Disruptive Marketing: Anatomy of a Silicon Valley Billon Dollar Exit with Steve Kahan

Steve is a serial entrepreneur with a proven track record for producing breakthrough revenue growth in brutally competitive marketplaces, having successfully helped grow seven startup companies from early stage to going public or being sold, resulting in nearly $5 billion in shareholder value.

Steve's new book, High-Velocity Digital Marketing: Silicon Valley Secrets to Create Breakthrough Revenue in Record Time, talks about how companies can maximize their marketing impact by adjusting their marketing strategy to better address who their customers are and how they make buying decisions. 

Key Takeaways: 

• Marketing has to focus on who your buyer is, not who you assume it is. Take the time to learn who makes buying decisions about your product. 
   
• Companies need to have a true grasp of their customers' world. Understanding customer problems will help you present your product as the solution. 
   
• Marketing should be bringing potential customers along a path from interest to purchase. Each marketing piece should encourage customers to move to the next step. 
   
• The speed with which customers move along the path is marketing velocity. Faster velocity means faster sales and faster revenue. 
   
• Providing a no-commitment point of entry into your product — like free access to a tool — changes the nature of your relationship with the customer. Your sales approach can be more consultative than persuasive. 
   
• There is no substitute for doing hard work. Marketing and sales can't be automated. It's all about doing the work to get the results you want. 
   
• When he's not helping professionals grow in their careers, Steve enjoys travel, food, wine, and spending time with his young grandchildren. 

Quote of the show:  

2:24"...what I've found, having led disruption at multiple places is hard work. And to me, the most important ingredient is realizing there's no substitute for hard work. I found that you just have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Today, for example, I was called by a   venture capital firm, asking if I felt that there was room in the market for a company on the low end. And it was a very simple question, but really to answer that question fully, there would be so much hard work ahead of them. And what I found is, is that no great achievements are possible or sustained without hard work. And, and hard work is the price you'll pay for the success that you desire to achieve." 

Links: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevekahan/    

Company Website: https://www.insightpartners.com/    

To pre-order High-Velocity Digital Marketing: Silicon Valley Secrets to Create Breakthrough Revenue in Record Time:  https://www.amazon.com/High-Velocity-Digital-Marketing-Silicon-Breakthrough/dp/1637742169

 

Ways to Tune In: 

Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/eccda84d-4d5b-4c52-ba54-7fd8af3cbe87/disruption-interruption 

Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/disruption-interruption/id1581985755 

Google Play -https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGlzcnVwdGlvbmludGVycnVwdGlvbi5jb20vZmVlZC54bWw 

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6yGSwcSp8J354awJkCmJlD 

Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/show/disruption-interruption 

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf2zbLqmHtSHQ7u1V-Is8cA