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I was coaching a founder this week. He mentioned that maybe he wouldn’t do a key event again next year, because the booth cost $30k and he didn’t get a ton of leads from it.
We talked about looking at these not as isolated tactics or events, but how they play together in a broader go-to-market strategy. We chatted about building relationships in the ecosystem, using key events throughout the year, and doing other stuff every month in between the events.
He looked at marketing and sales differently after our coaching call. It’s a long-term play about consistency. A few days later, the biggest reseller in his space emailed him and said “dude, I see you guys everywhere. We started testing your product, I have questions. Can we talk?”
I see this all the time. Founders who dabble into “experiments” for 30 days, then abandon it because they couldn’t measure anything meaningful from it (like trial signups).
Here’s another example. When I was at Q4 Inc, I ran the SDR team for a while. My team was consistently performing (both inbound and outbound). Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, results dropped by half.
I pulled every fucking report I could drum up in Salesforce to try and explain what happened. Activity levels were the same. We were working the right number of leads. But every conversion and meeting booked metric dropped.
I couldn’t explain it. And then I had a chat with the head of demand gen. Turns out they had cut the retargeting budget by 90%, because they looked at the lead attribution metrics and they weren’t great, so they decided to eliminate the spend for a more efficient budget. Demo requests dropped by 15% or so, which they expected. But what they didn’t consider was how much easier it is for an SDR team to reach out to accounts and prospects who are already primed. They didn’t consider outbound effectiveness, which our outbound metrics all dropped by half at the same time retargeting budgets were cut.
And this here is why I HATE looking at anything in isolation.
If you understand go-to-market theory, you know nothing works separately.
In today’s newsletter, we’ll dive into GTM theory, what it is, how it works, and what you need to consider to really move your revenue up.
Table of Contents
GTM is one system, not two departments
Most founders split “marketing” and “sales” in their heads. Two teams. Two budgets. Two sets of goals.
That mental model is the problem.
Go-to-market is one system: product + marketing + sales rowing in the same direction. When one is off, the whole thing struggles. You don’t notice it in a quiet bay. You really feel it when the water gets rough.
The two stories I shared make the point. The event didn’t “ROI” in isolation… until the ecosystem recognized consistent presence and a reseller reached out. The SDR team didn’t suddenly get lazy… outbound sagged because retargeting was cut and prospects weren’t primed anymore.
Judge the system, not the tactic.
The Misalignment Trap
Here’s the most common way revenue stalls.
A company starts self-serve. As bigger logos sniff around, they add “Contact Sales.” But the product stays built for self-serve. Packaging stays built for self-serve. Pricing and the website nudge everyone to self-serve.
So a $3k ACV deal gets forced through enterprise hoops. Legal redlines. Procurement forms. Custom invoicing. Months of internal selling for a tiny contract. Nobody wins.
On the surface this looks like a sales problem. “How do we push these through faster?” It isn’t. The packaging pushes buyers into the wrong funnel. The motion doesn’t match how they buy. That’s GTM misalignment.
When GTM is misaligned, every part of the machine throws off false signals. Marketing seems “fine” (traffic is up). Sales seems “fine” (activities are up). Product seems “fine” (features shipped). Revenue still stalls. Because the system is mis-set.
Start with how your buyer buys
Before you debate channels or copy, decide your primary motion for this segment and use case.
If buyers need to try it and get value in minutes, self-serve or PLG can work. If the problem is complex, risk is high, and multiple people weigh in, they will prefer a short, guided sales cycle. If distribution runs through experts or implementation partners, a partner-led motion may be the center of gravity.
Pick one path to $1M ARR for this segment + this use case. Commit. Then align everything to it.
Don’t force PLG because you hate selling. Don’t force “Contact Sales” because you want bigger ACVs. Match the motion to how they buy. Make it the easiest path for them.
Align product, packaging, pricing, and positioning to the motion
If you choose self-serve:
Product needs instant time-to-value. Clear onboarding checklists. In-product help. Usage-based limits that naturally pull the upgrade lever.
Packaging needs an obvious entry tier that matches the first “aha.” Upgrades tied to capabilities that matter in week one, not “custom contracts.”
Pricing should be publishable, comprehensible, and payable without talking to a human.
