GTMonday Monthly Recap: December Edition

Keeping up with what’s happening in GTM can feel overwhelming when you’re juggling a full schedule. That’s why this monthly recap is here. Each month, we pull together the key insights from the latest GTMonday newsletters from GTM Partners and highlight what’s worth noticing.

Now grab a coffee, take a breath, and enjoy December's GTM highlights.

Three moves that will actually prepare you for 2026 (1/12/2025)

If Your Sales Kickoff Still Feels Like 2015, You're Already Losing 2026 (8/12/2025)

Most sales kickoffs (SKOs) fail because they try to motivate people before they align them, leading to a slow Q1 with missed targets and weak messaging. The solution isn't a better rally; it's a fundamental shift in approach.

You need a Go-to-Market kickoff.

Instead of a siloed sales event, a modern kickoff should be a company-level moment of alignment. Since Go-to-Market (GTM) involves Marketing, Customer Success (CS), Product, and RevOps, they must be included. To achieve this without a major reorganization, sales leaders can ask their peers in other GTM departments for four things: their team's contribution, their commitment to the field, their "ask" of sales, and the primary risk they foresee.

This creates the foundation for a kickoff that your team actually needs.

A Blueprint for a Modern GTM Kickoff

• Rename the Event and Reset Expectations: Call it a "GTM Kickoff" or "Company Kickoff." This signals that you are launching an operating year, not just a rally.

• Show the Real Plan: Present a unified GTM strategy in one slide. Clearly connect how marketing, sales, CS, and product work together to create and retain revenue.

• Bring Real Voices into the Room: Feature a customer who can speak about why they bought and where they hesitated. Bring in an experienced operator who can talk about real-world decisions, not abstract theory.

• Force Clarity Through Q&A: Run a live, unscripted Q&A with the entire executive team. Answering hard questions builds the trust required for execution.

• Set Clear Expectations: Tell every team – sales, marketing, and CS – how their work connects directly to revenue and how they will be measured.

• Build a Cadence to Make the Plan Stick: Treat the kickoff as the starting line. Follow it with monthly or quarterly GTM reviews to revisit assumptions and adjust the plan.

Here’s a summary of the key "Dos and Don'ts":

The audit question that tells you if your kickoff worked is simple:

Can your reps explain your 2026 GTM motion in two sentences by the end of the kickoff?

If the answer is no, you didn't create alignment; you just hosted an event. A successful kickoff gives everyone a shared understanding of how the company plans to win and what their role is in making that a reality.

Stop Building GTM in Slides. Start Building It Like a System. (15/12/2025)

Most Go-to-Market (GTM) plans fail because they are built backward – starting with tactics and guesswork rather than a solid foundation. This leads to slow, unpredictable pipeline growth. A real GTM playbook isn't a slide deck; it's an operating system that begins with two critical decisions: defining a sharp Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and completing a Market Investment Map.

Once those are locked in, building the playbook becomes a structured, segment-by-segment exercise. The following 14-point framework transforms your GTM strategy from a collection of slides into a clear, actionable blueprint.

The 14 Pillars of a GTM Operating System

1. Name the Segment and Target Accounts: Clearly define who is in and who is out.

2. Define What You Will Sell: List the specific products or packages for that segment.

3. Set Revenue Expectations: Assign a dollar goal and its percentage of total revenue.

4. Work Backward from Closed Won: Use actual conversion rates to calculate the required number of deals.

5. Set Churn and LTV Assumptions: State your targets for customer retention and lifetime value.

6. Pick the GTM Motions: Choose the right sales and marketing motions (e.g., inbound, outbound, partner) that match buyer behavior.

7. Identify Personas and Buying Committees: List the key roles, from blockers to decision-makers.

8. Build the Messaging: Create a single, sharp point of view that highlights the customer's pain and why you are the solution.

9. Document the Plays and Programs: Outline the specific actions, offers, and triggers for the team to execute.

10. Name the GTM Owners and Resources: Assign clear accountability by naming the people and teams responsible for each play.

11. Define the Post-Sale Plays: Detail the process for onboarding, retention, and expansion.

12. Map the Infrastructure: List the systems, tools, and data needed to support the GTM motions.

13. Map the Process Requirements: Document all necessary processes, including SLAs, handoffs, and definitions.

14. State Your Assumptions and Risks: Be transparent about the conditions that must be true for the plan to work and the risks that could derail it.

The article includes a detailed example for a B2B SaaS company, illustrating how this framework is applied to a "Mid-market Expansion" segment.

The Real Value of a GTM Playbook

Building a playbook with this level of detail is the cost of creating a predictable revenue engine. When you do this work, the team stops arguing about tactics and starts executing with clarity. Your GTM plan becomes an accountable operating blueprint that tells everyone who to target, what to sell, and how to win.

All The Data You Need For 2026 GTM Planning (24/11/2025)

The New Rules of Growth, Broken Down for You

After reviewing a mountain of research, it's clear that the old ways of planning for growth are changing. It’s not about just adding a few AI tools; it's about building a complete system. The article breaks this down into a framework with three "Acts" that cover eight key "Pillars" of a strong business.

Let's walk through them.

Act I: Figuring Out Where to Play

This first part is all about strategy – deciding where to focus your energy before you do anything else.

Pillar 1: Your Relevant Market: The big idea here is that 95% of your potential customers aren't ready to buy from you today. The real goal is to build a brand that they’ll remember when they are ready. This means you have to market to everyone, not just the small slice of people who are actively shopping right now.

Pillar 2: Your Market Investment: This pillar is about being smart with your products and pricing. The research shows that customers are moving away from old-school, fixed contracts. They now prefer flexible pricing that's tied to the actual value they get. This isn't just a billing detail; it's a core part of your growth strategy.

Act II: How You Actually Make an Impact

This part is about execution – the actions you take to turn your strategy into real momentum and revenue.

Pillar 3: Brand and Demand: You have to engage customers with a strong point of view. And with AI search becoming more popular, you need to make sure your brand shows up there, not just on Google.

Pillar 4: Pipeline Velocity: This is all about speed. The companies that win aren't the ones with the most leads, but the ones who can move a customer from interest to a closed deal the fastest. A slow process kills deals.

Pillar 5: Customer Expansion: Don't forget your existing customers! For most growing companies, a huge chunk of new revenue (over 60%!) comes from the people who already use and love your product. This should be a primary focus, not an afterthought.

Pillar 6: Customer Time to Value: This is crucial. Your customers need to feel the value of what they bought from you fast – think weeks, not months or quarters. If they don't see a quick return on their investment, they won't stick around.

Act III: The Foundation That Holds It All Together

This final act covers the systems and leadership that make sure the whole machine runs smoothly and doesn't fall apart.

Pillar 7: Revenue Operations: You can boil this down to one thing: clean data. AI is powerful, but it's useless if the information you feed it is messy or incomplete. Getting your data right is no longer optional.

Pillar 8: Leadership and Management: None of this works without leaders who are actively involved. The reports show that companies succeed with big changes like AI only when their senior leaders personally champion the initiatives and invest in them. Healthy leaders build healthy teams, which leads to scalable growth.

The Big Takeaway

When you look at it all together, the pattern is clear. The best companies run their business like a single, connected operating system for growth, where all these pillars work in sync. They don't just have a collection of separate teams doing their own thing.

Are you ready to gain a decisive competitive advantage from your investment in technology and AI? Simply owning a diverse tech stack isn't enough; you need the right strategy to orchestrate it. We specialize in helping companies like yours create that harmony between systems and goals.

Get in touch with us!