Why 80% of ABM Programs Fail (and How to Build One That Works) w/ Mason Cosby

In this episode of OpsCast, hosted by Michael Hartmann and powered by MarketingOps.com, Michael is joined by co-host Mike Rizzo for a candid conversation about why most Account-Based Marketing programs fail and how teams can fix them.

Their guest is Mason Cosby, Founder and CEO of Scrappy ABM, a leading voice challenging conventional ABM thinking. Mason shares why roughly 80 percent of ABM programs launched in recent years have not delivered results, why most companies already have what they need to succeed, and how to build a scalable ABM program without buying new technology.

The discussion cuts through hype to focus on fundamentals, targeting discipline, organizational alignment, and realistic execution. Mason breaks down his practical framework for identifying best customers, avoiding common ABM pitfalls, and rebuilding programs that are stuck in the messy middle.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why most ABM programs fail before they ever have a chance to work
• What the 70 to 75 percent of existing tools and data most companies already have actually looks like
• How to identify the best customers using simple, objective criteria
• Where ABM programs break down when alignment is missing
• How to measure ABM success without overcomplicating the model
• What role does AI really play in modern ABM efforts

This episode is ideal for Marketing Ops, RevOps, demand generation, and GTM leaders who want a practical, realistic approach to ABM that works at any stage without unnecessary complexity.

Episode Brought to You By MO Pros 
The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals

Chapters

• 0:00 Holiday Intro And Guest Background
• 1:58 Sales Roots And Early Marketing Ops
• 6:33 Journalism, Storytelling, And Internal Influence
• 9:26 Owning Your Fate And Speaking Finance
• 13:29 Forecasts, “Reasonability,” And Board Math
• 17:10 Breaking Silos And The Real Buyer Experience
• 21:18 Leadership, Trust, And Reputation
• 26:38 Attribution vs Influence Without The Blame Game
• 31:35 Defining Accounting Rules For Go-To-Market
• 35:39 Incentives, Sales Behavior, And Shared Wins
• 39:28 Financial Literacy As A Career Moat

Transcript

Michael Hartmann: 0:25

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of OpsCast, brought to you by MarketingOps.com, powered by all the mode pros out there. I'm your host, Michael Hartman, flying solo today. My guest today is someone who has become a leading voice on why most account-based marketing programs do not work and what to do about it. Mason Cosby, founder and CEO of Scrappy ABM, joins us to talk about the surprising truth that this is a crazy stat, but 80% of ABM programs launched in the last five years have failed. Why companies actually have 75% of what they need already, something I agree with. And how to build a scalable, sustainable ABM growth program without buying new technology. We're going to dig into frameworks, failures, how to identify your best customers with the playbook that works for organizations of any size or stage. So, Mason, welcome to the show.

Mason Cosby: 1:13

Thank you so much for having me. Excited to dig into it.

Michael Hartmann: 1:16

Yeah. So you were talking just before this about the differences in uh Dallas and Indianapolis weather this time of year. I think uh wouldn't have been much different by maybe. Yeah, I don't know. You actually get snow, right? We get sort of snow, but mostly ice.

Mason Cosby: 1:36

Hot take, actually, shockingly cold take. I hate the snow, so I would trade anything to not have snow.

Michael Hartmann: 1:43

Fair enough. Fair enough. Right. Um, okay. Well, let's, you know, when you and I talked before, um you you that's where you s you brought up that statistic. 80% of ABM programs launched since 2020 have failed. Like maybe it's just like, let's start there. Like, why, like, where does that come from? Why do you think it's that high?

Mason Cosby: 2:02

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann: 2:02

And so back down a little bit.

Mason Cosby: 2:05

There's a couple different stats that I pull from. So if you look back at a terminus study that was done in 2020, so this was before they were acquired by demand science, obviously, they outlined that roughly 88% of B2B marketers were building ABM programs. So to look at like 88% of B2B marketers were building ABM programs. I read that as like all of us, like I'm always giving it a shot. And trying ABM in 2020. And then when you look at, there was an Ascendant 2 study that was done and released at the end of 2023 specifically, that outlined that roughly 23 of 8% of ABM programs were deemed successful. 23%. So when I looked at those two stats combined, I was like, got it. So like pretty much all of us were trying it in 2020. And then by 2023, uh the the data would suggest roughly 20% have been successful. So you put those two together, you've got 80% of ABM programs that have not been successful, aka they failed. So as I've continued to dig into this, what we've consistently found in our own survey data. So we've now hosted um over 1,500 different individuals in the past year, and we actually pull our audience, and the audience is roughly still the same. That like only roughly 20% of people that are attending our content and workshops even have a program that they have dictated is outside of the pilot stage. So again, we continue to pull our audience to continue to get more data on that front, and we consistently see that it continues to be an 80-20 split. Now, for listening in, we do run a business that helps people launch ABM programs. There is maybe a skew in that data, but even still, outside of third-party validated resources found that data to be true. And this is how we're trying to continue to make sure that that data study is accurate as we make those claims.

