Cedar Collaborative
Cedar Collaborative

Tag: demand generation

  • Why Your Funnel Isn’t the Problem (Even If It Looks Like It Is)

    Why Your Funnel Isn’t the Problem (Even If It Looks Like It Is)

    When conversion rates start to slip or pipeline slows down, most teams end up in the same place. They turn their attention to the funnel. It is the most visible system they have. It has stages, numbers, drop-off points, and a clear sense of where things appear to be breaking. That makes it feel like the right place to work.

    So the fixes begin there. Landing pages get reworked, forms get shortened, sequences get added, attribution gets cleaned up. There is usually a clear owner and a set of metrics that can be improved incrementally, which reinforces the sense that progress is happening even when the underlying pattern does not change very much.

    Part of what makes this difficult is that funnel issues are rarely imagined. They are real. You can see where people are dropping off. You can measure where conversion weakens. The mistake is assuming that those points of friction originate inside the funnel itself, rather than treating them as the place where something else is surfacing.

    A common version is strong top-of-funnel activity paired with weak conversion into qualified opportunities. Traffic is there, leads are coming in, engagement looks healthy, but sales ends up questioning the quality of what is being handed over. Marketing can point to volume and activity, sales can point to low close rates, and both perspectives hold up on their own. The tension comes from the fact that neither explains why the gap exists.

    Another version shows up closer to the point of conversion. People begin the process of reaching out and then stop. They fill out part of a form, or spend time on a contact page, but do not complete the step. It is easy to interpret that as friction in the interface. Sometimes it is. Often it is hesitation that the funnel is not equipped to resolve.

    In one case, a services firm had exactly this pattern. A meaningful number of visitors were reaching the contact page, but very few were submitting the form. The page itself was minimal. It presented the form clearly, but did not do much else. It assumed that by the time someone arrived there, the decision to engage had already been made.

    Shortening the form helped slightly. The more meaningful change was adding context that should have been present earlier but was not. What working with the firm actually involved, what kinds of problems they were well-suited to solve, and why a prospective client might choose them over other options. Once that information was in place, submissions increased quickly, not because the funnel had been optimized in a technical sense, but because the decision being asked of the user became easier to make.

    Where B2B Funnel Problems Start

    That pattern shows up in different forms across companies. Funnels tend to function as a kind of compression point for the rest of the go-to-market system. They carry assumptions about who the audience is, what problem is being solved, and how clearly that problem has been communicated. When those assumptions are weak or inconsistent, the funnel becomes the place where that inconsistency is exposed.

    This is why incremental improvements often have limited impact. You can reduce friction, adjust sequencing, and improve conversion rates at the margins, but those gains do not compound if the inputs are misaligned. If the audience is too broad, the funnel fills with people who were never a strong fit. If positioning is vague, the funnel has to do more explanatory work than it is designed for. If marketing and sales are operating with different definitions of the customer, the handoff between them will continue to feel uneven.

    None of these issues originate in the funnel, but all of them appear there.

    That makes the funnel a useful diagnostic tool, but a misleading starting point. It tells you where something is breaking, not necessarily why. When teams focus exclusively on fixing what they can see, they can spend a long time improving a system that is accurately reflecting deeper uncertainty.

    There is a point at which funnel optimization becomes powerful. When the rest of the system is coherent, small improvements in conversion and flow begin to matter more, and the work starts to compound. Before that, the funnel tends to behave more like a mirror than a machine. It reflects the clarity of the decisions that sit around it.

    If those decisions are still unsettled, the funnel will continue to look like the problem, even as it faithfully reports on what is actually happening.

  • Why Your Marketing Feels Busy but Not Effective

    Why Your Marketing Feels Busy but Not Effective

    Every so often, I’ll talk to a team that is clearly doing a lot of marketing.

    Not theoretically. Not “we should probably do more.” They are in motion. Campaigns are running, outbound is happening, content is going out the door, tools are in place. There is real effort behind it.

