How We Got There: Sienna Quirk, Head of Marketing at Thread and general Salesforce ISV expert
How We Got ThereShow Notes
Sienna Quirk has worked on GTM motions and product marketing for at least 30 Salesforce apps, probably many more. On this episode of How We Got There, we speak with the Head of Marketing at Thread about all things Salesforce ecosystem for ISVs.
Sienna’s underinvested recommendation for ISVs is not getting more mileage out of product releases - it can be a strong demand gen engine. “A solid go-to-market strategy for your release, whether that be your quarterly release, whether that be a new product release, it can be a super big opportunity to re-engage with current customers, to reach out to prospects and showcase your product roadmap and show them your innovation.” It can also help answer that question of “build, buy, or partner” in a vibe-code/Claudeforce world where anything is easy to build that looks pretty good, but isn’t enterprise ready.
We talk about event strategy across having a booth by leveraging it as an opportunity to play around with your pitch/better together story as well as if you don’t have a booth and ideas you can bring to Dreamforce next week.
On a personal note, I am proud to have worked with Sienna at 3 different companies now and consider her a friend. She taught me the concept of product marketing and its importance is consistently overlooked by CROs, sales leaders, and partnership leaders. Her deliverable of creating the Messaging Exercise helped at least 20 ISVs refine their positioning in the Salesforce ecosystem, I think it was the single most impactful deliverable we completed for clients.
This episode is brought to you by ISV Accelerators. ISV Accelerators is your inside guide to co-selling with Salesforce: activating the right reps, accelerating real pipeline, uncovering new revenue, and closing more deals together. Senior alliances leadership without the cost of a full-time hire, and speed to answers on whether that hire is even worth making. See what your Salesforce partnership could really do.
#salesforce #isv #gtm #salesforcepartners #appexchange
More from How We Got There
What worked 18 months ago in the GTM org, doesn’t work any longer. Christina Scarmeas joined the How We Got There podcast for a fun and impactful discussion about Marketing in the Salesforce ecosystem. Christina is the CMO of Mogli for the last 4+ years after 4+ years as a marketing leader at Fonteva, another Salesforce partner. As a leading provider of texting on the Salesforce platform, Mogli thinks a lot about the buyer’s journey. Christina has worked with the team to suspend their long held beliefs on how to effectively market in the Salesforce ecosystem, on things as foundational as gating content to drive MQLs and moving more toward focusing on the buying group’s behavior. We talk about how she navigated organizational buy-in as the focus shifted away from vanity metrics to actual pipeline creation/closing, redesigning their playbook. Christina shares how organic and paid search has ebbed and flowed as they have refined their team, skills, and methodologies. As an example, they tried paid search again in the last 12 months….and it’s working well so they are leaning into it. On the flip side, the AppExchange Marketing Program used to work really well but they have greatly reduced their budget on it since results had softened. We touch on the role of LLMs, reddit (shoutout to the fickle world that is r/salesforce), and the AgentExchange/AppExchange in being present where the buying committee is. Inbound leads continue to be the strongest source, but we all know those leads are influenced by everything from events to partnerships to content to industry verticals and beyond. Mogli sees inbound conversion from initial conversation with the BDR team to opportunity at a rate of 80% and almost half of the initial conversations eventually move to a close won deal. Incredible conversion rates. Before wrapping up, we touch on ICP & Partnerships. If you are responsible for the top of the funnel, this episode is for you. This episode is brought to you by ISV Accelerators. ISV Accelerators is your inside guide to co-selling with Salesforce: activating the right reps, accelerating real pipeline, uncovering new revenue, and closing more deals together. Senior alliances leadership without the cost of a full-time hire, and speed to answers on whether that hire is even worth making. See what your Salesforce partnership could really do.
You’ve gotta be boots on the ground, doing it yourself first before you build out a team to help you sell. He needed to be the one selling, partnering, and figuring out the messaging before scaling the team.
Heather asks and helps answer “How do you create a point of view about your solution in a way that will talk to Salesforce about how it works together for that specific customer?” For ISVs so they can take a strong point of view about a specific customer vs. approaching with just questions. “It’s easier to find this information than it’s ever been. Don’t be lazy and use the tools and you will have much better conversations.” This episode of How We Got There features a conversation with Heather Mason, Founder of ISV Accelerators. Heather brings their clients her knowledge forged by experiences at an ISV (Insight Squared) and Salesforce themselves, 5.5 years at each company. Her company works with “high potential” Salesforce partners to assist their GTM motions in the ecosystem - Salesforce, other ISVs, and SIs - so the ISV can help make it easier for the customer to buy the solution. We talked a bit about the challenges her team faced at Salesforce within her focus on the Pharma vertical, which had a strong publicly traded OEM of Salesforce in Veeva to contend/cooperate with and the new-normal of fewer people at Salesforce focused on ISVs. Partners need to adapt to how Salesforce is changing their selling motion, aligning to Salesforce AEs with modern better together messaging. The challenge is Salesforce is still figuring it (it being Agentforce) out too. Heather shares insights around traffic on the AppExchange listing by most common personas and what it means to ISVs through the lens of who buys their solution. At the level, the Salesforce sales team aligned to a specific account can be over 20 people but at the SMB level it might just be an AE and their RVP, who will be VERY hands on with the deal alongside their AE. We touch on big strategy but also tactics around things like when is the right moment to reach out to the Salesforce account team in an opportunity cycle. It all starts with you having a unique value to share and if you do, you should expect an 85% positive response rate. If you are lower than that, I would challenge you to harden your messaging. Heather loves to connect with people in the ecosystem and takes pride in making herself available to meeting new people. I learned a ton from my conversation with Heather and am grateful she is actively helping ISVs and OEMs in the ecosystem. Connect with Heather at the Arcadia leadership experience in Montana run by the Yarboroughs. This episode is brought to you by ISVApp. ISVapp the usage analytics platform built specifically for Salesforce ISV and OEM applications. ISVapp is your central toolbox for reducing churn, increasing renewals, uncovering upsell opportunities, and closing more deals. #salesforce #isv #gtm #salesforcepartners #appexchange
This episode of the How We Got There podcast features a conversation with Mark Rutledge, Chief Storyteller | Global ISV Partner Solutions at Salesforce. The builder advocacy program that he works on is one that every ISV should learn about and explore if they might be a fit for working with them. Fun fact - I worked with Mark Rutledge when he as a client of my former business, GTM Guides, while he was building on the Salesforce platform for at Moody’s. Thanks to Codescience (now Bridgenext) for bringing us together.
I got introduced to Jeff Freund, Founder & CEO of Akoonu, a number of years ago and I finally got to hear his full story on How We Got There earlier this year. Jeff has been in the ecosystem in 2003 and founded the business in 2014 as a native Salesforce app to solve b2b sales - inspecting pipeline and then forecasting.