Today we are joined by Sangram Vajre from Terminus, also known as the godfather of the FlipMyFunnel movement. Today, we’ll talk about the latest trends in Account-Based Marketing.

P.S. Apologize in advance for some of the funky audio as a few gremlins got into our mic system.

Sangram Vajre Interview Highlights

• Sangram’s Journey from Salesforce to Terminus: “It’s been phenomenal. I think as I left Salesforce, there was a big void that I was able to see around the fact that we have been doing marketing in a very different way. And when I co-founded Terminus, with some really amazing co-founders who already had built the technology, I was like, ‘man, if we can mix these things and put these things in here, this is account-based marketing.’”

I still remember, my co-founders were like, ‘well what is account based marketing?’ And I thought, ‘great, we have a market to sell now.’ Sangram Vajre

• A Developing Need for Change: “It’s been a very, very interesting journey for us. It’s been, something personally for me, very humbling how the market has come together and really felt the need to change and challenge the status quo of B2B marketing and sales.”

• What would you say, as starting up this company, is the favorite part of your day?: “I think it’s really the people. Like Nikki, who runs the whole conference here from Terminus, her title is now Director of FlipMyFunnel. She’s only focused on FlipMyFunnel, that’s her job, that’s her thing. Every day she has no responsibility whatsoever of Terminus, it’s about building the category. And she was an intern 4 years ago at my other company I used to work at. So for her to see going from an intern to a Director of Marketing, and running a conference of this scale and things like that, I think people is the best and most important aspect.

• And you love seeing those people grow? “Yeah, it’s humbling. I don’t know if anyone is going to remember 10 years from now what FlipMyFunnel is but hopefully Nikki will be at a good place and I’ll be at a good place where I’ve seen people grow and I had a part to play in that…that’s the fun part.”

• The Evolution and Beginnings of FlipMyFunnel: “The funny thing is it evolved when I was on a flight from San Francisco to Atlanta. I was sitting in between two drunk people in the middle seat–that would really be a time to get in the zone and do something interesting.”

So I put my headset on, put on my rocking music, which is typically my go-to music, and then I have a piece of napkin and a pen. And I started drawing the funnel that was presented at Scott Brinker’s MarTech conference. I flipped it and started to create my own stages and I was like, ‘man, this is super interesting, if I’m able to do this and apply technologies to it, now I can do real marketing, now I have a starting point.’ Sangram Vajre

• An Unusual Place of Origin: “That’s where it was born, like 50,000 feet above the air. And I was trying to tell these two guys who were super drunk and they didn’t care about it but I was excited about it. I came back, did a video of it, and then wrote a blog and then that’s how the movement really got started.”

•  FlipMyFunnel growth from last year to this year?: “At the first conference, we had about 7 or 8 speakers, we had about 7 or 8 sponsors we were able to give a friendly call and say, ‘hey, give me a chance, come in and speak or come and sponsor.’ And a lot of people gave me a chance, which I’m really, really humbled and honored and we had about 250-300 people show up at the first conference which we felt was really amazing. Then it took a life of its own.”

• Rapid Growth: “So in the last year, we have been able to build conferences in Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco and Austin which was really, really huge. We have been able to build a conference of this massive scale where 600 or so marketers are coming in and learning about how to do account-based marketing, account-based sales, account-based customer success, everything.”

The movement is really showing that there’s a problem that needs to be solved and there is an amazing amount of technologies available for people to think about it. Sangram Vajre

The Hard Question

• If you’re on American Idol and you have 1 song to belt out, what is it going to be?: “I’m a big fan of Pitbull. So if you get Pitbull music going on, I can sing along with any of the songs.”

We’ve learned some of the latest trends in ABM and we’ve learned that if Sangram is ever on American Idol, he’s going to whip out some Pitbull. Feel free to reach out to Sangram on Twitter at @sangramvajre.

The post Today’s Trends in ABM: Interview with Sangram Vajre appeared first on RevEngine Marketing.