It's Time for a Chief Go-To-Market Officer

If we want GTM teams to be "better together," we need a unifying function that sits on top of the org chart

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This week’s research note includes:

• GTM Research: The Rise of the Chief GTM Officer

• Better Together: Better Together Boston!

• GTM Events: Events coming soon!

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GTM Research: The Rise of the Chief GTM Officer

A weekly deep-dive into new GTM research and insights

When Sangram Vajre and Bryan Brown wrote MOVE: The 4-question Go-to-Market Framework, they made a bold claim: the CEO must own the Go-to-Market (GTM) function.

They had good reasons for this argument—many supported by data. But at the heart of the issue lies a simple truth: employee behavior is driven by compensation, and only the CEO can align the compensation strategies across Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, and Product.

However, while this makes sense in theory, the practicality of the CEO owning GTM comes with significant challenges. Let's explore why.

The CEO's Overwhelming Responsibilities

The CEO already has the monumental task of running the entire organization. They balance demands from:

• The rest of the organization

• The board of directors

• Investors

• Market champions and influencers

• Large clients

CEOs face urgent issues daily, often requiring quick, gut-based decisions. This constant firefighting leaves little time for the deep, complex, and strategic decisions needed to refine a GTM strategy.

Given these competing responsibilities, a CEO can only devote so much attention to GTM, even though it likely represents at least half of the company's workforce.

Therefore, while CEOs have the right authority and perspective to lead GTM, they often lack the time to do so effectively and consistently.

What About the COO?

The COO is another potential GTM leader. The role of the COO has been evolving, and its scope varies across organizations. McKinsey reports that only 32% of Fortune 500 companies had a COO in 2018, though that number rose to 40% by 2022.

The COO’s duties might include:

• Financial management

• Organizational oversight

• Legal responsibilities

• Succession planning for the CEO

In some companies, the COO has the expertise to lead GTM. However, in others, their attention is pulled toward different priorities, making them an inconsistent choice for GTM ownership.

The CRO/CCO: A Missed Opportunity?

Many organizations look to the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) or Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) to unify Sales, Marketing, and Product under one umbrella. However, in practice, these roles tend to focus heavily on short-term revenue, often measured in quarterly sales results.

While sales and marketing alignment is critical, the GTM team’s long-term success also depends on Product and Customer Success, areas that typically require more nuanced, long-term strategies.

Unfortunately, the CRO/CCO role often overlooks these functions, leaving gaps in the GTM leadership.

What about the Chief Growth Officer?

A Chief Growth Officer (CGO) is typically responsible for driving a company’s growth strategy, focusing on expanding revenue, customer acquisition, market penetration, and overall business performance. The CGO's role is to identify new business opportunities, optimize growth levers, and integrate cross-functional teams like Marketing, Sales, Product, and Customer Success to create seamless growth initiatives.

While the CGO is focused on growth, GTM strategy encompasses more than just growth. GTM also involves customer retention, operational efficiency, and product positioning, which may not always align directly with aggressive growth strategies.

CGOs might be also pressured to deliver rapid growth, leading to a disproportionate focus on short-term tactics like aggressive sales targets or acquisition campaigns, potentially neglecting long-term sustainability, brand building, or customer success.

A CGO might prioritize growth over product development or brand strategy nuances. If the product or marketing team isn't involved in strategic decision-making, this can lead to misalignment, potentially creating disconnects in GTM execution.

So, Who’s Running GTM?

In many organizations, GTM leadership falls to:

1. A high-performing CMO, CRO, or SVP of Marketing—These leaders often succeed in temporarily uniting GTM teams, but their departure can create a leadership vacuum.

2. A cross-functional leadership committee may include the CMO, CRO, CPO, and CSO, alongside VPs and Directors from Revenue Operations and Enablement. These leaders strive to align their teams but often struggle to balance competing priorities and KPIs.

Both models have their downsides. GTM coordination becomes a delicate dance of compromises and quid-pro-quos among leaders, followed by efforts to persuade the broader organization to stay on track. This often leads to inefficiencies and misalignment.

The Role of Technology in GTM Collaboration

Technology can help GTM teams collaborate more effectively. Among the top 15 technology use cases searched by GTM teams over the past 12 months, more than half focused on improving cross-functional work and engagement.

Here are some of the top technologies GTM teams have been searching for:

(G2 data: 500,000+ searches for GTM-related technologies)

This tells us collaboration is a known issue for companies who are trying to work better together.

(Re)Introducing the Chief Go-to-Market Officer (CGTMO)

Given the challenges faced by CEOs, COOs, and CROs in leading GTM, a dedicated Chief Go-to-Market Officer (CGTMO) is needed. The CGTMO would sit alongside the CEO and COO and be responsible for ensuring that the organization’s GTM investments are executed efficiently.

Key Responsibilities of the CGO

The CGO should:

• Live and breathe the customer experience and market expectations.

• Keep GTM teams focused on strategy, ruthlessly prioritizing resources and initiatives.

• Collaborate with the CEO and COO/CFO to align GTM with overall organizational goals.

