External factors like new CMO hires, AI advancements, and staff changes impact buying cycles.

The marketing funnel known for 120+ years no longer works.

๐ŸŒ€ The buying behavior over the past decade is not linear; instead, it’s cyclical, moving with different velocity driven by external forces.

๐Ÿ‘‰ Enterprise hiring a new CMO: suddenly, new RFQs pop up in the next 3 to 6 months for CRMs, websites, landing pages
๐Ÿ‘‰ AI revolution kicks in: all industries get intrigued by AI implementation and augmentation solutions
๐Ÿ‘‰ Several key members churning: SME objectives shifting from sales to recruitment and onboarding

We see this firsthand at DevriX.

2019-2022 were a heavy mix of 80-90% R&D and heavy engineering services while 40 to 50% of our demand now is building innovative solutions (the rest going to growth marketing and GTM strategy). ๐Ÿ“ถ

The pressing need shifts from feature expansion & TAM domination to customer retention and unlocking new acquisition channels.

Some SQLs bounce and disappear, only to come in 2-6 months later after a project is unpaused or a different vendor failed to deliver on a promise. ๐Ÿคทโ€โ™‚๏ธ

Even CEOs got replaced in multiple companies in our portfolio in Q1. Projects were put on hold while new initiatives were delegated due to change of priorities.

And as the buying cycle goes in and out, traditional funnel fails to read in the right metrics or score leads in the best possible manner.

In companies founded 5 years or older, buying decisions are often based on old signals.

A conference talk or a networking dinner meeting 3 years ago may be the culprit to making the choice during the cycle today. โœ…

Continued brand awareness while “not in market” will make it to the top of the shortlist when sourcing a new vendor.

Word-of-mouth and referrals while executing on post-funnel stages is what decisions are based on.

“Bending the funnel to a flywheel” as my former team at Rush said continuously (as we were building a post-purchase order tracking and upsell solution increasing the number of repeat purchases).

The modern flywheel was introduced by HubSpot’s own Brian Halligan, after years and years of shaping the “inbound marketing” methodology based on the original funnel.

As enterprise organizations speed up their launch cycles and cut down their annual roadmaps to quarterly rocks or OKR cycles, buyers move in and out of market faster than ever. And repeat purchases are more common than they used to be in the early 2010s.

โ—Moreover, the marketing vs. sales battle fails to account for CX participation or product quality. In a densely populated market filled with vendors and SaaS, PMF is increasingly more important, with buyers unwilling to make compromises in a red ocean of alternatives.

The flywheel accounts for that continued journey, from marketing and sales to product and CX, including areas like NPS and retention rates.

If your scorecards bet on the traditional funnel, bend it in a circle and add a few more KPIs in the process. This is what the modern growth toolkit looks like in the 2020s.

The HubSpot flywheel


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My name is Mario Peshev, a global SME Business Advisor running digital businesses for 20 the past years.

Born in Bulgaria, Europe, I gained diverse management experience through my training work across Europe, North America, and the Arab world. With 10,000+ hours in consulting and training for organizations like SAP, VMware, CERN, I’ve dedicated a huge amount of my time to helping hundreds of SMEs growing in different stages of the business lifecycle.

My martech agency DevriX grew past 50 people and ranks as a top 10 WordPress global agency and Growth Blueprint, my advisory firm, has served 400+ SME founders and executives with monthly ongoing strategy sessions.


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