GTM Club's Guide to Sales-Led GTM
A sales-led go-to-market strategy performs in the B2B tech sector when complex and high-value products and services are sold. This sales approach drives growth by empowering sales teams and aligning marketing and product functions to support sales.
In today's competitive B2B technology landscape, choosing the right go-to-market strategy is crucial for success. Sales-led GTM has become a go-to approach for companies selling complex or high-value solutions to SMEs and enterprises. This article will help you understand sales-led GTM, who it's for, and how to implement it successfully.
Why Is Sales-Led GTM Important?
“Next year, we need at least double our revenue!”
Every startup CEO states this sentence. While more established companies might have more conservative growth targets, the common goal is accelerating sales. A systematic effort is required for a company with ambitious growth goals; just winging it is not an option.
Meeting growth targets is always vital on both company and personal levels. If a start-up falls behind its growth targets, it will lose interest from investors, and access to ever-important capital becomes more difficult. On the other hand, stock-listed companies see the impact of failing to deliver on the company's market value. On a more personal level, regardless of company size, missing targets leads to top management's position becoming shaky at best and sales reps are left without bonuses. Reaching set targets is a company broad imperative.
Reaching set targets is a company broad imperative.
For many B2B tech companies, transitioning to sales-led GTM accelerates sales and sets them on a path to reach growth targets.
What is Sales-Led GTM?
A go-to-market strategy details how you sell your products to customers. A sales-led go-to-market strategy emphasises sales efforts to facilitate customer acquisition and business growth. It places the sales function as the company's primary growth and revenue engine. A key idea in sales-led GTM is to empower sales teams to act autonomously and pursue opportunities to drive growth.
Key Characteristics of Sales-Led GTM
Sales-led GTM is characterised by its high-touch sales process, where sales representatives build strong relationships through consultative selling before customers interact with the product. This approach is efficient for complex solutions that require significant customer education and support. The strategy typically targets larger companies with comprehensive needs and longer decision-making processes.
For example, some well-known global companies that are nailing sales-led GTM are ServiceNow and Salesforce.
Who Should Adopt Sales-Led GTM?
Not every company can grow with sales-led GTM, as certain noteworthy perquisites make it suitable as a strategy. Success with a sales-led approach depends on three essential criteria that must be carefully evaluated.
First, investing in and enabling sales teams must be economically viable. Your product's price point and margins must be sufficient to support a dedicated sales team. Sales teams cost money to hire, train and manage, so having one makes sense only if selling the product in question can not be done via no-touch self-service. The sales-led strategy works particularly well when targeting deals with relatively high revenue, usually upwards of 10,000 euros or dollars annually.
Second, your product or service should have inherent complexity. The ideal offering is one that customers cannot simply purchase, implement, and succeed with on their own, similar to enterprise software such as Salesforce and ServiceNow above. Setting up such a complex system for an enterprise is no easy feat, even when experts do it.
Finally, your sales team must be able to add meaningful value throughout the customer's buying journey, for example, through education, consultation, and relationship building. The problem you solve for your customers must be such that prospects want personal service or do not know how to search for your offering independently.
Want to assess if sales-led GTM is right for you? Read our detailed breakdown on who can grow with sales-led GTM.
Sales-Led GTM vs Product-Led Growth
The alternative option to a sales-led approach would be product-led growth, PLG. On a practical level, sales-led GTM is a sales approach where the sales team interacts with customers before they get hands-on with the product. Meanwhile, in PLG, the purchase can be made entirely without interacting with anyone at the company. The product "sells itself". Drilling even more into the nitty-gritty, if a tech company's website says “Contact Sales” or “Book a demo,” you can be pretty sure you are looking at a sales-driven company.
Sales-led GTM is a sales approach where the sales team interacts with customers before they get hands-on with the product.
