The Nearbound Daily is now officially the ELG Insider Daily! 

Welcome to the ELG Insider Daily—the #1 newsletter in the world keeping thousands of GTM professionals on top of the latest Ecosystem-Led principles, tactics, and trends. Join the movement here.

PRINCIPLES

Those who play together win together

When have you seen a football (soccer) match won by just one of the players?

Yes, there’s always a most valuable player (MVP) – but that doesn’t mean that the rest of the team didn’t help. 

It’s always 11 vs 11 or 7 vs 7, because there’s no way one person can win against 11 or even 7. 

Just as athletes in a team sport rely on each other’s strengths to secure victory, B2B SaaS companies thrive when they foster strong partnerships. 

You don’t win alone, because customers don’t live in isolation. 

You have to care about partners because customers do. You’ve got to play (and play should be fun!) with others if you want to win with others. And when you win together, the wins are bigger.

And like we always say, “Who shares, wins”.

TACTICS

How to lose your customers in 10 days 

Disclaimer: Any similarity to the “How to lose a guy in 10 days” movie is purely coincidental. 

Like jenga stacks and sandcastles, retaining a customer is hard work, but pretty easy to ruin. 

So, to help bad-intentioned GTM leaders make small mistakes, Kevin Chiu (Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer at Catalyst) and former CRO Mark Kosoglow shared 7 mistakes that you should do if you want to lose your customers in 10 days (or maybe more). 

Here’s the overview: 

1. Treat customer journeys as vendor value: Customer journeys should prioritize customer value and success rather than being centered on vendor objectives and actions. To successfully drive your customer away, make your onboarding process confusing and cumbersome.
2. Rely on false precision of health scores: Health scores that focus on metrics like logins and NPS may not accurately predict customer renewals or success. Focus on the wrong metrics so you can help your customers achieve goals they don’t need to achieve. 
3. Manage risk at the expense of outcomes: Prioritize managing risks and creating tickets over driving the desired outcomes for the customer. Just focus on making sure your clients problems are solved and not on the future value they can receive. 
4. Base Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) on vendor metrics: Don’t align your QBRs with strategic customer outcomes, rather, focus on reviewing vendor metrics. 
5. Don’t think about renewal management: Renewals shouldn’t be tied to the actual achievement of positive business outcomes. Neglect your customers, especially if they start to show signs of cooling off. Pay no attention to low usage or lack of engagement, and don’t try to reignite the spark.
6. Employ digital customer success as a business strategy: Digital customer success should be seen as a broader business strategy. Provide a digital customer interface that leaves your customers scratching their heads.
7. Mistake activity for impact: Tracking customer success activities is the most important metric to pay attention to —  ignore measuring the impact of your GTM motion on net retention, gross retention, and customer outcomes.

Learn more here.

FROM THE ECOSYSTEM

Don’t take the easy way out!

Thanks Matt Bolian (Co Founder and CEO of Supered) for the motivational speech. 

Lesson learned: If you want to succeed you have to do the job. 

Stuff you don't want to miss!

• August 14th — From Data to Dollars: Strategies for Nurturing Event Leads to Drive Success: Benito Aguila (Events Marketing Manager from Google) and Airmeet’s CEO, Lalit Mangal will share how to capture valuable data at events to implement targeted follow-up strategies. Register here. 
• August 20th — Exploring the Power of the Benefits Broker Channel: Leveraging HR’s Most Trusted Consultants: Ryan Taguding (Founder and Principal at Temio Consulting) will share where to begin, how to identify your ICP and distinguish sales blockers from champions. Register here.

You're all caught up

See you tomorrow

If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here to get the newsletter every week.