"The purpose of business is to create a customer." -- Peter Drucker

What's your GTM?

You know, GTM = Go-to-Market.

Building a powerful and integrated go-to-market system is how companies win in the long-term.

Short-term hacks and quick sales may seem enticing, but hacks are hacks used by hacks.

An effective go-to-market system is the missing link between a company’s strategy—decisions about where to compete and how to win—and fostering exceptional customer experiences that are the ultimate path to success and ensure long-term profitability.  

With such a system, an organization can identify attractive target customers and design value propositions tailored to those customers’ needs at the same time maximizing a company’s strengths. 

GTM enables a company to deliver these offerings to the marketplace while continually refining them based on fast and reliable customer feedback.

This closed-loop feedback process bridges the gaps to keep a company in sync with its market. 

Using tactics that are agile and iterative ensure an organization develops product ambassadors. 

Nurturing happy, loyal customers who take on the role of product ambassadors ensures lasting success: Loyal customers buy more products, stick around longer, cost less to serve and sing the company’s praises to their friends and colleagues.

According to Bain & Company, companies with world-class GTM systems have the following capabilities in common:

They synchronize their operations with the ever-changing marketplace to accommodate industry disruptions, competitor moves, and their own entry into adjacent markets.

They understand the needs of their target-customer, allowing them to deploy their sales resources to the highest-value opportunities within each customer segment, selling channel, and geography.

And they establish simple, clear decision roles and processes—a major strength, particularly given that many organization’s sales and marketing efforts are stymied by bureaucratic and silo decision making.

It doesn’t matter if you’re making shampoo or selling multi-day excursions — any product can be bought or sold with the right alignment and team structure to support it. 

However, a GTM system gets to the heart of building a great company and forces the central question: What are we building and for whom? 

These questions must be asked and answered to be effective for a successful go-to-market system.

Executing a GTM system will delight your customers and surprise your competition. 

- Marc

Marc A. Ross is the founder of Caracal Global and specializes in advocacy communications for global business working at the intersection of globalization, disruption, and politics.