Many companies have successfully combined sales-led GTM with product-led growth. For example, after establishing itself via PLG in the SME segment, transitioning to enterprise sales might benefit or even require partly adopting sales-led GTM. However, when combining elements from sales and product-led growth approaches, one must be careful: mismatches are expensive at best and destructive if done wrong.
Benefits of Sales-Led GTM
It is true that sales-led GTM has certain notable drawbacks, including higher personnel costs. But for companies suitable for sales-led growth, benefits trump drawbacks.
Companies that tap into this strategy can benefit significantly from the five upsides of sales-led GTM.
- High Average Deal Size: Sales-led companies can effectively target larger deal sizes by selling to big organisations requiring comprehensive support and guidance during their decision-making process and tenure as customers.
- Enhanced Customer Engagement and Relationships: A sales-led approach enables direct interactions with potential customers. Through these interactions, customers' needs can be learned, enabling tailored offerings.
- Control Over the Sales Process: Sales-led companies can quickly adjust their sales tactics and strategies to meet customer needs, product updates, and market changes.
- Targeted Sales Activities: Sales teams select prospects to whom they will devote time and effort. The company gains a well-informed customer base through product demos, sales materials, and product sheets.
- Personalised Onboarding and Customer Support: The sales-led model often includes assigning a dedicated representative to onboard new customers. Personal support helps new users understand the product better, addresses immediate questions, and personalises the onboarding experience.
Our article about the pros and cons of sales-led GTM has a detailed breakdown of both sides.
Key Components of Successful Sales-Led GTM
Success in sales-led GTM heavily depends on comprehensive sales team enablement. This includes investing in thorough product training, developing effective sales materials, implementing robust CRM systems, and maintaining regular coaching programs to ensure continuous team development. While products can be widely different, some components are shared by successful organisations executing the sales-led GTM playbook.
Selling Successfully Requires You to Know Your Prospects
Knowing your customers is paramount in sales-led GTM, as it allows sales teams to prioritise leads and opportunities to work on and to tailor their approach and offering to meet specific needs. Utilising qualification frameworks such as CHAMP (Challenges, Authority, Money, and Prioritisation) helps sales teams to identify the most promising targets. On the other hand, through discovery, sales learn prospects' needs, pains and goals to personalise and customise sales demos and offered solutions.
Sales Demos Accelerate Sales
Building on learning about prospects and customers through qualification and discovery, sales demonstrations play a crucial role in sales-led GTM. They are powerful tools for showcasing the value of the sold product and building rapport and relationships with prospects. A well-executed sales demo is a textbook example of how to work according to sales-led GTM!
Effective Sales Pipeline Management Is a Must
Pipeline management is essential in sales-led GTM, as the sales team is the main driver of revenue growth. For sales leadership, reviewing the sales pipeline is one of the most powerful tools to support and enable their sales teams. Reviewing the sales pipeline regularly helps maintain a healthy pipeline, identify bottlenecks, and ensure deals progress smoothly through each stage.
Getting Started with Sales-Led GTM
To start your journey towards a sales-led go-to-market, you must invest in a professional sales team (if you are transitioning from founder-led sales) or, in the case of more established organisations, enable the sales team to drive the company's growth.
Are you considering implementing a sales-led GTM strategy? Here are your next steps:
- Understand the pros and cons in our detailed analysis of how to leverage sales-led GTM.
- Evaluate your readiness using our Sales-Led GTM Checklist.
- Use our Annual Sales Planning Template to craft a winning GTM plan. You don't need to wait until next year; you can jump on board immediately!
Grow With Sales-Led GTM, Subscribe to GMT Club Newsletter
Sales-led GTM can be a powerful strategy for B2B companies selling complex, high-value solutions. Successful implementation of sales-led GTM requires careful planning, adequate resources, and ongoing optimisation of your sales processes. The benefits of transitioning to a sales-led company might not be apparent overnight. However, you should eventually start seeing more traction on sales KPIs, and the company should find a shared tone and direction. GTM Club's Newsletter is here to accelerate your sales-led journey!
