Go-To-Market (GTM) Philosophy: Beyond the Pipeline
The Strategic Reality: The 95:5 Rule
The data is clear and consistent: ~95% of your potential market isn't actively buying at any given moment.
Yet most companies build their entire GTM-strategy around converting the ~5% who might be in-market today. This fundamental misalignment creates a dangerous cycle of diminishing returns that undermines long-term growth potential.
This insight is supported by research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and other marketing studies.
The Cycle of Short-Term Thinking
- Go-To-Market (GTM) optimizes for immediate conversion rather than future consideration
- GTM budgets concentrate on short-term activation at the expense of brand building
- Brand development gets labeled as "unmeasurable" and gets neglected
- Future pipeline becomes increasingly harder to generate
- More resources pour into failing conversion tactics
- The cycle continues, with deteriorating results
Breaking this cycle requires a fundamental shift in how we think about marketing effectiveness. It's not about capturing demand today—it's about influencing the memories and associations that determine who buyers consider tomorrow.
The Bowtie Model: Beyond Just Acquisition
Most companies still view GTM as a linear process—marketing creates demand, sales converts leads, and customer success handles retention. But this fragmented approach leads to misalignment, inefficiencies, and missed revenue opportunities.
The reality? A successful GTM strategy doesn't end at acquisition—it extends across the entire customer lifecycle.
Understanding the Bowtie Model: A Full-Cycle GTM Approach
Instead of a traditional sales funnel, where leads flow in at the top and customers drop out at the bottom, the Bowtie Model visualizes GTM as two connected funnels:
- The left side of the bowtie represents the pre-purchase journey:
Brand awareness → Demand creation → Lead qualification → Closing the deal - The center knot is the conversion point—where marketing, sales, and SDRs align to acquire new customers.
- The right side of the bowtie represents the post-purchase journey:
Onboarding → Customer adoption → Retention → Expansion (upsells, referrals, advocacy)
Unlike a linear funnel, the Bowtie Model forms a continuous loop—where revenue growth doesn't stop at the initial sale but extends through customer success and expansion.
Why This Matters for GTM Efficiency
I believe that Go-To-Market Efficiency should be calculated across the entire Bowtie Model—not just at the acquisition stage. Learn more about GTM Efficiency →
- Total GTM Efficiency: Measures how well the entire revenue engine converts prospects into long-term customers.
- Segmented GTM Efficiency: Evaluates how effectively each stage of the Bowtie performs—highlighting areas to optimize.
Companies that only measure front-end efficiency (lead conversion, CAC payback time) miss out on the bigger picture—how efficiently they're retaining and expanding existing customers.
By shifting from a short-term sales funnel mindset to a Bowtie Model approach, businesses unlock sustainable growth, higher lifetime value, and better revenue predictability.
Go-To-Market (GTM) Fundamentals That Matter
- Mental availability precedes market opportunity
- Brand building creates the foundation that demand generation activates
- Go-To-Market (GTM) effectiveness is psychological, not mechanical
The Cost of Conventional Thinking
When organizations focus exclusively on short-term lead generation, they create significant opportunity costs:
- Decreased win rates (buyers prefer familiar brands)
- Longer sales cycles (unfamiliar brands face greater scrutiny)
- Higher customer acquisition costs (competing solely on features drives up marketing and sales expenses)
- More price sensitivity (brand preference commands premium pricing)
Rethinking Go-To-Market (GTM) Investment
One of the biggest blind spots in GTM is how success is measured. Too often, ROI is calculated by comparing direct ad spend to short-term revenue impact. While this has its place, it gives a distorted picture of marketing's actual value.
I've seen companies celebrate low cost-per-lead metrics, only to be blindsided when CAC payback periods stretch far beyond sustainable levels. The real cost of acquiring a customer isn't just ad spend—it includes marketing salaries, tech stack expenses, agency or consultant fees, and even sales costs. When you factor in the full cost of marketing and sales, the actual payback period becomes clear.
Without this holistic view, businesses risk making decisions based on vanity metrics that look good on dashboards but don't align with financial realities. And that's when they get surprised—when the pipeline looks full, but the bottom line doesn't reflect it.
