Sangram Vajre on Go-To-Market Strategy, Growth, and CEO Clarity

In this episode, Jeff Hancher sits down with Sangram Vajre, co-founder and CEO of GTM Partners, bestselling author of MOVE, and one of the leading voices in go-to-market strategy. Sangram shares why CEOs must take ownership of go-to-market, how lack of clarity quietly stalls growth, and what leaders can do to align their teams around the right customers, metrics, and strategy. You’ll learn why go-to-market is not just a sales or marketing function, how to identify whether your company is in problem-market fit, product-market fit, or platform-market fit, and why revenue per employee and net retention rate are two critical metrics every CEO should understand. Sangram also explains how AI can give leaders better visibility into their business, sales calls, pipeline, messaging, and customer conversations. Whether you are a founder, CEO, executive, or business leader trying to scale profitably, this conversation will help you build more clarity, improve alignment, and take smarter ownership of your company’s growth.

About Sangram

Today I have a guest who ran marketing at a large organization that was acquired by ExactTarget and ultimately acquired by Salesforce for $2.7 billion. Soon after, he co-founded Terminus, which hit $1 million in the first year, $5 million in the second, and $15 million in the third year. Terminus ranked 21st in Deloitte’s fastest-growing companies and was named back-to-back as one of the best places to work before being acquired by a private equity firm in 2021.

He’s the author of three go-to-market books, including the award-winning ABM is B2B and the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller MOVE. He’s a frequent keynote speaker and the host of a top-50 business podcast called MOVE, a go-to-market podcast with over half a million downloads.

He is currently serving as co-founder and CEO of GTM Partners. It’s a data-driven analyst firm, and its team is championing efficient growth through modern go-to-market plays. He is most passionate about teaching the business of marketing, leadership, and life through his 21 signature frameworks.

Why does the CEO have to be the one who owns go-to-market?

While researching the book MOVE, I interviewed some of the most successful companies. When I asked them who owns go-to-market, they said, “The CEO.” Brian Halligan, who was the CEO of HubSpot at the time, said, “Sangram, I don’t think you understand go-to-market.” He was the CEO of HubSpot, leading it from a zero-dollar company to a publicly traded company. He explained to me that many of the things I thought were just everyday decisions are actually a big part of a go-to-market strategy. Every day, real CEOs make hundreds of go-to-market decisions. It’s not an overnight plan that you do with your team. That’s strategic planning. Owning go-to-market means that you understand the business and the outcomes.

What are the biggest go-to-market mistakes that senior leaders make once they have found some level of success?

About two months ago, a CEO friend of mine posted on LinkedIn that she generated $50 million in sales pipeline. But two weeks later, she was let go. I asked her what happened, and she said her company changed the ideal client profile, which was contrary to the pipeline she was building. I asked her why, and she replied that she was not in the meeting when the decision to change the ICP was made. Now, the company’s CEO has a misaligned sales pipeline. They have to replace their CMO, and they are losing money. CEOs have to be clear about their goals and communicate them to the people who need to know. An aligned team is more likely to be a successful team.

We have been putting this research out every three months, and we asked CEOs and executive teams three questions. What is the number one reason why your business is failing? Eighty percent of the leadership teams who answered our survey think the number one reason their company is either failing or not doing what it’s supposed to do is a lack of clarity. CEOs must know what problem they will own, because when people know, they can chase their impossible goals.

One question you must answer to manage your go-to-market systems

Where can we grow the most?

You can grow in many ways, but knowing where you want to grow most will help you clarify where people should focus their effort. We often work with businesses that need to see that they are spending time on activities that are not high-value. It is a surgical process, but by the end of it, we usually find that 80% of what companies are doing, they don’t need to do. I think we are overly busy. I don’t know a single CEO or executive team that says they’re not busy, but when you really look at what they’re doing, they’re spending time on things that actually don’t add value.

