(0:11) Craig: So welcome to the latest episode of Truth, Lies, and B2B Growth. We have a guest today and I'm delighted to be joined by Dave Boyce. Dave, welcome.
(0:21) Dave: Thank you so much, Craig. You mind if we just focus on mostly lies today?
(0:25) Craig: Yeah, that would be a very good start. Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I've got to say, I've got on my screen sort of a list of your kind of focus areas in your profile. And, you know, you helped, what, build and sell seven SaaS businesses.
(0:41) Craig: You're an advisor to a number of scale-ups in the AI space.
(0:44) Craig: Correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points.
(0:46) Dave: Oh, this is correct, yeah.
(0:47) Craig: You're an investor, keynote speaker, a podcaster, exec chairman at Winning by Design.
(0:53) Craig: And I think you just launched a book, haven't you, Freemium?
(0:55) Craig: So I'm kind of thinking, what the hell am I doing with my time? How do you squeeze all that in?
(1:01) Dave: Secret, Craig, is to get old. That's what I've done.
(1:04) Craig: Yeah, well, yeah, tell me about it, yeah.
(1:07) Craig: So I think today it's going to be a really interesting conversation… (complex sales vs SaaS, sophistication, transition old to new).
(1:55) Craig: In 2025… trying to figure out what this new playbook would look like… and as we head into 2026… having to make it work.
(2:20) Craig: …where are we really? You’re across a lot of different companies… where we’re at.
(2:35) Dave: Yeah… all of it's changed. We are all to square zero right now…
(2:59) Dave: …anyone on LinkedIn who claims they have it figured out… probably… lying…
(3:20) Dave: …the ones who are actually succeeding are saying… we’re still experimenting.
(3:36) Dave: Two things… new generation of buyers… and AI changing everything.
(3:53) Dave: …Forrester… 70% of B2B buyers… millennials or Gen Z…
(4:28) Dave: …AI makes researching, comparing, trialing easier… upends selling and education.
(5:20) Craig: Do you think the biggest difference… is the desire to self-serve in the buying process?
(5:30) Dave: I do… self-service has been the trend all along… e-commerce… mobile… B2B SaaS… and now AI makes it easier.
(6:42) Dave: …buyers want to get their hands on it… not take the salesperson’s word for it…
(7:00) Craig: …Forrester also talk about… self-service increasing… buyers are invisible… sellers have lost control…
(7:30) Craig: …talk a little bit about freemium and product led growth…
(7:36) Dave: Freemium… give the base product away for free and charge for upgrades…
(7:47) Craig: …same way I interact with Spotify… Canva…
(7:56) Dave: …B2B: DocuSign, Dropbox, Twilio, Shopify… AI native: ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Mistral…
(8:19) Dave: …lowest friction… get someone into the ecosystem… expand usage and payment profile…
(8:54) Dave: …translate into complex sales… it’s happening there too.
(9:06) Craig: …system integrators… consultancies… reluctant to give away IP… now giving more away… diagnostics, assessments… baby steps…
(9:50) Craig: The role of the website's really changing as well…
(10:00) Dave: …conversion rates from clicks from LLM… higher intent… more traffic from LLMs… what is the website’s job now?
(10:26) Craig: …traffic tank from LLMs… zero click… but when people do reach your website, they’re further down the journey…
(11:10) Craig: …websites just aren't geared up to convert that later stage traffic…
(11:21) Dave: …I cut right over to an LLM… asks competitors, pricing… then I go back to the website when I’m ready…
(11:58) Dave: …how do we feed the LLMs… make sure they have what they need to help customers find us?
(12:05) Craig: AEO and GEO… optimizing for LLMs… tools… profile, how LLMs view your business…
(13:03) Craig: …LLMs, email, LinkedIn resurgence… less about gated content, more about high-intent signals…
(13:30) Dave: …LLMs get info from somewhere… does it come off my website or other sources?
(14:17) Craig: Both… optimize your site for discoverability… but trust comes from cross-references on authoritative sites…
(14:57) Dave: Like review sites?
(14:58) Craig: Yeah, exactly.
(15:31) Dave: …if I’m a marketer at day one… maybe I have catching up to do…
(15:42) Craig: …FOMO is rife…
(15:50) Craig: …how you architect all this… Clay rising… are you operating with Clay and tools like that?
(16:11) Dave: Yeah, for sure… launched agents… Clay + HubSpot + OneMind…
(16:29) Dave: …you gotta have a theory of the case… funnel… but Winning by Design tips it into a bow tie…
(17:40) Dave: …end of prospect journey is start of customer journey… impact, renew, expand… run experiments…
(18:38) Dave: …did it work? only if you measured conversion before/after… instrumentation is key…
(19:31) Craig: I love the bow tie model… advocacy/referrals often don’t exist in most companies…
(19:58) Dave: …open sourced it… basic framework is free to use…
(20:39) Dave: …advocacy loop: activate customers to bring new people into the left side of the bow tie…
(21:28) Craig: Dropbox referral loop… best example?
(21:41) Dave: Great example… but 15 years ago… many advocacy loops… especially in services… content, frameworks, benchmarks…
(23:10) Craig: …asset-based consulting… turning IP into tools…
(23:32) Dave: First principles of PLG: self-service… and generosity… empathy + generosity…
(24:46) Craig: Are they going to call you? Are they going to call me?