Alternative Measurement Framework
Traditional metrics capture activity, not effectiveness. Consider these alternative indicators:
- Share of Voice: How present is your brand compared to competitors?
- Brand Salience: How quickly and easily does your brand come to mind in buying situations?
- Mental Market Share: When buyers think of solutions to problem X, how often are you mentioned?
- Consideration Set Placement: Where do you rank when buyers list potential vendors?
These metrics better predict future revenue potential than lead volume or MQL counts.
Strategic Principles
Effective marketing builds three core assets:
Mental Availability
- Being thought of in buying situations
- Creating clear category entry points
- Maintaining consistent market presence
Strategic Position
- Owning clear market territory
- Building distinctive brand assets
- Developing lasting memory structures
Market Understanding
- Recognizing true buying triggers
- Understanding category dynamics
- Mapping competitive mental space
A Personal Perspective on Go-To-Market (GTM) Effectiveness
The gap between how we practice Go-To-Market (GTM) and how buyers make decisions continues to widen. This isn't about following conventional wisdom—it's about understanding how Go-To-Market (GTM) actually works.
My perspective comes from almost two decades of designing marketing strategies across B2B and B2C organizations—from bootstrapped startups to VC-backed scale-ups. Throughout this journey, I've developed a clear point of view: marketing works best when it aligns with how buyers actually make decisions, not how we wish they would. I've seen that long-term brand building outperforms pure acquisition plays, driving successful outcomes from UK and Nordic startups to global enterprises. This isn't theory—it's battle-tested experience seeing how marketing actually drives sustainable growth.
This perspective might challenge your current Go-To-Market (GTM) practices. Not everyone will agree—and that's okay. My approach is shaped by hands-on experience across tech, AI, consumer services, healthcare, and other sectors, and supported by research from institutions like the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and recent buyer behavior studies.
What follows isn't a universal playbook, but rather my framework for sustainable marketing growth. It resonates most with companies who:
- Realize most "leads" aren't leads—they're just people downloading your PDF
- Know that buyers pick vendors from memory, not from comparing feature lists
- Understand great marketing feels like empathy, not interruption
- Accept that today's marketing builds tomorrow's pipeline, not today's
- See that brand familiarity drives sales more than perfect targeting ever will
- Challenge the myth that every marketing dollar needs to show immediate ROI
- Believe marketing should create memories before it creates meetings
If this perspective aligns with your thinking and you prioritize long-term market presence over short-term metrics, I will be happy to have a chat and explore how these principles could work for your organization.
My Clients
I Work With Organizations That Believe:
- Marketing is a long-term investment, not a short-term fix.
- Understanding the market matters more than just advertising to it.
- Brand and demand generation work together, not in competition.
- Customer insight is more valuable than vanity metrics.
- Marketing builds memory structures that connect the brand to the problems it solves.
- Success is measured by market presence and brand trust, not just MQLs.
- Patience and strategic consistency drive long-term impact.
I Don't Work With Organizations That:
- Expect immediate ROI from every marketing dollar.
- Treat GTM solely as a lead generation engine.
- Run brand and demand in silos instead of integrating them.
- Chase tactical metrics without strategic context.
- View brand building as optional.
- Focus on vanity metrics instead of real customer insights.
- Just want pretty PowerPoints instead of meaningful engagement.
Beyond Traditional Marketing
With almost two decades of experience across B2B and B2C, I've learned that sustainable growth comes from understanding fundamental go-to-market principles, not chasing trending tactics.
While I've managed seven-digit budgets per month, I thrive working with companies that have monthly budgets in the €3,000 - 30,000 range. The important part is that you prioritize strategic thinking over pure spending power. The difference between success and failure isn't budget size—it's mindset, strategy, and execution.
When marketing aligns with reality, it becomes a strategic multiplier that:
- Places your brand in initial consideration sets
- Reduces sales friction and cycle time
- Improves win rates and deal quality
- Creates compound growth effects over time
This perspective isn't about challenging conventional wisdom for its own sake. It's about aligning marketing strategy with how markets actually work—recognizing that sustainable growth comes from building memory structures that influence future decisions.
The most effective marketing doesn't just generate pipeline—it creates the psychological foundations that make all other marketing efforts more effective. This is how I see it, and this is how I help companies grow.
Let's build marketing that actually works.
Work with me