Sales Channel Auditing

I audited $10M+ worth of monthly paid marketing spend in 2024. The truth about marketing in PE port-cos: When you dig into the data, you almost always uncover opportunities to cut CPA and increase conversion volume. But the real aha here is that it’s usually easily fixable issues, not super complex stuff: 1. Port-cos often spend on 'button clickers' instead of 'hand raisers.' Saved one port-co $100k/month by shifting conversion to form completion AFTER watching demos (instead of initial CTA click). 2. Multiple port-cos ran six-figure campaigns on autopilot. No A/B testing, no adjustments, just spend reliant on Google’s algo to make the right decisions. 3. Basic campaign fixes could slash costs in half. Most port-cos pay 2-3x more per click simply due to messy account structure and low quality scores. 4. Most companies try to target too many search terms at once. Almost always, you find that real sales come from a small core set of keywords.  Double down on these. 5. Companies waste money advertising to all regions at once. Focusing on fewer locations (with higher spend) typically improves performance by 20-40%. 6. Basic creative quality control is rare. One company spent $75k monthly on LinkedIn ad creative where half the text was cut off. 7. Marketing teams often throw money at their own brand name in search. That budget is usually less incremental than you think - and better spent reaching new customers. 8. Port-cos focus on ads but ignore where they lead. Better landing pages immediately lower costs and lift sales. 9. You see a lot of money going to channels that don't work. One team cut their cost per lead by 90% just by shifting all ad budget to a single platform (Google). 10. Marketing teams celebrate high MQL conversion rates, but sales can't trace a single closed deal back to those "successful" campaigns. Truth is, most of these issues are fixable. The hard part is finding them. Want to audit your own marketing? Start here: □ Can you link your ad spend to actual closed/won? □ Which campaigns drive real pipeline? □ What are your campaigns actually optimizing for? □ Do marketing and sales measure success the same way? □ Are you paying for traffic you would have already gotten? Otherwise, AMA in the comments. Happy to help!

What to audit first when revenue growth stalls. When growth slows, most teams look at volume. More leads. More outreach. More campaigns. Volume is rarely the first constraint. Start with flow. How a lead moves from first contact to closed deal. Where does movement slow down? Where does intent fade? Where do deals sit without decision? The first audit should focus on progression, not acquisition. Look at stage conversion rates. Are they consistent? Do certain stages absorb more time than expected? Is time-in-stage increasing quietly? Next, audit signal quality. What qualifies a deal to enter the pipeline? Are entry criteria clear? Are low-intent conversations inflating numbers? Weak entry creates downstream pressure. Then audit follow-up behaviour. Is follow-up structured or reactive? Are next steps defined clearly in conversations? Is there reciprocity from buyers? Unclear next steps create artificial optimism. Another important audit is exit discipline. How often are deals paused or closed? How long do stalled deals remain open? Is there permission to remove noise? Pipelines often stall because they are crowded. Finally, audit forecasting logic. What moves a deal from pipeline to commit? Is that decision based on buyer signal or salesperson belief? Growth stalls when friction increases unnoticed. Auditing structure reveals friction faster than auditing effort. Before increasing targets, understand constraints. Most revenue slowdowns are not demand problems. They are flow problems. If revenue has stalled in your setup and you want to approach it systematically, feel free to connect with me here on LinkedIn. Happy to discuss where to start and whether a short consultation would be useful. #OutreachCadence #sales #saleops #salesconsulting #salesoperations #salesmanagement #revops #revenueoperations #salespipeline #salesmotions #enterprisesales #futureofwork

