Ivan Falco

Most GTM tech companies I talk to are in one of these spots:

1️⃣ Relying on founder-led outbound or referrals only

It worked to get to where you are… but reply rates are dropping, deals are slower, and you know this won’t get you to the next stage.

2️⃣ Team spread too thin & too many tools

Too many tools duct-taped together, wrong or messy data, SDRs burned out, one marketer doing everything, sales and marketing not really talking. Attribution is a mess.

3️⃣ Tried to add more channels, got chaos instead of scale

A bit of LinkedIn content here, a bit of LinkedIn ads there, maybe a webinar or two, some paid search… but nothing sticks.

4️⃣ No bandwidth

You know where you want to go. But you don’t have the bandwidth (or a world-class GTM team) to design and run a “modern GTM” motion that actually compounds.

That’s where I come in.

👉 What I do

I help GTM tech companies build and run one LinkedIn-led GTM system that creates predictable pipeline in 90 days.

We design one motion and align:

- Outbound → driven by real signals & the same target accounts
- LinkedIn content → built to speak to those accounts and feed sales
- LinkedIn ads → warming and surrounding the same buying committees
- Attribution & tracking → so you actually see what moves pipeline

Sales and marketing stop operating in silos.
Everyone executes the same 90-day plan.
The work compounds instead of resetting every month.

⚙️ Why it’s worth listening to me

I’ve been in GTM for close to a decade:

Started as a sales rep → felt quota pressure, declining reply rates, and the “what is marketing even doing?” frustration

Moved into growth for SaaS ($500k - $1M in a year) → built funnels, ran paid, fixed broken ops

Ran my own ads agency (Brought it to $200K) → learned what “clients expect results yesterday” really means

Joined as Head of Growth at ColdIQ → helped them go from $2M → $7M ARR in 12 months.

Helped AirOps generate over $7M in pipeline and 7-figures in closed revenue in less than a year.

In ColdIQ, I’ve seen and worked inside GTM systems for hundreds of B2B SaaS companies (SaaS + agencies).


🎯 Who I’m best for

I focus on GTM tech and GTM agencies, because I’ve lived GTM from every angle, sales, marketing, growth and agency, and I understand the pressure and constraints of your team & the teams you sell to.

GTM tech (sales tech/ marketing tech / revops tech)
GTM agencies
$1M–$20M ARR

🚀 If you want help

If this resonates and you want a teardown of your LinkedIn GTM + a concrete 90-day plan:

👉 DM me “GTM” and I’ll send you how I run these sprints.

Facebook Ads & Google Ads Expert | Co-founder

I'm being offered $1k+ per post to promote top AI tools.

This is the biggest shift in B2B marketing in a decade. 

And it's happening on LinkedIn.

I turn 99% of them down. But most creators don't.

And the brands willing to pay us aren't stupid - they see what's coming.

Creator-led growth is the only B2B strategy that will matter by 2026.

Brands are desperate to get creators talking about them because they know traditional channels are dying.

Cold email reply rates: below 2%
LinkedIn reach: down by half
Ad costs: up 30% YoY

But a trusted creator posting about you? 

That's 8-12% engagement from your exact ICP.

The math isn't subtle.

This isn't about buying posts. It's about building a creator-led engine:

Your best customers → get them posting about results
Your employees → turn them into micro-creators
Your CEO/founders → build their thought leadership
Partner creators → pay them to amplify

Then layer LinkedIn Ads on top to amplify these posts targeting your dream account list.

You're not running campaigns. 

You're building a systematic content engine where every post compounds reach and credibility.

Why this replaces traditional GTM:

→ Buyers trust peer content 10x more than your sales deck
→ You're creating 20+ touchpoints before your first outbound message
→ Each creator post becomes an evergreen asset you can amplify forever using LinkedIn Ads
→ Even 48% of AI Search results are influenced by user-generated content (including LinkedIn)

This is how we scaled ColdIQ from $0 to $6M in less than 2 years. 

And how we generated over $700k in pipeline last month for a single B2B SaaS client.

The brands building creator-led engines today will own category awareness by 2026.

Your competitors are already doing this.

That's why I've documented the entire process - the formulas, the frameworks, the timing, everything.

All inside the Creator-Led growth playbook.

Want it?

Comment "CREATOR" below and I'll send it over.

I turn LinkedIn into your #1 pipeline channel for GTM tech | Head of Growth @ColdIQ ($2M→$6M in 10 months)

Most startups pick the WRONG GTM motion.

Here's how to pick the right one:

I see founders make this mistake every day.