Positioning should help users compare quickly. Show the job-to-be-done and proof that similar users succeed without hand-holding.
If you choose sales-led:
Product needs a clean demo path, POC scaffolding, role-based permissions, auditability, SSO, security docs. You’re removing risk.
Packaging needs a plan that fits evaluator → champion → buyer. Don’t hide “the thing they actually need” behind enterprise bundling. Give the champion a plan that matches the adoption story you’ll sell.
Pricing should support negotiated terms and common procurement asks without creating margin death by a thousand cuts. Enterprise value must be capabilities and outcomes, not “we’ll invoice you.”
Positioning should sell the change. Why this problem matters now. Why your approach is different. Why your path is safer.
If you choose partner-led:
Product must be integratable, documentable, and profitable for partners to sell and implement. A weak API or no enablement = no partner motion.
Packaging should include partner SKUs and clear service attach opportunities.
Positioning must win the partner’s mindshare first, then the end customer’s.
When the motion is clear, these choices get obvious. When the motion is fuzzy, you end up with a Franken-stack: self-serve packaging, sales-led pricing, PLG onboarding, partner promises. That’s how stalls happen.
Compounding beats one-offs
Nothing in GTM works in isolation. It compounds.
Events prime the market. Retargeting keeps you present. Founder POV pieces make the story familiar. SDRs ride the lift to book real conversations. Demos land because the story has been heard before. Partners echo the message because they’ve seen you everywhere. Then you show up at the next event and the compounding continues.
Cut one leg and the other two wobble. The Q4 retargeting story is the perfect example. Demand-gen thought they trimmed fat. In reality they removed the priming layer that gave outbound a tailwind. First-click attribution never tells you that. Second-order effects do.
Compounding is a calendar problem. It’s about frequency and sequence. Weekly content isn’t a “blog strategy.” It’s an outbound lift strategy. Retargeting isn’t a “paid tactic.” It’s an attention maintenance system for accounts you already touched. Events aren’t “lead gen.” They’re social proof at scale that makes every other channel convert better.
You won’t see that in 30 days. You will feel it in 90–180.
Run on the right clock and the right metrics
Founders often grade long-cycle motions with short-cycle metrics. That’s how you kill programs that are working.
Judge creation and priming by contribution, not last-click: growth in engaged ICP accounts, lifts in SDR connect/reply/meeting rates when programs run, more “we’ve been seeing you everywhere” moments, more partner-initiated conversations. Those are early signals that the system is compounding.
Judge capture and conversion by the math you already know: SQLs, SQOs, Qualification Rate, Win Rate, ACV, and cycle length—tracked in 90-day windows by motion. Keep the “paid / about to be paid / will be paid” view visible, per motion, so you can spot when compounding upstream is missing.
And most importantly: stop blending motions. Inbound ≠ outbound ≠ partner. If you mix them, one will hide another’s issues and you’ll pour money into the wrong bucket.
A simple GTM diagnostic
Give yourself ten minutes and answer three questions:
Does your product, packaging, pricing, and positioning make the chosen motion the obvious path for the buyer?
Can you trace a clean loop from prime → capture → follow-up for this motion, with programs that run every week (continuously), not once?
Would your SDRs/AEs perform better if all of marketing switched off for a month? If the answer is “it wouldn’t matter,” you don’t have compounding. If the answer is “they’d crater,” good, you’ve built a system.
The mindset shift
Stop trying to fix “sales” or “marketing.” Fix GTM as a system.
Pick one motion for one segment and one use case. Align product, packaging, pricing, and positioning to match how they buy. Run the programs that compound. Give them time. Measure contribution, not just attribution. Protect the layers that make everything else easier.
Sales is simple. Not easy. GTM works when every piece rows the same way.
Let me know what you think of the newsletter! Always want to cover topics that you care about.
For more practical early-stage sales tips, connect with me on LinkedIn.
If you’re looking for more hands-on help implementing your first sales process, reach out for coaching packages.
Here’s what Patrick had to say about coaching with SalesMVP Lab:
Reply to this email or book a quick coaching call if you’re at $20k+ MRR, have good pipeline, but struggling to consistently close deals.
P.S. I also work with founders who have small sales teams, but no sales leader yet. Ping me for details.