As a Head of Sales/VP Sales, does summer increase your anxiety? It's certainly a low-activity period and you might be thinking there's little you can do... Or maybe not. Maybe there are a couple things you could do during this time that would prepare you better for the vacation comeback and the end of the year. This is the first of a two-part post about initiatives to run during summer to increase results afterwards. But before we start: please do take time off. Disconnect. Recharge. Your team will thank you 🏖️ Now, here are two high-impact initiatives you can launch during summer (all about pipeline): ① Review your reps' Book of Business and update/rebalance them: Most sales teams quietly drift out of alignment by mid-year. Some reps drown in accounts; others starve. Now’s the perfect time to: - Audit your account allocation: Are territories balanced by potential revenue? - Define a fresh “Gold List” of high-value accounts each rep must prioritize. - Reset clear expectations, boosting rep morale and performance. ② Pipeline source-mix optimization: Not all leads are created equal. Right now, you’re probably spending budget on channels that burn cash and under-deliver. Analyze your last 6–12 months of pipeline data: Which channels consistently deliver qualified opportunities? Cut underperforming channels—redeploy cash & resources to high-ROI channels. Align marketing spend and SDR efforts to maximize pipeline velocity and reduce CAC. 🗓️ Action plan for founders & VP Sales: Week 1–2: Audit territories and pipeline channels Week 3: Rebalance territories and reallocate budgets Week 4: Launch focused pilots and enablement Do this now, and you’ll be perfectly positioned for a massive Q4. 📈 Part II coming Thursday: I’ll share specific tactics to turn all this newly generated pipeline into closed revenue. 📩 Founders & Sales VPs: Want help running these summer initiatives? I’m currently advising select B2B SaaS companies as a fractional sales leader—DM me to chat.

Marketers are obsessing over MMM, MTA, and incrementality yet skipping the most basic question: what’s the quality of the traffic? We all love deep-dive models and fancy tests. But the biggest ROI lever is often hiding in plain sight. 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: - MMM gives you macro-level correlation but provides no insights on improving the traffic - MTA tosses out any visit it can’t stitch to a journey. - Incrementality tests are expensive, complex to implement , and often only run on a handful of channels. And Again provides no insights on improving the traffic. A channel that looks bad in an incrementality test or an MMM can drastically be improved by improving traffic quality 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐝, 𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐭: - What % of your visits are high-intent (real humans, ready to buy)? - How does your bounce rate reflect genuine interest? - Where’s the bot traffic or low-value clicks costing you money? 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞: • CTV ad supply is up 25% YoY but total viewing time hasn’t budged. → That’s bot waste. • TikTok drives tons of clicks but bounce rates are sky-high. → You’re renting the scroll, not buying attention. Before you spend another dollar on complexity, flip the script: audit your traffic first. It’s cheap, fast, and wildly under-utilized. 🚀 𝐀𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜. 𝐁𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥 𝐢𝐭.🚀 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮:  What’s the most surprising insight you’ve uncovered while auditing channel quality? Drop a comment or tag a colleague who needs to see this!

Impatient founders, pay attention! Killing campaigns after 3 weeks? Repricing services after one bad sales call? Rewriting positioning every quarter? Stop! Repeat after me: Overcorrection kills more GTM systems than bad strategy. Your fix isn't a new funnel. It's knowing what to change, and when. Here's the cadence I use with every client: 👉 GTM Strategy → Revisit every 6–12 months (ICP, positioning, pricing) What to check: • Are you still targeting the same ICP, or has your best-fit customer shifted? • Does your positioning reflect the problems you actually solve today? • Is your pricing aligned with your current value + ACV + sales motion? • Does this still fit your current ARR stage and growth goals? 👉 Channel & Funnel → Revisit every quarter (channel mix, budget allocation, funnel structure) What to check: • Which channels are driving pipeline vs just leads • CAC by channel vs LTV • Funnel drop-offs (visit → lead → MQL → SQL → close) • Sales cycle length by source 👉 Campaigns & Messaging → Revisit every 2–4 weeks (ads, emails, landing pages, offers) What to check: • CTR, CVR, CPL trends • Which messages resonate (pain vs feature vs outcome) • Offer performance (demo vs audit vs content) 👉 Execution → Review weekly (ongoing) (targeting, bids, outbound sequences, follow-ups) What to check: • Lead quality vs volume • Response rates on outbound • Sales follow-up speed + consistency • Wasted spend (irrelevant clicks, wrong segments) ✅ Change at the right frequency, not constantly. Save this for your GTM cadence.

