Even the Top 1% of B2B SaaS revenue teams I speak with make this simple, massively painful mistake 👇 They cut content marketing spend the minute it doesn’t show direct ROI. Most SME and mid-market SaaS teams are still trying to brute-force growth through SDR teams and lead gen channels, and it 100% will not fix their pipeline conversion problems. Sales leaders, founders, even RevOps all fall into the same trap: They double headcount on outbound thinking “more is more!”. Scale the SDR team. Book a ton of meetings. And then wonder why the close rate is 3%. It sounds logical: “Marketing takes too long, sales gets results now.” So they toss content and brand-building onto a shoestring budget. (Growth startups at $15M+ wanting to solve their challenges for sub-$2000 a month — I kid you not) Then spend millions running a spray-and-pray outbound motion. Reps are too busy chasing data from huge lists from Apollo and partners. Dialling thousands of dials a month for a few connects. Knocking on doors praying something happens. No nurture. No brand affinity. No warm leads. Do you see how stupid this is? Even worse, this outdated “sales-led only” model is still being taught in RevOps playbooks and GTM courses as best practice. Meanwhile, it’s the root cause of poor conversion, low trust, and missed targets. It’s like expecting someone to propose after a cold handshake. No buyer wants to be chased without context anymore. - You need marketing warming the room. - You need content staying top of mind. - You need a focus on the 20% of prospects that like, know and trust you. Trying to pretend sales will solve all that in a vacuum is wild. And it’s time we injected some common sense into GTM strategy. Stop starving the function that actually creates demand. Start building founder-led distribution that attracts it. — We used to believe sales could carry growth alone. Now we know: disconnected channels = disconnected buyers. Don’t trust decade-old playbooks. Today’s buyer journeys are messy. Remember that Gartner diagram with a web of touchpoints across multiple channels with like 30+ touches till you get to a sale… that’s what we’re dealing with (see below). Think it through before you slash content budgets. You’re probably cutting off your nose to spite your pipeline.
This resonates deeply Luke. Misplaced priorities often stunt potential growth. Nurturing leads and building trust should never be sidelined. Prioritize marketing with content to bridge gaps!
Perfectly said. You can’t brute-force trust. If your content isn’t warming the room, your reps are just shouting into the void.
This hits home
Then they watch as their marketing and outbound all “feels hard”
Everyone wants the results NOW. But there is a lot that goes through the mind of the buyer. Great content that helps nurture that journey wins in the long run.
Short-term gains don’t make up for long-term brand-building!
Absolutely, Luke Shalom! It's surprising how many B2B SaaS teams overlook the importance of content marketing in their growth strategy. Building brand affinity and nurturing leads are crucial in today's buyer journey.
That's why attribution is stupid. It's a defence for budgets but overly encourages focus on tiny tiny improvements and discourages things you cant track so well for your spreadsheet
Just a few of your leads become 1st-time buyers A huge chunk of others will need much time to make decisions And that's where your content marketing comes in. Show up in their faces till you become hard to ignore
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2dThat disconnect between sales and marketing is the silent killer of growth.