Revenue Diaries Entry 14

Friends. I’m averaging between 2,000 and 2,500 words for each diary entry. I fully realize there may be too much content. But I won’t stop. So, here’s what’s in this heartfelt, teary, maybe a little too long, and in-your-face entry of the Revenue Diaries:

• Being Brutally Honest with Yourself

• Podcast: The Raw DNA of a Competitive Psycho & Loving Father

• Why Revenue and Company Kickoff Themes Are Important

• Part 5 of the $750M Content Marketing Framework: Tracking Success

On Being Brutally Honest with Yourself

Let’s start your week by being brutally honest with ourselves. You are alone in this race. Sure… you have family, friends, coworkers, therapists, books… and your community. But ultimately, the way you live is up to you.

This excerpt is from the untouchable Dr. Julie Gurner, and the words hit me like a truck this week (as her content usually does). 

There’s no sugarcoating, no fluff, just a smack in the face to take ownership of your life and decisions. It’s not asking you to determine what everyone else is doing and why. It’s forcing you to look inside yourself and face the hard truths:

What do you want? Are you willing to work for it? Do you have the guts to risk failure? Are you going to get off your ass and do something today?

It resonates so deeply with how I view life. Whether leading a team, being a parent, exercising consistently, or even cutting the booze for seven months, it always comes back to those moments when you make the call.

Do you show up or check out? No one can make those decisions for you, and honestly, no one will care about your excuses. It’s up to you.

It’s not easy. I’ve had those mornings, afternoons, and nights where the weight feels too much. The board deck I’m avoiding, the OrangeTheory class I don’t want to take, or the tough conversation. But I’m learning that the magic isn’t in avoiding it. It’s showing up despite it. 

So yeah, Dr. Gurner wins again. It’s not just her words; it’s the underlying challenge.

❤️ Kyle

On the Raw DNA of a Competitive Pyscho & Loving Father with Kyle Norton

In this week’s episode of The Revenue Diaries (Spotify / YouTube), I sit down with Kyle Norton, a CRO with an incredible story about competition, resilience, and balancing work and life. This conversation goes beyond job titles and achievements—it’s about what drives us, grounds us, and keeps us moving forward even when life gets messy.

We kick things off with Kyle’s hilarious self-diagnosis as a “competitive psycho” (if you’re ruthless in Monopoly, you might relate). But the heart of the conversation is how Kyle pairs that competitive drive with intention, mindfulness, and a deep commitment to being a great dad.

Here’s what you’ll take away from this episode:

• The “Corporate Athlete” Mindset: Kyle explains why staying physically and mentally healthy is non-negotiable for leaders and how he built a streak of 700+ consecutive days of workouts.

• Lessons from Martial Arts: Kyle shares how his martial arts background shaped his leadership style, from gracefully losing to obsessively improving one skill at a time.

• Parenting as a Masterclass in Stoicism: Whether it’s water fights at bath time or handling meltdowns, Kyle talks about how parenting tests—and strengthens—his ability to stay grounded.

• Balancing Passion and Pragmatism: Kyle discusses the difficult decision to sell his family’s 150-year-old lake cottage and his lessons about focusing on memories over material things.

This isn’t just a conversation about leadership or parenting—it’s a raw and honest look at how to align your habits, decisions, and priorities with the person you want to be.

If you’ve ever struggled to balance ambition with the rest of your life, this episode is for you. Listen here > (Spotify / YouTube).

On Why Revenue and Company Kickoff Themes Are Important

I was in Boston this week for the Jellyfish annual Company Kickoff and bi-annual Revenue Kickoff. I love these events, which bring over 250 people together to meet, break bread, celebrate, and plan for the year ahead.

It’s so important in a remote-centric/first world. Moments like these matter more than ever. Humans crave connection (even if we don’t always admit it). Remote work is tough for many, and we don’t talk enough about how it can drain energy and focus. Bringing people together helps refill the cup. 

That’s why it's important to participate and make the most of a company-wide event. There are many ways to participate, but I’ll always love coming up with a theme.

This year’s theme was “Chasing the Apex” <image>

Racing theme, ftw. It’s inspired by the “apex” in racing, the optimal point on the inside of a turn that a driver aims to hit to achieve the fastest and most efficient path around the corner. It’s about precision, teamwork, speed, control, and resilience. 

It fits pretty well for a company continuing to grow extremely fast and doing it efficiently, right? :) 

Sure, it’s gimmicky. 

Will 3% of your company hate the theme and the direction? Sure. 

Will 90% be inspired and pumped for the road ahead? Yes. 

And the last 7% could care less. That’s okay, too. 

Over-rotate to the 90%, not the 10%. Themes are fuel; if you don’t use them, you miss the chance to inspire and have fun.

Lean in, go bold, and inspire. Because if you’re not filling the tank, someone else is already passing you on the track.

On Part 5 of the CREATE Content Marketing Framework: Tracking Success

Alright. I know. We took a little hiatus from the CREATE Framework, and you all are jonesing for the last two, right? 

Let’s not belabor it and start with the T in CREATE, Tracking Success. But first, a quick review:

The CREATE Framework is an assortment of views, strategies, opinions, playbooks, and templates I’ve used over the years to build a content marketing engine that has created and supported over $750,000,000 in pipeline. 

• We started with Crafting the Story: nailing down a clear narrative around the operational and rational themes to guide everything you create.

