Predicting the future is a fool’s errand, but having a sense for what’s ahead is also an important aspect of any revenue leader’s role.
Looking ahead allows you to shape your team’s focus and development to stay ahead of the curve, and avoid being blindsided by any nasty surprises.
As you consider how to thrive in 2024, here are some key trends I’ve observed that are likely to impact go-to-market teams this year.
1. SDRs becoming full cycle sales, driven by ineffectiveness of mass outreach
The hard times that have befallen SDRs, and the fact that the ‘spray and pray’ approach to mass outbound prospecting is less effective than ever isn’t news to anyone at this point.
But as reply rates dwindle and the CAC associated with outbound continues to rise, what to do with a team of generally young, ambitious and frustrated sales development reps?
I’m hearing – just a whisper right now – that they’re being transitioned into full-cycle SMB reps, focussed on the more transactional end of deals.
I can see this trend accelerating in ‘24 for many businesses, where a large number of SDRs get repurposed into closing roles that provides an obvious ROI on their salary, AI takes an ever-growing role in trying to fill the initial top of funnel awareness role they played, and a few strategic SDRs remain dedicated to breaking into named accounts for enterprise reps.
2. Authentic, original content will win out v mass produced AI
What happens when something becomes a commodity, and the ‘cool factor’ that was once associated with it begins to dissipate? Something original and edgy sweeps in to take up the mantle.
I can see that AI-produced content will absolutely become a mainstay of GTM teams in ‘24, but despite advances in the tech and people’s sophistication with prompts, the sheer volume will drown out 99% of what’s produced.
As it becomes background noise, there will still be a role to play for genuinely well crafted, original and authentic content to cut through and make a splash.
If anything, it’s importance will rise as a way to differentiate from ‘efficient’ but ineffective marketing teams. Don’t go firing your content team, you’ve been warned!
3. AI in your product won’t be enough, it needs to actual produce unique value
In a similar vein to the above, AI within a product will be as common as having a website.
The differentiator won’t be having AI in your product, it will be how well it actually produces unique value for your market.
It’s a bit like how folks used to write ‘proficient in Microsoft word and excel’ on their CVs. Now most people don’t bother, because it’s just the baseline expected.
However just because everyone can create a document or sheet, doesn’t mean the majority of people use it well or utilise it to generate real value for their employers.
So it will be with products going into next year.
4. Those who invest in brand will pull ahead
With all the challenges in cold prospecting, how do you consistently reach an audience who don’t know you (or understand the problem you’re trying to solve)?
The power of brand.
Strong narratives, consistently told across all the channels available to businesses will help elevate you in even the most competitive markets (in fact, it’s even more essential there).
Tactical, reactional ‘lead gen’ marketing will be almost as difficult to produce results from as cold prospecting, because you’re knocking on a closed door alongside dozens of other undifferentiated competitors.
But build a brand that stands for something, with a powerful point of view, and compelling storytelling that gets the message across consistently…you’ll have folks knocking on your door.
5. Fractional will grow in popularity, but needs to mature in expectations and delivery
The markets will likely stay tough, and many scaleups who managed to avoid coming to market for fresh funding in ‘23 may well have to figure out how they eek out their runway even further as ‘24 develops.
That’s going to result in more RIFs (not at the scale we saw in ‘23, where many businesses cut deep to start with) and reduced growth plans, throwing off more talent.
Coupled with growing burnout from execs trying to do ‘more with less’ and a continued rise in very early stage businesses with seed or pre-seed funding and the growth in fractional execs will continue at pace (as will the need for them – although supply will continue to outstrip demand).
With so many newly minted fractionals, I think there will also need to be a marked maturing in terms of what’s expected of them and how they position their value to companies.
The term ‘fractional’ has become a catch-all, and we need to get sharper in language when it comes to all the different ways an independent exec can provide value to a startup.
This could be as a genuinely fractional member of a company (which requires them to really roll their sleeves up); as advisors providing purely strategic nous; as consultants delivering against defined project objectives; or coaches to founders and emerging leaders.
Knowing which is which, labelling the engagements correctly and getting better at aligning expectations will be crucial to everyone’s success.
