Dave Gerhardt

Hey I'm Dave Gerhardt. I created Exit Five, which has turned into the top community for B2B marketing professionals. Before starting Exit Five I had a 10 year career in marketing and grew from PR intern to CMO. I even once had hair! My wife says I'm more handsome now though, and she's quite pretty so that means a lot -- but the internet just boxes me in as the typical bald guy tech bro. So oh look, another bald tech guy writing on LinkedIn! whoopty freaking do.

Anyway. Where was I... OH. Receipts! I wanted to talk about receipts, because in a world of fluff and online influencers, I actually have some receipts and I want to tell you about them here because it signals power, credibility, and makes it seem like I'm super rich, so: I used to be pretty good at marketing, and my work as a marketer played a key role (at least I think so) in helping two software companies to successful exits: Drift for $1B+ and Privy for $100M+. I certainly helped the founders make a bunch of money, and I was able to comfortably purchase a brand new Toyota Sienna minivan for my family in 2021.

Today I spend my time working on Exit Five, and it's actually been super fun and given me a bunch of purpose. We're a team of six full-time team members now, and we have a private online community and host in-person events around the world. Plus there's a popular podcast and newsletter for marketers. We reach something like 20 MILLION marketers with our content every year, and we've got a pretty special thing going on. I hope to keep it going. You can learn more about it all at exitfive.com.

I spent most of my life in the Boston area but now live in the woods in Vermont with my wife, two kids, two cats, and one dog.

You can reach me at dave@exitfive.com if you want, but TBD if I reply. Depends on the message. But please don't send me any more swag or books. But if for whatever reason you do want to send me something, I play the ProV1x golf ball and like the low numbers.

PS. Find my podcast “The Dave Gerhardt Show” on Spotify

Founder & CEO

Exit Five is a media company focused on B2B marketing. We help B2B marketers build successful careers through our content and community. Learn more at exitfive.com

We polled ~100 CMOs at companies $50M - $500M+ ARR on what their top marketing challenges are right now. Here are the top takeaways.

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1. AI. No surprise. 85% said AI adoption is # 1 priority for 2026.

But this goes beyond the cute use cases you see on LinkedIn and from the AI creators showing you all the new things to do with the new tools.

"I need practical use cases and quick wins to show” - VPM $25M ARR

“We are expected to be using AI to scale marketing  efficiently” - VPM $30M ARR

“We are under pressure to demonstrate hard savings and additional value created via AI adoption.” - CMO $450M ARR

“Wondering am I moving fast enough on AI transformation — not just adopting tools, but truly rethinking how marketing works from the ground up.” - CMO $600M ARR

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2. Everyone said some version of this: "We need to grow more, spend less, & prove marketing did it.”

Grow more. Spend less. And PROVE that marketing did it. That is the key word there.

They all talked about revenue growth, but the framing has evolved beyond "drive more MQLs."

The dominant language was:

• Marketing-sourced and marketing-influenced pipeline (not just leads)
• Pipeline quality over volume
• Tying marketing to ACV expansion and retention, not just new logos

“We ned to tie marketing more directly to revenue outcomes — not just MQLs, but marketing-sourced and marketing-influenced pipeline, ACV growth, and expansion revenue” - VPM $85M ARR

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3. The other repeat topics we heard included:

• Team too small for scope of work
• Feeling  caught between strategic work (positioning, GTM, C-suite influence) and heavy day-to-day execution
• Structural misalignment after acquisition or reorg
• AI search disruption
• Moving upmarket
• Moving from single product to multi-product

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PS. We run a private group for in-house B2B marketing leaders. If you're running the marketing team at a company doing $50M+ ARR you should check this group out. Apply here:

exitfive.com/cmo-council

LinkedIn is the number one channel for B2B marketers (for content, social, ads, you know we love it here) so I had LinkedIn VP Marketing Davang Shah on the podcast this week to go right to the source about what's working, what's not, and trends across the platform.

We covered: 

- What actually works with LinkedIn ads right now
- Brand vs performance marketing strategies and how they differ
- How to think about measurement beyond last-click attribution on ads
- Why 95% of your buyers aren't in market at any given time and what to do about it

Davang also shares the data behind thought leader ads, what most marketers get wrong about the buyer journey, and how he's leading his own team through the AI shift at LinkedIn.

Listen here:

https://lnkd.in/erc8w2vM

PS. Did you know the average B2B deal takes 211 days and involves 22 people?

Collin Cadmus

I'm Collin Cadmus, a lifelong Salesperson, 5x Sales & Marketing Leader, CRO, VP Sales, and industry thought leader. I've hired and trained over 300 B2B Salespeople, generating over $100M in recurring revenue and over $300M in exits. 

With over 10 years of experience building and scaling SaaS sales teams, I now serve as a Consultant, Strategic Advisor, and Sales Coach to top SaaS companies around the world. 

Stats:
Aircall → Valued at $1.1B
Doctor.com → Acquired for $150M+
SinglePlatform → Acquired for $100M

Links:
collincadmus.com
youtube.com/@collin-cadmus
x.com/collincadmus
instagram.com/collincadmus
tiktok.com/@collincadmus

Advisor

Goodbye spreadsheets, hello Spiff. With Spiff your commissions are automatically calculated in real time, displayed on beautiful dashboards, and integrated with your CRM. I would’ve saved countless hours as a VP Sales with this incredible new tool. Every sales org needs this.

I'm coaching 3 CEOs who fired their VP Sales at the start of Q1.

I've had the same conversation with each of them and diagnosed them all with what I'm calling Product Value Denial (PVD).

Product Value Denial is when a founder believes their product is exponentially more valuable than their customers or prospects think it is.

They focus their attention on the few happy customers they have and utilize this to reassure themselves their product is excellent.

They think... we just need more of those customers! They must exist!

They ignore all prospects and customers who dislike their product.

They believe "I am right and they are wrong".

This level of denial is a delusion.

The outcome for these 3 companies, unfortunately has been continued decline in revenue after letting go of their VP Sales.

The internal conflict has grown substantially because it turns out the VPs were actually making a bad situation better, to the extent they could.

If you're struggling to hit your sales targets, I implore you to be brutally honest with yourself and USE DATA to determine what's actually wrong.

The data I'm referring to is not your sales and revenue report... it's your churn reasons and lost deal reasons.

Those data points will always tell you why you're missing your revenue target.

The WHY is far more important than the WHAT.

If your product isn't amazing... stop blaming salespeople and leaders.

You can't fix a weak product with a strong sales leader.

One doesn't compensate for the other.

5x Sales Leader / 2 Exits / VP Sales / CRO / Consultant / Advisor / Coach / collincadmus.com

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