Playbook: How to Fix Go-to-Market

This is a tactical playbook designed to improve your Go-to-Market (GTM) in a step-by-step way. It provides a structured approach to understand your current performance, identify bottlenecks, plan improvements, and measure the results.

The playbook is structured around six core steps:

Understand what is working
Map the buying process
Analyse the buying process
Plan improvements
Make improvements
Measure improvements

It can be followed sequentially. It’s best done iteratively, running through the end-to-end steps every month or quarter to ensure continuous improvement and adaptation to market changes.

Step 1: Understand what is working

Before you can fix something, you need to know what’s already successful. This step is about data-driven introspection.

Look through your data:

Past sales for the last 6-12 months (or further back if you think it helps). Also include past deals created in the last 6 months.
Look at the attribution of those sales/deals. Keep the attribution model simple and focused on the source of the sale. Add additional attribution later (e.g. first touch, last touch).
Rank where you are winning and losing sales from. Ways to rank could be by:
- Which channel/source offers the most chance of improvement.
- Which channel/source drives the most sales volume or revenue.
- Which channel/source drives sales in an area of strategic interest for the business.
- Note: It isn’t always about where you are getting the most wins from—focus on potential leverage.
Select which area to focus on. A note on referrals: in many B2B GTMs, these are hard to predictably drive results for, so while great, they may not be the focus area for a GTM improvement playbook.

Data Example: Ranking Win/Loss Sources

Source	Win Rate	Volume (Leads)	Deals Created	Deals Won	Strategic Alignment	Comments
PPC Ads	3%	28	4	1	Medium	High (High volume, low win rate suggests a large opportunity for improvement)
SEO	13%	15	5	2	High	Medium (Solid performance, but perhaps lower volume needs analysis)
Outbound	3%	60	6	2	High	Medium (Consistent but requires significant resource investment)
Referrals	25%	8	8	2	Medium	Low (Hard to scale, focus on repeatable channels first)

Step 2: Map the Buying Journey

With the GTM channel or source you’ve decided to focus on, you must now map the specific buying process for that initiative. Only do it specifically for this one source/GTM channel.

For the first iteration of this, just do it from the knowledge you have readily at hand (sales notes, CRM data, anecdotal experience). There is a tendency for people, particularly analytical people or perfectionists, to want to perform deeper research and interviews. But this is only necessary if you’ve already taken advantage of the information you have at hand.

This review needs to go right back to at least the source attribution moment that drove the sale and follow the individual(s) at the customer that bought from you.

Some key questions that often get missed:

Who is the real decision-maker, and who is the influencer? Understanding the full Decision-Making Unit (DMU) and their individual roles is crucial.
What problem are they really trying to solve? Is the problem they mention the same as the underlying business challenge?
What were their non-negotiable criteria for a solution? Knowing their core must-haves helps you understand where you failed or succeeded.
What alternatives did they seriously evaluate, and why did they choose you/not choose the alternative? This is critical competitive intelligence.
What internal steps did they have to take after saying ‘yes’ to you? E.g., legal review, procurement sign-off, internal champion validation. These are often where deals stall.

Examples of Buying Processes for different go-to-markets

Ads (Short, Direct Process)

Starting Point: Customer is using Social Media for a different person but sees an ad describing a problem they have.
Step 1: Customer clicks on the Paid Ad
Step 2: They land on a highly specific product page, that moves them to want to take action on the problem and submit a “Request a Demo” form.
Step 3: The customer now looks to see what alternatives are available in order to make sure they are making a good purchase decision. They investigate competitors and alternatives.
Step 4: Customer re-engages to either purchase, having determined this is a good decision, or in order to make you compete with the alternative they have found (to compete on price or a specific feature/benefit you don’t offer).

Hunting (Personal, Executive Process)

Starting Point: Executive is aware of a problem and is considering how they might solve it.
Step 1: Executive receives a personalized outreach email/LinkedIn message at the right time.
Step 2: A discussion (e.g. Discovery Call) is arrange to learn more about the problem and solution.
Step 3: Executive evaluates your solution along with others they already had under consideration.
Step 4: Legal review and negotiation > Deal closed.

Content (Long, Nurturing Process)

Starting Point: Executive does not consider that they have a problem or that it isn’t a problem worth looking at.
Step 1: Executive reads material on the problem that you solve. This makes them aware of the problem.
Step 2: Executive is researching the problem. Looking to learn more about the problem, not just from you but from others as well. They are looking at all aspects of the problem and various types of solutions.
Step 3: Executive uses available information to determine the best solution with their team.
Step 4: Executive’s team makes a decision on the nature of the problem and the solution. At this point they reach out to 1-2 of the solutions they liked and engaged in order to purchase.

Now that you have a desktop version with what you had at hand, you can proceed to working out where the issues and opportunities lie along a prospect’s journey.

Step 3: Analyse the buying process

Look at each of the steps in your mapped process and analyse what you currently do, plus what the drop-offs are.

Get data on each step. For example, if 100 people land on your demo page, how many submit the form? Of those, how many attend the demo? Of those, how many enter a trial? You might need to use your sales process as a proxy for the buying process when explicit buying data is unavailable.

Look at the collateral you have (case studies, pricing pages, demo videos, emails) and assess its relevance at each stage.

At this stage, you want to put down as many issues and opportunities as you can see, regardless of size or complexity. You want to be looking for:

Big improvements that cut across the buying process (e.g., What if we reposition the product’s value proposition to focus on “time saved” instead of “features”?)
Small improvements that can be implemented quickly (e.g., What if we share pricing immediately after the first inquiry to filter out unqualified leads?)

Step 4: Plan Improvements

Taking the opportunities and issues you have developed, list these out and prioritize them. You cannot work on everything at once.

Common factors to prioritize by are:

Impact: How much of an improvement in conversion (or reduction in time/cost) to the next step do you anticipate? (High, Medium, Low)
Speed to Improve: How quickly can you make the improvements needed? (Days, Weeks, Months)
Cost to Improve: What resources (money, team-hours, external vendors) will be required? (Low, Medium, High)

A simple scoring matrix can help. Focus on High Impact, Low Cost, and Quick Speed items first—these are your “quick wins.”

Step 5: Make Improvements

Now make the improvements. This phase is about execution. Assign ownership for each improvement, set clear deadlines, and ensure the team understands the why behind the change.

Step 6: Measure Improvements

Now measure. Did the improvements you made have the desired effect? How and why?

Quantitative Metrics: Look at the conversion rate between the steps you targeted (e.g., did the Lead-to-Demo rate increase?). Track the overall time-to-close or Cost Per Acquisition (CPA).
Qualitative Feedback: Get feedback from the sales team and from prospects themselves.