Michael Hartmann: 3:58

Yeah. I mean, just based on what you said about the maybe the skewing, there's also probably like how people perceive success might be different too, which could lead to some of that.

Mason Cosby: 4:10

But you know, in short, 80% of people are unhappy with their current EBM program.

Michael Hartmann: 4:15

Yeah, though. I mean, yeah, that's so called whatever whatever it is. But um, so just like maybe high level, what are some of the like big reasons you think that's the case?

Mason Cosby: 4:25

Yeah, there's typically six core reasons. So I'll run through them super briefly. But in short, first is leadership alignment. So what has often happened to somebody like hears about ABM? They're like, oh, we should go do that, and just kind of throw it at somebody, and they're like, go do it. And then like they don't really know what they signed to their team on.

Michael Hartmann: 4:42

On top of their day-to-day job, right?

Mason Cosby: 4:44

Yeah. Well, you're skipping ahead to reason number three.

Michael Hartmann: 4:47

Oh, okay.

Mason Cosby: 4:49

So reason number two is uh lack of sales and marketing alignment, which is fairly standard. So we expect that the lead volume will maintain, but the quality will also be exponentially higher, and like that's not how that works. Uh, but also just ABM takes longer. Um, third is lack of resourcing. So as we just referenced, it kind of gets thrown at a team. But again, this is now a new thing for them to do, and oftentimes nothing gets removed from their plate. So it often just like doesn't get done or gets done poorly, or I've seen a lot of people reference ABM as just like, well, it's just demand gen 2.0. And it's like, well, it is probably at some organizations because they were just running demand gen and then they just added a target account list to their targeting criteria for everything or else that they're already doing, and then they called it ABM. So like fair. Um third, or sorry, fourth is uh specifically, they don't know how to measure success. So we don't change anything within the context of the program, which obviously creates a lot of challenges. Um fifth is targeting. Uh so they are actually fifth is actually like targeting is actually probably the number one issue, but sorry for how I've ordered these. These are not in priority order, they're just the things that are coming to top of mind. But targeting is another big one because we don't actually know who our best customers are, and the last one is just simply like execution. So we see a lot of teams that get together and like build really cool plans, and then everyone kind of goes back to their desk and doesn't actually do the plan.

Michael Hartmann: 6:19

They just like the accountability was not there.

Mason Cosby: 6:21

Yeah, like there's there's no feedback loops, make sure the things actually get done, other than when inevitably an executive swoops back in is like, hey, we've been like running ABM for six months. How's it going? And like nothing's changed.

Michael Hartmann: 6:32

Yeah, everyone's kind of looking at each other, like yeah, yeah.

Mason Cosby: 6:36

So those are the six reasons.

Michael Hartmann: 6:37

That's interesting. Um, but it in our as I said in the intro, and like one of the things we talked about is that you know, and I think I've seen this a lot of a lot of people when they say we want to do ABM, they're actually talking about buying new technology. Um, and you were like, and this is something I've I've seen, like I when I was asked to do it as a leader, uh, I'm like, let's try something with what we already have before we go add something new to the tech stack. I'm not opposed to it per se. Like, do you do you think like do you think you said that you think that the majority of teams probably have tech stack that could support it? What's like what's your view on that?

Mason Cosby: 7:18

Yeah, I mean, we work with clients in the the lowest we've recently gone is like the 10 million range, and then most of our clients are 20 million to about 200 million. Um, we do have some clients that are larger, but like we're pretty squarely mid-market. And what we're finding is that so long as you have a CRM, a marketing automation platform, and then some way of doing intentional outbound efforts, like and some kind of an outreach software, you're pretty much good to go to actually like get started. So can you technically do it with spreadsheets and like sheer force of will? For sure. I've been there. But like in order to make it more repeatable and inevitably scalable, we recommend at minimum CRM marketing automation and uh some form of outreach software.

Michael Hartmann: 8:09

Gotcha. Yeah, but not necessarily a purpose-built platform for it.

Mason Cosby: 8:15

Yeah, I'd argue that well, sorry, that's gonna get into a whole candle of like, well, they were were they really purpose-built, or do we just bolt a bunch of things together? Anyway, but long think you need I don't think you need an ABM platform or really anything outside of the the core three things to get started. Now, down the road, you'll need new technology to scale. For example, data fuels all of your programs. So if you only have your CRM, you'll inevitably run out of data and like you need to go get more data from some form of a data management provider. So there is a use case, but to get started, you should use what you got.

