Why “More” Broke Your GTM Strategy, and How Focus Fixes it

The principle of “less is more” never quite computed for go-to-market teams. 

For as long as we’ve been thinking about revenue growth, we’ve been thinking about it in terms of more—how to generate more outbound leads, engage more inbound prospects, get more activity from Sales, and squeeze more from our partners. 

But “more” isn’t how today’s buyers buy. 

I feel it. If revenue is your responsibility like it is mine, you probably feel it, too. 

Funding isn’t as abundant as it used to be. Your budget is tighter, and so is your buyer’s. AI has accelerated workflows, meaning every buyer is inundated with noise. 

Neither you (nor your buyers) have the budget or bandwidth for “more.” 

Market convergences have brought us into an era of focus: Focused targeting, focused outreach, and focused GTM execution—that’s how we win today. 

And it just isn’t possible with “good enough” GTM alignment. Without full alignment between Marketing and Sales, we can’t scale the way we need to (or used to).

I’ve learned the hard way that a siloed GTM strategy won’t cut it today. Along the way, I’ve discovered a few tricks that may help you evolve, too. 

When Marketing and Sales are accountable for different outcomes, each team prioritizes its piece of the revenue pie. They focus on the wrong outcomes and lose sight of the bigger picture: sustainable growth, achieved together. 

Let’s say Dave, the VP of Marketing, is measured against MQL volume. Sarah, the VP of Sales Development, is accountable for outbound pipeline generation.

Even if both Dave and Sarah hit their targets (and earn their bonuses), those wins don’t always translate into business outcomes. To meet their goals:

• Dave adjusted MQL scoring, resulting in more MQLs, not necessarily better ones. Inbound pipeline grew, but few inbound leads progressed further.
• Sarah’s teams held more meetings, most of which fell outside of the agreed-upon ICP. Outbound pipeline got filled, but few prospects qualified.

The result? Revenue stalls. The business doesn’t move forward. 

Sure, Dave’s marketers brought in enough leads and Sarah’s SDRs generated the right amount of pipeline. But if those teams are just meeting quota, not creating meaningful conversations with the right people, you’re not driving growth—you’re driving activity. And at the end of the quarter, activity won’t help you hit your target or appease your shareholders.

Don’t hold your teams accountable for meaningless activities. Instead, align them to the one outcome that matters most: revenue growth. 

Your next step: Correct goal misalignment. Draft compensation charts and departmental targets that anchor marketing and sales teams around revenue, not activity.  

Your ideal customer profile is the foundation of your GTM strategy. It’s who you serve and who you’ll invest valuable time, energy, and resources to pursue. But let me ask you this: 

• Who do you think your ideal customer is? 
• Who do your teams think your ideal customer is? 
• And who does your data say your ideal customer is? 

If you answered each question differently, don’t worry. Audience misalignment happens a lot. Our research found that 36% of companies have an effective hand-off but a high percentage of cold sales audiences, meaning audiences that sales is targeting but marketing isn’t. 

Low audience overlap is often a symptom of goal misalignment: When Sales and Marketing are responsible for different things, their definitions of “ideal customer profile” and “quality contacts” will shift. 

Here, data is key. When you know which buyer types tend to be in it for the long haul, you can create a standardized definition of “quality” for every team to rally around. Your definition should be simple and focus on:   

• Lifetime value (LTV): Dig into your data and find customers with low churn and high LTV. Look for what they have in common (company size, stage, industry etc.) and look for more customers like them. This will help you prioritize buyers that won’t just convert, but will also renew, upgrade, and expand.
• Contacts, not accounts: It’s not enough to identify the types of accounts you want to target. Choose the personas and titles that tend to be your best-fit customers—those are the folks to focus on.

Once you know who to focus on, divide that addressable market into categories:

• Green titles: The best-case-scenario roles you’re clamoring to talk to.
• Yellow titles: A cohort of next-best roles who may still convert and drive long-term value.
• Red titles: The roles that likely aren’t worth investing time or budget in pursuing because they're not typically part of the buying committee or are irrelevant.

Using these categories, Sales and Marketing can make clear distinctions and invest their efforts in the folks who will benefit your business today and tomorrow. 

Your next step: Tackle audience mismatch. Standardize your ICP, then give your marketing and sales teams the tools to pursue the highest LTV personas, titles, and contacts efficiently. 