Most companies die transitioning from problem-market fit to product-market fit

It’s the hardest thing to navigate. And the reason I was saying it might take some pressure off is that, look, if you are a CEO in problem-market fit, which means you’re trying to figure out a repeatable sales, repeatable marketing, and repeatable delivery process, that’s okay.

Don’t try to grow too fast. Fix that first before you start spending money. Don’t make custom marketing, custom sales, and custom delivery. That’s when your business becomes too bloated and too hard to manage. If you achieve better product-market fit, you will have a higher valuation than any other company.

Are you product-market fit, platform-market fit, or problem-market fit?

We have an assessment you can do at movebook.com, but you should also ask your team. They will help you identify blind spots. Knowing which one you are will free people from the burden of trying to be what everybody wants them to be and help you actually build a better company.

The Valley of Death

There are five ways businesses tend to fail.

They can market, but they can’t sell. They can sell, but they can’t deliver. They can deliver, but they can’t retain. They can retain, but they can’t expand. They build something, but they can’t market it.

Not knowing how to navigate these areas will get you stuck.

Most founders and CEOs listening to this probably already identified at least two or three valleys they are in right now. There are only two metrics that I have seen to be the most important for any business to understand, especially if you want to run a profitable business. These are the two metrics that we get everybody to think about. We want everybody to implement them and find ways to get there. And we want everybody in the company to understand how to measure them and what works.

The first is revenue per employee. Most companies have no idea how to track that. People get lost in wondering if their job is important. You can actually design a scorecard that helps them see and understand that what they do is important. It is motivating for your employees.

The second is what we call the net retention rate, or NRR. This is the number one metric if you’re actually about to scale your business. If your NRR is over 120%, just to give people context, you can grow your business. You can double your business every 3.8 years without adding a single customer.

AI allows CEOs to know more about their business than ever before

Every CEO should never have to worry about this now. For the first time, you can truly own a go-to-market. You can ask any question, but you have to connect all your systems to the cloud or to ChatGPT.

There are hundreds of things available online that will show you how to do that. We obviously do that too. But it is inexcusable for you not to own go-to-market and have insight at that level. You have to have it. Now, here’s the negative part. No amount of AI is going to give you the exact strategy that’s going to work for your team. It’s not going to give you the exact clarity of how you should work with your team. Once you identify the problem, you have to bring your executive team back together to decide how to improve it.

What decision should a CEO make after listening to today’s podcast?

I think the first thing you should do is take ownership of the fact that you own go-to-market very clearly.

That means you need to understand what decisions are made in the company. And if your executive team is not aligned with those decisions, you need to spend an inordinate amount of time getting clarity on your team.

If you have to shut everything down for a day or two to get clarity in your organization at the highest level, you need to do it. If your team doesn’t know what your ICP is, if they can’t answer the eight questions I was talking about, you need to literally shut everything down. The reason it’s important for you to do that is that if you don’t, you’re going to have a leaky bucket. You’re going to keep going through the same grind. You’re going to feel overwhelmed and exhausted. Everybody’s going to be busier than ever before. It’s not worth it. We are on this cause of building something because we want to create something great. And greatness has a cost. The cost you have to pay is clarity.

Connect with Sangram

LinkedIn

movebook.com

Application Activities

Activity 1: Determine where your business is today: problem-market fit, product-market fit, or platform-market fit. Go to themovebook.com and take the free assessment, then have your team take it too. Compare the results to identify where you are aligned and where blind spots may exist. This helps create clarity around your current stage and what your next right move should be.

Activity 2: Connect your key business systems so you can ask better questions and get clearer answers. Start with tools like your call recordings, CRM, calendar, and company calendar, then connect them to a cloud platform or ChatGPT with the right context. Use it to review your last 10 sales calls, check whether your team is speaking to the right ICP, evaluate whether your messaging is landing, and identify where deals are being lost. CEOs should no longer have to guess what is happening inside their go-to-market motion.