Episode
261
Learn how to craft a winning go-to-market strategy with expert Jeff Hoffman's insights on messaging, sales alignment, and continuous refinement.
When it comes to launching and scaling a successful business, one of the most critical components is having a clear and effective go-to-market (GTM) strategy. Jeff Hoffman, an experienced sales executive and advisor to private equity and venture-backed companies, joined the Content Amplified podcast to share his insights on how to craft and refine a GTM approach that drives results.
Jeff emphasizes the importance of answering three key questions when defining your market messaging:
Tailoring messaging to specific roles within an organization is crucial. "The message could be a little different for each person," Jeff explains. Developing targeted questions and statements for different stakeholders helps ensure your message resonates and facilitates complex decision-making.
Once the messaging foundation is in place, it must be integrated into a broader GTM strategy. Jeff outlines a structured approach:
"When you start to think through these questions, it allows you to understand what it takes to get a deal done," Jeff notes.
A GTM strategy is never static—it requires constant iteration and refinement. Jeff stresses the need for ongoing analysis:
Jeff highlights that proactive adjustments prevent declining margins and keep the company ahead of market shifts: "When you're able to do that proactively, you ensure that your margins are not going to decline because you're beating the clock."
Jeff’s insights underscore the importance of strategic planning and agile execution in building a successful go-to-market approach. Whether you're launching a startup or optimizing an existing sales process, focusing on messaging, structure, and adaptability can significantly enhance your results.
Jeff Hoffman is a veteran software sales leader with over 35 years of experience driving revenue growth for companies like IBM, Oracle, and multiple FinTech firms. He has led and turned around sales organizations, executed go-to-market strategies, and helped private equity and venture-backed B2B software companies optimize sales performance. As the founder of his own advisory firm, Jeff specializes in diagnosing revenue challenges, refining messaging, and building high-performing sales teams.
(Transcript is AI generated, we apologize for any errors)
Jeff Hoffman (00:02)
And I like to focus on three things I learned from my days at Oracle as a sales guy, which were, why would anyone buy?
Why would they buy from us and why would they buy from us now versus doing
Benjamin Ard (00:38)
Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Jeff. Jeff, welcome to the show.
Jeff Hoffman (00:44)
Thank you very much, Ben. Appreciate it. Glad to be here.
Benjamin Ard (00:46)
Jeff, I'm excited. This is awesome. Glad to have you on the podcast. Jeff, before we dive into the subject for the day though, let's get to know you a little bit. Tell us a quick summary of your career.
Jeff Hoffman (00:56)
Sure. The thumbnail is I've been in the software industry for a long time going on 35 plus years now, hard to believe. But I started out in the industry as a sales guy. was selling for companies like IBM and Oracle and then some smaller companies. So I went from
companies with the brand and resources to companies with limited resources. From there, I got into management and executive posts with three FinTech software companies, two of which actually reached liquidity events. I ran North America for a company called Financial Architects. They had a regulatory risk reporting solution. I had to build out.
the go-to-market and the execution from scratch really, because they had nothing in North America. Ultimately, the company got sold to Walters Kluwer. I then turned around an underperforming large sales team in a division of SunGuard when they were private equity backed by Silver Lake. I did it incorporating a lot of what I call situational deal management techniques and...
Silver Lake ultimately sold SunGuard to FIS for billions of dollars. And then I ran North America for a company called International Trading Room Software, a company based in London. And I turned around North America for them. They were bought by a private equity firm, Carlyle.
From 2014 onward, I've had an LLC, advisory, chief revenue officer firm, where I go in to private equity and venture capital backed B2B software companies, helping them with, and also helping the CEOs of these companies to figure out.
What's not working? Why are we not making money? Why are our margins declining? Can you come in, provide a fresh perspective, help us understand where the problems lie? How do we fix them? And I've been doing that now for 10 plus years and it's fun.
Benjamin Ard (02:56)
I love that. That's awesome. Well, Jeff, what we're going to talk about today is really taking product knowledge and turning that into content and sales, basically a go-to-market plan. From your experience, you've had plenty of experiences of reshaping, reorganizing, building, creating, improving go-to-market teams and all of those efforts. So when it comes to messaging, let's start there. You've got product knowledge. How do you figure out your messaging in the market?
from kind of that understanding what's your process look like there.
Jeff Hoffman (03:26)
Yeah, great question.
And I like to focus on three things I learned from my days at Oracle as a sales guy, which were, why would anyone buy?
Why would they buy from us and why would they buy from us now versus doing
So that helps you work through your competitors. When you build out that, iteration of why buy, why buy from us and why buy now, you're going through a construct of building value and you do it for each title because the message could be a little different for each person. So you want to have a message that also
gets into questions and statements. What are the questions that you want to ask and what are the statements you want to make to the individuals you need to be on board getting the glue so that they want to buy from you and you want to sell to them and it's a perfect fit. The questions and statements if done right.
give you what I call the complex insight. It allows you or enables you to understand you're working on real deals.
Benjamin Ard (04:25)
I love that. That's super powerful. So I've got the audience. I've kind of understood the message and I love the framework. Why would they buy? Why would they buy from us? Why would they buy now? All that kind of fun stuff. How do you really translate that into a go to market effort?
Jeff Hoffman (04:40)
Again, understanding the why buy, why buy from us, why buy now. Intrinsically, when you start to think through that, those answers and thoughts about, you know, who the audience is, it'll allow you to understand a little bit more about what it's going to take to get a deal done. And more importantly, how long is it going to take to get the deal done? Is it going to take six months, nine months, a year, three months?
Are you going to have a strategy to do shorter deals that are less money and a longer play to do bigger deals? This is about day to day responsibilities.
it allows you to build out your sales plans because you understand what you're looking to generate in terms of the revenue per quarter, per year, because you've done your territory alignment. So you've got your go to market, you know where you're to go sell, you got your messaging. These are that's how you build out that go to market.
Benjamin Ard (05:36)
I love that. How are you refining the message and the content and the strategy as time goes on and you're seeing specific results? Like what does that look like for
coaching, for teaching, for strategy changes. What does that look like?
Jeff Hoffman (05:51)
Yeah, yeah, excellent.
If you get to a point where you're not winning enough or you don't have enough real deals in the pipeline, that's going to allow you to, like a conveyor belt, go back to the beginning and start asking, what do we need to do to change potentially the territory alignment?
Or do we need to look at something around product fit that needs to be evolved? Do we need to change our marketing approach in terms of all of the markers that we're using in marketing, whether it's lead gen or SEO or other product marketing components, and marketing is a lot of stuff. Or do we need to change?
who we talk to as an audience and what we're asking and what statements we're making. So the execution piece enables you to proactively know what works and is not working because you're proactively managing.
the deal flow with the codification that I've discussed. And when you're able to do that proactively, you ensure that your margins are not going to decline because you're beating the clock. You're right up at the moment. You say, we need to make a change. And then you go back to the beginning with the knowledge that you've accumulated and you take that evolved knowledge and you go back to the beginning and you keep reflecting and improving on
go to market, and corporate messaging.
Benjamin Ard (07:19)
I love it. There's so many good insights there. Jeff, thank you for sharing everything. This has truly been amazing. If anyone listening today or any day would like to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
Jeff Hoffman (07:32)
can certainly reach out to me through
Benjamin Ard (07:35)
Very cool. Well, Jeff again, thank you so much for the time and insights today. Really appreciate it.
Jeff Hoffman (07:40)
My pleasure, Ben. Thank you.