They look at the standard chart and think they need to pick ONE motion.

Plot twist: The most successful companies use 2-3 motions simultaneously.

Here's what each motion actually means:

→ Founder-led: You ARE the product (think Gary Vee)
→ Product-led: Your product sells itself (Notion, Slack)
→ Outbound-led: Sales reps hunt prospects (Salesforce)
→ Content-led: Educational content drives growth (HubSpot)
→ Community-led: Users become evangelists (Webflow)
→ Paid/Ad-led: Performance marketing scales growth (Typeform)
→ Event-led: Face-to-face relationship building (Aimeed)
→ Partner-led: Others sell for you (Unify)

The million-dollar question: Which stage are you in?

Early stage = Start with what you're naturally good at
Growth stage = Layer on complementary motions

My controversial take: Most B2B SaaS companies should start with outbound + LinkedIn content combo.

Why?

Outbound gives you immediate feedback.
Content builds long-term authority.
Together they create a predictable pipeline.

The real secret: It's not about picking the "best" motion.

It's about picking the motions that match:

Your team's strengths
Your customer's buying behavior
Your current resources

If your founder is charismatic → Go founder-led
If your product is intuitive → Go product-led
If you have great content → Go content-led

The biggest mistake: Trying to copy what worked for someone else.

Salesforce's outbound motion won't work if you don't have their sales DNA.

Notion's PLG won't work if your product isn't self-explanatory.

Your action plan:

Audit your current strengths
Pick 1-2 motions that fit
Execute them flawlessly

Add a 3rd motion once you've mastered the first two

What GTM motion is your company secretly amazing at but not fully leveraging?


🧰 Tool stack by motion:

→ Product-led: Heap | by Contentsquare, Userpilot, Mixpanel
→ Outbound-led: Aircall, Instantly.ai, Clay
→ Content-led: AirOps, Kleo, CapCut
→ Event-led: Goldcast, Luma, StreamYard
→ Community-led: Skool, Discord, Slack
→ Paid-led: arcads AI, ZenABM, Supermetrics
→ Partner-led: Crossbeam, Rewardful, PartnerStack

We analyzed 20K+ AI answers across ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. Here's what the top 1% most cited companies are doing differently.

I partnered with AirOps (the #1 tool to Win AI Search) to break this down. 

The numbers hit hard: 

- 8% of B2B signups now come from AI chatbots.
- Content less than 3 months old gets cited 3x more. 
- Traffic from AI chatbots converts at 24% vs 4% for traditional SEO. 
- Third-party mentions drive 2x more citations than your own content.

If AI can't find you, neither can your customers.

Here's what you need to track:

→ Share of Voice (the higher your share, the more you own the conversation)
→ Brand Visibility (if AI never says your name, buyers won't see you)
→ Citation Rate (when AI name-drops you, it signals trust)
→ Sentiment Score (being seen in the right light matters)

What actually moves citations:

1) Structure for agents
Multi-type schema = +13% citations
Lists = 17x more likely cited
Proper heading hierarchy = 3x boost

2) Refresh constantly
SaaS/Finance: every 3 months
Ecommerce: every 3-6 months 
Healthcare: every 6-9 months

3) Win third-party mentions
Reddit gets picked up by Perplexity & ChatGPT. 
LinkedIn is favored by Google AI mode. 
Quora is growing fastest in AI Overviews. 
Digital PR matters more than ever.

4) Go micro-niche
You need content for every question about your products and services. 
The game is topical depth now.

5) Be in the conversation 
Forums, Reddit, Q&A where your buyers are. 
Add value, don't spam or promote.

Webflow went from 2% to 10% AI-attributed signups in under a year. 

5x growth in a channel with 6x better conversion rates.

Eoin (Head of Growth at AirOps) gave me permission to share the full "AI Search Report" with all of you.

Let me know if you want it in the comments.


Tools mentioned:

AI Answers ChecK: ChatGPT • Perplexity • Gemini
Questions Research: AlsoAsked • WriterZen . AirOps
Citation Tracking: Twin • Glasp . AirOps
Content Optimization: Clearscope • Surfer . AirOps
Content Orchestration: AirOps

Lead gen got killed on LinkedIn.

And CMOs are losing it.

LinkedIn Ads got 50% more expensive in the last 4 months.

Organic reach dropped by half.

And doesn't look like it's getting any better from here.

Here's what I'm seeing when I talk to CMOs and other growth teams:

They are burning ad budgets on website visits and gated content.

Expecting form fills or booked demos.

Getting nothing.

The game changed.

