5 Mistakes I Did with my GTM Strategist Launch
And how I plan to correct them in Q2
Dear GTM Strategist,
We are celebrating 5 months since my best-selling book Go-to-Market Strategist was published on Amazon 🎉. As happy and grateful as I am that more than 4500 readers read the book, I keep on getting positive feedback on how you applied the knowledge daily 🙏, I made some post-launch mistakes that cost me dearly …
In this Substack, I plan to share my retrospective of the launch with you and my plans on how we can do better in the future. This week I am launching GTM Strategist 2.0 🤩 that will help you apply the learnings from the book to your businesses faster and better. If you are only interested in that, jump to https://gtmstrategist.com/ and unlock their power.
But if you don’t mind me whining a bit about the launch, here are 5 mistakes that I made with it. We will dive into each of them, and I will share my plans for how we will do better in Q2.
Here are my top 5 launch sins:
Overreliance on the external platform
Optimizing for the wrong metric
Saying yes too often
Mistaking ECP for ICP
Iterating on the launch too late
Let’s dive into each one!
Overreliance on the external platform
Would I like to have thousands of books I pre-paid for in my garage and visit the local post office daily? Hell no. Amazon print-on-demand was a life-saver in terms of the logistical hurdles of shipping the physical book. Since many community members are keen Kindle users, launching on Amazon was almost a no-brainer. Becoming the best seller in the first week after launch helped us to gain a better reputation and boost sales via top charts.
But then the honeymoon was over. We still have steady ongoing sales, mainly driven by my organic LinkedIn posts (that take me 8 hours a week to write and nurture 🙈). I can do that, but to have a decent value ladder in my business, it would be foolish to rely on the fact that 5-10% of Amazon buyers add me on LinkedIn, and then they can get ever more content there.
I never went to the business to sell a $27 piece of paper. I consider my book to be an extended business card and a tool to help others succeed at scale. I could survive the provisions and delays in the payment schedule. Still, I cannot overcome the fact that I have practically zero customer data from Amazon and close to zero opportunity to learn from their feedback.
Solution:
My biggest investment in Q1 is a bundle of the GTM Strategist digital products.
This will help me get better feedback loops and develop higher-value-added tools to help you advance your go-to-market strategic efforts.
I am really excited about this launch. My team has worked tirelessly on it for two and a half months. Show us support by visiting https://gtmstrategist.com/ and exploring the options. ✌️
Optimizing for the wrong metric
It is embarrassing to admit that I got a bit “too obsessed” with the book sales numbers. For a year, I believed that it was “mission critical to sell 2000 copies” of the book, and the rest would align.
The “rest” became more important than the number of copies sold post-launch, but I had difficulty transitioning to the new One Metric That Matters. One could say mission-critical.
After the book launch, I got a lot of invitations:
For consulting and mentorships
For events and teaching
Networking calls and partnership opportunities
I think I have prioritized them in a non-optimal manner. In the Go-to-Market Strategist book, we say you can optimize for adoption or profit. I wanted to optimize for adoption, but it was a rigged game. Pushing Amazon sales of the book was definitely not the right business decision. In retrospect, I should have spent way more time polishing my offers, being quicker to reply and test the willingness to pay, and qualifying the partnership strength potential for “networking calls” much more diligently.
Solution:
I do not care a lot about book sales anymore. We reduced the number of posts to 3-5 a week (during the launch, we were pumping 2 posts a day). I also limited my number for “customer discovery and networking calls to up to 7 a week. I have not done this because I would be some greedy bastard but because it is really hard for me to say NO as a recovering people pleaser.
And that leads us to the next one …
Saying yes too often
Post-launch, I spent countless hours on non-sense calls. While it was great to learn from the readers, my learning curve got flat, and I was “polite enough” to still do it. Sincerely, I have FOMO - what about if there is a great opportunity- oh, I really want to help people. I can, but one-on-one calls are an extremely draining and non-sustainable way to do this.
I had to set up some boundaries.
A friend gave me a great advice:
“If it is not a hell yes, it is a hell no. Your default answer should be no.”
Easier said than done, friend.
I was raised to say hi to strangers on the street.
I grew up thinking that there is a gem under each stone.
There really is not.
“People pleasing” only leads to exhaustion and losing one's sense of self on the journey.
It is a form of serotonin addiction that sits somewhere in between the victim and the rescuer in the Drama triangle, which is a very useful concept for analyzing some toxicity in one's life.
Solution:
It still burns when I have to say no, but I grew to understand that people-pleasing leads to ultimate exhaustion and that I am operating with limited time and energy. To make the best out of it, the solution is not to book out two days a week for “discovery and networking”. A much better way is to build scalable ways to interact and share knowledge.
Mistaking ECP for ICP
Usually, early adopters (ECP) are not what will turn out to be your best customer (ICP). When you start out, the support of early adopters is incredibly important, and be forever grateful to them. But it is unlikely that you can build a sustainable business based on people who are always looking for the latest and greatest and normally have low to non-existent willingness to pay. Treat them kindly, but to build a sustainable business, you will need to reach the audience with a much more predictable willingness to pay and do well with them.
Early adopters were extremely important in my book-writing journey. They were generous with feedback and supportive to the journey, but tell you what - many did not even bother to buy the book 🙈 Of course - I gladly send it to them for free as a token of appreciation for their support - but how on earth could anyone build a sustainable business that way?
Solution:
While my ECP was definitely product managers, go-to-market experts, and technical founders who can get amazing value added from the book, and many of them have DIY the implementation of concepts to have epic launches, the TRUE ICP on the journey that followed are innovation managers, founders of companies that make at least and heads of marketing/growth who would like to get closer with their product teams and align on go-to-market approach on a company basis. I also have many requests to launch a “train the trainer” program, mentorship programs for B2B marketing, and “service scaling programs” for service companies who would like to go product-led. Still, I have to be mono-focused because we have not done everything we can in the go-to-market realm.
And last but not least …
Iterating on the launch too late
In all sincerity, I wish that I had taken a month off after the book launch. At the same time, I think that it would be stupid to do it right after because the momentum was amazing, and it would be a mistake not to seize it. But I could sincerely do it in January or early February. I have not gotten to this sooner because it is really hard to switch from 100 to 0 or one. It is not a switch. It is a process of calming the nerves down and acknowledging that we are back to normal but 4.0 - an elevated version of “business as usual”. It was also difficult to admit - ego screaming” that some assumptions were just not right. In retrospect, I wish I would have taken time to reflect on everything much sooner. But I did not.
Now we have to move to the next level!
So, today, I’m announcing GTM Strategist 2.0. The enhanced digital version of the book is now available directly on its website, together with a fast-start video training and fill-out templates that will help you craft your perfect go-to-market strategy.
My work doesn’t stop here. I’m already working on even more products that will be added to the ecosystem, like a GTM checklist and an online community.
My plan is to move our business and collaboration to:
GTM Strategist domain
Kick off the closed Slack community
I provide you further guidance with new products that I have developed in Q1 by working with the team and
Lastly, I would like to spend more time with you in a community and office hours form.
Let’s continue to learn and grow together.
Bon voyage once again https://gtmstrategist.com/ - I know you travel well ❤️
Thank you so much for your support, and definitely let me know if you have any questions or further insights on how to build our GTM Strategist Universe.
Love,
Maja
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Hello Maja, great content as always.
IN your expert opinion. Do you consider your GTM Strategist book is closer to B2B SaaS products than B2C Mobile apps products. Thank you in advanced for your reply, have a great day.