6. Impact of CS will continue to grow w/ need for efficient growth, budget consolidation and growth in usage based pricing (tied to AI)
It feel like 2023 was the year that CS really got the limelight, as businesses started to act on the well-worn trope that it’s cheaper to keep a customer than acquire a new one.
Now that CS has a foot in the door of executive-level influence, they won’t be keen to let the pendulum swing back to their shiny new logo teammates.
With clients looking to rationalise their tool stack and reduce budgets (churn risk!), a brutal market for winning new business and executive acknowledgement of their importance in driving sustainable revenue, CS will play an outsized role in growth plans.
This will be further amplified with a growth in usage based pricing (in turn driven partly by usage of AI in products, which is charged on consumption by the big LLM providers). That’s because far more of the value from a customer will be yielded post sale.
7. CRM dominance will start to erode in favour of modern tools that bring buyers & sellers together
Hubspot and Salesforce are innovating at a rapid pace, but their core business models still revolve around selling software that forces reps to complete myriad fields so that managers can report their successes and failures up to the board.
In their current guise, and the way they’re utilised in the vast majority of businesses, they actually don’t offer a huge amount of value to reps – and absolutely none to buyers.
I see this as a golden opportunity for new ways of working to spring up, where platforms support bi-directional communication between buyers and sellers, and there’s no need for additional manual admin, because all the interactions that matter are automatically captured and synthesised for insights in the same tool.
Don’t get me wrong, CRM is far from dead, but hamstrung by the innovator’s dilemma and a shift in what’s needed to be successful as a modern seller, this could just be the beginning of the end.
Disclaimer here…the product I’m working on is designed to accelerate this change (still in stealth, but if you’re interested in seeing more then book a meeting).
8. Revops evolving to biz ops as systems need to be more integrated and finance teams become the source of truth
It’s getting ever more common for revenue operations to report into the finance function versus the revenue function.
With a continued need to control spend and prove ROI coming from scaling businesses, it feels like the natural home and I see the shift continuing.
The other benefits? Rather than having a revenue stack siloed under one function, having it more centralised will allow for better systemic integration with other core tools across finance and product in particular; and by freeing up CROs from having to help design the systems, they should have a little more time to consume the insights they were developed to support in the first place.
9. Ecosystem Growth will have it’s time in the spotlight
From a tactical perspective, with outbound struggling and budgets for paid marketing under the microscope, there aren’t too many new and exciting options available to teams driving for top of funnel growth.
Almost by default, I’m betting that ecosystem/partner led growth will be even more en vogue in 2024. This is a very wide categorisation, encompassing communities, integration partners, advisors, more traditional channel partners/VARs and co-marketing with similar but non-competitive companies in your space.
Different flavours will work for different products and business models, but I’d be surprised if most growth plans don’t at least hint at leaning into this more this year.
10. Consistency will be the holy grail that sets apart top decile GTM teams
For all the importance of devising a strong strategy or innovating your tactics, it’s building a strong operating culture that really makes a difference – day to day consistency.
Great leaders build habits that drive winning behaviours across the team, and maintain discipline even when getting pulled in a million different directions.
It’s boring and unglamorous work, which is why it’s so often left on the sidelines, but providing structure and guardrails to teams allows them to get the basics right, which then gives them a solid foundation on which to try other innovative approaches to sales.
It’s like a safety net. As I often say, constraints set you free.
Make sure you’re pushing every rep to develop pipeline every day; check they’re applying the qualification criteria to stay honed on your ICP; and run forecasting and deal reviews through the same lens every week so reps become conditioned to know what’s expected of them when speaking to prospects.
These are simple but impactful best practices to uphold on a daily and weekly basis.
In conclusion
I hope the above helps you think about how to shape your team and plans in response to the ever-changing dynamics of the SasS world and the new challenges and opportunities that are emerging.
These observations are based on hundreds of conversations I’ve had over the past year and a lot of events I’ve attended with smarter people than I sharing their views of the world.
But it’s never going to encompass everything we might expect to crop up in 2024…what else are you seeing and expecting? I’d love to hear from you!