Exit Five Newsletter: Customer Led Growth

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Hello and welcome to the Exit Five Weekly Newsletter — read by 42,000 B2B marketing professionals around the world. Exit Five is a membership site designed to help you build a successful career in B2B marketing. Join 5,700 other members at exitfive.com.

By the way — this email was designed in Knak, which helps you create email and landing pages in minutes without having to write code. Learn more about Knak here.

TOGETHER WITH WALNUT

💻 71% of small B2B teams use AI to create most of their content

And they’re not just using AI for fun, they’re using it to publish faster, smarter, and with less headcount.

In a new report from Walnut, 100+ B2B teams reveal how GenAI is moving from side project to core workflow, with small, scrappy teams leading the way.

In this report, you’ll learn:

• Top Use-Cases & Volume Trends
• What the 2025 AI Tool Stack actually looks like
• How to use AI with confidence and protect quality and brand voice
• Skill evolution and change management tips to get your team ahead

Don’t let AI pass you by, see how top teams are already putting it to work.

📈 How To Turn Happy Customers Into Your Best Growth Channel

Michael Cole joined Everflow as their first marketing hire when they were doing $2M ARR. Six years later? $24M ARR. Completely bootstrapped.

No fancy growth hacks. No million-dollar ad budgets. No Silicon Valley playbook.

Just one channel that converts 2.4x better than any other channel: customer referrals.

Here's the exact playbook Michael used to turn happy customers into Everflow's growth engine.

Start With Customer Success (Not Marketing)

Most companies think referrals are a marketing problem. Wrong.

Michael credits their success to having 3-4 excellent customer success people who:

• Made customers feel heard
• Got feature requests into the development queue
• Created "evangelical customers" who wanted to help

The takeaway? You can't build referrals on top of mediocre customer experience. Fix that first.

The Simple Ask That Changes Everything

Instead of complex referral portals or automated emails, Everflow kept it human.

Their CS team would ask happy customers: "Is there anyone else in the industry you'd recommend use Everflow?"

That's it. No fancy software. Just a conversation between people who already have a relationship.

Remove the Friction

The biggest barrier to referrals isn't willingness. People mean to make introductions but forget.

Everflow solved this with immediate gratification:

• $250 for qualified leads (paid upfront)
• Additional payment when the lead becomes a customer

This small upfront payment gets people to take the 5 minutes to make the introduction ASAP.

Scale Beyond Customers to Agencies

Once the customer referral engine was working, Everflow expanded to agencies. The model is even more powerful because:

• Agencies get paid by their clients AND by Everflow
• They can recommend Everflow as part of their service offering
• It becomes a repeatable part of their sales process

Your 4-Week Action Plan

Most B2B companies overcomplicate referrals. Steal Everflow’s strategy to simplify (and get serious results):

• Week 1: Have your CS team identify 5 happy customers and ask them: "Anyone else you'd recommend us to?"
• Week 2: Offer $100-250 for qualified leads. Test with 2-3 interested customers.
• Week 3: Expand to more customers. Start identifying potential agency partnerships.
• Week 4: Plan your first co-marketing opportunity (joint content, awards, events).

Remember: Everflow started with just asking. You can too.

📺 UPCOMING EVENTS

📝 [July 23rd] How B2B Marketers Are Actually Using AI for Content

B2B marketers everywhere are experimenting with AI to scale content, but who’s actually getting results?

We’re bringing those marketers front and center to show you how it’s done.

This live session will feature five finalists who submitted how they’re using AI to power their content engine. Each one will take the (virtual) stage to demo their process, show results, and answer questions from our expert panel:

• Benny Bridger (Head of Marketing, Walnut)
• Jess Cook (Head of Marketing, Vector)
• Dave Gerhardt (Founder, Exit Five)

It’s part workshop, part competition, with bragging rights and a pair of Meta Ray-Bans on the line for the top use case.

Expect behind-the-scenes workflows, creative tools in action, and lessons you can take back to your own team.

Think you’ve got the most creative AI workflow? Reply back to this email explaining your workflow and we’ll consider you to be featured on the session. You could win a free pair of Meta Ray-Bans. 🕶️

Join Live or Get the Recording

🏢 Open Roles

Who's hiring right now?

🔥 HOT JOBS OF THE WEEK:

RightRev is hiring a Marketing Manager to run multi-channel campaigns, support events, and drive awareness for their revenue automation platform. The ideal candidate is hands-on, creative, and knows how to turn B2B marketing strategy into measurable impact.

Other open roles on the Exit Five job board this week:

• NewtonX is hiring a Strategic Marketing Advisor
• Directive is hiring a Demand Generation Manager
• Tiugo Technologies is hiring a Senior Web & Brand Designer
• Paramark is hiring a Marketing Manager
• Paramark is hiring a GTM Enginne
• Science Interactive is hiring a Producat Marketing Mangager
• Quarterzip is hiring a Senior Growth Marketing Manager
• The Virtual Hub is hiring a Head of Growth Marketing

See all open roles

Have an open role and want to make sure the best B2B marketing talent sees it? Just reply to this email and we'll send over more info on how you can post it on our job board + get it in front of 42k+ marketers.

🪪 BECOME AN EXIT FIVE MEMBER

What’s actually inside the Exit Five Membership?

We made you this 131-second video to show you around. Have a peek. 👀

Join 5,700 Other Exit Five Members

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