In this interview, Akeel Jabber talks with sales and SaaS expert John Golden about how his company achieved product‑market fit and built a sustainable go‑to‑market (GTM) engine. Golden explains that instead of chasing early funding and large ad spend, they pursued a product‑led growth model, investing heavily in making their CRM the best tool for sales teams and using content‑marketing and education to attract early adopters. He stresses the importance of deeply understanding the ideal buyer, narrowing the target market, and continuously iterating the product with monthly releases and embedded sales enablement content. The conversation also covers sales methodology, with Golden endorsing SPIN Selling as a timeless framework for asking good questions, while adding that modern reps must also be researchers and micro‑marketers. Retention is driven by personalized, ongoing engagement with all customers, regardless of size, contrasting with the tiered attention of larger competitors. Golden highlights the critical role of mindset, advocating a service‑first attitude, mental resilience, and a sense of higher purpose (wealth creators and peace producers) for salespeople. He suggests that a strong, service‑oriented mindset helps reps navigate rejection and fosters win‑win relationships, though specific daily priming rituals are left open for discussion.
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That's the initial stages. So when you joined 2016, you know, he— you were kind of building out the product, you were trying to take this out to market. What was kind of your, you know, go-to-market strategy? How did you guys find— at what point did you realize you had product-market fit? And, you know, what were the practices maybe you and your sales team were able to kind of find your ideal customers in that early stages?
Yeah, so one of the things that we did is that we're not your typical company. We don't do things in the typical way as a lot of other SaaS companies or startups who would have gone out and, you know, tried to get Series A capital and then dumped a ton of money into marketing, into Google Ads and all that good stuff. And that's kind of traditionally what people have done. Instead, we took the opposite approach, in fact, in many ways, is that we focused very much on the product itself. And we poured all of our time and resources and energy into making the product be the best product that it could possibly be. Again, to empower salespeople to be successful and companies to be successful. So So we took a very kind of, if you like, a steady approach of focusing on the product and then going out to market with mainly a content marketing and educational approach. And that's how we started to attract in initial customers, because people could see the difference in the CRM and the difference in our approach, in that we were really heavily invested in improving improving sales performance and helping professionalize sales and really supporting what we see as one of the most critical audiences out there of salespeople. Because let's face it, sales is your interface with the market in general. So you can have all the fancy marketing slogans and everything in the world and strategies, but at the end of the day, most customers interact with your sales team initially, and that's where they really kind of get the culture of your organization. So yeah, so we focus very heavily on the product, We worked really closely with our customers. We continued to build up the product to where it's the best product it could possibly be, best product on the market. And then through content marketing and other kind of innovative ways, we reached out and found our ideal customers.
Cool. So very kind of product-led growth is kind of what you've been focusing on.
Yep.
Right?
Yep.
So you mentioned you previously worked with that firm. I can't remember the name that developed that SPIN selling—
Pathways.
Pathways. So they developed the SPIN selling method. I've read that book, awesome book that I think everybody should read. It's been a few years since I read it. Do you still believe in that method being still most effective today? Or do you think things have changed? Or do you recommend anything else?
Yeah. No, I mean, I would still recommend people because at the end of the day, the essence of SPIN Selling is asking good questions and listening to the answers and then going deeper. So it's a nice methodology and it's a nice framework for helping you go deeper with with a prospect and really understand their needs and make sure that you're not jumping in on the first thing that a prospect mentions and trying to solve that problem because that may not be a problem that they care to solve or has any urgency around it. So I would highly recommend people doing that. I also think that you can really stand out today as a salesperson if you have good questioning techniques, if you have good research techniques. So I think today's successful salesperson is part researcher, part micro marketer. And then business acumen is a huge part of it. And then being able to ask really good questions. And I think, and it sounds so simple, and you hear it all the time, people say like, you know, good sales or top salespeople ask really good questions. But it's the truth. They do ask really good questions. And they listen to the answer, because that's the important part. They also listen to the answers. And then they dive down, they dive in a little deeper and expand upon things, etc. And therefore, that becomes a valuable dialogue in itself. And I think that's the important thing, that you actually are creating value from the get-go through the interactions and conversations you're having with the prospect. So yeah, I would highly recommend it. I think obviously times have changed, but I think that fundamental, you know, the more things change, the more some things stay the same.
Right. Yeah, I mean, that's a good word to use, conversation, right? It's not just It's not just 30 minutes of you giving a demo and talking continuously nonstop and not giving people a chance to say anything. Any other kind of unconventional sales tips, strategies maybe you can recommend to our audience? Because you have a lot of SaaS founders maybe are not as experienced on the sales front, but maybe they want to start implementing it or things they can try out themselves.
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the other things is to really kind of identify who your customer is, frankly. And I think that's— and that sounds like kind of trite, but it's not. It's, I think, especially for I think a lot of people, when they're starting off on that, you know, that tends to be like, everybody's my customer because I just want as much business as I can get. I think really narrowing down and understanding who your buyer is is incredibly important.
Yeah, I agree with that 100%. Minimizing kind of customer turnover, churn, I think is obviously essential for any SaaS company, right? It's the way you're going to scale. And then obviously any customer success team. How are you guys managing retention in this super competitive space, especially when you're competing with some of the big names, right? Like HubSpot, Salesforce, and many others.