    And still, something feels off.

    It usually shows up as a kind of background frustration. The numbers are not terrible, but they are not convincing either. Pipeline exists, but it is uneven. Sales conversations feel harder than they should. There is no obvious failure point, just a sense that nothing is quite landing.

    At that stage, most companies assume they need to improve what they are already doing. Tighter messaging. Better channels. More output. Sometimes all three.

    That instinct makes sense. It is also where things start to drift.

    Why Marketing Isn’t Working: When Activity Replaces Direction

    Because the issue is often not how the work is being done, but what the work is meant to accomplish in the first place. Marketing exists inside the company, but not as a clearly defined function. It is a collection of activities rather than a system with a job to do.

    When that happens, activity becomes the default way to make progress. If something is not working, you add more. More campaigns, more experiments, more surface area. It feels responsible. It looks like effort.

    It also creates a kind of internal noise that is hard to diagnose.

    You can see it in how targeting gets discussed. There is usually an idea of the audience, but it is broad enough to accommodate almost anything. The definition shifts depending on the campaign or the person running it. Over time, that flexibility starts to erode any real sense of focus.

    The same thing happens with measurement. Data exists, but it does not accumulate in a way that sharpens decisions. Different tools tell slightly different stories. Reports get reviewed, but they do not resolve questions. They just confirm that something is happening.

    Even the website tends to reflect this. It explains the company, sometimes in detail, but it does not carry much weight in the buying process. It is there, but it is not doing any real sorting or guiding. When someone reaches out, the real work begins from scratch.

    So sales absorbs it. Which is fine, up to a point.

    But when sales becomes the place where positioning, qualification, and clarity all get figured out at once, the system is already under strain. Every conversation has to do too much work. Some deals close, but it is hard to tell why. Others stall, and the reasons stay fuzzy.

    From the outside, none of this looks broken. It looks like a team that is trying hard and staying active.

    From the inside, it feels like effort that never quite turns into momentum.

    Lately, AI has started to accelerate this pattern. It makes it easier to produce, easier to test, easier to scale activity. For teams that already lack a clear definition of what marketing is supposed to do, that can feel like validation. The systems are running. Output is high. It looks like progress.

    But more activity does not create structure. It just fills the space faster.

    At some point, the question shifts. Not “are we doing enough marketing,” but “what is marketing actually responsible for here.”

    That answer is usually less obvious than it sounds. It is not a generic definition. It depends on the stage of the company, the sales motion, the shape of demand, and what the rest of the organization expects to happen after someone shows interest.

    Until that is clear, everything tends to carry the same weight. Campaigns, content, outbound, partnerships. There is no real hierarchy, so there is no consistent way to decide what matters more or what should change.

    That is when marketing starts to feel busy instead of effective.

    And it is also when adding more rarely helps.

  • Common B2B Marketing Challenges (and Why Most “Solutions” Don’t Hold Up)

    Common B2B Marketing Challenges (and Why Most “Solutions” Don’t Hold Up)

    Most lists of B2B marketing challenges are directionally correct.

    They point to lead quality, sales alignment, unclear positioning, long sales cycles. All real issues. But they’re usually treated as separate problems with separate fixes, and that’s where things start to drift.

    In practice, these issues tend to show up together. When they do, it’s usually because something more fundamental isn’t working. That’s why the standard responses—more campaigns, better content, new tools—often create activity without changing the underlying trajectory.

    It’s not that the solutions are wrong. They’re just aimed at the surface.

    “We’re generating leads, but they’re not the right ones”

    This is usually framed as a targeting problem. Refine the ICP, adjust channels, improve scoring.

    Sometimes that helps. More often, it doesn’t move things in a meaningful way.

    When positioning is even slightly off, marketing can perform well on its own terms while consistently attracting the wrong kind of interest. Traffic looks healthy. Conversion rates are acceptable. There’s enough signal to keep investing. But the conversations that follow don’t quite go anywhere.