Key Metrics for a CGO

• Cost of Acquisition (CAC)

• Net Revenue Retention (NRR)

• Cost of Retention (COR)

• GTM Motion Delivery (Outbound/Partnership/Ecosystem)

• New Logo/New Business Goals

• Product Usage

• Share of Voice in the Market

• Close Rates by Stage

• Actual Contract Value (ACV)

Responsibilities

• Oversight of the GTM organization, strategy, and budget

• Market approach, including Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and Total Addressable Market (TAM)

• Leadership of revenue operations, product roadmap, and sales structure

Leadership Characteristics for a CGO

A successful CGO will have:

• Experience leading GTM teams across at least two core functions (Product, Marketing, Sales, Customer Success).

• Strong analytical skills, with comfort using data-driven decision-making.

• A collaborative work style, able to resolve conflicts between teams with differing perspectives.

• A customer-centric approach to leadership.

A Note on Organization Size

• Small businesses (0-50 employees) – GTM teams can function through collaboration and structured meetings.

• Mid-sized businesses (50-500 employees) – A dedicated CGTMO or Head of GTM can ensure alignment across departments.

• Enterprises (500+ employees) – A GTM Center of Excellence can centralize GTM strategy and execution, ensuring cohesive management across large, complex organizations.

Making the CGTMO a Reality

The need for a holistic approach to GTM strategy is evident. GTM Partners has developed systems to help keep GTM teams running efficiently, whether you're operating a founder-led business or a large organization.

By appointing a Chief Go-to-Market Officer, your organization can bridge the gap between short-term revenue goals and long-term success, ensuring that your GTM strategy is aligned, effective, and scalable.

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Do you need help with your GTM strategy and execution?

GTM Partners works with B2B companies in the following ways:

• GTM Audit and Plan: We assess your current GTM challenges and opportunities, provide a GTM Score, and offer a plan for identifying and prioritizing your biggest GTM challenges.

• Advisory: We work one-on-one or with your entire GTM team to execute your plan using our proprietary GTM Operating System and the frameworks we’ve built to accelerate your growth. We can do this on a project basis to address specific needs or help you through a total GTM transformation.

• GTM Certification: We offer Go-to-Market certification for individuals, teams, and agencies using our proprietary GTM Operating System.

We’d love to chat more about your needs and how we can help.

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GTM is Better Together: Boston!

“GTM is Better Together” is a revolutionary new vision that the future of GTM is better together with unified teams, tech, and trust. This is a weekly feature where we will share the latest announcements related to this important initiative.

GTM is Better Together takes Boston by storm tomorrow. To get you excited, here’s a short recap of two of the panels from BetterTogether Atlanta two weeks ago.

Panel: Transforming GTM Tech Stacks: From Junk Drawer to Strategic Engine

In our first panel of enterprise go-to-marketers, we talked about how to build a unified “single pane of glass” for complete visibility

Speakers:

• Nadia Davis, Sr. Director, Revenue Marketing and MarOps, PayIt (speaking on behalf of RingLead): Aligning your team to a strategy for seamless execution requires more than just chasing the 'proverbial MQL.' The real challenge is integrating data, insights, and processes to ensure smooth handoffs and cohesive alignment across the entire strategy."

• Rachel Christopher, Marketing Operations Manager Autodesk (speaking on behalf of MadKudu): "We need to go straight to the source and identify where we're truly gaining value from our technology. Then, we need to examine the root of any issues. Having too many disconnected tech platforms is a company-wide problem that requires careful evaluation and alignment."

• Heather Berggren, Sr. Director, Demand Generation, Cisco (speaking on behalf of Technology Advice): "The biggest challenge is identifying which systems, projects, and priorities are critical and need protection (glass balls), while letting go of those that are less essential (rubber balls). Knowing where to focus, prioritize resources, and optimize platforms is key to driving the entire technology ecosystem forward—that's what truly matters in the long run."

Panel: Sharing Actionable Insights Across Sales, Marketing, CS

In our second panel, a marketing leader, a sales leader, and a CS leader walked into a bar and talked about the data they had that their counterparts should want and how to get the best insights out of siloed data.

• MJ Varghese, SVP of Digital Strategy & Marketing, Equifax (speaking on behalf of Demandbase): “Having vendors who are thought leaders or strategic partners who bring outside perspectives is invaluable. Their external knowledge helps us define what 'good' looks like, making them valuable partners in our growth."

• Howard Atkins, Executive Vice President of GTM, ConstructConnect (speaking on behalf of Vidyard): "I really value tools that offer seamless integrations and an intuitive UI, as these are crucial for us because it can be hard to get sales to use new things.”

• Paul Whelan, Director of Customer Insights, Verint (speaking on behalf of Tontango + Catalyst): “There is so much data and insights we have on the customer team that could be invaluable to sales and marketing. And I know they have data that is useful to my team as well. We work best when we’re sharing these insights.”

We’ll be in Boston tomorrow and then in New York in October and in San Francisco in November. Hope to see you there! And remember to bring a colleague (tickets are 2-for-1 or we an comp you if you work with one of our sponsors).

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GTM Events

A list of upcoming events of interest to GTM professionals

• September 10, Boston: GTM is Better Together

• September 18-20, Boston: INBOUND 2024

• October 14-16, Austin, TX: Pavilion’s GTM 2024 (use code GTMPARTNERS20 for 20% off your ticket)

• October 16, Austin: GTM Made Simple Roadshow

• October 22, NYC: GTM is Better Together

• November 20, San Francisco: GTM is Better Together

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Hope to see many of you in Boston tomorrow!

Love, 

The GTM Partners Team