Michael Hartmann: 8:51

Yeah, just start with. It's funny that you bring up spreadsheets because maybe because I think the latest uh state of state of the MoPro is out, and I haven't looked at it in detail. But if I remember right, the last couple of years, I think when they ask about tech that people, the technology in quotes that that are part of Martech, spreadsheets actually always come up uh higher than you expect because it's still a tool that everybody relies on. So um total aside there. Um okay. So let's say that we've got people out there who've either maybe had an ABA program that floundered, didn't really get off the ground, or is wanting to start one. Like what how would you how would you guide them to start? Like what kind of is there a framework you have, or like we're just kind of getting started?

Mason Cosby: 9:38

Yeah. So going back to that that general mantra that we have, that's like you have 75% of what you need. I want to be super clear that it's not a data-backed, like I haven't done a research study. What I have done is I've worked with about a hundred different organizations in the past five years. And what we have found is that that tends to be pretty consistent. Um they've got roughly 75% of what they need. So, in short, um, when I look at how to get started, the first thing is having a core structure. Because what I've found often is that people don't really have a repeatable structure for how they actually want to engage their target account. So we have what we refer to as our account progression model. It's just simply awareness level programming, initial engagement, meaningful engagement, MQA. Then you've got conversion stage or SQA, opportunity and re-engagement. So it's roughly seven stages. And what I recommend everybody do is you map out and just like you literally just make a bulleted list and you say, what is everything we're currently doing to get in front of people? Like just how do we get in front of people today? And just bullet out that list. Okay. And then you ask the question, what is the main purpose of this thing? Is it to get people to know we exist? Is it to get them to understand the problem that they have? Is it to help them understand that we could be a solution? Or like help them explore viable solutions around their problem? Is it product specific? Is it they now actually understand the ROI story that we can tell? Are they booking a meeting or is this a nurture program? And based on the questions you ask for each of these things, you can then actually assign it into the context of the account progression model and say, got it. So, like our events, we use events right now as a way of generating awareness. Now, that's a larger strategic conversation of should you be using events for awareness or whatever. Or like this is what we're doing. And once you've mapped all that out, you actually can then see, oh, we actually have a lot of stuff that we're doing. Then there's a second framework that we can talk about next of like how do you then diagnose your gaps. But like as the starting point, map out what you have today, put a purpose behind it for how you engage your target audiences, and then plot that to then just see your current state or what you could have as a current state, should you make a couple of tweaks.

Michael Hartmann: 12:06

Right. So can I put so if I like all the different kinds of tactics you're doing, you make you're going like, okay, assign it to one of those um I already forgot, account targeted account progression model. Progression model. And that that's really I mean, that sounds pretty straightforward. It's probably not like it feels like there's it feels like that would be valuable. Forget about the second part, but like just understanding what the purpose is of everything you're doing. Like that by itself could be valuable for a lot of organizations that I've encountered.

Mason Cosby: 12:37

Yeah. It's been really fun when we present this at conferences because we actually have some people that are looking at it and they're like, oh, we are missing stages, but then some of our larger clients are like, we found entire programs that actually don't serve a purpose.

Michael Hartmann: 12:51

Yeah.

Mason Cosby: 12:52

It's like, oh, that's helpful to like understand that. So anyway, there's no value of just that a lot.

Michael Hartmann: 12:57

That's that's the reason I bring it up, is I suspect there's a lot of people who are just doing stuff because either it's because we always have done it, right? Or because someone told us to go do it. But there were like, but if but it goes back to like what are you measuring too? Like this is one of my arguments about measurement, is like you should be setting goals for these tactics, right? Even if it's just very like, oh, I expect to get yeah, X number of opens and clicks, you know, if you want to keep it to that. Whatever that is, right, you should have a goal in mind.

Mason Cosby: 13:28

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann: 13:29

Because then because if you can't, then there's probably not a purpose for it.

Mason Cosby: 13:34

Exactly.

Michael Hartmann: 13:35

Um but yeah, okay, so that makes sense. That makes sense. And then then you're saying for that will help identify where you might have gaps if you were to go to an ABA. Like okay. Do you think about these in like uh a call it in quotes traditional demand gen, lead gen, and ABM? Can they see more success going from that traditional to an ABM, or do you see more with where people have things in parallel?

Mason Cosby: 14:03

Yeah, um, I'm a big fan of Amber Bogey's perspective on this, which is breadcrumb towards ABM. So if you were to just like shut off all things that were demand-gen and say, we're going all ABM, um, you'd last for about two months and you'd get fired. Because like you there there has to be a transition period. Um, so that is my perspective on it. Is Okay. The the other reason I like so I I've learned a lot in the past couple of years trying to build my own business around like risk-adjusted bets. And there's a framing that I've learned, which is more better, new. So if you already have stuff that's working, why don't you do more of that?

