ABM Lessons from Red Hat: Revenue First, MQLs Last

If you’ve ever wanted a crash course in what not to do in ABM, Michael Davies is your guy.

Currently running ABM at Red Hat, Michael has worn many hats across Intuit, Ricoh, and Sabre. But it was an offhand comment from a college professor and a healthy dose of Mad Men that kicked off his marketing journey.

 "I basically wanted to be Don Draper," he jokes. 

Fast forward to today, and he’s delivering an ABM strategy that prioritizes substance over sizzle.

Let Sales Pitch You for ABM

At Red Hat, sales doesn’t just get ABM handed to them. They pitch for it. This unique dynamic means marketing isn’t chasing sales alignment, it’s built in from the start.

"They’re bought in from the very beginning," Michael explains. And this shared ownership means the teams speak the same language: revenue. Not MQLs, not engagement rate, not brand lift. Revenue.

Instead of vanity metrics, Red Hat aligns on KPIs like marketing-sourced and marketing-touched pipeline. 

“Open rates aren’t going to impress the CFO. Revenue will.”

Michael also believes that marketers need to sit confidently at the same table as sales and even finance: 

“A marketing person should be able to sit next to a salesperson and not get eaten alive by the CFO.”

No Budget? No Problem.

Most people see budget constraints as, well, constraints. Michael sees them as liberation.

"Having zero budget is the most liberating thing you can have," he says. "You don't have to calculate ROI because anything you get is instantly a win."

His playbook for scrappy ABM includes:

• Focusing on just 3 to 5 accounts

• Going Sherlock Holmes-level deep on research: strategy decks, earnings calls, podcast appearances, and annual reports

• Doing unscalable things with high emotional value: handwritten notes, creatively crafted gifts, and content designed specifically for one person, not 100

One win: Sending a director at a bank a custom Lego Red Hat fedora, something that now sits proudly on his desk.

Trojan Horse Branding with No Pitch

Michael’s proudest unconventional tactic is an initiative called Future Females in Tech, co-hosted with NatWest.

There’s no product involved, no follow-up nurture, and no pipeline pressure. Just shared values.

“It’s almost like a Trojan horse for brand equity,” he explains. “We’re not pushing Red Hat, we’re building trust and aligning ourselves with causes they care about.”

And even if ROI takes time to materialize, sometimes 3 to 5 years in Red Hat’s deal cycles, the long-term brand credibility pays off. 

“Sometimes, just getting invited to the table is a win.”

What Actually Works for Engagement

Forget complicated funnels and generic content. Michael sticks to a few powerful tactics that make a big impact without adding extra noise:

1. Email: “The cockroach of marketing.” It survives every platform change and privacy update.

2. Exec-to-Exec outreach: Not scalable, but wildly effective. Think sniper rifle, not machine gun.

3. In-person events: Small, informal, and agenda-free. “Add drinks, remove the PowerPoint.”

Honorable mention: Physical post. “A handwritten note or a thoughtful gift still breaks through the noise.”

Building Content Like Theatre, Not Funnels

Content creation for accounts starts at Red Hat not with products, but with problems.

Michael’s team pores over customer materials: annual reports, long-term IT roadmaps, earnings presentations. If a customer says they want to be “easier to do business with,” that translates to automating background systems, then Red Hat’s solution comes into play. But only at the end.

His approach to personalization: Go beyond surface-level. What he calls re-personalization means using quotes from a target’s own webinar or LinkedIn post, and reflecting their exact language back to them.

It’s not just about personalizing; it’s about mirroring. 

"If you can quote someone back to themselves, even subtly, you’ll grab their attention way more than saying 'Hi Dave, saw you raised Series B.'"

And when it comes to structuring that content, he thinks in terms of theatre: “Create a play, not a journey. Engineer feelings, not steps.” 

Create emotion, not just progression.

MQLs: RIP

Michael doesn’t hold back: “The MQL is dead. It gets wheeled out every quarter like a stuffed parrot for performance theatre.”

For ABM, especially in complex B2B sales with multi-year cycles, a form filled from one person in a huge buying committee means very little.

Instead, Red Hat focuses on:

• Marketing-sourced pipeline: opportunities where marketing initiated the motion

• Marketing-touched pipeline: opportunities where marketing influenced the buying group

"The buying process is like a rugby scrum: chaotic, full of competing agendas. Tracking one person’s activity isn’t enough."

And If Budget Was No Issue?

If the sky were the limit, Michael would turn guerrilla marketing into a full-blown psychological operation:

• Buy every ad space in the target’s neighborhood

• Sponsor their local bus stop, train station, and corner cafe

• Surround the buying committee with brand impressions until they dream in Red Hat

And if ROI wasn’t a consideration? “I'd go right to the line of bribery,” he laughs.

ABM Tactics He'd Scale, Fire, and Outsource

To close, Michael played the classic ABM game of Scale, Fire, Contract.

• Fire: Email newsletters (finally, someone said it)

• Scale: Deep personalization and re-personalization

• Contract: Event logistics. “Let someone else deal with the catering.”

Reflecting Back

Looking back, Michael says he wishes he’d pushed back more early in his career. "I said yes too much. I tried to people-please. And I burned out." 

Now, he advocates for junior marketers to set boundaries early and question orders, even from seasoned execs.

He also wants marketers to ask themselves: What metric, tactic, or process are you still doing just because someone else thinks it matters?

Final Thoughts

Michael left us with a brutal but brilliant question: What sacred cow in B2B marketing needs to be slaughtered, and why haven’t you done it yet?

Think about it. And maybe, just maybe, cancel that newsletter.

Want more unfiltered ABM takes like this? Follow ABM Answered and connect with Michael Davies on LinkedIn.