Yeah, and I think that's a good question, but it's funny. It's like, yeah, we're competing with a lot of big guys, but often that's their Achilles heel in many ways because we get customer retention because we really engage with our customers. We try to make them successful. We stay in contact with them. We're constantly improving the product that they get. I mean, we do monthly releases. Releases of enhancements and new features and stuff. So we're constantly bringing new things to our customers. We engage with them, we provide them with, as I said, through SalesPOP, we provide them with a lot of fantastic content to help them and their salespeople. It's even embedded in the platform. So I think that it's like, in many ways, it's like the big companies are set up in such a way as there's a real hierarchy there. I mean, if you're a huge customer, you get attention. If you're a mid-sized customer, you get a bit of attention. If you're a smaller customer, you don't get any attention. We give attention to everybody, and I think that's the difference. I think it's really, at the end of the day, it's the product and the people. That's what I always say. It's like pipeline of the product and pipeline of the people. The way that we engage and work with customers is what retains them, and then the product drives— and they realize, yeah, this is the product that our salespeople will use, so they get the ROI, they get the adoption. So that's how we drive retention.
Anything to share on that kind of— so you're talking about you engage your customers, you speak to them. You see a lot of people, they'll probably have like an onboarding cycle. Maybe the first 30 days you'll get a couple of emails, hey, let's schedule a call, we want to help you, and you don't hear from them after that, right? Do you guys have anything else that you guys are continuously talking to your customers?
Yeah, no, we are. And we have an onboarding process, we have an implementation process, and then we will engage with them after that on a fairly regular basis. And also then we obviously have services we offer to them. But yeah, it's about ongoing communication and making sure that, uh, making sure that the customers are getting the value out of the product.
Got it. So you're a strong advocate when it comes to sales on really focusing on mindset first. Um, you have the— I think I read this— positively influencing the mindset of salespeople and reminding them of their higher purpose to be, which is wealth creators and peace producer. Can you share exactly what that vision means to you and why is it important to focus on the mindset first? of your team if you're a sales manager or leader?
Yeah, because I think mindset will carry you through a lot. And I think that people don't pay enough attention to their own mindset. Because if you're going to be in sales, obviously you're going to face a lot of obstacles, a lot of rejection, a lot of other stuff like this. So you have to be mentally quite strong. So I think mindset is incredibly important. And I think if you come from a service mindset, then it's not just for sales, but for the whole company. If you come from a mindset of, okay, how can I help this person? How can I help this company? How can I provide a solution that's going to benefit them? And you put yourself in a service mindset. I think that's incredibly, incredibly important. And that will carry you through a lot because if you're coming at the point of view that I'm trying to help somebody, it's a lot easier to navigate the bumps in the road than if you're just coming at it from the point of view of how can I close how can I close this deal? So I think that is incredibly important. And then I think the other thing is also to help salespeople have pride in what they do, because the reality is that they are the ones who help to facilitate commerce and trade. Because when we're talking about selling and buying, I mean, it's trading. And you can't— basically, if I'm going to trade with you, it's not going to work out very well if we're fighting with each other, right? Is it? So I mean, it's much better that if we develop a mutual respect and a win-win situation, etc., then we have created a great environment. But we've also helped to spread to the community as well, because when people are trading, when people are doing well, I mean, they're not fighting. And as we see in the world today, what happens when the opposite happens?
That's true. Do you have any way or suggestions on how to prime kind of your mindset? Is it like at the beginning of the day, you're getting them into some meditation technique? Are they reading some kind of mantra? Are they jumping up and down doing exercises and push-ups? Are they reading sales scripts? What gets them pumped? What gets them in the mindset?
And I think that's somewhat individual to people. But however, what I would say is what you shouldn't start your day with, right? And I think that's a problem with the world today is like, what do most people do when they wake up in the morning? They jump on their phone. They probably look at some, whatever news site best reflects their their political point of view, they jump on that. And let's face it, news is now designed— is not designed to inform, it's designed to provoke, right? So you start off the day, you know, you're already kind of like probably a little bit annoyed by some of the things you read. Maybe you go on social media then, and then you get into the whole comparison thing, and you think, oh my goodness, like, you know, Akeel seems to have— what a great life he's having, and my life sucks right now because I'm— So already now you've started your day with a bunch of negative inputs into your brain, right? So what I would encourage people to do is to look at how you start your day, to look at what inputs do you allow into your mind. And especially as a salesperson, I mean, if you're going to be prospecting or whatever, you don't need negativity in your mind. You need extreme positivity. So I would say find something in the morning. Is there music that uplifts you? Is there exercise that pumps you up? Is there somebody that maybe you're better off talking to? Maybe your partner, your spouse, whatever, somebody who can pump you up. But try and pay attention to how you start your day and what frame of mind you start in and really pay attention to getting yourself in a positive frame of mind and shutting out the negative influences. So just like you wouldn't— most people, I would say, you wouldn't start your day with cake and ice cream for breakfast, right? I mean, maybe some people do, but generally speaking, you wouldn't. So why would you start your day with mental cake and ice cream?