Delivery sales went up. Profit went down. Nobody asked why. That is the aggregator trap. It catches more operators than anyone admits. Most restaurants track delivery revenue. Very few track delivery profit. The gap between those two numbers is where margin disappears. Here is what the real cost stack looks like. Platform commission runs 20 to 30 percent in most GCC markets. Add payment processing at 2 to 3 percent. Add packaging that was never costed per order. Add promotional discounts the platform talked you into. Add food cost on items never engineered for delivery. Add refunds from damaged or missing orders. By the time you do the honest math, many operators are clearing less than 8 percent on an order they thought was profitable. The problem is not the aggregator. The problem is that operators are measuring the wrong thing. I call this the Delivery Margin Stack Audit. It has five layers. Layer one is gross delivery revenue. What the platform dashboard shows. Most operators stop here. Layer two is platform cost. Commission, processing, and any sponsored placement fees. Layer three is promotional drag. Every discount and bundle deal funded from your margin, not the platform's. Layer four is true food cost on delivery items. Not your blended dine-in average. The actual cost of what moves on delivery, including the box it leaves in. Layer five is the net delivery margin. The only number that matters. When operators run this audit honestly, two things become clear: which items are actually profitable on delivery, and which promotions are burning margin without building loyalty. AI does not run the audit for you. It pressure tests the numbers you bring, flags the layers you skipped, and surfaces the items where the math does not work. You still own the decision on what to cut, reprice, or pull from the aggregator menu. The highest volume delivery items are rarely the highest margin ones. Volume flatters the top line. The audit tells you the truth. Operators who build unit economics discipline at the channel level, not just the outlet level, are the ones who can make a real argument to ownership about where capital should go next. I am placing the copy-paste prompt in the first comment so operators can run this audit right away. Where do you see the biggest leak in delivery margin: platform commissions, uncontrolled promotions, or food cost on items never engineered for delivery?

"We need to be everywhere at once!" A CEO told me when I asked him about his GTM model. And while I loved the “everything, everywhere all at once” movie, you can’t apply it to cybersecurity GTM unless you are Palo Alto, Crowdstrike or Fortinet. This startup was burning cash across 7 different GTM channels back in December of 2024. 5 months later, they cut to just 2 GTM motions and doubled their pipeline. 🧵 Here's my step by step guide to building a multi-channel GTM strategy in cybersecurity from scratch: Step 1: Channel Audit - List ALL current channels (direct, partners, marketplaces, PLG, etc.) - Calculate true CAC for each (include ALL costs) - Identify which channels produce your BEST customers (not just any customers) Step 2: Persona Mapping - Create detailed buyer personas for each - Map their ACTUAL buying journey (not the one you wish they'd take) - Align channels to specific personas and buying stages Step 3: Resource Allocation - Assign clear ownership for each channel - Create channel-specific KPIs (not just revenue) - Set realistic timelines for channel maturity This is critical. You can’t measure everything with sales numbers because a channel-led approach is going to generate zero revenue in the first month. Step 4 and 5: Integration & Optimization This includes regular reviews and experimentation. The most successful cyber companies aren't on every channel, they are excellent at the RIGHT channels at the right time. Don’t do everything everywhere all at once. You are not Michelle Yeoh.

