REVENUE STRATEGY & LEADERSHIP

Jordan Crawford

In the era of AI slop and personalized yet impersonal mass emails, outbound sales can hit many hurdles attempting to break through the noise. Jordan Crawford—a fractional GTM engineer who founded consultancy firm Blueprint GTM and writes the Substack On the Edge—has created his own B2B sales method to address these barriers by combining AI and public data to create more targeted and personalized outreach.

Revenue Brew sat down with Crawford to discuss his B2B sales method and how it can be applied to various industries.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

How did you come up with this method?

The core premise of my argument is the way most people are thinking about go-to-market is they first define their ideal customer profile—and that usually looks like it’s B2B SaaS businesses between 50 and 100 employees located in North America—and then they go and define their personas. “I care about the VP of marketing and the VP of sales.” Then they hand a list over to a BDR. Basically they get a message that is every shit message that you’ve ever received: “Hi Jordan, I see you’re in B2B tech sales, too. You wear a hoodie. I wear a hoodie too. We’re the same person. Can I just get 15 minutes of your time to talk about how my AI B2B SaaS solution is the best ever?”

It’s not really a money problem. It’s that AI has commoditized messages that weren’t really valuable in the first place.

Read about striking a balance between AI and the human seller.—LI

      

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FOUNDER LEADERSHIP

Poppi

“Do you want to build the next billion-dollar brand with us?”

Poppi founder Allison Ellsworth first posed that question on her social media accounts late last month in posts about her new CPG brand, of which details are still largely under wraps.

Ellsworth’s team currently sits at 10 people, and she told us that since posting, the new brand has received more than 2,000 resumes for five open roles ranging from digital communications to influencer manager.

Multiple applicants are now in the interview process ahead of the November launch date, she said.

“I just posted on social media not fully realizing how viral it would go,” Ellsworth told Marketing Brew. “I just think it was a fun, modern way to recruit.”

Part of the posts’ success comes from the following Ellsworth has built from more than six years of sharing her journey at Poppi, from when it began as a startup to its evolution into a large-scale soda brand acquired by PepsiCo for an eye-watering $1.95 billion. While her new brand has received many applicants who are fans of the prebiotic-soda brand, she told us, those looking to work at Poppi 2.0 need not apply, as the new brand is “not competitive to Poppi,” per her post.

The immediate interest generated is a testament to the power and reach of being a socially native founder—something Ellsworth said has become table stakes for any brand looking to build affinity with the next generation.

“I’ve always seen my platforms as a way to not only build community, but to be transparent,” she said. “I don’t see why we wouldn’t continue to do all of that [with the next brand]. Why not use this beautiful tool that we have that everyone’s already looking to and is already inspired by?”

Read more on the importance of building culture from the start.—KH

      

REVENUE STRATEGY & LEADERSHIP

Bridget Regan

Every month, we feature you, our talented and insightful Revenue Brew readers! Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Introduce yourself here.

Bridget Regan is head of growth at Steno.ai

What’s the most ridiculous expense you’ve filed? Thousands of handwritten greeting cards. I was trying to reach local small business owners for a previous company I was running, and knew that playing the inbox sales game would be hopeless with this audience. So instead I went fully analog: bought 100 boxes of greeting cards, handwrote short personalized notes in each one, addressed the envelopes and mailed them. Luckily, the response rate totally crushed. Turns out a $.60 stamp can be a great growth strategy!

What’s the hardest deal you’ve closed/worked on? My team and I worked for months on an RFP to rebrand the National Air and Space Museum. The government submission process was eye-opening (to say the least) for someone used to the private sector.

What’s your favorite deal you’ve closed/worked on? Can I say my husband? Best deal I’ve ever closed.

What’s one thing we can’t guess about your job from your LinkedIn profile? In some sectors growth may solely focus on sales and marketing. But in tech, a lot of what I do every day is building strategies for optimizing and scaling the actual product surface too—designing habit loops, iterating onboarding flows, etc.

What’s the best piece of work-related advice you’ve gotten? “Assume good intent.” This advice has saved me from a lot of awkward conversations. And of course the classic, “Hire great people then get out of their way.”

      

active pipeline

Stat: $2,000. That’s the starting price some are anticipating for Apple’s long-anticipated foldable iPhone. (MarketWatch)

Quote: “I believe in our lifetime, AI will help cure cancer.”—Arm CEO Rene Haas (Business Insider)

Read: Why it’s especially critical for leaders to walk the talk today. (Forbes)

Founders want more than a check from their investors (Founder Brew)

Venture capital isn’t only for Silicon Valley.

Gen Z is making decisions based on how companies treat their employees (HR Brew)

Corporate America is filled with cautionary tales of what not to do as an employer…

Some companies are using ads to influence AI agents (Marketing Brew)

It’s no secret that agents are slowly taking over the internet. Automated traffic across the internet increased almost eight times faster than human activity last year, according to a March report from cybersecurity company Human Security.

Forget sifting through endless listings. Revenue Brew and CollabWORK highlight only a handful of roles each week, chosen for your interests and industry. Click here to view the full job board.