2024 Wrapped → The Signal
Top Posts (+ summaries) from this past year
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Happy New Year, y’all!
Before we jump in, I wanted to give a quick thank you to Sahil Mansuri, CEO of Bravado, for sharing such kind props for the consulting work I’ve been doing with him and his sales team at Bravado. Thank you, legend. Means a ton.
(PS - check out Bravado → the largest community for sales professionals #notsponsored)
Okay, this week, I wanted to look back on my year writing The Signal and reflect on some of the major trends I explored.
It’s been a great year of growth, and excited to go harder in 2025.
(In the spirit of transparency: I thought this post would be a sneaky way to get something shipped without putting in much work, as I ease back into being offline for a couple of weeks. But… this post has taken many hours to put together, so, I hope a few of you get value out of it!)
My goal with The Signal is to “learn in public” about what is working in the modern go-to-market motion. Things are changing so fast. And I think it will accelerate in 2025 (yes, because of AI).
At this point, it’s clear that the old playbook (RIP Predictable Playbook) is dead dying. But, what will replace it?
That’s the open question that I’m exploring with The Signal (and trying my best to separate the signal from the noise along the way).
Looking back on 2024, I see a few major trends:
The old playbook isn’t working like it used to
There are some new motions emerging (but the playbooks aren’t established yet)
AI/automation is key, but it’s still very early
There are more gtm tech companies than ever before and it’s hard to navigate how to build a world-class tech stack (I’m working on a little project to help here)
Alright, enough with the appetizers, here is the main course—the meat and potatoes (or… the tofu and kale, if you prefer): let’s take a look at the top posts from last year.
2024 Wrapped → The Signal
The Signal published 22 newsletters in 2024.
My goal is to double that this year. I’m betting big on the thesis that in the AI-era, attention will become an even scarcer resource, and thus, even more valuable.
And, if nothing else, I deeply believe that writing forces clear thinking, so I can’t lose by publishing again this year. :)
#5 The New Playbook for Pipeline Generation is Emerging
In January, I outlined 14 “arrows in the quiver” for B2B SaaS GTM teams to leverage. There are some nascent ones in this list, several with little to no established playbook, and at least one that I think is still highly underrated.
My precursor post, The "Predictable Revenue" Playbook is Dead; RIP (2011-2023), outlines a problem that 63% of people in SaaS companies agree on — companies experienced “significant challenges” in generating pipeline in 2023.
But, as one of my colleagues told me at my first real start-up job, “come to me with solutions, not problems” (shout-out, Izzy). So, I wrote a post with the things that are working to generate pipeline.
Read the full post to see which motions might be relevant in 2025. (Side note: maybe I should do a lookback at these “predictions” and score if they panned out or not…)
#4 How to automate signal-based selling
I first started talking about “signal-based selling” towards the end of my journey building Groundswell. And, it has caught a lot of steam since then, which has been fun to see (wish I could have made money off coining the term lol).
Some observations since then:
I think signal-based selling is the smartest and most efficient way to go to market today.
The tools (infrastructure) to support signal-based selling are not great still (but getting much better).
I predict by the end of 2025, there will be at least a dozen tools that will really enable signal-based selling (eg: Pocus, CommonRoom, Koala, Unify, and even Apollo and Zoominfo). Also, tools like Clay will continue to get adopted, and people will “DIY” their own signal-based selling platforms. When this happens, there will be a lot less alpha in doing signal-based selling. But, you’ll still want to do it instead of cold outbound (warm=signal-based and warm>cold). What happens after that? Well, that’s the billion-dollar question. :) (Personally, I’m still waiting for someone to truly build the “System of Intelligence”).
#3 7 Ways to Generate Pipeline (in Q4 of 2024)
Here’s what I’m seeing work in the last 90 days (things are changing incredibly fast) -
Warm Outbound
Signal-Based Selling
Micro-Campaigns
Automated Outbound at Scale
Cold Calling
Founder/Exec Brand
Return to Rigor
Peep the full article for more context/reasoning on each of these.
#2 The Rise of the GTM Engineer
This one is causing a stir on LinkedIn right now. It’s the new “Is cold calling dead?” People are scared of change. And are quick to suggest that a new term is “how we’ve always done it.” I saw this in PLG and with signal-based selling. In my (strong, but humble) opinion, this is wrong.