Michael Hartmann: 14:45

Yeah.

Mason Cosby: 14:46

If you have stuff that's working, but it's starting to see diminishing returns, why don't you do that but better? And then once you've done more and better a lot, then you try new things. And if you're making this pivot to ABM, some people would say, like, oh, that's new. And it's like, well, maybe, but I actually view it as better, which is we know who our best customers are. Why don't we just like build a program using our current known proven channels and just better target our best customers and go get them? So that's how I view ABM. And as a result, it it is a natural transition period from we already know who our best customers are because we did really large, broad demand gen programs. Now let's do just very specific programs that are relevant for these 200 accounts, or if you're a larger organization like these 700 accounts, or if you're selling really into the enterprise, like these 10 accounts, and it's just building a program. Because like, forgive me for also putting it this way, there's no new channel that ABM unlocks that like demand gen doesn't have access to. Right. It's just a different way of doing the same stuff through more personalization, more research, more intentionality.

Michael Hartmann: 16:07

Yeah.

Mason Cosby: 16:08

That's really it.

Michael Hartmann: 16:10

Sorry, just so when you say more, better new I those three make sense. Uh it feels like there's an implied stop or cut to is there something like that? Yeah. You just we've done this thing and it's not working. It just we don't see how we can make it better, right?

Mason Cosby: 16:26

Yeah, I mean, in short, if you've been doing I I also struggle with that sometimes because sometimes people are like, we've been doing ABM for like four weeks and it's not done anything for us. And it's like, well, yeah, like of course it has it.

Michael Hartmann: 16:39

Yeah.

Mason Cosby: 16:40

So when we talk about cut, cut in what time frame?

Michael Hartmann: 16:43

So Yeah, and I'm thinking more of a like from a at a tactic level or a yeah, tactic for that audience kind of level. Yeah. Not necessarily the whole the whole program.

Mason Cosby: 16:55

Most people that we're working with or talking to about building out an ABM program have stuff that's already working and has been working for like years. So I don't think about it through the lens of cut um unless we get into it and we're like, wow, you've been doing this for like four years and your conversion on this is like two percent. Got it. Like that when you've got years of data, but I I actually don't talk that much about cutting because people lean really heavy into cut and they cut too quick. But like it's really hard to argue if we went after our best customers for a year highly intentionally, that we'd make less money from them. Really hard to argue that. You just gotta get it here.

Michael Hartmann: 17:37

Yeah, it's and I was really thinking more uh about um it's kind of like the part of the like a variation of the sunk cost fallacy. You know, like we've we've yeah, we've we feel like we we've thrown so much money at I'll pick I'll pick on a channel, right? Paid search.

Mason Cosby: 17:54

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann: 17:54

Right, which is becoming more expensive and poorer performing, it feels like every day. And like, do we like do we keep doing that? Do we scale it back? Like I think I think that's really what I'm thinking about. Not necessarily like should we try ABM and only give it a month or even a few months. I think like to me that makes sense, right? That you wouldn't just make that wholesale change um that quickly. Um you've got to have an organization that um has a little bit of patience, which maybe that's good to you can so you mentioned stuff about that one of the six uh characteristics when they fail is the the misalignment between marketing and sales. Like, is that the kind of thing where you see like the patience is missing? What's your take on that?

Mason Cosby: 18:41

Yeah, I mean, I I speak about this on a fairly frequent basis because the time horizons for marketing and sales are very different. So marketing typically thinks in like months, quarters, and years, and sales typically thinks in days, weeks, and quarters. Yeah. And that's not that's not because they're bad at their jobs, it's actually because they're really good at their jobs. Yeah. And like if you're a salesperson and you wake up on a Monday and you have zero meetings on your calendar, you're losing your mind.

Michael Hartmann: 19:05

Yeah.

Mason Cosby: 19:05

But if you're a marketer and you wake up on a Monday and you have zero meetings on your calendar, you're like, I have so much room and time to create.

Michael Hartmann: 19:12

Yeah.

Mason Cosby: 19:12

So the way in which we engage with our calendar is such a great insight.

Michael Hartmann: 19:17

Yeah.

Mason Cosby: 19:18

And when sales has zero zero things on their calendar and they look at marketing and see an empty calendar, they're like, what are you even doing? And again, we just so that's where the misalignment comes in. So my perspective has always generally been create some things. And this sounds so easy to do in practice. I'll walk like or in theory, I'll walk through how to do it in practice, but like build a couple repeatable playbooks that get your sales team with pipeline, set the expectation that these are intentionally short-term programs to feed pipeline, and then go build longer-term programs to actually build your brand. And there's a lot of research and data from Peter Fields and Les Bonette that's from the book, The Long and Short of It, that actually outlines the appropriate balance for a brand building versus sales activation program. And it's 60% towards brand building for budget allocation and 40% towards sales activation. So when I talk with a lot of marketers, they're like all branded or all activation. It's like, well, no, there is a balance. Like there is a blend. You should do both.

