One-third of GTM leaders say their business relies on heroic sales players instead of plays

The temptation is to look at this as a sales training problem, but is it really?

Over the last year, we’ve asked hundreds of people what their biggest GTM problems are.

33% say the business is relying on heroic sales players and not plays.

45% say they can’t predict or forecast revenue.

We clearly have a sales problem, right?

Let’s dig in.

If you asked most people how to fix these problems, they would say you clearly have a sales issue. Maybe your new reps need better training or maybe you need better sales enablement. Maybe you just need a better team.

The less-obvious (but just as likely) cause could be product or marketing issues. Could you have a problem with product-market fit? Do you have your value props nailed?

If so, you might be better off investing time in reviewing your ICP, brand messaging, point-of-view, and positioning instead of in more sales training.

Here are the questions we use in our workshops to start to explore the challenge of relying on heroic sales players.

Match Your Sales Stage to Your GTM Maturity

In the early days, most companies rely on founder-led sales and heroic players. Instead of trying to fix sales, make it work for you by leaning in. Bring on reps who can run plays at the direction of the founder and maximize his or her time. Spend less time on sales training and more time on finding Product-Market fit.

By the time you get to Product-Market fit, you’ll need an organized team of leaders and sellers and you’ll need to start thinking about intentional sales training led by the founder.

When you reach Platform-Market fit, you’re running a scalable sales machine that enables efficient growth. This is where training and enablement become critical.

Let’s talk about sales training.

If you’ve achieved Platform-Market fit and you’re still relying on heroic sales players, then you probably DO have a sales problem.

That’s when it’s time to talk about sales trainings.

Developing a “formal” sales approach can provide several benefits to even the smallest of sales teams including:

• Providing a common vocabulary between the GTM Team members (e.g. what is a qualified deal)

• Reducing the “number of calories burned” it takes to run common sales motions

• Learning from others’ experience (no need to reinvent sales) 

• You don’t need to pick just one: different deal types will require different levels of detail and management

• Supporting you in hiring decisions

If this whets your appetite and you are a GTM Partners customer, you’re in luck. We have one of the foremost experts on sales methodologies, frameworks, and enablement on our team: Analyst Lindsay Cordell.

GTM Partners’ customers can schedule some time with her ASAP to learn how she can help your sales team.

Coming up for GTM Partners

Total Relevant Market: We’re hosting a virtual Leadership Summit on how to Identify and Qualify Your Total Relevant Market on May 25 from 1:00-4:30 p.m. EDT. Learn:

• How to build an ICP

• How to create and analyze customer cohorts

• How to best use data

• How to operationalize and educate your team

Roadshows: We’re bringing our GTM-Made-Simple Roadshow to Toronto on May 12, 2023 (that’s THIS FRIDAY) and Boston on June 23. Please join us! 

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Love,

The GTM Partners Team

P.S. If you’re not a customer and you want to learn more about how we can help identify and solve GTM issues, book a free analyst session.