The “jobs-to-be-done” in a GTM org are different than they were three years ago. Here’s why:
The buying cycle is more complex than ever before
Teams are leaner and automation is now required
New tools have popped up and are janky to use
AI is a massive lever/opportunity
I don’t think RevOps will be building pipeline in 2025. And I don’t think SDRs are equipped to do these things. So, I believe a new role will emerge. Maybe the title won’t stick as “GTM Engineer.” But, the role is something new.
If this topic is interesting, read the the full post (or skip it if you’re over the debate and not buying the argument that there should be a new job role for this stuff, my feelings won’t get hurt!).
#1 "Micro-Campaigns"
This is a new motion that is emerging that goes completely against spray-and-pray. Instead, it leverages AI to focus on quality over quantity.
I saw this motion quietly, but quickly, become one of the most important ways of generating pipeline in 2024. And, I think it has staying power (and beyond signal-based selling). Because it’s unique for every company. Even different segments within a single company. It’s ever-evolving. And there is not one single tool that enables this motion. It requires someone creative and strategic to come up with the ideas, and someone (maybe the same person, maybe a different person) to build and execute these plays (aka “micro-campaigns”).
When done right, it’s magic.
Oh, I should define a micro-campaign:
Small, highly-targeted lists of, say, 50-250 contacts.
These lists are generated using *very* specific filtering and/or signals (usually using AI/agents at least for certain parts).
Each list (aka "micro-campaign") is relevant this week, but won't be next month.
I’ll end by sharing an example.
A company wants to sell recruiting services. So, they scrape for several “rich" data points (these are things outside of basic data like number of employees, location, industry, etc.). That might be things like funding (waterfalled from several sources) + SaaS (identified by training a custom ai agent) + year founded (older companies aren’t as good of a fit) + presence of a particular title at the company. Then, layer on signals - in this case, whether a person at the company has engaged with a marketing email from the company in the last 30 days (then, run that through ICP + Buyer Persona enrichment and filter out companies/people that aren’t a fit).
From there, you can automate pushing the contacts to the CRM and SEP with a very specific message (generated by AI, or not).
Then, the final, and most important piece, is whether they have an open job rec they’ve put up in the last 5 days.
This engine can run, 24/7. And constantly scan for these signals and ensure the enrichments are done to find good fits. Sending a low volume of highly-targeting messages that convert 10x better than blind spray-and-pray.
Runner-ups
I could only pick the top five posts from 2024. But, there are a bunch of fun reads I want to highlight (icymi) - so you can add even more things to your New Year’s resolutions’ reading list.
Prompts are the New Code → The space between idea to execution is shrinking
Should You Buy an AI SDR? → Simple 2x2 matrix to decide
Why Most People Will Build Their Own AI Coworkers This Year → I am doubling down on this prediction in 2025
Outbound Email's Rise in Volume is Unsustainable → Self-explanatory (but I made charts with AI so go look at them)
Skeuomorphic Design Thinking Limits the Potential of AI GTM Tools → Fancy, big word, but I really believe it to be true (it’ll be obvious in hindsight)
Will AI Destroy Outbound? → I hope not, but we have to be smart in how we use it (don’t blame the tool, blame the user of the tool)
What happens to the SDR role in the AI era? → Still relevant today, and I think this role will change a lot due to ai and automation
Sponsored deep dive posts
I got the chance to interview the CEOs of a few incredible companies and go deep on what they’re building and what I find interesting about them. And they paid me to write these, which I’m incredibly grateful for, and take seriously, as I don’t want to lose the trust of you, my reader - here is the thought process behind these posts, for the ~2 of you interested).
I have several more coming out in the next couple of months that I’m excited to share! Keep an eye out for them in your inbox.
PS: If you want The Signal to do a Deep Dive Post on your company* this year, email me or shoot me a message on LinkedIn (*need to be above $1M ARR and ideally we already have a relationship so I can speak candidly about you/your company).
That’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed skimming through the posts from this year. I’m excited to continue exploring the new gtm playbook with you in 2025.
And, as always, thank you for your attention — it is greatly appreciated.
See you next time,
Brendan 🫡