Michael Hartmann: 20:10

Yeah.

Mason Cosby: 20:10

But make sure pipeline is full. And then marketers don't get questioned as often on their current programs from a delivery of pipeline because the pipeline's full.

Michael Hartmann: 20:19

So interesting. I thought for a long time that your point, like, I'm still like kind of rattling around my head here this idea like the calendar differences between a sales and a marketing person and what they it's the mindset difference um such a great and like I've never even thought about it that way and I mean I've saw talked about how important it is to if you're a marketer to understand the mindset of a salesperson. That's like a sm that's a great way of thinking about it, right? Because I tend to like I don't look for meetings, right? When I have them I want them to be really productive but it's a different yeah okay wow like I I that's a big insight right there for me. I'm I'm I didn't even thought about that. So yeah so talking about this patience bit of it as well like you you when you and I talked before you said that um what you do with a lot of your clients is look for like a 12 to 24 month kind of initiative to start with I forget what you called it but what um I mean is that the timeframe she people should be thinking about to really launch ABM and see how it's effective or are there points along the way in that timeframe that you could make it better to like make some informed decisions?

Mason Cosby: 21:35

So I think about it through again that actual like that lens of brand building versus sales activation. We don't have the chart that's that's pulled up but if you go Google brand building versus sales activation while you listen to this a chart will come up that shows a gigantic spike in up that goes up and down that is sales activation and then a steady incline that is brand building. Okay. And if you have no pipeline right now it is unwise for me to tell you, yeah, just like give it time go build the brand because like the long term doesn't get here if we don't deliver in the short term. So if you need pipeline, you should go do sales activation, which feeds pipeline today. The core challenge I think most marketers run up against is they don't set the expectation that like this is a short term program and then their goals get raised the next quarter and it's like well no like we shot the shot. Like we only have so many closed loss opportunities we can re-engage. We only have so many lost customers we can go back after there's only so many people we can engage at one event. There's only so many people that come to our website that we can then go after like that's capturing existing demand or reopening past demand. Like those are the options for sales activation.

Michael Hartmann: 22:43

And it's even harder if the sale if the sales cycle is long right?

Mason Cosby: 22:46

Yes. So when I then think about what's the the timeline, I actually depending on where the organization is now if the organization's like flush with pipeline they're like we don't actually need anything to deliver for six months it's like awesome let's start at the awareness stage then because brand recall takes on average three to six months. So with dedicated awareness level programming it's going to take anywhere again like a quarter to two quarters for someone to remember that your brand exists much less than buy from you. So as we then think about how do we then build a program if you got full pipeline, you don't need something for like two, three quarters start the awareness stage. If you have very low pipeline and you need something to deliver this quarter or next quarter, then I would start at the sales activation which is or the sales activation stage which is going to be more of your conversion stage programming or your closed loss re-engagement type programming. If you start there, you can do two things. One you can actually test out offers and content pieces to see what gets these accounts to engage and it would focus on accounts that look like the people that don't know you exist that you do want to know you exist. And from there, you actually have a essentially a proving ground for if we were to take this piece of content or this style of offer to new accounts that have never heard of us, we know with confidence that it will likely convert because it converted on these accounts that look just like them that did know we existed. So starting with closed lost builds quicker pipeline also validates your content in your message in your offer and then you move to conversion stage which are people that are already engaged with your brand but have not entered into pipeline you convert them and then you go back to awareness and then you build the pieces together because I look at these as individual programs or playbooks at every stage of your overall ABM program. And then you just stack them together to build a full customer journey.

Michael Hartmann: 24:41

Got it okay so a lot of this that makes sense the the thing that I one of the things I've run into why I think I told you I tell other people like I haven't done ABM like I call it properly any places I've been not because there wasn't interest because I like I mean my pushback would be like give us their target accounts right and that it couldn't that wasn't done so we didn't get very far in that so it feels to me it feels like targeting is a really key part of this so and you kind of hinted I mean it sounds like it maybe you'll how do you think about targeting like why do you think it am I on the right track that's maybe the most important part of this to get started?

