hey, anyone uses tool before, hey,
I'm considering
buying this car.
What do you guys think?
You know, et cetera.
Did you get it referred it?
Did someone mention it to you?
Do you hear about it in the community?
Like, yeah, maybe you saw ads.
Maybe you heard from a salesperson, but really think about like, what was the
thing that
made you go, you know what?
I want to talk to this company or I want to learn about this product.
And it's like, there's a once again, I know stats are kind of bullshit, but
like there
was a gardener report that said 84% of B2B buyers start their buying process
with some
form of referral.
Man, then of course, you know, sales are marketing gets credit marketing gets
credit
because it was an inbound lead, but it was really because like Nick told me
about it
at dinner and I went and then filled out the form like, see, the website works.
You're like, you could website could have said you kill babies or fun.
I probably would have filled it out because Nick told me it was a great product
Like it, it actually doesn't matter.
Right?
Like the word of mouth and the trust is, is everything.
So what are some tangible ways people can grow their network?
So the people that they bring into their network trust them in a way.
Like you can get, you can get really, you can take this question in any
direction.
So I'm giving you a blank canvas map.
Oh, I don't want to use the word authenticity.
But like give, give to the network before you take out of the network.
I think is the best way to think about it.
Give an example though.
Give a tangible example of that.
How do you do it?
How do you do it?
This is why I think a lot of go to market teams are afraid of this approach
because it
inherently is not this like perfectly measurable playbook of just you a and
then you be and
then you see and then boom magic.
You'll make a million dollars.
Right?
It's this sort of fluffy like you take it, you bury it, you forget about it for
six months,
you come back to your, oh shit, like there's a money tree here now.
Cool.
Like that's what building a network really is.
Right?
The Scott Lee example, right?
He didn't get $35,000 from referral because he just woke up one day and wrote
an email.
Like there is probably decades of work that have gone into making that possible
for him.
Before you talk about any tactics, it starts with a mindset shift.
And it starts with like you have to actually give a shit about people, about
what you're
building for them, what you're solving for them, helping them, whatever it is.
And it starts with just like being a, being a connector, right?
Being the kind of person that people, that's how I put it is you have to be the
kind of
person that people want to help.
You have to be easy to help.
Right?
Like, you know, if there are personalities, I won't name anyone.
There are people that like they could offer me $20,000 to referral to their
business and
I'm just like, I, I just won't do it because I just don't like them as a person
So like they're not easy for me to want to help.
I mean, an example, we, we bought a product a month and a half ago and there
were two
options in front of us.
Fundamentally, feature by feature price, they were the same.
I could have blindly picked a door and a dart and it wouldn't have mattered.
I did not buy option A because I'd had negative experiences with the CEO of
that company who
had been rude and dismissive and basically shit-tocked me in the past.
And so my, my, I was like, I don't care if you have a great product.
I don't want to support you as a person.
And it's those little moments, like that's, I guess, a sidebar is that like
network and
stuff can also have negative network effects, right?
Like, well, to that point, to that point, it's, it's, this is a very important
lesson
for everyone listening.
Who you associate with, who you partner with, who you hire is a, a reflection
of you slash
your brand, like the company's brand.
So I don't think enough companies pay attention to that.
So getting a tangible thing, it's like the act of the decision making of who
you bring
onto your team, who you let go, who you recognize, who you decide to partner
with, who you integrate
with, who, I mean, all of those things, like what you stand for, those are the
ways in
which you build a network and you establish a reputation which you ultimately
don't decide.
Ten of thousands of micro moments.
It's not one thing.
That's, and that's where I think a lot of people miss because it can't be
measured to
your point.
So the goal of today's conversation is to say, lean into the power of networks,
but to
lean into the power of networks, you have to be very thoughtful to your point,
Mac, and
deliberate with how you cultivate the relationships within that network.
And it can be in direct ways, like through a conversation like this, and we're
getting
to know each other and we're giving value, we're teaching each other, we were
helping
you, whatever.
But there's also a lot of indirect ways that that happens too.
I mean, it's like, I hate the phrase personal brand, but in the same way that
like brand,
like brand is not just your colors or your logo at a company, right?
It's like, what do I feel when I think of HubSpot?
What do I feel when I think of Salesforce?
What do I feel when I think of Pipe Drive or Adio or any other CRM player,
right?
It's like, there is a feeling you get, right?
Like I think of Adio, that's a really cool up and coming player.
I'd love to try them one day because it seems slick, but like, I don't know if
I want
to take that risk, right?
I think of HubSpot, I'm like, okay, HubSpot feels like the middle ground, they
're kind
of cool, they're kind of hip still.
Like, I like their vibe as a brand, they feel more aligned with Commsore as
like a brand,
right?
Salesforce is like the big, bad enterprise elephant in the room.
But your personal brand is the same thing, right?
People think about personal brand as like the number of followers you have or
the content
you write.
But no, it's like, it's what do you, what do you mark a Nick say about Mac when
Maxon
in the room?
