How do you think of GTM? What does it include, and what does it not include?

I think of a GTM strategy as the document to get everyone aligned. As a fun analogy, imagine you’re all on one of those ancient Viking ships. Each person has an oar, and you all need to be rowing in the same direction and at the same pace. The GTM strategy is the charted path on a map that the captain uses to give appropriate instructions for direction and pace. Coming back to present-day, the GTM strategy should have the following components.

(1) North-star goal: What are you trying to achieve? What have business leaders determined as the goal for the product or portfolio? By when do you need to achieve this goal (12 months? 5 years? etc.)? In our Viking ship scenario, the north-star goal is your final destination on the map.

(2) Research: Research should address three major areas: Customer Insights, Market Insights, and Sales Date. Think back to our Viking ship scenario; you need all three to create the map itself. Customer Insights, Market Insights, and Sales Data are all inputs to help you better understand the landscape in which you are bringing your product or portfolio to market, and thus, inform your GTM strategy. Below are some key questions you need to answer for each of these research areas. 

• Customer Insights: What pains are customers facing? What do they care about? What are they trying to achieve with your product/portfolio? 

• Market Insights: How are competitors currently trying to address the customer’s pains? What works or does not work with their methods? What does the analyst community advise for your customers as they seek to address their pains, and how does your product/portfolio fit into that advice? What are analysts saying about market size and how customers are spending their dollars relative to your offerings?

• Sales data: Where are you successful today? What regions are most successful? Which products are selling into which industries? You should evaluate metrics such as pipeline and number of opportunities across regions and industries. What segments are most successful (small business vs enterprise, for example)? 

The final outputs of your research should be synthesized into a single analysis that illustrates implications for the GTM strategy. Key questions to consider here should be: Where are you seeing low hanging fruit? Where do you have the strongest ability to execute? Which industries/regions do you have the biggest deals or largest number of deals? Are there certain markets where your product could have a first-mover advantage? 

Pro-tip: Quantify as much as the research as you can and try to plot it on a graph, where the X-axis is your ability to execute (strength in pipeline) and the Y-axis is the market size (could be market size by region, industry, or segment).

(3) Narrative: This is the messaging and positioning for the product or portfolio. It’s the story that’s told through your sales and marketing channels. Back in our Viking ship analogy, this is the chant the Vikings would sing as they made their way through the journey - everyone singing the same tune at the same time, rowing their oars in the same direction, at the same pace.