The Hidden Go-to-Market Problems Killing Emerging Tech Firms Right Now

Thanks to my fractional work, a handful of acquisitions and a massive Private Equity rolloup a few years back, I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of Go-to-Market (GTM) functions in a lot of emerging companies. A few days ago I actually sat down and counted them, and came up with 22 different industries—ranging from markets like Automotive, Collaboration Tech and e-Commerce on the front end of the alphabet, all the way down to Video Streaming, Virtual Events and Warehousing Tech on the back end.

But as different as some of these industries and their Ideal Customer Profiles can be—because manufacturing managers don't hang out with members of the National Association of Broadcasters—there is a great deal of commonality when it comes to what isn't working from a GTM perspective.

If you own a GTM function at a tech company that is under-performing, and you've recently asked yourself the question "What are we doing wrong?" the answer might be in the list below.

#1: No Agreement on Value Proposition Across GTM Teams

As an outsider hired to evaluate GTM functions, one of the first things I do is schedule interviews. I start with the CEO, then the Marketing and Sales leaders, then work my way to an Account Executive, an Inside Sales person, a Customer Success lead and sometimes a Product Owner.

Not only are these conversations extremely valuable when it comes to building a foundation of knowledge related to the company and the industry, but they are eye opening in another respect: at struggling companies, these teams never talk about the brand or the product in the same way. In fact, enterprises with the most significant GTM issues are almost always the ones with the widest internal gaps among teams in both perceived brand promise and marginal value.

#2: Blockers in the Lead (or Demand) Generation Process

Digging into a lead (or demand) generation process can be intimidating. When the goal is to accelerate pipeline and ultimately revenue, everything must be looked at in detail—audience, messaging, differentiators, campaign types, cadence structures, calls to action, demo scripts and dozens of other components.

The list of things that can be wrong with a lead (or demand) generation process includes a number of relatively small issues, and a handful of really big ones. But the ones that most often exist include:

• Over-investment in one campaign or intiative type . . . which, by the way, is almost always Pay-per-Click;
  

• Over-reliance on Marketing Automation tools (or ABM technology) to guide strategy; and
  

• A significant decline in organic search traffic, usually after a major change like a new CMS, updated website template or full company rebrand.

Unfortunately, lead and demand acceleration is a complex exercise that should be done on an ongoing basis—but many marketing leaders aren't given the time or the resources to focus on it. Until of course sales pipeline coverage dips below 3x . . . at which time it becomes everyone at the company's focus.

#3: Lack of a Thought Leadership Effort

When selling into highly competitive market spaces where your company is not the clear leader (which pretty much describes every company) educational and thought leadership content is critical. Blog posts, podcasts, articles, short-form videos, interviews, webcasts, episodic video content and opinion pieces are fundamental communication assets that lesser-known companies must leverage to gain visibility. But many firms, particularly in tech, have still not made the shift.

For those who are not completely sold on the value of Thought Leadership as part of a GTM effort, let's remember this:

And a side benefit of Thought Leadership? Sometimes it's free—often involving effort and finess from existing employees, versus a massive re-allocation of budget dollars (feel free to speak with my colleagues Sara Griggs and Joseph J. Nuñez for more insight on what finesse in Thought Leadership means). But the bottom line is this: when there is no one at a company willing or able to put themselves out there as an industry leader, the entire GTM effort will often suffer as a result.

#4: Inadequate Support for Channel or Partner Efforts

If any of you are wondering how many emerging tech firms have Channel executives that still do the right thing despite no real support or attention from the rest of the organization, the correct answer is almost all of them. Take a moment to have coffee with a Channel person in your network, and I guarantee you will hear statements like "I can't get anyone to care about what I'm doing" and "Even a few hours of support per week would make a huge difference in my success rate."

The time and money tech firms spend building and rebuilding channel efforts is significant. But once they are in place, accelerating their success often becomes secondary—because most revenue functions are too caught up chasing the end of every quarter to properly support a channel effort . . . particularly one that takes 12 to 18 months to produce deals. Tech firms live their entire lives three months at a time, and Channel efforts often don't fit into the 'cadence of quarterly panic' that is so commonly enforced on revenue-generating teams.

#5: No Visibility Into Marketing Performance

By default, Marketing is a primary pillar of any tech-focused GTM effort, with the other pillars being Sales, Sales Engineering, Customer Success, Product Management and Professional Services. But unlike these other functions, Marketing is not only the 'face' of any GTM effort but has also traditionally been seen as overhead—meaning their budgets and people are the first to go when things get rough. Yet despite this perpetual target on their backs, Marketing teams are notoriously poor at providing organizational visibility into their performance.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Marketing performance is usually poor, or that organzations aren't receiving fair value in return for their Marketing investments. But I AM saying more often than not, it's difficult for CEOs and CFOs who fund Marketing teams to figure out exactly what these teams are contributing. And when people at the top of the organization lose confidence in what Marketing is contributing, the momentum of the entire Go-to-Market effort suffers.

Wrapping it Up

Are there any common Go-to-Market issues or growth blockers you see within tech firms that aren't listed here? If so, be sure to put them in the Comments field below. And if any of the abovelisted issues sound a bit too familiar, and you'd like to assemble a plan to address them at your company, please feel free to fill out this form on my website. And be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn any time—my profile is always open.

About Eric

Eric is a Fractional CMO and CGTMO with 20+ years of experience owning Marketing, Growth, Go to Market and Strategy at emerging SaaS businesses. The services he currently offers include fractional CMO and GTM advisory services, interim or transitional executive placement, marketing team management, Go-to-Market process optimization and investment due diligence.