Say you resolve goal misalignment and audience mismatch. Your inbound and outbound motions are running in the same direction, pursuing the right people in an effort to achieve the same goal.

I’ve noticed that this tends to create (or contribute to) a key friction point: Signal fatigue. 

Sales is inundated with signals. Job changes, search intent, ad engagement, review site data, and the list goes on.

But without context, there’s no way to prioritize efficiently. All they can do is keep their heads above water and pace as best as possible. 

Instead of asking Sales to prioritize every signal, set guidelines and look at each signal in context, so Sales and Marketing can assess:

• Which signals require Sales to take action?
• How to interpret different signals (e.g., a prospect searched an industry term vs someone who viewed your pricing page)
• Where is each prospect in the buying journey?

Buyers crave clarity, but so does Sales—noise isn’t a buyer-specific problem.

Your next step: Align on what different intent signals mean and look at them in context, not as isolated triggers to react to, but as part of a broader narrative about the buyer. 

The market is noisier than ever. Fall into the trap of “more” over “meaningful,” and you’ll be lost in the shuffle. 

A few years back, Forrester and Gartner each shared research with a similar conclusion: Buyers wanted a seller-free buying experience. With AI, they’ve gotten a taste of that—endless emails, ceaseless cold calls, and automated outreach that lacks emotional intelligence.

There’s a balance to be struck. For good salespeople, it’s an opportunity to stand out.

Buyers may no longer want a completely seller-free experience, but they do still have standards. They’re looking for humanized experiences that bring clarity to the chaos and for genuine professionals who can meet them where they are in their journey.

The most effective GTM teams set aside strict sales processes and methodologies. In their place, they use intent data to provide every member of the buying committee with relevant knowledge, advice, and value. 

Each buyer enters the deal at different stages, and a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work. So, how do you pinpoint their place in the journey? Steal our playbook:

• Target each buyer with contact-level ads
• Identify the topics, product lines, or value propositions that catch their attention 
• Push on those areas of interest or concern in sales conversations and ongoing marketing efforts

Each contact goes through an individualized journey, seeing ads, outreach, and content that reflects their unique interests, not their place in an arbitrary sales funnel. Stretch your conventional sales process to suit each buyer. It’s the only way to provide experiences that stand out.

Your next step: Overcome the relevance gap. Don’t force a square peg into the round hole that is your sales process—use contact-level intent data to build truly relevant experiences.

It’s a common misconception that after Marketing brings in a qualified lead, Sales is responsible for everything after.

But if both teams are equally accountable for revenue, then they both need to be accountable at every phase of the buyer journey. 

Post-SQL abandonment leaves Sales with a heavy burden. This is especially true when they’re up against buying committees featuring 13 decision-makers on average.

As Mike Carlson, CRO at Hoxhunt pointed out in our recent talk at CRO Summit, it’s hard for one rep to make champions out of 13 different people. 

With Marketing nurturing each decision-maker across channels (and beyond the boundaries of the sales call), Sales is better equipped to convince committees and drive decisions. 

Even after the first sale, both teams are still on the hook. For SaaS companies, expansion accounts for 36% of SaaS revenue, a considerable portion of annual income that’s often shouldered by just Sales and potentially Customer Success. 

But Marketing can play a role here as well. In fact, aligned execution is even easier during the post-sale motion because you have more information. It can work similarly to the pre-sale motion, except you already know which contacts to target: 

• First, Sales tees up an expansion opportunity with an existing customer. They’re familiar with the customer and know exactly who will be included in the buying committee.
• Then, Marketing targets those contacts with relevant ads, outreach, and content—cross-channel touchpoints that help sway decision-makers and move the deal in your favor.
• Finally, Sales reinforces the value of renewing or expanding with relevant messaging, informed by the intent data marketing gathered. 

Your next step: Retrain the post-SQL abandonment muscle. Marketing and Sales are responsible whenever there’s revenue to be won, whether that’s during the initial sale or an expansion opportunity. 

Cost-per-opportunity is only growing, with enterprise SaaS companies now facing an 18% year-over-year increase.

Take it from this CRO: Your budget probably won’t increase with it. Maybe we can’t scale like we used to, but that doesn’t mean growth is impossible. 

Market conditions and buyer preferences have necessitated a new approach—one anchored around focus, efficiency, and more than anything, GTM alignment. 

Navigate the change with the Pavilion x Influ2 playbook, “The Evolution of GTM Strategy.”