In today’s cutthroat business landscape, companies need to have a well-coordinated and efficient go-to-market strategy. This includes everything from making the product to marketing it.

However, many companies struggle to achieve cross-functional collaboration and alignment, leading to inefficiencies and missed opportunities.

So we were wondering…

What are some practical strategies to build an effective go-to-market engine and improve alignment across the go-to-market team?

To help us with this topic, we’re talking to Tom George, Principal Consultant and Founder of GoMo Consulting.

What Are Some Common Strategies Teams Are Trying to Improve Cross-Functional Communication?

Achieving a strong go-to-market strategy requires a tight-knit collaboration among all teams, including product marketing, content, growth marketing, and sales. However, persistent silos, particularly between sales and marketing, block this. Three core reasons for these silos are: focus on immediate control, metrics disparity, and poor management siloing.

This lack of synchronization extends beyond just marketing and sales. Other departments, like finance and tech support, launch initiatives impacting sales without coordination. The solution lies in streamlining planning and review processes and emphasizing cross-departmental communication, ensuring a more cohesive go-to-market approach.

“I started GoMo, and it’s more than just bridging the gulf. It’s about getting the pieces of go-to-market, the different teams working together in sync, and really cranking to improve performance in the market”.

Tom George, Principal Consultant and Founder of GoMo Consulting

A two-fold approach to enhancing the go-to-market performance

Tom emphasizes the importance of inter-team communication and relevant metrics for organizational success. Based on this, he proposes a two-fold approach to enhance go-to-market performance:

1. Establish a cross-functional PMO: Form a project management office with decision-makers from various go-to-market functions. They’ll be responsible for capturing, prioritizing, and scheduling tasks.
2. Implement a balanced scorecard: Instead of fixating on a single metric, use a balanced scorecard, which should cover market metrics, lead generation sources, pipeline progress, and crucial sales performance indicators, such as quota attainment and conversion rates.

As a result, you can maintain focus on broad market outcomes while ensuring excellence in each function.

Streamlining go-to-market strategies for startups

Successfully building a go-to-market engine requires a well-thought-out strategy. Startups typically progress as follows:

• Series A: Focus on product-market fit;
• Series B: Validate a solid GTM or segment strategy;
• Series C: Enhance sales team efficiency and scale.

As companies grow, their strategy should adapt to different market segments. For instance, initial approaches might be general, but later, there could be distinctions between enterprise and small business strategies.

To streamline this, catalog all projects, create a method to assess project costs and benefits, and monitor project progress using a traffic light system. Then, use a calendar view to schedule and prioritize projects. After establishing this framework, create a decision-making platform to keep the team in sync.

““One is the communication across the teams, and the other is the metrics. You want to create a cross-functional team of decision-makers and have a balanced scorecard that tells a comprehensive story about go-to-market”.”.

Tom George, Principal Consultant and Founder of GoMo Consulting

Now that you know how to build a successful go-to-market engine…learn how to apply other tactics and tools for a disruptive B2B marketing and sales strategy. Check out the full list of episodes here: The B2B Revenue Executive Experience, and instructions on how to rate and review the show are here.