$68,000 spent on a channel that delivered hundreds of MQLs and not a single SQL. And that’s just one SaaS account we audited. This isn’t an outlier. After analyzing dozens of SaaS companies, a clear pattern emerges: bloated budgets and stalled growth often stem from misplaced spending and outdated assumptions. Here’s what we uncovered: 1. Misaligned Channel Investment Many SaaS companies pour money into channels that generate clicks but fail to deliver qualified leads. Without rigorous audit and attribution, budgets balloon while the pipeline dries up. 2. Overreliance on Demand Capture Only about 5% of your ideal customer profile is actively searching for solutions at any given time. Yet most SaaS marketing still focuses heavily on SEO and PPC, ignoring the 95% who aren’t in-market but could be influenced with the right demand creation strategies. 3. Lack of Pricing Transparency 65% of B2B buyers say unclear pricing is their biggest frustration. Hiding pricing behind demo requests kills conversion potential and wastes marketing spend chasing low-intent leads. 4. Churn and Retention Blind Spots Avoidable churn costs SaaS businesses billions annually. Without integrating retention strategies alongside acquisition, growth stalls no matter how much you spend. What advanced SaaS teams do differently: - Audit spend with surgical precision. We identify channels that look good on surface metrics but don’t feed the funnel with Sales Qualified Leads. - Invest in demand creation, not just capture. Leveraging dark social, community marketing, and brand-driven content to reach the 95% who aren’t actively searching. - Make pricing clear and frictionless. Transparent, value-driven pricing paired with interactive calculators and low-commitment trials to convert high-intent buyers faster. - Embed retention as a growth lever. Reducing churn by even 5% can increase company valuation by up to 95%, yet many overlook this in favor of acquisition alone. If your SaaS growth feels stuck and budgets keep inflating without results, it’s time for a hard audit and a shift in strategy. Because in 2025, throwing money at the wrong channels isn’t just wasteful, it’s a growth killer. #conversionoptimization #cro

The channel report says sales grew. The order economics may say something else. We reviewed Q2 performance across brands, pushing into Amazon, Walmart, TikTok Shop, and DTC at the same time. The revenue looked clean. The profit behavior was not. This is where the gap usually shows up: • Amazon volume grows, but returns change SKU contribution • Walmart orders increase, but exceptions add handling cost • TikTok Shop spikes demand, but inventory sits in the wrong node • Shopify orders look profitable until split shipments increase • 3PL invoices explain costs that the OMS never surfaced That is not channel growth. That is channel complexity with delayed economics. Most teams compare channels by revenue first. Wrong order. Revenue tells you where demand happened. Order economics tells you whether that demand was worth fulfilling. This is not a marketplace problem. It is a margin visibility problem. Operator takeaway: If the same product creates different profits depending on channel, fulfillment path, return rate, and fee structure, the channel report is incomplete. Audit the real path. Which channel grew sales but weakened contribution? Which SKU only works when fulfillment stays clean? Which marketplace fee is hidden inside a “successful” order? Which channel looks strong until returns and 3PL cost land? Don’t trust channel growth on its own. Follow the order economics. #OperationalExcellence #ScalingSystems

Turning sales audit insights into actionable goals. So, you’ve just wrapped up a sales audit. Now what? You’re sitting on a goldmine of insights. Combine that with actionable goals, and they become powerful strategies. Sharing how I turn sales audit findings into a killer sales strategy 👇 1/ Pinpoint key issues Audit reports often reveal gaps and opportunities. Focus on the critical issues that impact your sales most. If it’s a weak lead conversion process, that’s your first target. 2/ Prioritize based on impact Identify which issues will have the most significant impact on your sales performance if addressed. Use a prioritization matrix. Evaluate issues that are both urgent + important. Tackling high-impact areas first = Better sales outcomes. 3/ Create a strategic action plan Break down each priority issue into actionable steps. ✅Assign responsibilities. ✅Set deadlines. ✅Establish benchmarks to track progress. This ensures accountability and keeps the team aligned. 4/ Monitor + Adjust Regularly review progress against your goals. If something isn’t working, adjust your strategy. Stay flexible and responsive to the data you gather along the way. What’s one critical issue you’re prioritizing based on your latest audit? #sales #coach #salesstrategy #strategy #salestraining #training #growth #team