GTM Live Podcast Summary

Episode Title: How a $25M SaaS Company Discovered a $3.5M Blind Spot in its Revenue Engine
Date: January 8, 2026
Hosts: Carolyn Dilks & Amber (Passetto Co-Founders)
Focus: A case study review—uncovering hidden revenue opportunities and operational blind spots in a high-performing, $25M ARR SaaS company.

Episode Overview

This episode presents a deep dive into a recent Passetto 14-day sprint with a $25M ARR SaaS company in the third-party risk and compliance space. The core theme: how seemingly "invisible" pipeline and misaligned marketing-sales processes can mask millions in lost or inefficient revenue. The hosts walk through what was uncovered—"80% of the pipeline…completely invisible"—and actionable recommendations that could unlock over $1M of incremental annual revenue, with no increase in budget or headcount.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Company Background & The Sprint Approach

[01:36–05:26]

• SaaS Company Context: ~$25M ARR, 20 years old, enterprise customers, high ACV ($200k+), very long sales cycles (>300 days), low volume of opportunities.
• Key Stakeholders: Senior Director of Marketing, Head of DemandGen, Director of RevOps. The marketing lead reports to the CPO, highlighting a non-traditional org structure.
• Tech Stack Issues: HubSpot and Salesforce, with messy historical data and persistent sync/integration issues clouding data visibility.
• Client’s Challenge: Despite experienced leadership, declining win rates and no unified system to tie marketing activities to revenue outcomes.

2. Why Most Pipeline Was Invisible

[09:30–14:11]

• Finding: 80% of closed pipeline over 24 months had no recorded prospecting trigger—the point of initial sales engagement was unknown.
  • Quote (Carolyn, 12:35): "80% of everything that they closed in that two years did not have a prospecting trigger… That just in a nutshell means that there's a lot of unknown shit happening in their organization."
• Implication: Lack of detailed source tracking means revenue leaders are making critical growth decisions “with a blindfold on."
• Process Insight: Sometimes, sales would create opportunities not because a real deal existed, but just to track target accounts—further corrupting metrics and reducing win rate accuracy.

3. Win Rates: Record Lows Tied to Process Gaps

[14:11–16:50]

• Critical Data: Win rates had been dropping 5–10% every quarter, most recently hitting an astounding low of 3–5%.
  • Quote (Carolyn, 14:29): "That is hugely problematic… that's 80% below the median benchmark range for SaaS companies."
• Root Cause: Bad opportunity hygiene—opportunities created for tracking, not genuine sales progress—resulted in bloated pipeline and artificially low win rates.
  • Amber, 16:19: "It was very inconsistent. What is an opportunity? It depends on the team… depends on the month."

4. Data Hygiene: Contacts, Channels & Salesforce Sync

[16:54–22:26]

• Contacts Issue: Half of all opportunities had no contact associated, crippling the ability to track buying group journeys or measure marketing influence.
  • Quote (Amber, 16:54): "Half of their opportunities have no contact associated to them. That makes it really hard to say… this engagement cycle led to this opportunity.”
• Channel Tracking: Over half of tracked engagement signals (web visits, form fills, event attendance) had no associated channel.
• Salesforce-HubSpot Sync: Opportunities created in Salesforce often added contacts afterward, but those contacts weren’t synced back to HubSpot—so Marketing was blind to active deals, unable to influence or nurture involved stakeholders.
  • Amber, 19:22: "If you don't know who is the champion on this deal, who are we consistently selling into? You can't outsource [that] to a data analyst or AI if these consistent things are not connected."

5. Paid Search Revealed as a Major Wasted Spend

[22:26–27:03]

• Finding: Paid search generated thousands of "signals" (web activity), but contributed almost no actual pipeline or revenue.
  • Quote (Carolyn, 24:17): “You’ve set up your paid search to contribute very heavily to like top of funnel content instead of… demo pages. So a lot of wasted spend… for the blog and other assets like that."
• Root Cause: Paid search drove mostly content consumption, not high-intent actions. In-house expertise was insufficient; campaigns were run by a non-specialist.
  • Recommendation: Refocus paid search on bottom-of-funnel/high-intent CTAs and pause until a skilled performance marketer is in place.

