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

The CEO should put the Product team and Marketing team together. 

In lock step. 

To drive momentum and success for the company. 

I see so much about Sales and Marketing. 

Not enough about Product and Marketing. 

There should be a vision. And a roadmap. And regular launches. Some small. Some big. And this becomes the operating system for the company. 

You can CREATE momentum for your company by doing this. Deadlines drive actions. 

These regular launches give Marketing and Sales regular opportunities to talk to new customers. 

The CEO should be in the middle of this.

PS. If this topic lands with you and you're a CMO: we've been running a super secret group for CMOs / VP Marketing doing $25M+ ARR at Exit Five over the last few months and we're now accepting new members. Community is more important now than ever and it's all about who is in the room. We have curated the right room for you. If you want a peer group like this you can apply for a spot here: tinyurl.com/23h2c5eh

Founder: Exit Five. Community Builder. Former CMO. Building the top community for B2B marketers right now at exitfive.com

I didn't want my team to publish this talk. It was too good. Should have only been for the memory of the people that went to Drive this year.

But I'm also a marketer and understand the power of social media and free content, so fine. 

We published my pal Harry Dry's talk from Drive 2025 yesterday, and if you missed it he gave a masterclass in storytelling.

The long lost art of conflict and emotion in the world of AI, PLEASE GO LISTEN TO THIS MAN.

The first line of this clip says it all "You should know so much about your category you could write a book on it."

You're not creating a category to fit into Gartner or G2. You are creating a category because you are literally inventing a new of way of doing things!

That's the opportunity.

I'll put the recording in the comments (audio only)

Founder: Exit Five. The top community for B2B marketers.

MAN.Digital

- I transitioned from CRO to Customer Delivery Manager in 2023, focusing more on managing and delivering account based marketing and revenue operations projects to our clients.
- Hired revops consultants and shifted focus to revenue operations and ABM only.
- Worked closely with CEO, who took over the CRO role.

##Key Responsibilities & Achievements:

- Managed customer delivery operations, ensuring client satisfaction and long-term business growth.
- Led the implementation of revenue operations and ABM strategies, instrumental in driving revenue and expanding our client base.
- Worked with a diverse range of clients in software development, finance, and B2B SaaS, including Cloudflight, Amsterdam Standard, The Software House, Coface, Pixyle.ai, Data Feed Watch, and Arrow.
- Ensured the delivery of high-quality services, leading to improved client retention and success rates.

##Case Studies & Results:

- Amsterdam Standard: Held a 2-day account-based programs strategy workshop, developed a new process inspired by the Winning By Design SaaS model, and facilitated successful outbound GTMs, including their first webinar which generated an impressive number of leads.

- Pixyle.ai: Implemented a new operational approach, covering revenue operations and sales ops best-case practices, leading to a clear playbook for managing deals and improved analytics tracking with comprehensive reports and dashboards.

- The Software House: Facilitated a comprehensive mapping of TSH's processes, spanning marketing, sales, sales engineering, and customer success. Developed a new process, inspired by the Winning By Design SaaS model, and introduced a fresh outbound playbook.

- Data Feed Watch: Conducted a thorough audit of their HubSpot CRM and technology stack, focusing on the outbound process. Mapped out all the process steps, identifying skill, tech, and process gaps. Leveraged the SPICED framework inspired by Winning By Design to map out a future state process.

Founder & Customer Delivery Manager

How I Wrote My Way to the Top of the Revenue Ladder

A tale of grit, learning, and marketing mastery that led to business success.

## Career Journey & Self-learning
- Transitioned from corporate BDR to marketing enthusiast
- Started as an Affiliate Marketer in 2015, exploring SEO, PPC, Digital Ads, Conversion Rate Optimization, and Analytics for B2C and B2B.
- Found passion in B2B marketing, ABM, and Hubspot, aligning with my previous experience and love for Learning and Development and BD.

## Founding MAN Digital
- Founded MAN Digital, quickly realizing the need for a CEO to help scale the agency.
- Brought Przemek into the team, who has been instrumental in its growth and development.
- Responsibilities extended beyond strategizing client campaigns to bringing in the right partners and employees.

## Key Responsibilities & Achievements
- Managed all pivotal business operations, including sales, marketing, communications, and partnerships.
- Led numerous agency Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and B2B Marketing initiatives, instrumental in revenue generation and expanding our client base.
- Strengthened client relationships, securing long-term business growth.
- Led a team towards shared objectives, with accomplishments reflecting effective team collaboration.

## Some of our Case Studies 2018-2022:

- XPLUS: Resulting in over 1500 leads 
- Postis: Implemented a custom Revenue Ops Tech Stack,
- Neoteric: Increased sales pipeline value by €500K,
- Divante: Implemented an ABM strategy, closing 30% more deals.
- itCraft: Achieved a 600% increase in organic traffic and tripled their leads, transforming their marketing strategy for maximum impact.
- SmartDreamers: Increased their qualified leads rate by 80% 
- Skyrise.tech: Generated 58 high-value B2B leads in just 3 months using Account-Based Marketing.
- FintechOS: Optimized their HubSpot usage, 

Running weekly and monthly webinars on B2B Marketing, Branding, Account-Based Programs, and More. Learn more 👇

Chief Revenue Officer

adplist.org

Mentor

Pavilion

Pavilion is a community of commercial executives at growth-focused companies.