That's what your personal brand is, right?
What does Mark say when someone says, hey, I'm considering applying for a job
at Commsore,
like, what do you think?
Should I work there?
Is Mac worth it?
And you're like, no, that guy's fucking insane.
Like he's in a terrible CEO, don't work for him, right?
Like you said, it's completely or measurable, which is why in a world where
everybody is
trying to solve this like perfect attribution problem, which is just not
actually solvable,
but that's another thing.
It's people are afraid of it.
And that's why I think people fall back on checkbox marketing and checkbox
sales.
I can measure emails, I can measure calls, I can measure ads.
And therefore, that's the better thing to do rather than starting with what's
the best
thing to do for my network and my customers and then do that and then figure
out what
part of it can be measurable.
I like that.
Remember when everyone was talking about dark social?
And that was like, like, cool thing.
Like, you don't hear about that anymore.
Kind of like went away weirdly.
I feel like Chris Walker kind of went away too, because he was the one
obviously pioneer
depth.
I don't see his content at all anymore.
But I mean, it's just word of mouth building your networks is just, you know,
all people
always find fancy words for that.
Let's dive into the last question before moving into the exclusive segment here
But if you had to think about the biggest misconception about the value of
networks in
today's startup ecosystem, what is it like?
If you had to just pick one and be like, this is the biggest misconception and
I'm doubling
down on it, what would you say?
I mean, I think a lot of it is the attribution problem.
I think it's just like it's, it's the people want to over attribute over AI,
over automate.
They just want like, they want everything to be this like perfect silver bullet
And it's just network is just such a messy, not straight line.
And it's one of those things I love the quote of like, you know, like, I'm
going to butcher
it now, but it's like society grows great when old men plant trees who shade
they will
never benefit from.
To me, that's what like a go to network strategy for a company is is like,
there are a lot
of things that you might do that are going to set the foundation for a
successful word
of mouth, dark social, go to network, whatever you want to call a strategy that
you might
start doing now that you might not feel for six months, nine months, 12 months,
24 months.
Like it's the things you do now determine the company you'll be in three years.
And I think we're, we're so stuck on this like quarter over quarter mindset,
this short
term mindset of like, it doesn't matter what I do as long as I hit my goals now
It doesn't matter what I do as long as I'm in goals next quarter.
And nobody's thinking about the four quarters from out, the eight quarters from
now, the
12 quarters from now.
And that like, I love the line of like that short term thinking destroys your
ability
to become a long term business.
And of course, you still have to like the short term is important.
You have to win the short term to have a chance of the long term.
But I feel like most companies I talk to, they are not thinking more than two
quarters
in the, in the future.
They are, they are, they're not even thinking a year in the future.
Maybe they're like, you know, high level, but from like a tactics perspective,
they're
not.
Why do you think that is part of it is I think people are scared.
I think right now it's like, you know, stuff, stuff's hard, people are falling
back on
things they're familiar with.
They're not willing to invest in things that won't pay off this quarter.
But it all starts from the top down.
I talked to a lot of salespeople, a lot of marketers were like, Oh my God, man,
I wish
I worked for a CEO like you who cares about having fun and cares about the long
term because
if I brought these ideas up, my, my boss would tell me like, get the fuck out
of here.
There's no way.
You're never getting budget.
What's wrong with you?
So a lot of it just, it, it starts from the top down.
If, if leadership is an on board with long term thinking, they're never going
to give space
to their people for long term thinking or network building or anything like
that.
And unfortunately, a lot of leaders right now are they're more concerned with,
can they
raise around in six months, which once again is a valid concern.
But you know, and there's a sidebar rabbit hole there.
I think the, the whole like having to build to raise your next round kills more
businesses
than it benefits, but we'll put a pin in that one for a future conversation.
Yeah.
I think the majority falls into two camps, if you will, the leaders, like you
said, and
business models.
Yeah.
And the VC category falls on like the business bottle, market, bucket for sure.
But yeah, it's, it's definitely leaders.
It's, I, I talk to all the time who are, they're thinking about it.
They have ideas for it.
And they cannot get buy in from their team to act on it.
Who controls the company at the end of the day, does play a decent part in that
equation,
I think, for better or for worse.
Yes.
You could be unlucky and be stuck with someone like me, you know?
You're not so bad.
Could be worse.
Could be better, you know, middle of the road.
Five out of five, for five out of 10.
Sorry.
Sweet.
Well, that wraps up this segment.
We're going to, if you want to continue this conversation, head on over to tech
network.
We're going to be diving into max proven framework all about go to networks.
He's going to be diving deep.
He's going to be sharing tangible tips.
So if you want to continue that conversation again, head over there and we will
see you
on the other side.
Thanks for joining us on this episode of GTM Newsdesk, presented by the tech
network.
To hear our full conversation with our guests today, head to the link in the
show notes
to subscribe to the tech network.
Until next time, I'm Mark Killins and I'm Nick Bennett.
Keep it people fairest everybody.