Strategy & Planning
BSMS 79 - Why you shouldn't hire a marketing agency
The wrong agency can drain your budget, delay real solutions, and create more problems than it solves. Here's how to find the right marketing agency.
Are you actually growing your product, or just stacking signups that never turn into usage?
A lot of teams get stuck there. More registrations feel good, but it’s not the same as real usage, paid adoption, and a pipeline you can trust. And now with AI in the mix, it’s easy to create more activity without getting more signal.
In this episode of B2B SaaS Marketing Snacks, Stijn Hendrikse brings on our first guest, Alex Laventer.
Alex has spent years in growth roles in B2B SaaS, including leading growth at DataStax and now leading go-to-market work on an AI agent product at IBM.
The conversation gets practical fast, what “growth” really means, and how teams split (or combine) growth marketing and product growth.
You’ll walk away with a clearer way to measure growth, how to set up tracking you can rely on, and where AI can help (and where it tends to distract), including lead scoring and workflow automation.
In this episode, you'll learn:
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Why signups mislead growth conversations
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Where teams lose signal without tracking
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How PQLs connect product and marketing
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Perspective on sales assist with PLG
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Example: AI-assisted lead scoring workflows
By the end, you’ll know what to measure, what to ignore, and what to fix next so “growth” stops being a vague label and starts being a real operating system.
Resources shared in this episode:
ABOUT B2B SAAS MARKETING SNACKSSince 2020, The B2B SaaS Marketing Snacks Podcast has offered software company founders, investors and leadership a fresh source of insights into building a complete and efficient engine for growth.
Meet our Marketing Snacks Podcast Hosts:
Meet our Marketing Snacks Podcast Hosts:
- Stijn Hendrikse: Author of T2D3 Masterclass & Book, Founder of Kalungi
As a serial entrepreneur and marketing leader, Stijn has contributed to the success of 20+ startups as a C-level executive, including Chief Revenue Officer of Acumatica, CEO of MightyCall, a SaaS contact center solution, and leading the initial global Go-to-Market for Atera, a B2B SaaS Unicorn. Before focusing on startups, Stijn led global SMB Marketing and B2B Product Marketing for Microsoft’s Office platform. - Brian Graf: CEO of Kalungi
As CEO of Kalungi, Brian provides high-level strategy, tactical execution, and business leadership expertise to drive long-term growth for B2B SaaS. Brian has successfully led clients in all aspects of marketing growth, from positioning and messaging to event support, product announcements, and channel-spend optimizations, generating qualified leads and brand awareness for clients while prioritizing ROI. Before Kalungi, Brian worked in television advertising, specializing in business intelligence and campaign optimization, and earned his MBA at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business with a focus in finance and marketing.