Instead of building their gtm engine, i spent ~125h on live calls with Mari to teach her how to become a gtm engineer and build it with me.
context: scaling
I got introduced to Mari by Mathilde Boucher (one of my past clients, cf. CaptainData — Outbound Growth) at a time when Mari:
got in charge of gtm for two companies simultaneously:
Atticus (outsourcing operations to the Philippines)
Stockton10 (ERP & IT managed services)
needed to step up their already-running outbound motion with better intent signals detection
had no growth infrastructure to do so (except scattered make scenarios and google sheets)
problem: skill issue
Mari was not a gtm engineer, she had:
no coding experience
only surface-level understanding of automation
and had not been taught how to think “in systems” (i explain what “thinking in systems” means in the detailed case study — more info below)
Anyway, one thing was for sure: she needed some help. And that help would be one of two:
either someone would implement their gtm engine (which is closer to what i usually do)
or someone would teach Mari how to do it on her own
Option 1 is where i have a track record. But from the title of the case study, you already know that we went the other way.
So, why?
goal: making me useless
Mari was willing to learn how to become a gtm engineer and take a turn in her career. And both companies ultimately wanted to internalise their gtm engineering function.
Simultaneously, i lacked bandwidth for a full-on implementation commitment, i wanted to diversify my offers and i wanted to teach again (i had already been a math TA at CentraleSupelec).
That’s why we went for option 2: two-hour calls, three times per week, over the span of ~6mo where i’d teach her the theory and practice of being a gtm engineer.
The ultimate goal was simple: becoming fully independent on all things gtm engineering. Which means that i had to become useless.
And we made sure of it with three learning milestones along the way:
gathering the right resources for a build
implementing simple workflows (e.g. aircall↔hubspot integration)
and implementing complex workflows (with javascript code, sub-workflows, databases, etc.)
outcome: i became useless
Before we got started, Mari was managing outbound campaigns by hand (csv files, gsheets, many many manual steps, …) and couldn’t scale it across tools, a growing number of sales reps, an increasing number of intent signals, …
Today, she’s still managing outbound campaigns, but has all the skills to automate their outbound motion and the ability to think of it as a unified system.
She’s a proper gtm engineer.
how we got to that outcome
The above is just the introduction of a more detailed case study where you’ll learn:
the details of what i taught Mari
the details of the roadmap we tackled
how i reduced their yearly automation bill from ~$5k to ~$250 at most
how i’d define a gtm engineer, their KPIs and who i’d have them report to in the org
what thinking in systems means and how to do it
the few nuggets of teaching wisdom i acquired along the way
everything i’d change if i had to teach someone how to become a gtm engineer again (ai)
Cheers ✌
Bastien.