All companies are created from an idea—some unique take on solving a problem. Yet, so many fail—but that’s nothing new.
Nobody starts a business thinking that their idea might not be good enough to attract attention and win some sales.
Optimism reigns supreme!
But what most people don’t understand when they start a business is that even hard-earned success causes failure without the right go-to-market mindset.
In his book Move, Sangram Vajre says research shows that when a companies reach $10M in revenue they turn into a landmine. They don’t fail because their vision is obsolete or their people aren’t the best, they fail because they haven’t evolved their go-to-market strategy.
All great business ideas start with identifying a problem and then finding a market for it. It’s a simple recipe, but it doesn’t scale!
On some level we all understand that a product must evolve - what starts out as a great idea people are willing to pay for will simply need to get better over time. Even if our product is a service, we’ll gain new efficiencies and find increasingly creative ways to deliver value.
But what catches even the most experienced entrepreneur off guard is the transformation required to create a legendary company.
Product evolves beyond go-to-market strategy = fail
Go-to-market strategy evolves beyond product capability = fail
Go-to-market strategy is not marketing.
What is go-to-market strategy (GTM)? It’s a transformational process for accelerating your path to market with high-performing revenue teams who are delivering a connected customer experience.
If you think GTM strategy sounds similar to revenue operations, you are correct. They are two sides of the same coin!
While marketing is simply a business function, GTM is a CEO-driven framework for decision-making.
If you are tasked with GTM and you aren’t the CEO, you’ve been set up for failure (or at least sustained mediocrity). And it’s not your fault!
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Part of GTM is constantly asking where you are going as a company - and the CEO is uniquely positioned (and tasked!) with the responsibility of plotting and making course-corrections.
Now, as to who runs operations in a modern GTM team - that’s a topic for another blog post! But we can say what the team looks like:
Customer Success + Marketing + Sales (and yes, in that order!).
10 signs your go-to-market strategy is not working:
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You haven’t found the ideal customer
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Customers are unsure of return on investment
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Your product positioning is embroiled in “feature wars”
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Churn is killing revenue
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Poor demand for your product is evident in new sales
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You can’t accurately make predictions needed to scale
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Teams aren’t aligned with executive strategy
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Sales are largely driven by “hero” sales reps
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Heavy discounting in the sales process
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You aren’t saying “no” to prospects
So what should you do?
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First, start with a laser-focus on your customers. Talk with them regularly! Only customer-obsessed companies will scale.
Second, get your revenue operations team in place to start having the real conversations needed to make a difference.
Third, fully wrap your head around the fact that customer retention should be viewed as your most important form of revenue acquisition.