(24:48) Dave: They’re going to call me… generous give builds reciprocity…
(25:44) Craig: Hard for corporates to embrace.
(25:47) Dave: Super hard… defensive mindset leads to irrelevance… catch the wave… generosity early…
(26:59) Craig: …right-hand side of the bow tie… untapped area? quick wins?
(27:19) Dave: Indeed… expansion potential untapped… marketing should talk to existing customers too…
(28:22) Dave: …simple analog growth loop: get customers and prospects in the same room… dinner… workshop… they talk… trust loop closes…
(29:34) Craig: CEOs curl up at the thought… it’s their confidence in customer experience… worry customers won’t say nice things…
(29:57) Craig: …they doubt themselves whether their prospects… sorry, their customers are going—
(29:58) Dave: Two responses, I've seen that too. We live in the same world, obviously.
(30:03) Dave: “Oh no, no, I can't get my prospects in the receiving room as customers. They might hear terrible things.”
(30:10) Dave: Number one, then that's a truth… whether you're controlling the interaction or not… those opinions are out there… review sites… peer to peer… so go fix that.
(30:28) Dave: Number two, when we show up as humans… sponsored by our vendor… we don't say bad things about our host.
(30:50) Dave: …it doesn’t really materialize… in your living room… restaurant… club… they’ll tell you the bad things, but not a peer.
(31:09) Craig: It's a mindset shift… I remember the days of user groups… closed groups just for clients…
(31:20) Dave: Those can turn into gripe sessions.
(31:22) Craig: Yeah… hangover from those days… open floor to tell the vendor what you thought…
(31:34) Craig: …don’t hear of many user groups now… celebratory conferences… InBound…
(31:45) Dave: Interesting.
(31:47) Craig: At the top… you said you wanted to focus on some of the lies… we always ask guests… anything you’re hearing that’s complete bullshit?
(32:05) Dave: Two lies… opposite ends. One: “we just got to work harder or do more.” It’s not effort.
(32:20) Dave: …SaaS growth rates half what they were in 2022… paying 60% more per unit of growth… everyone’s trying.
(32:48) Dave: Second lie: “we have it figured out.” Playbooks that got us here will get us there… or we figured out the new playbook… I don’t think so.
(33:03) Dave: …need curiosity… architect a new way… figure it out before competitors…
(33:40) Craig: People will be reassured… making it work requires experimentation… blood, sweat, tears… clients want you to get it right first time…
(34:13) Craig: I recall a panel at Inbound… with AI, do we get to a point where go-to-market is completely automated… removing the human? Maybe in high-volume SaaS… but not complex sales…
(34:48) Dave: Are we de-laboring? Yes… handing tasks off to robots… like manufacturing… people click up… manage lines instead of stations.
(35:21) Dave: In go-to-market… automate the predictable… quotes, contracts… notes, summaries, configurations…
(35:38) Dave: But human element of complex selling won’t go away: fear, confidence, trust, stakeholder management, believability, ROI, internal approval…
(36:08) Dave: Humans click up… humanize the exceptional… robots take mundane predictable stuff.
(36:20) Dave: If I’m good at sales/marketing—hallelujah—strategic work. If you pride yourself on writing quotes… sorry, robot.
(36:46) Craig: And how do you figure that out? Look at the process end-to-end… where AI can step in.
(36:55) Dave: Indeed… map Bowtie data model… instrument stages… define processes inside stages… find robot-able steps… run experiments…
(37:43) Dave: …build a mathematical model… find highest leverage point (e.g., onboarding)… fix leaky funnel/retention… then come back to sourcing…
(38:17) Craig: You’ve got to start with the process, right?
(38:20) Dave: Start with the process, yeah.
(38:23) Craig: Great. I’m going to give you the chance to sum up… CEOs/CMOs listening… what 2–3 pieces of advice as we start the year?
(39:00) Dave: If I’m a CEO… think who in your market is most likely to change the game—probably smaller, nimble… add three years… ChatGPT launched three years ago…
(39:42) Dave: Give your innovative competitor three years… could they be the ChatGPT to your internet? Zoom to your GoToMeeting?
(40:10) Dave: McKinsey Three Horizons 70-20-10… don’t put zero in the 10% breakthrough bucket… carve out team, copy/paste what works… resource your future…
(41:00) Dave: …don’t end up with a perfectly efficient buggy whip factory…
(41:12) Craig: If wholesale change is needed… you need to go all in… people hold onto old models scared of losing revenue… world moves too fast…
(41:35) Dave: First one won’t work… in the 10% there’s failure, iteration… when it works, standardize, plug back in… permanent upgrades…
(41:58) Craig: Nice way to wrap up… where can people learn more?
(42:05) Dave: winningbydesign.com… free Growth Journal… LinkedIn… Substack: productledgtm.com… book Freemium… frameworks to experiment your way to greatness.
(42:47) Craig: I’ll be checking out Freemium… thanks for your time… real pleasure.
(42:55) Dave: Rock on, brother, thank you so much.
(42:58) Craig: Thanks for listening or watching… subscribe or leave a review… see you next time.
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