Are you trying to get ahead in the Salesforce ecosystem and just wish someone would tell you what to do (and what not to do)?
Join Mike Davis as he picks the brains of leaders at successful ISVs and people in the ecosystem to bring you insights you can use.
How We Got There: Christina Scarmeas, CMO at Mogli
What worked 18 months ago in the GTM org, doesn’t work any longer.
Christina Scarmeas (https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinascarmeas/) joined the How We Got There (https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-we-got-there/) podcast for a fun and impactful discussion about Marketing in the Salesforce ecosystem. Christina is the CMO of Mogli (https://www.linkedin.com/company/mogli-technologies/) for the last 4+ years after 4+ years as a marketing leader at Fonteva, another Salesforce partner.
As a leading provider of texting on the Salesforce platform, Mogli thinks a lot about the buyer’s journey. Christina has worked with the team to suspend their long held beliefs on how to effectively market in the Salesforce ecosystem, on things as foundational as gating content to drive MQLs and moving more toward focusing on the buying group’s behavior. We talk about how she navigated organizational buy-in as the focus shifted away from vanity metrics to actual pipeline creation/closing, redesigning their playbook.
Christina shares how organic and paid search has ebbed and flowed as they have refined their team, skills, and methodologies. As an example, they tried paid search again in the last 12 months….and it’s working well so they are leaning into it. On the flip side, the AppExchange Marketing Program used to work really well but they have greatly reduced their budget on it since results had softened. We touch on the role of LLMs, reddit (shoutout to the fickle world that is r/salesforce), and the AgentExchange/AppExchange in being present where the buying committee is.
Inbound leads continue to be the strongest source, but we all know those leads are influenced by everything from events to partnerships to content to industry verticals and beyond. Mogli sees inbound conversion from initial conversation with the BDR team to opportunity at a rate of 80% and almost half of the initial conversations eventually move to a close won deal. Incredible conversion rates.
Before wrapping up, we touch on ICP & Partnerships. If you are responsible for the top of the funnel, this episode is for you.
This episode is brought to you by ISV Accelerators (https://www.isvaccelerators.com/). ISV Accelerators is your inside guide to co-selling with Salesforce: activating the right reps, accelerating real pipeline, uncovering new revenue, and closing more deals together. Senior alliances leadership without the cost of a full-time hire, and speed to answers on whether that hire is even worth making. See what your Salesforce partnership could really do.
#salesforce (https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23salesforce&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED)
#isv (https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23isv&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED)
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#appexchange
11 Sept 2026
How We Got There: Sienna Quirk, Head of Marketing at Thread and general Salesforce ISV expert
Sienna Quirk (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sienna-quirk/) has worked on GTM motions and product marketing for at least 30 Salesforce apps, probably many more. On this episode of How We Got There (http://linkedin.com/company/how-we-got-there/?skipRedirect=true), we speak with the Head of Marketing at Thread (http://linkedin.com/company/51708807/?skipRedirect=true) about all things Salesforce ecosystem for ISVs.
Sienna’s underinvested recommendation for ISVs is not getting more mileage out of product releases - it can be a strong demand gen engine. “A solid go-to-market strategy for your release, whether that be your quarterly release, whether that be a new product release, it can be a super big opportunity to re-engage with current customers, to reach out to prospects and showcase your product roadmap and show them your innovation.” It can also help answer that question of “build, buy, or partner” in a vibe-code/Claudeforce world where anything is easy to build that looks pretty good, but isn’t enterprise ready.
We talk about event strategy across having a booth by leveraging it as an opportunity to play around with your pitch/better together story as well as if you don’t have a booth and ideas you can bring to Dreamforce next week.
On a personal note, I am proud to have worked with Sienna at 3 different companies now and consider her a friend. She taught me the concept of product marketing and its importance is consistently overlooked by CROs, sales leaders, and partnership leaders. Her deliverable of creating the Messaging Exercise helped at least 20 ISVs refine their positioning in the Salesforce ecosystem, I think it was the single most impactful deliverable we completed for clients.
This episode is brought to you by ISV Accelerators (https://www.isvaccelerators.com/). ISV Accelerators is your inside guide to co-selling with Salesforce: activating the right reps, accelerating real pipeline, uncovering new revenue, and closing more deals together. Senior alliances leadership without the cost of a full-time hire, and speed to answers on whether that hire is even worth making. See what your Salesforce partnership could really do.
#salesforce (https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23salesforce&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED)
#isv (https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23isv&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED)
#gtm (https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23gtm&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED)
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#appexchange
10 Aug 2026
How We Got There: Josh Koshy, VP of Sales at Appiphony
You’ve gotta be boots on the ground, doing it yourself first before you build out a team to help you sell. He needed to be the one selling, partnering, and figuring out the messaging before scaling the team.
This episode of How We Got There (https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-we-got-there/), I am joined by Josh Koshy (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-koshy-b08373107/) who is the VP of Sales at Appiphony (https://www.linkedin.com/company/appiphony/posts/?feedView=all). If you aren’t aware of Appiphony, they are both a top PDO and an ISV after launching their first app a few years ago with Josh at the helm of GTM the whole time. Josh shares lessons learned from their own journey of building their own ISV, which they also bring to their projects on the PDO side where they are building apps for other companies on the AppExchange….mostly around GTM. Drive Connect was their initial product and now it’s more of a suite of apps, including doc gen with esignature and storage of files in Salesforce from Google and Sharepoint. Their listings are excellent ones to check out on the AppExchange.
Founders and admins tend to stumble onto your listing on the AppExchange, but larger deals come from motions outside of the AppExchange. Partnerships have really been a force multiplier that Josh and team have been leaning in, specifically SI partners. Now most qualified leads come from that channel, about half of their revenue comes from partners - SIs, resellers, and Salesforce. Their largest deals tend to come from Salesforce AE/SE referrals, even if the volume of deals is smaller than from SIs.
Referral partnerships via SI partners is hard work to start but then gets easier as trust builds across successful projects. Some care about adding a competitive advantage with the ISV’s solution set, some value referral fees, and some value footing the bill for Salesforce AE-focused events by helping the SIs stay in front of their Salesforce counterparts. A really unique approach that makes sense!
One thing they overinvested in early was sponsoring events without a fully built out sales and marketing team, so the lesson learned here is perhaps waiting a bit longer before getting booths at those types of events.
Josh and his team is an example for ISVs to learn from. He brings a beginner’s mind to all of the gtm motions and is always willing to meet and share at events, make sure you say hi to him as you run into him at Dreamforce
This episode is brought to you by ISV Accelerators (https://www.isvaccelerators.com/). ISV Accelerators is your inside guide to co-selling with Salesforce: activating the right reps, accelerating real pipeline, uncovering new revenue, and closing more deals together. Senior alliances leadership without the cost of a full-time hire, and speed to answers on whether that hire is even worth making. See what your Salesforce partnership could really do.
#salesforce (https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23salesforce&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED)
#isv (https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23isv&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED)
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#appexchange
Who has been a guest on How We Got There
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Mark Rutledge
Jeff Freund
Brittany Hart
David Young
Steve Simpson
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Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
19 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
7 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 34 / 100
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Quality
38
Social presence
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YouTube
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Engagement
77
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