As business leaders, we can sometimes hear the term “go-to-market” and immediately think “marketing.” But that is only part of the equation and Sangram Vajre is here to tell us why.
In this episode of One Next Step, we are joined for a second time by Sangram Vajre, Co-Founder and Chief Evangelist of Terminus.
He offers his unique take on go-to-market strategies (aka, bringing new products and new business to the market). He tells us about his four questions that help launch products, create ideal customers and gain a competitive advantage.
He explains the basics of a go-to-market strategy and how leaders can effectively begin using it to take their organization to the next level.
Here are some takeaways he shared:
1. There's a new role emerging in corporations.
It’s called the Head of Revenue Operations. This is a person that reports directly to the CEO or CFO and is constantly helping them know where to invest their next dollars.
For a CEO to ask the marketing team, ‘Hey, if I give you a dollar more, what would you do?’ The marketing team is going to say, ‘Well, I’m going to create more content or I’m going to add a designer or I’m going to run more ads.’
If you ask the same exact question to a sales leader, they’re going to say, ‘Oh, I’m going to hire a salesperson. Or I’m going to change the comp plan.’
But if you actually are thinking about where do you spend the money, it’s a role called the Head of Revenue Operations.
2. You have to be on the same page as your team or your go-to-market is broken.
Think about where you are, and without pushing, ask your team to go through one of Sangram’s assessments to determine where they think you are.
If you can get the executive team to sit at a table and agree on what stage of business you’re at, then you can move on to the next stage.
Consider these four questions in your marketing, operations, velocity and expansions stages of your organization.
Who should you market to?
What do you need to operate effectively?
How can we scale our business?
How fast can we grow?
3. The executive team is always responsible for the go-to-market-strategy.
It’s not the marketers or the sales team – it should fall to those at the top to set the vision and work through the various stages of the business.
Each leader, in their own self assessment, should stop to think about where they are. And then, without pushing it, ask your executive team to sit down and say, ‘All right, let’s just go through the assessment on our own.’
And on themovebook.com, there are scorecards and templates that are available for download for this exercise.
If you can get your executive team to sit around the table and ask these questions and ask, ‘What stage of the business are we right now?’
And if you can get alignment on it, you are actually a business that can transform to the next stage. But if you can’t get alignment on that, you have problems that you need to face and focus on and address immediately.