6. Prospecting Cycle & Marketing Influence Breakdown

[27:10–29:33]

• Gap: For 80% of prospects, Marketing had zero engagement signals before sales outreach—suggesting Sales often worked completely “cold” accounts.
  • Quote (Amber, 27:10): "There are no signals for 80% of those prospects…A huge indicator that marketing has an opportunity to go influence when a sales conversation is happening."
• Impact: Opportunities created without prior marketing engagement had drastically lower win rates.

7. The Value of Split Funnel Analysis

[29:55–31:13]

• Bright Spot: Hand-raiser opportunities (form fills, demo requests) increased YoY and had significantly higher win rates (14% vs. 3-5% baseline).
  • Quote (Amber, 30:17): “They were really excited to see that… empowered them of like, ‘hey, we gotta go do more of that.’”
• Implication: Splitting the funnel to distinguish high-intent from cold-sourced deals uncovers efficient paths to revenue.

8. Quantified Opportunity: Millions on the Table

[32:09–34:25]

• Business Case: If the company improved their win rate by just 10 points (to 15-20%), they could reliably unlock at least $1M in incremental annual revenue—using their existing pipeline, team, and spend.
  • Quote (Carolyn, 32:45): "With your current pipeline, you could just get so much more revenue out of it. Be more revenue efficient, as people would call it."
• Leadership Narrative: Clear, financial framing of high-leverage priorities resonated with both marketing and c-suite.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the power (and peril) of data gaps:
  • Carolyn [02:49]: "Data is the king of everything, because without it, you cannot make smart decisions… Every company's DNA is so different."
• On wasted spend:
  • Carolyn [24:42]: "Paid search can work really well if it's done really well. But it's also one of those things that's really fucking hard to get right and it's really easy to blow a shitload of money."
• On surfacing truths for leadership:
  • Carolyn [32:09]: "What we want to do… is how do we make this digestible, that you can bring this to your CEO… because leadership doesn't care about all of the nuance. They want the story."
• Senior Director of Marketing, client quote:
  • [35:21]

  “Passetto quickly connected the dots across our entire GTM motion. They validated things that we had long suspected, which I thought was interesting, but couldn't quantify. And they also uncovered new issues and growth insights we didn't even know to look for. So I consider that a huge win.”

Actionable Takeaways & Lessons

• Audit, don’t assume: Your pipeline may be full of “phantom opportunities”—deals created for tracking, with no real buyer activity.
• Track all buying contacts: High ACV, complex SaaS needs comprehensive contact/opportunity association to enable true buyer journey and influence mapping.
• Demand Gen Effectiveness: Paid channels may look productive in top-of-funnel metrics but contribute little to closed revenue unless tightly managed.
• Split your funnel: Separate high-interest hand-raisers from cold prospects in your reporting to correctly identify where the business wins and loses.
• Small Fixes, Big Gains: Simple discipline in process—defining opportunity creation, contact roles, and sales triggers—can dramatically affect win rates and efficiency, generating millions without added spend.

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:36] – Case study introduction and company context
• [09:30] – Discovery Sprint methodology and findings overview
• [12:35] – 80% invisible pipeline explained
• [14:11] – Win rate crisis and root cause analysis
• [16:54] – Data hygiene: contacts, channels, sync issues
• [22:26] – Paid search audit and practical spend recommendations
• [27:10] – Prospecting/Marketing engagement gap
• [29:55] – Funnel-splitting and “hand-raiser” success
• [32:09] – Business case: quantifiable upside
• [35:21] – Client quote and reflections

Episode Tone & Style

• Direct and candid: Hosts use plain language ("no fluff, no vanity metrics"), peppered with irreverence and industry in-jokes.
• Hands-on, practical: Discussion frequently returns to actionable insights, not abstract frameworks.
• Empowering: Several times the hosts stress the value of equipping leaders with not just data but strategic clarity.

Conclusion

This episode serves as a playbook for SaaS revenue leaders ready to ditch old, broken tracking and to audit their revenue engines with open eyes. The sprint approach showcased here is less about best-practice mimicry and more about developing a tailored, data-driven foundation for growth. The path to efficiency and scale lies not in more budget or channels, but in deep, honest cross-functional analysis and execution.

Final Quote from the client ([35:21]):

“They validated things that we had long suspected, but couldn't quantify. And they also uncovered new issues and growth insights we didn't even know to look for. So I consider that a huge win.”