For Mosaic, 2022 brought us new projects and introduced us to new industries but our mission remained unwavering – to unleash transformational growth for every client in the most efficient way.  We had wins, we had challenges and we learned a lot from it all.  Here are our top 9 takeaways. 

1. Know who you are selling to. 

It sounds pretty basic and almost all of our clients check this box when it comes to their Total Addressable Market (TAM), the whole universe of potential buyers.  Unfortunately, you can’t build an effective go-to-market motion based on your TAM.  For high growth organizations, the TAM is simply too broad and the result is marketing and sales teams trying (and rarely succeeding) to be everything to everyone while not doing any of it particularly well.   

To avoid this fate requires clearly defining and gaining organizational alignment around Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs), the subset of the TAM where there is the strongest product-market fit and, as a result, the highest sales success.  Teams who take the time to go through this exercise are able to employ targeted tactics and strategies that actually have an impact on growth.   Read more about ICP here.  

2. Not all buyers in your ICP are created equal.  

There is a subset of buyers within your ICP that should be prioritized above all other types of buyers – active buyers.  As the name gives away, active buyers are prospects that are considering purchase or, even more powerful, demonstrating a clear intent to buy.  These buyers are generally further down in the funnel and, as a result,  convert at a significantly higher rate (some data suggests up to 30x) than the overall ICP.  Go-to-market teams should shift into turbo-gear – a high-touch, highly targeted approach -as soon as an active buyer is identified.  The catch is that it is really hard to detect early buyer signals, and on top of that, there are very few active buyers (only about 3% of the ICP) at any given time.  As a result, most teams don’t even bother, which is a mistake.  We encourage all GTM teams to at least spend some time at least trying because figuring this out can be transformational for funnel conversion rates. Learn more about how to find active buyers.

3. Content (still) reigns as king.

While the importance of content is nothing new, the fact that it held the #1 spot for another year is remarkable.  Given where our clients are in terms of growth trajectory, if content is viewed through the lens of organic search, if it is being considered at all.  While SEO remains a critical part of any content strategy, much of our foundational work centers around getting clients to make investments in content that also builds brand trust, conveys authority, and supports the buyer’s journey.  Read more on a well-rounded content strategy here.

4. Mindset matters.

Obviously the clients we work with know a thing or two about successfully growing a business.  However, one of the most critical success factors in our work is ensuring leaders and executives really buy-in to the fact that achieving post-investment growth and success will require a fundamentally different approach.  In other words, what got the company from A to B is not what will get them from B to C. Once the leaders have embraced this mindset, it is equally (or perhaps even more) important to prepare the rest of the organization for the journey ahead.  Gain alignment, generate excitement, and shift mindset by establishing a well-defined growth vision.  Read more about growth vision here.   

5. Virtual team-building can be a thing.

Virtual and hybrid work arrangements can make team-building, productive collaboration, and morale boosting just a little harder.  Some companies are able to bring the employees together for in-person all-hands meetings at least a few times a year, but cost and logistics make this hard to sustain, especially as teams expand.  However, there’s good news. This year we observed an alternative to the in-person approach that could be a game-changer for teams spread out around the globe – Zoom team-building. 

We partnered with a Portland-based creative agency that specializes in brand-building and storytelling to lead customized Zoom-based workshops for our clients. The impact, engagement, and momentum these sessions generated was astounding.  The key is having a focused and achievable objective and clearly established rules of engagement and, of course, finding an effective and talented facilitator with the right experience. 

6. Don’t assume when it comes to your sales funnel.

Because top-of-the-funnel growth is challenging (and costly), go-to-market teams have to ensure they are maximizing the funnel.  This means doing everything possible to move a qualified lead to the next stage of the buying process.  Step one in maximizing your funnel?  Knowing what the funnel looks like.  The only way to do this effectively is to have the entire go-to-market team map out (yes we are talking marker and white board) where leads are coming from, what is happening to these leads once they enter the funnel, and who is responsible for each stage thereafter.   Once both your sales and marketing teams align on this, the next step is creating an exceptional experience for those who are qualified, increasing personalization as the lead  moves through the funnel.  Learn more about mapping the sales funnel here. 

7. Your website is more important than ever – If 2022 has shown us anything, it is how important an organization’s website still is. We have seen many otherwise successful organizations hamstrung by poor websites – websites that make it hard for prospective clients to find the information they are looking for and take the next step in their journey.  Non-intuitive navigation, information overload, hidden CTAs, lengthy forms, and simply too many clicks to name a few website pitfalls. 

Poorly designed websites tarnish their brand, limit conversion rates, suppress organic search growth, and, most importantly, and frustrate a potential customer.  The start of 2023 is a great time to assess your website to determine if it is doing a good job in helping your organization drive growth.  Read more about how your website stacks up here. 

8. You have to invest in marketing…

Transformational growth requires a deliberate and scalable go-to-market strategy as well as an investment in the brand, demand generation, and other foundational elements of B2B marketing.  Since almost all of our clients have achieved impressive growth without putting a dime into marketing, this is not always an easy conversation to have.  

Of course, the natural follow up question is “How much should we invest to start?”  The truth is that the fastest-growing companies invest up to 50% of their budgets in marketing.  While a marketing budget of this size may not be feasible right off the bat, the bottom line is that a consistent (year after year) and significant investment in marketing is critical to unlocking transformational growth.    Read more on investing in sales and marketing.

9. …And, you have to be able to show what’s working.

With money comes power and with power comes the responsibility of reporting.  The key to good performance reporting is access to reliable data.  Most of our clients never had the need to maintain detailed go-to-market reporting and therefore accessing reliable and usable data can be incredibly challenging. 

A simple way to assess your current reporting infrastructure is to ask members of the leadership team for various performance metrics (average monthly website traffic, year-to-date  inbound leads, opportunities created last month, next month’s ARR target, etc). If each member of your leadership team can independently report back the same numbers within a reasonable timeframe (i.e. it doesn’t take weeks or months for a response) your reporting is likely in good shape. 
If not, you will want to address this ASAP.  For sound performance reporting (that eliminates the pre-board meeting scramble and endless debate about which data to pull from where), organizations need data that is Accurate, Accepted, Accessible, and All-Encompassing.  Learn more about the 4As of data here.