    From the outside, it looks like a lead quality issue. Inside the system, it’s a clarity issue.

    The message is landing with people who aren’t in a position to buy, or who don’t feel the problem with enough urgency to act. Tightening filters later in the funnel doesn’t fix that. It just hides it.

    The work that tends to matter happens earlier. Getting specific about who actually feels the problem, when it becomes urgent, and what it displaces. Without that, lead quality stays inconsistent no matter how much optimization happens downstream.

    “Sales and marketing aren’t aligned”

    This is one of the most persistent narratives in B2B, and one of the least precise. It’s the most boring – and the most common.

    It’s usually treated as a coordination problem. More meetings, shared dashboards, clearer handoffs. Those things can help, but they rarely hold.

    In many organizations, sales and marketing aren’t misaligned so much as they’re working from slightly different interpretations of the same story. Marketing generates interest based on one framing. Sales engages with prospects who are reacting to that framing in context. Over time, both sides adjust independently.

    What emerges isn’t a breakdown in communication. It’s a drift in how the company understands its own value.

    That’s why alignment efforts that focus on process tend to fade. They improve the interface between teams without resolving the difference underneath.

    When alignment actually sticks, it’s usually because the underlying positioning has been clarified enough that both teams are working from the same frame, even if they express it differently.

    “Our messaging isn’t landing”

    This often gets treated as a copy problem. Rewrite the site, test new headlines, tighten the value proposition.

    Sometimes that produces a better version of what’s already there. It doesn’t always change the outcome.

    Messaging struggles when it’s trying to carry too much at once. Multiple audiences, multiple use cases, and a set of assumptions about what the buyer already understands. The result is language that feels reasonable but not decisive. It doesn’t give someone a clear reason to act, or a clear reason to choose this over something else.

    Stronger messaging usually comes from constraint rather than expansion.

    It requires choosing who matters most, being explicit about tradeoffs, and defining when this solution actually becomes relevant. That tends to narrow the top of the funnel, which is uncomfortable. But it improves everything that follows.

    “Our sales cycle is too long”

    This is often attributed to the nature of B2B. Multiple stakeholders, budget cycles, internal approvals.

    All true. But not all long sales cycles behave the same way.

    Some are long because the decision is genuinely complex. Others are long because the organization hasn’t made it easy for the buyer to move forward.

    A useful distinction is where time is actually being spent. Is the delay coming from necessary evaluation, or from uncertainty that hasn’t been resolved?

    When it’s the latter, marketing and sales are often contributing to the problem without realizing it. The story doesn’t fully address risk. The implementation path isn’t clear. The internal case for change is underdeveloped.

    In those situations, time stretches because the decision isn’t stable yet.

    Reducing cycle length is less about speeding things up and more about removing ambiguity so the decision can hold.

    “We’re doing a lot of marketing, but it’s not moving the business”

    This is where frustration tends to peak.

    There’s visible activity. Campaigns are running. Content is being produced. Tools are in place. On paper, it looks like a functioning marketing program.

    And yet, progress feels inconsistent.

    The instinct at this point is usually to add more. More channels, more output, more experimentation. Occasionally that works. More often, it compounds the problem.

    Because what’s missing isn’t effort. It’s clarity on which parts of the system actually drive outcomes.

    Without that, marketing becomes a collection of reasonable actions that don’t quite add up. Each piece makes sense on its own. Together, they don’t produce momentum.

    The organizations that break out of this pattern tend to do something that doesn’t look particularly sophisticated from the outside.

    They reduce.

    They focus on a smaller number of priorities that directly influence pipeline and revenue. They sequence work more deliberately. They stop doing things that are directionally good but operationally distracting.

    From the outside, it can look like less marketing.

    Inside the system, it feels like traction.

    There’s no shortage of known challenges in B2B marketing. Most teams can list them without much effort.

    What’s less common is diagnosing where those challenges are actually coming from.

