A little while ago, we were lucky to host Guillaume Cabane at Office Hours in a new format: 30 minute 1-on-1s with a few companies. It was a huge success and a format that we will continue because of all the learning. Guillaume was kind to share some takeaways from the event below.

1. If you’re in B2B SaaS, you most likely have a finite TAM. For the love of ARR, please get the exact list of all accounts in your TAM (at least US). Do some simple math to output a predicted value per account. Then decide which accounts you want to go after, with which channels, at what cost. Start charting your TAM penetration (in volume & separately in value)
2. When doing outbound, lead with value. Never send an email where you focus on you or your product. If your contact to demo rate is below 1%, you’re burning your TAM inefficiently. Top companies with a strong brand, leading with value in an email, often get >10% demo rate on cold emails.
3. Differentiate yourself. Think of your marketing like your product. Would you create the same features as your competitors? Of course not. Your marketing can be a defensible moat: use different words, leverage different channels. In essence, try to be memorable. If you’ve scored your TAM, you now know how much you can invest for each potential account. Be smart about it, maximize the effectiveness of that spend to create an experience unlike your competitor. And if you love your VC, don’t compete head on with paid channels. Paid is an OK channel at best, great if you can get a CAC/LTV < 1 (rare in SaaS).

Guillaume has an exquisitely tuned acumen for how to build scalable marketing systems. Watching him advise startups on how to build their machines, I noticed how much of an innovative thinker he is. The notes above echo it.

Thank you so much for coming to SaaS Office Hours, Guillaume. And for revealing the magic behind the way you’ve built your teams.