
Growth Activated | The B2B Marketing Leadership Podcast
Growth Activated is a podcast for B2B marketing leaders who want to elevate their marketing strategies, lead confidently, and drive real business results. Each episode offers actionable insights and proven frameworks to help you activate growth for your team, your company, and your career.
Growth Activated | The B2B Marketing Leadership Podcast
The Pipeline Black Box: Why Your GTM Factory Stalls (and How to Fix It)
#31 – What’s really happening inside your GTM engine before opportunities are created? That hidden stretch - what today’s guest calls the pipeline black box - may be the single biggest blind spot in B2B growth.
Four-time marketing leader Carolyn Dilks (ex–VP Marketing, now Co-Founder at Passetto and co-host of GTM Live) joins host Mandy Walker to unpack how revenue teams can finally see what’s working, what’s wasting resources, and how to engineer predictable pipeline.
You’ll learn:
- The Pipeline Black Box: Why it matters and what most teams miss before opp creation.
- Handraisers vs. MQLs: Why meetings - not MQLs - are the metric that actually matters.
- Attribution Myths: Where attribution helps, where it misleads, and the better metrics to run your GTM factory.
- Pipeline Ownership: How to align sales, marketing, and RevOps around system-level accountability.
- Planning Implications: How to defend budget, stop vanity metrics, and prioritize what drives growth.
About our guest:
Carolyn Dilks is a four-time marketing executive and the Co-Founder/CEO of Passetto, an advisory + instrumentation platform helping B2B revenue teams unlock their pipeline black box. She also co-hosts GTM Live, where she and her co-founders share lessons from building modern go-to-market systems.
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