Mason Cosby: 25:23

Yeah when you nail targeting everything else becomes a lot easier like leadership buy-in is a lot easier when you show them a list of accounts and say hey these are the kinds of companies we'd like to go get and it's like oh yeah and like our so fun fact I I think and do ABM a lot and I have talked with our teams about it and talked with a lot of people about it. But I actually had our team run our business through our own process and they developed target account list separately from me and then they brought it to me and I was like oh this is awesome. So like I got to experience for the first time like as a leader what it's like to get their buy-in on a target account list because my immediate thought was oh like I actually I'm already starting to think of ways to break into these accounts based on existing relationships or like we've had these people come through our site. So like it helped me actually experience it from a leadership perspective which was really fun. And my buy-in was immediate because I was like I do want these companies let's go get them yeah and then from a sales perspective what I would recommend doing is obviously we want to go get customers that are actually not just high dollar or high revenue, but are actually good for the business. And that's more like high profit. So when I think about it I think about it primarily through how much money do they make us for the cost that it costs to acquire them. And you want to go find customers where their relative cost of acquisition is super cheap as compared to the amount of value we get for the lifetime that they're with us. That's more finance. So I often don't see finance brought up in like the ICP type conversation. But if you actually work with finance and say like so who actually makes us the most money for the money that we invested in them? Like that's a business level conversation. So if you do targeting based on that and then you take that to sales as well you to put it bluntly you can actually then get really creative with your spiffs because you actually better understand the margins that you have for these customers and if you find your highest profit customers your finance team is more likely to approve higher bonuses and commissions for sales which then actually get sales more easily bought in because it's now just a math equation versus a list of logos that is so huge.

Michael Hartmann: 27:37

Like I'm a big advocate for people in marketing to well and marketing ops in particular to to and really anybody like I've got my own kids this way like even if you don't practice finance like you need to understand it because I think I think it just forces it makes you think differently and like I the the analogy I have so my wife does a lot of nonprofit work and fundraising and and so a big thing that they do are fundraising events, right? And you want people to have a good time but ultimately the goal is to have a profitable event meaning you raise more than you spent on producing it and having it and all that and um I have seen in that world people who like throw a great event and then maybe even top line like we raised X amount of dollars but at when it the net is not where they really needed it to be. And I love the idea of like I was waiting to hear what you said.

Mason Cosby: 28:42

I mean I was waiting to go like I I think that idea like tying the the cost to what you expect the revenue to be is interesting because then like if you get a higher revenue one right then you could spend more potentially like within some I assume there's some target margin so I I learned this also from company called acquisition.com but just like what's the lifetime gross profit yeah up against the custom acquisition cost. So this is very much so in the finance world I don't hear many marketers or sellers talking about it but like if you understand again we generate this much profit. So like the easy math is if there is a kind of customer where we get $10 for every dollar we spent in gross profit and there's another kind of customer where we get $3 in gross profit for every dollar we spent we should go get more of the $10 because even in our worst case scenario if we spent twice as much as expected we are still getting a five to one return on a gross profit margin.

Michael Hartmann: 29:42

Yeah.

Mason Cosby: 29:42

So in that context, it's like well yeah we should totally make sure we go get these customers. So that's that's the framing. I've not heard anyone in the ADM space talk about it from that lens because I didn't learn that until like a year and a half ago or two years ago that framing but it has been a very significant unlock for me and our clients because it shifts the conversation to these are literally our best customers that are happiest, they're the most profitable, they stick around and then the other thing that you get is this compounding effect because they typically are in cohorts of industries or company sizes or growth stages. And when you acquire a bunch of logos that look like your best customers and you get more and more and more logos look like your best customers, it actually becomes this virtuous cycle where it's easier to then acquire more of those best customers versus spreading yourself out across anyone that will come to you.

Michael Hartmann: 30:35

Yeah.

Mason Cosby: 30:35

I mean your reputation is spread across the the similar kinds of people I mean that's uh so how you mentioned best customers uh like how do you I mean I think I guess but what like how do you think of best customers yeah so I've tried to develop like a 10 question set um this is still being tinkered but in short it's who is most profitable who is happiest who has stayed the longest who sends more referrals like that's customer success and then the last one on kind of the customer success side is like who what businesses are easy to work with and that's a that's a very unfortunately that's the large question but it's like do they actually pay on time do they like escalate to leadership like who's actually easy to work with so those are the first five from there on the sales side it's um who came through repeatable sources so like we go to like one event and like we only went to that one event and we don't have a whole event program and it's just like a one-off and then we got a bunch of like do they come through repeatable sources? What is the initial contract value? And then how quickly do they move through the sales cycle and then the last two are are there more customers like them? Oh yeah and and how easy are they to reach that's it. Because when I look at it from a marketing perspective we want market size and ease of access like that's really it.

Michael Hartmann: 32:03

Yeah. So quick you mentioned that uh how fast they move through the sales cycle uh is that a just a um an overall time frame or is it compared to um the average that you see when you so it would be it would be in comparison. So ideal situation relative to some other baseline.

