GTM Strategy
Most B2B companies don’t have a sales problem or a marketing problem. They have a go-to-market problem. From a live Denver workshop: the 5 Valleys of GTM Death, the 15 problems compiled from hundreds of C-suite interviews, and how to diagnose which ones are yours.
In 1997, Apple was making more than 350 different products. Steve Jobs cut that number to 10. The company that was weeks from bankruptcy became the most valuable company on earth.
The parallel in B2B is exact. When we asked hundreds of revenue leaders what’s the one thing keeping their company from hitting its goals, the answer wasn’t competitors. It wasn’t the economy.
Your competition is you. The biggest reason B2B companies miss their number is internal misalignment. And it has a name: a broken go-to-market.
The 5 Valleys of GTM Death
Most B2B companies misdiagnose themselves. They hire a new VP of Sales. They fire the VP of Marketing. They buy another tool. None of it works because they’re treating symptoms, not the disease. GTM is hard because there are five distinct places a revenue system can break — and almost every company is stuck in at least one.
Valley 1
You can CREATE but can’t MARKET
You’ve built something real, but nobody knows it exists. No positioning, no category narrative, no demand.
Valley 2
You can MARKET but can’t SELL
Pipeline is there but the revenue team can’t convert it. Messaging breaks down in the room. Sales doesn’t know the story.
Valley 3
You can SELL but can’t DELIVER
You’re closing deals but the product or service doesn’t land what was promised. Satisfaction drops. Support overwhelmed.
Valley 4
You can DELIVER but can’t RENEW
Customers are satisfied but they’re not renewing. You can’t quantify ROI at renewal time. The value story breaks down.
Valley 5
You can RENEW but can’t EXPAND
Existing customers stay but they never grow. No cross-sell motion, no expansion narrative, NRR stagnates.
You don’t have a marketing problem. You don’t have a sales problem. You have a go-to-market problem.
15 Reasons GTM is Broken
These 15 problems were compiled from hundreds of C-suite interviews and documented in the MOVE GTM Framework. In our Denver workshop, we had every executive circle their top three. The room’s answers were startlingly consistent. Which ones are yours?
01
You can’t predict and forecast revenue for the next two quarters
02
Your competitors are winning more market share
03
Your team is not aligned on an executive strategy
04
You are struggling to go from a product to a platform company
05
Your point of view is not differentiated from your product
06
Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success are out of sync
07
Your analyst relations don’t drive material influence
08
You are the last to enter the deal cycle
09
Your customers love you but can’t quantify their ROI at renewal
10
Your churn is killing your business
11
Your team is reactive, not proactive
12
You can’t prioritize or say no to new initiatives
13
You want to go upmarket but your current customers are smaller
14
Your business relies on heroic sales players, not repeatable plays
15
Discounting and feature wars are eroding your value proposition
Source: MOVE — The 4-Question GTM Framework, compiled from hundreds of C-suite interviews.
What to do with the list
The mistake most companies make is jumping straight to fixes. New tool. New hire. New campaign. But if you don’t know which valley you’re stuck in, the fix often makes it worse — you spend on demand generation when the real problem is that sales can’t convert, or you rebuild the sales process when the problem is the product doesn’t deliver.
The right sequence: identify the valley, diagnose the problem within it, then fix in order. Apple didn’t launch a new product in 1997. They killed 340 things so they could focus on 10.
1
Identify your valley
Where in the create → market → sell → deliver → renew → expand chain does it break?
2
Name your top 3 problems
From the list above. Get your leadership team to do it independently, then compare. The gaps are revealing.
3
Sequence the fixes
Don’t fix valley 3 before valley 2 is solved. The system is sequential.
Clark Growth Partners
We use the GTM Operating System to help technical CEOs at $25M–$150M ARR identify which problems are causing the most drag — and fix them in the right order.