Member

HYPCCCYCL

HYPCCCYCL is an invite-only, professional community where top B2B revenue leaders cross-train their GTM skills with VCs.

HubSpot

As a Hubspot Partner, I am the only representative from the CEE region in the EMEA Partner Advisory Council. The role of PAC is to discuss the future of Hubspot products and plans with the Director of Product Management.

PAC consists of representatives from the top 15 partner agencies in the EMEA region. We are fully integrated into the product roadmap process, covering solution engineering, marketing operations, and client success.

The PAC meeting is monthly but together with our sponsors we organize webinars every week to share knowledge on best practices for using Hubspot tools.

HubSpot Partner Advisory Council (PAC) EMEA

Google Developers

Giving back to the community I was involved in mentoring startups part of the Google LaunchPad acceleration programs in the CEE region.

During this time I mentored companies, which we're moving towards a global scale and better market access. Before I started with the program, I had a one-on-one meeting with each mentor candidate, where we went through their goals and expectations.

Google Launchpad Mentor

Omniconvert

Developing sales strategies for Europe and US with CEO
Actively managing performance of sales professionals.
Implementing sales pipeline management system to optimize sales activities
Collaborating with account managers, client managers, and other cross-functional groups to strengthen the client relationship. Profiling key client figures using data profiling techniques.
Implemented new marketing tech stack and coordinating with developers and COO operational implementations of new integrations.
Coordinating revenue dashboards with CFO to identify growth opportunities
Developed new messaging and value proposition for marketing and sales communication. 
Responsible for global outreach to key thought leaders and public relations, especially in the social media space to help maintain Omniconver's positive brand image.

Interim Chief Revenue Officer

hub:raum

Hubraum Krakow, part of Tmobile developed an acceleration program where I was a startup mentor for several years providing help and insight in B2B Marketing and Business Modeling.

After finishing the program I am still involved with Hubraum and some of its startups as an expert and advisor.

Startup Mentor

Farnell element14

As Business Development Specialist, I coordinated account management and partnership, performed competitor analysis, kept up to date on market development.

I used research abilities in my job every day, I was researching about new technologies/products, potential customers/partners.

I coordinated Re-sellers account management and partnership development

My responsibilities were also coordinating with key partners (Distributors) and monitoring performance through KPIs (Key Performance Indicators - e.g. Sales, NPS), performing competitor analysis, keeping up to date on market development, identifying new opportunities and projects.

I was actively outreaching and building business proposals, quotes, and negotiating deals with technology companies.

Some of my achievements during this time were 25% year-to-year sales growth, Star Performer Q3 2013 for Customer Service, Top Performer Q1 2014, sales targets overachieved by 30 % for Q1 2014.

I was also involved in several pan-European projects to expand the distribution network of new products.

Business Development Specialist

Electrolux

Identifying training needs and developing training strategies 

Seeking and Negotiation with 3rd party learning partners.

Advise managers on talent, learning, and development processes

Delivery model processes and procedures for Talent and Learning

Support organization-wide talent planning, moves, secondments, and promotions

Support managers to resolve performance and talent-related disputes, 

Managing talent inquiries as escalated from the HR Shared Service Contact team Providing timely resolution in line with policy.

Supporting in SAP Learning Solutions implementation for Electrolux Europe

Learning and Development Specialist Europe

I help B2B companies /w Revenue Operations & ABM using HubSpot // Executive MBA // HubSpot Certified Trainer // Big fan of sales-free zones.

My obsession is enabling B2B companies to grow with revenue operations.

I love saying that I'm in the body of a marketer, but my heart is really in connecting and building business relationships with people - 10+ years of experience doing both! 

Organizations like AIESEC, DHL, and Electrolux, helped me develop my organizational development expertise. With this combination, I can see what's best for companies from a bird's eye view. 

In a quest to find an agency that prioritizes revenue growth?

At MAN Digital, we help businesses grow revenues through account-based programs and demand-generation campaigns. Our agency is focused on facilitating revenue acceleration programs for B2B technology organizations. In other words, we do sales engagements, marketing, and operations to boost revenue, not vanity metrics.

We know that growing revenue is hard work. 

It requires time, energy, and talent - all of which are in short supply for most companies today. But what if there was a way to help you do it more effectively? What if you could find an agency that would give your sales team the tools and intelligence they need to succeed without breaking the bank? Well, guess what? There is! And we can help.

The company I founded in 2016 , MAN Digital is a Growth Revenue Agency specialising in RevOps and account-based marketing programs explicitly designed for B2B technology organizations. 

Our approach allows us to deliver measurable results on both sides of the equation - with increased leads and conversions! That means more opportunities for your sales reps AND higher revenues for your company overall! Let's get started, and we can talk. 

DM for resources on RevOps and ABM

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Dave Gerhardt

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