• Then, we moved to Research with Customers: ensuring your ideas resonate by validating them with real-world feedback.

• Next came Executing with Your Team: where we tackled turning plans into action without getting bogged down in chaos.

• Most recently, we dug into Amplifying the Content: making sure your content gets seen by the right people, places, and time.

Now, it’s time for T: Track the Success.

This part of the framework separates the marketer’s gut call from the hard data. Tracking success means identifying the metrics that matter, measuring those results, and analyzing the data to uncover what’s driving impact, what’s not, and why. It’s how content marketers figure out what to double down on, experiment with, and cancel. 

Let’s break this down into actionable steps: setting meaningful goals, using attribution to understand performance, and tracking metrics through four key themes: Brand, Pipeline, Revenue, and Customer.

Setting the Right Goals

Before tracking anything, you must know what you’re measuring and, more importantly, why. Your goals should align with business objectives and avoid the classic marketing-sales disconnect:

Marketing leader: Our content beat all the goals, and traffic and leads are up, PRAISE BE TO THE MARKETING GODS. 

Sales leader: Unfortunately, we finished 42% of quota across the team. 

Wah-wah. Marketing leader looks like an idiot.

Sure, marketing isn’t responsible for closing deals, but if your content isn’t generating enough pipeline, it’s a problem. Your goals need to align with outcomes that matter to the business, like pipeline coverage, deal velocity, or customer retention.

First Things First, Attribution Models

Everybody LOVES talking about attribution; most marketers use it incorrectly. Attribution is essential for understanding how content contributes to success, but it’s not just about pats on the back for hitting goals. It’s about measuring the effectiveness of your strategy. Here are a couple of models to consider:

• First-Touch Attribution: Measures which content initially brought the lead.

• Last-Touch Attribution: Measures the final piece of content consumed before booking.

• Multi-Touch Attribution: Provides a more complete view by tracking all content interactions throughout the customer journey.

We use first-touch attribution with a 90-day retrospective to monitor top-of-funnel metrics like leads, opportunities, and pipeline. We also use a multi-touch model to measure the influence on pipeline conversion and account-based marketing (where we provide air cover). 

No model is perfect, but having one in place is better than relying on assumptions. Most marketing automation and CRM platforms offer basic attribution capabilities, so start there. 

HOT TIP 🔥 Check out next week’s newsletter, where I’ll break down the pros and cons of each model and what you should use moving forward. 

Secondly: Brand, Pipeline, Revenue and Customer Content Metrics

Alright. Let’s look at how I’ve measured the success of content over the past decade, as well as, today. You must track both leading and lagging indicators, you can: 

1. Identify what's working early (leading) and optimize quickly.

2. Validate the return of your content efforts through tangible outcomes (lagging).

I will break down the metrics into four themes: Brand, Pipeline, Revenue, and Customer. 

Brand-Centric Metrics

These metrics focus on awareness and engagement at the top of the funnel:

• Website Traffic to content landing pages or relevant organic search pages associated with the campaign (total visits, organic/referral traffic)

• Social Engagement: Shares, likes, comments, and click-through rates (CTR) from social posts promoting content.

Pipeline-Centric Metrics

These metrics tie content directly to lead and opportunity creation:

• Content Sourced Pipeline: the # and $ of opportunities created directly through content (a prospect who downloaded a deliverable and became an opportunity in the pipeline).

• Content-Assisted Pipeline: There are plenty of ways to describe content-assisted (influenced), but it essentially means # and $ where content played a role in the prospect’s journey but didn’t lead to the initial creation of the opportunity (BDR, Partnership, etc.)

• Enablement Usage: The frequency of the company's use of marketing content, life case studies, research, and deliverables to engaged prospects and customers. 

Revenue-Centric Metrics

When content drives revenue, it’s a win for everyone. Here are some metrics I’ve used to measure that impact: 

• Content-Sourced Revenue: Revenue from deals created directly through content-driven leads.

• Content-Assisted Revenue: Revenue from deals where content influenced the buyer’s journey, such as a customer who read a case study or attended a webinar.

• Deal Velocity: How quickly content-driven opportunities progress through the sales funnel compared to non-content-driven opportunities.

Customer-Centric Metrics

We all know content doesn’t stop at acquisition. It’s also a powerful tool for retention and expansion:

• Churn Rate Reduction: How content helps customers stay engaged, adopt features, and avoid churn.

• Expansion Revenue: Revenue generated from upselling or cross-selling influenced by customer-facing content 

• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): How content improves customer satisfaction and experience through education and support.

• Lifetime Value (LTV): How well your content improves LTV by enhancing customer retention and growth.

Fair warning > Tracking CSAT and LTV related to your content goals is super tricky and not for the faint at heart. Start with the direct-attribution of content to expansion pipeline + revenue as the best starting point. 

Last but Not Least, Tracking ROI

It doesn’t end there. 

Tracking success isn’t just about spending hours analyzing the numbers. It’s about using those numbers to tell the content story. Focus on the right goals, leverage attribution models, and analyze key metrics across brand, pipeline, revenue, and customer impact… you’ll uncover what’s driving results (both leading and lagging).

Next week, we’ll close out the CREATE Framework with E: Evolve Your Content—how to take what you’ve learned from tracking and continuously improve your strategy. Spoiler ALERT MY FRIENDS: The work doesn’t stop once the content is live.