Mason Cosby: 32:25

Yes. So all of these are typically so the the reason it's in that structure is you can answer all of these questions once you've established your baseline. So who's happiest? You could measure that by a lot of different ways. Like you could measure it based on NPS, CSTAT, um you could ask your team and then you set a baseline and then if they are below average they get zero points. If they are at average they get one point. If they are above average they get two points. Yeah and then through that you just do that for all 10 questions and by the end of the 10 question set you then have a point based approach to saying these customers are based on the metrics that we set to answer these 10 questions the top 20% of our customers what are the similarities then we use that as the filtering criteria to then identify how to go get more of those kinds of customers.

Michael Hartmann: 33:17

How does this different or similar to ICP?

Mason Cosby: 33:21

Yeah what a great question I get this asked I get asked this fairly often and my simple answer is it shouldn't be but for many organizations what I just outlined is a more data backed approach than how they've approached their ICP. What I thought is that depending on the organization, ICPs are often set by a board or an executive team and then push down and they sometimes there are great executives and boards that are like super data backed. Other times I'll just give you a quick anecdote of like the CEO promised the board will go get these five logos for the next 12 months and then like that becomes the target account list. It's like well I made a promise to the board we got to go go get these companies so we can put them on our website. And it's like okay but like we serve the mid market and that's Google. So like it's gonna be really hard to go get Google when we have zero historical context for why we'd ever want to work with Google. Right. Other than it's a cool logo. So again that's how I think about it is ideal situation what I outlined is your ICP. For many people that's not their reality. So like this approach helps you identify what we refer to as the best customer profile. And the ideal situation is you identify the overlap between your IDO client profile, which I typically think is more future state because like what have we just outlined actually takes zero into account like market trends or like it's actually not forward looking at all. It's entirely based in existing first party data of historically who's been your best. So if you overlap who has historically been your best plus where the your business is going from a market trend perspective, that overlap then creates what we refer to as the target account profile, which is then these are the exact customers we actually want to go after. So it satisfies that these are ICP fit while also being based in historical data that we have product market fit and these are customers that would be happy.

Michael Hartmann: 35:12

Yeah I mean some of this that my only sort of maybe small pushback on this is that you're calling it data based I I think it's highly structured and it try like I think it's an attempt to it's kind of the way I like the the variation I think of is how I try to look at when I'm like choosing vendors, right? Whether it's an agency or um technology right I'll try to go like do some sort of scoring model that does something similar right to try to take some of that by they try to get the bias out of it um that that I can it feels like it's some of that right to your point like um some of these are a little bit subjective right so you try to make them more objective um and you could try to do even more so by doing surveys or whatever but yeah I mean I do other methods for identifying target accounts but for the purposes of a podcast they are far more technical and like spreadsheet based so the 10 questions is like this is baseline.

Mason Cosby: 36:07

Anybody can do this yeah um if you so like hopefully that's a helpful starting point if you want to learn more about that shoot me a message on LinkedIn.

Michael Hartmann: 36:13

Yeah yeah I I I suspect your other ones also get into like oh maybe you have different um best customers for different products or different tiers of products or different industries right that kind of I'm assuming that's where your other model is going to go a little deeper into stuff like that.

Mason Cosby: 36:33

Which makes sense yeah okay um okay so let's say somebody gets past that that part they actually get the targeting right they understand the best customers they've got that target list yeah we still see all these people like I assume that 80% that didn't succeed right many of them got past that to some like why what other pitfalls what other major pitfalls that get in the way of being successful so one of the things I'm seeing often is again we we come back to execution so we feel like we need this like crazy new one-to-one program idea and it's like well maybe but like maybe not like maybe if you focus your content and you call it the industry that you're targeting or you call it the growth stage that you're targeting and you actually make the language specific to that growth stage, you can get away with like a one-to-few type program and it doesn't have to be completely custom every step of the way. So I I I think you'll get really caught up in the one to many, one-to-few and one-to-one conversation because then they end up spending six months billing out a one-to-one program for 10 accounts that have never heard of them. So I actually think of that component of ABM as a continuum. So I don't actually typically do one-to-one programming to people that have never engaged with our brand. Yeah just as a general principle because it will be it may work but I have no data to support that it would work. So if you're going to do that that type of approach, I think of awareness as like always one to few and one to many. Initial engagement's probably going to be one to few and one to many meaningful engagement is where you may introduce a one-to-one type program so that at the MQA SQA stages like that's where you're getting one to one in nature and then all of your opportunity pipeline should probably be one to one and one to few. So I view it as a continuum versus a strategy.

