When should you revisit and revise your go-to-market (GTM)?

Last week a client asked me when a Go-to-market plan should be revisited.  My response was that in any of the following events, GTM plans should be revisited.

• A new product launch. Will you take the new product to market just like your existing products in existing geos via existing channels?  Or do you use this opportunity to do a better segmentation and revise your GTM. Does the new product warrant a very different approach – for example it is PLG (product-led-growth) vs rest of your portfolio traditional enterprise SaaS?
• You are entering a new geography.  Will you sell differently in the new geo? For example, instead of separate enterprise and mid-market sales forces, would it be better to have one sales structure in the new geo. Perhaps in the new geo, you choose to initially go harder with partners and leverage their relationships. Will the messaging be slightly different in that geo, based on the companies and buyers you are targeting/how you are segmenting?
• You are entering a new industry. Would you sell through your existing territory-based sales reps, or do you designate specific sales reps, who know the industry, to target named accounts across the geo?
• You are entering a new segment. For example, you have sold in the mid-market through inside sales and now you want to target enterprise segment. This requires a different sales structure, a different set of sales compensation plan than what you have, a different pricing model for the new segment and a different messaging.  It also impacts your sales enablement plans.
• You have a new pricing model. Is the new pricing designed to support a different set of underlying economics that warrants a revisit of GTM.  For example, you are entering a new segment, where you price or package your solution very differently – see above.
• You have new partnerships. You have signed a major reseller relationship.  Use this opportunity to see if GTM needs to evolve to create room for this partnership to grow and thrive.
• Your competitive dynamics have changed.  Your win rate in a certain segment or product has dropped.  Is it a product or a pricing or sales incentive or a go-to-market issue?  For example, if the product affected is an add-on product and typically purchased by an existing customer in year 2 or later of their deployment cycle. And your current sales comp structure calls does not give enough incentive to sales reps for products purchased by existing customers in year 2 onwards – the account is transferred to the account management team, who does not have the expertise to sell the product. In this scenario, your GTM may be strangling the sales of that add-on product.

I recommend looking at your GTM once a year to decide if you need to make some tweaks to align with your planned products/segmentation/target geos/ channel/pricing etc.

If you have more questions on this topic, please reach out to me via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/applicationsmarketing/