They're still playing the old one.

The old playbook is dead:

Cost per lead? $200+.
Cost per demo? Even worse.
Amazon gift cards just to get attention?

That's not a strategy. That's desperation.

Here's what works now (demand gen):

1. Build a tight account list you can track

500-1000 dream accounts using Clay + signals.
Not random "50-200 company size + job title X" targets.
Actual accounts you want to close.

2. Nail your LinkedIn content strategy

Stop posting content nobody wants to read.
Get good at LinkedIn content first.
Then surround those accounts with relevant Thought Leader Ads (TLA).

TLAs is the most cost effective ad format by far rn.

3. Track what matters

Engagement (Engagement rates, dwell time, view rates)
Click to landing page from TLAs
Qualified pipeline influenced by ads (using Fibbler or HockeyStack)

Track accounts, not clicks.

4. Be smart with signals and audience building

Example:

Got a customer to make a great testimonial video?

Run a lookalike of that customer (their competitors) with DiscoLike.

Target them with that video.

They'll want to know what tools their competitors are using.

That's thinking beyond "I'll target 50-200 company size and job title X with 'Please Download My 50-page Ebook'."

Actually use list building and signals to get better targeting and show more relevant content.

5. Assess after 2-3 months

Don't turn off the campaign at week two because you're not flooded with traffic and booked demos from TLAs.

Check that initial account list.

See how it moved to pipeline.Use Hockeystack, HubSpot, Fibbler, or even a simple Excel sheet.

Track account overlap, impressions, engagement, audience penetration.

Demand gen is winning the battle against lead gen.

But most B2B teams are still fighting the old war.

Now, the question is:

How do you explain this to your CEO?

Cloudflare is down again. If I was a Web/Dev Agency I'd be launching this outbound campaign ASAP.

First, I'd ask myself:

Who is more affected by the Cloudflare outage?

1) Large-scale media/news outlets - lost in ad revenue
2) Financial/FinTech services - can be a major risk to security
3) High-traffic E-commerce/SaaS - downtime means a lot of sales
4) Digital agencies / Marketing tech - they manage client sites this can damage their reputation

Let's say we're going for High-traffic E-commerce.

I would go to Apollo and scrape a list of e-commerce sites with $10M+ revenue or decent company size.

I would then bring it to Clay to verify:

- High traffic (using Semrush integration) - to prove they lose money when down.
- If they use Cloudflare (using BuiltWith integration) - to confirm they are affected.

If they are fit, then I'd go ahead and find the emails of the key personas to reach out to, using waterfall enrichment (LeadMagic, Prospeo.io, FullEnrich). 

Then I would wait 1-2 days once panic mode is gone.

And send that to Instantly.ai to automate my email outreach.

I'd say something like:

"Hey {{firstName}},

This is the 3rd Cloudflare outage in the last 4 months.

Since you guys are doing massive volume, every minute your site is down, it's costing you serious revenue.

That's why we build Multi-CDN Failover systems (Solution X). 

If Cloudflare breaks, your traffic automatically switches to AWS/Akamai so you never go offline.

We handle the transition seamlessly.

Worth a chat?"

Or any related service that you'd like to pitch.

Try this out, and tell me how it goes.

This n8n workflow could add $10M to your pipeline. But it won't. 

Because tech doesn't fix bad marketing.

I've built dozens of automations and AI agents for ColdIQ, and for other GTM tech.

Lead scraping engines, multi-channel ABM sequences, lead routing systems, you name it.

But here's the thing... 

When I show GTM teams the workflows, their eyes light up.

When I talk about reviewing sales calls, mapping pain points to personas?

They log out.

People want the shiny object.

They don't want the truth:

If your message s*cks, automation just scales the s*ck.

You can scrape 100K leads.
You can blast 50K emails.
You can auto-score every signal on earth.

But if your messaging doesn't connect, none of it matters.

Automations amplify what's already there.

Sh*t slow or sh*t fast → still sh*t.

Here's what you need to fix first:

→ Clear positioning
→ Build trust before the ask
→ Messaging that connects to real pain
→ Being top of mind when they're ready to buy

I know, I know... BORING!

"Too basic, I already know that."

But I'm not talking about what you know. 

But about what your team does and focuses on.

And that's what makes a real difference.

With so many AI tools, so many shiny tech, GTM teams are forgetting (myself included).

Fundamentals still count more than anything.

Tech is the multiplier. Not the foundation.

Fix your marketing.

Then automate.


Follow me for more about GTM systems, LinkedIn growth and using AI to scale revenue the right way.

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