Michael Hartmann: 38:36

Yeah. Do you think um because I've definitely seen this in other areas not just ABM but like do you think there's teams are overthinking some of this stuff a little bit? Yes.

Mason Cosby: 38:47

Absolutely I think the benefit that I have had in anything that I have been doing is I'm not that sophisticated of a person. I am very focused on just like what is the metama viable to get the work done and get the result. And like there are people that are complete optimizers and maximizers and we need those people in the world but like to get started just like figure out how do I get our best accounts to know we exist. That is step one. And if they know we exist then we could do the rest of it from there. But just like getting started and simple is the best way to get get it rolling.

Michael Hartmann: 39:26

I I think um I see a lot of people who do things what I would classify as they they're clever but like they're just overcomplicated and like I see that in technology I see it in I'm dealing with that with some other stuff on a project I'm like it's just it's just like we're overdoing it. Right yes we can make this a lot simpler um Mason I think we're we're kind of running short on time here so let's like maybe wrap up with like if there's first off I guess is there any one thing anything that we didn't cover that you think is an important piece but then maybe like any like last final practical recommendations for people who are either stuck in the one that's you know a program that's not working or getting started on one.

Mason Cosby: 40:17

Yeah the only thing that I don't think we covered off on was framework two which is then How we move from strategy to tactics. So I'm going to breeze through this. Um, but we refer to this as our 4D framework. Um, so you want to have these four Ds present at every stage of your program. So it's data. Data is a mix of targets plus triggers. And then based on your targeting and your triggers, you can actually create personalized nuance specific messaging. And like you can do that one to one and one to or sorry, you can do that one to many and one to few. Like it can be still nuanced and personalized at the cohort level versus like individually the company level. So throw that out there. Next is in distribution, which is like how do we get in front of people? From there, it's destination, which is what are we sending them to. So we lean pretty heavy into content-led outbound and ABM programs. Because what I have found crazy thought. Most people don't need help booking a call. Like they go to your website, there's a link right there, just click it. It's pretty easy to book a call most of the time. What they need help with is having reasons to be convinced that they should book a call with you. So all of our programming is focused on problem content, product content, or what we refer to as proof content. It's like, is this the proof that we are actually the right fit for you? So it's really content-heavy. And then like sell with your signature. So like book a call should be in the signature link for your SDRs. But like, I don't actually typically even recommend book a call as a CTA ever. It's really easy to book a call.

Michael Hartmann: 41:51

It's there, but it's not a highlight. Yeah.

Mason Cosby: 41:53

Yeah. And the last thing is then direction, which is just how do you plan to track it? So, in short, if you know who you're going after, why you're reaching out, what you're saying to them, how you're getting in front of them, where you're sending them to, and how you plan to track it, you have a repeatable playbook you can run over and over and over again, and you map all of that out at every stage of your program. And as you do that, two things will become apparent. One, you will realize you have missing aspects to your 4D framework. And that is okay. Like that's step one. Uh, what you're likely missing is awareness and initial engagement level tracking capabilities to trigger downstream programs. That's like 95% of where people struggle. The second thing is you will find you're either way overdoing it or you're underdoing it in certain stages, at which point you should then either add new programs or change the purpose of existing programs. Once you've mapped all that out, yeah, then do it. Like just run it with what you got today. There will be a thousand new problems that come up. But then you can systematically solve those problems by greatest priority and consistently improve your program over time. That is the that is the play. That is how we build ABM programs.

Michael Hartmann: 43:02

Yes. Yeah. Uh sounds sounds good. So because we're short on time, um, this has been great. I would love to continue, but I know we can't. Um what you know, if people want to continue the conversation or connect with you on this, like what's the best way for them to do that?

Mason Cosby: 43:19

Yeah, I don't want to push people to my LinkedIn, but uh if you go to scrappyabm.com slash newsletter, we actually publish lots of content on exactly how to do everything we talk about. So if you want to just learn, um that'd be awesome. So go to scrappyab.com slash newsletter, or if you want to like come to a workshop, um, go to scrappyabm.com slash workshop and we actually host once a month uh starting January 14th. So once a month, uh, we're doing a seven-hour workshop uh that teaches everybody how to do everything I just talked through in excreting levels of detail. We've already had 600 people come through it in the past six months, and the average rating is a 9.7 out of 10 on the content. So I promise it'll be worth your time.

Michael Hartmann: 44:05

That's awesome. Well, that sounds good. Um ready time for people who are kicking off the new year. Mason, thank you. It's been awesome. Thank you. Uh appreciate you making the time and uh thank you to our rest of our audience for ongoing support. And uh, if you have ideas for topics or guests or want to be a guest like Mason, then reach out to Naomi, Mike, or me. We'd be glad to get that ball rolling. Until next time. Bye, everybody.