Summer Cognoscenti Interview: Ian Truscott

Welcome to episode 18 of What's Broken in GTM and How to Fix It with Louis Fernandes and Simon Daniels. Each week, together with occasional guests, we explore the challenges that face go-to-market leaders in SaaS scale-up businesses and suggest solutions to common issues.

Louis has been deepening his wine tasting knowledge and expertise, gaining his next set of qualifications. He’s getting quite good at it, he reckons… And it turns out that the Portuguese drink more wine per capita of any nation in the world! Meanwhile, Simon has been attending the B2B Marketing Ignite conference and shares a few key highlights.

This week we welcome our second Summer Cognoscenti Series guest, fractional CMO and Managing Partner at growth-stage B2B tech go-to-market advisory firm Velocity B, Ian Truscott. Here’s the TL;DL (“ Too Long; Didn’t Listen)”) in case you don’t have time for the whole episode: Too often marketing is treated as a tactical execution arm, tasked with generating leads and filling funnels. But it's often excluded from the real strategic decisions that shape business growth and we argue that marketing must step up and reclaim its role as a strategic partner in go-to-market design.

Listen on as Ian emphasises the key role of marketing in go-to-market execution, advocating for marketing to be seen as a strategic partner in business growth rather than being restricted to narrow, tactical activity. He discusses common challenges faced by SaaS GTM leaders, such as aligning marketing efforts with overall business objectives and ensuring marketing's involvement in strategic decision-making. To overcome these challenges, Ian advises integrating marketing into the strategic planning process and leveraging marketing insights to drive business growth. Ian also outlines his concept of "ART" (awareness, revenue, and trust) as a framework for evaluating marketing activities. He emphasised that while revenue is crucial, it cannot be achieved without building trust through consistent and authentic content marketing, and awareness through effective campaigns. This framework helps marketers resist distractions and focus on activities that contribute to these three key areas.

Other mentions in this episode:

Russ Powell, Founder & Managing Director, Sharper B2B Marketing

Andy Champion, General Manager International, 6sense

Uncensored CMO

Ian’s "analyst inside” concept

Ian’s "free puppies vs free beer" article

The Long and the Short of it: Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing Strategies by Les Binet and Peter Field

CMO Survey on AI as part of budgeting

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