    When problems are treated in isolation, solutions stay tactical. They address symptoms without changing how the system behaves. When they’re understood structurally, the work shifts. Fewer changes, but more deliberate ones. Clearer priorities. Effort that compounds instead of resetting every quarter.

    That shift is quieter than launching a new campaign.

    It’s also what tends to move things forward in a way that holds up.

  • Why Hiring More Salespeople Isn’t the Solution to Your Growth Challenges

    Why Hiring More Salespeople Isn’t the Solution to Your Growth Challenges

    I’m going to start blog posts with a TL;DR for a while because – let’s be honest – none of us read the whole thing anyway. Consider this a shortcut to asking ChatGPT to summarize it for you.

    The Collaborative TL;DR:

    • Hiring more salespeople doesn’t always mean more revenue. Without efficient systems to support their efforts, it just means more overhead.
    • Companies too often underinvest in marketing and process optimization, leading to inefficient sales efforts and lower profitability.
    • Common inefficiencies include a lack of automation, weak product-market fit, and disconnected product/marketing/sales strategies.
    • Streamlining growth through better processes, automation, and strategic marketing support leads to higher profitability without bloated costs.

    Startups love hiring salespeople. Growth-focused companies in general love hiring salespeople. More salespeople means more money, right?

    Not necessarily. Without the right support and processes in place, hiring more salespeople is like adding more passengers to a sinking ship and hoping it will float.

    As Jim put it: “Our CEO just doubled the sales team to ‘increase revenue.’ Problem is, we have no lead gen strategy. Now we just have twice as many people fighting over the same bad leads.”

    I love salespeople: you can’t be a growth-focused marketer without them (easily). But we should talk about why more salespeople won’t solve your growth problems — and why profitability comes from process, not just people.

    The Sales-Heavy Growth Trap

    When revenue starts stalling, many companies default to hiring more sales reps. The logic is simple: more salespeople = more deals closed = higher revenue.

    Except that’s not how it works. Sales doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Without proper marketing, your team is working harder, not smarter.

    • No lead generation strategy? You’re hiring reps with no pipeline to sell into. They’re cold calling their friends to look busy. (Hello, wasted salaries.)
    • No automation and a mediocre CRM? Your reps are spending hours on admin work instead of selling.
    • No marketing support? Your sales team is making up messaging on the fly and designing (frankly) appalling material on their own, leading to inconsistent positioning, conflicting pricing, low brand value and lost deals.
    • No product-market fit? Yeah, you can sell to that one big client – once. The rest of their industry still isn’t interested. You’re just scaling inefficiency and burning through cash.

    It’s not that sales doesn’t matter! It does. (Again, I love salespeople.) But profitable growth means scaling sales intelligently. Empower your sales people and power your profit.

    Process First, People Second

    Before you grow your sales team, ask yourself: Are we growing profitably, or just growing? Here’s what we hear from the market, over and over and over again.

    Automation Saves More Than Hiring

    “We finally invested in AI tools for lead scoring and follow-ups. Turns out, we didn’t need 10 more sales reps. We just needed better systems.” – Sarah

    Sales & Marketing Need to Talk

    “Our sales team was complaining about low conversion rates. Turns out, our messaging was totally misaligned with what our customers actually needed.” – Mark

    Product-Market Fit Isn’t a Given

    “Our founders assumed we had product-market fit. But when we actually talked to customers, we realized we were selling the wrong value props entirely.” – Alex from a startup forum

    Profitable Growth = Smart Growth

    If your company is struggling to balance growth and profitability, don’t start with hiring. Start with efficiency.

    • Audit your sales and marketing process before you add headcount.
    • Automate what can be automated so your team can focus on closing deals, not manual work.
    • Make sure your product positioning is aligned with actual customer needs – and you’re chasing the right customers.

    More salespeople won’t fix a broken system. But better processes will make the salespeople you already have exponentially more effective.