Apollo.io’s Kim Walsh on Unlocking the Best Buyer Experience

Protect the Hustle | A SaaS Podcast

Today's guest is Kim Walsh. She heads up Sales, Partnerships, and Customer Success over at Apollo.io. As an early member of HubSpot and her continued journey through sales and growth, she’s learned valuable lessons in the world of B2B SaaS. In our interview with her and Patrick Campbell recorded at SaaStr in 2022, Kim discusses a number of topics that will make you a better operator like hiring tips, effective product-led growth, and much more.

High Level Overview

• Put the customer first, as it should be the core of all go-to-market activities, from sales to onboarding and customer success
• Consider sponsoring international talent for an H1B visa, as it can be a great way to bring in diverse talent early on.
• Figure out the percentage of revenue that comes from the three buckets of self-serve, sales assist, and rep-driven business.
• Monitor the self-serve metrics, such as weekly and daily active users, and percentage of people hitting the Aha Moment.
• Make sure that the self-serve bucket is growing faster than all other buckets in order to ensure success.

Product-Led Growth: The Kim Walsh Method

Product-Led Growth (PLG) is a go-to-market strategy used by many software businesses to acquire, engage, and retain customers. This strategy involves focusing on customer experience and product usage as the primary driver of growth and success. Implementing a PLG strategy requires an understanding of customer needs, a comprehensive understanding of the product, and an understanding of how to create a customer-centric approach to marketing.

• Understand Your Customer Needs: The first step in implementing a PLG strategy is to understand the needs of your customers. It is essential to have an understanding of the customer's journey, what they need, and what they expect from your product. This will enable you to create a product and customer experience that meets their needs.
• Know Your Product: Having a comprehensive understanding of your product is essential for effective PLG. This includes understanding the features and benefits of the product, the user interface, and how it can be used to solve customer problems.
• Focus on Customer Experience: PLG is all about creating a customer-centric approach to marketing. This means focusing on customer experience, rather than just pushing products. It involves understanding customer needs, creating an engaging product, and delivering an excellent customer experience.
• Utilize Data and Analytics: Data and analytics are essential for understanding customer behavior and product usage. Utilizing data and analytics will enable you to gain insights into customer behavior and usage, which can be used to optimize your product and customer experience.
• Invest in Self-Serve: Self-serve is a key component of PLG. Investing in self-serve tools, such as chatbots and Al, will enable customers to find answers to their questions quickly and easily. This will enable customers to have a more positive experience with your product.

By understanding customer needs, knowing your product, focusing on customer experience, utilizing data and analytics, and investing in self-serve, you can effectively implement a product-led growth strategy. This strategy can help you acquire, engage, and retain customers, leading to long-term success.

Further Learnings

You can learn more from Kim Walsh on LinkedIn as well as Twitter.

This is a Paddle Studios production—dedicated to helping you build better SaaS