No 2024 GTM Strategy yet?

You are normal. But you should do it in December.

Hey GTM Strategist! 

This is my first Substack post, and we’ll kick it off with a strong topic - building your strategy for 2024.

It’s December and by now you should have 2024 planned out. But if you don’t… believe me, you’re not alone.

I literally just got a very concerned email from one of the founders that I will be working with next weekend through one of my favorite partners, The Swiss Entrepreneurship Program (Swiss EP), and the email reads as follows: 

“We are launching a new version of the platform this Friday and I am embarrassed to tell you that we still have not set up the GTM Strategy for 2024.” 

My response:

“The launch is a tunnel vision. We will do everything that is mission-critical to get there. But it is a great time to do it in early December, to have a firm plan of what is a priority in January, and to hop on the business train as soon as possible.”

We finally agreed that at our session next week, we would reverse engineer her objective to generate €75,000 Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) and adjust the tactics later. 

I really felt her struggle and inconvenience. 

During the launch of my recently published book, GTM Strategist, I experienced the same struggle. 

We were firefighting and troubleshooting Amazon issues, the content creation process, and negotiating like lions when the design outline would be finished. 

My go-to answer when someone asked me what my vision with the book is 

“To help 10,000 businesses to cross the chasm”. 

How to get there - just a blurry idea. 

I was not in the right mindset to work on a strategy and firefighting the launch simultaneously. 

People were DM-ing me that they could not retrieve the Kindle version, there was a cover pilling off of one of the test prints and I had 4 podcasts recordings scheduled for the week. 

But if you only work on urgent things, and not the important high-impact things, you can miserably fail as a leader. 

I had to fix it asap, suck it up and present the team with a strategy.

This is what helped me switch from “launch firefighting” to the GTM strategy mode again post-launch in 3 days. 

Here are five steps that will get you in the GTM Strategy mindset in December: 

1. Take some distance. Tell the team you are off for at least ½ day or better a day to just “let it go”. Start the “strategy day” with something that you actually like. A dog walk, a workout, some reading, let your eyes enjoy some daylight first. 

2. Expand. Create a moodboard of competitors and inspirational companies and study some of their selected tactics. Avoid copying them directly. The best strategy is proprietary but you will get some inspo and open your mind with this step. 

3. Set up an objective. You probably already have it in mind. If you need to structure it better, there is an OKR framework for GTM in the Book. 

4. How could you get there? Well that is the fun part! You can either do this alone first and later on with the team as well, but since you are the leader of the operation and will take responsibility for the success. I would not just go in the room and say - mission critical is to sell 2000 yearly subscriptions - how can we do that??? Shoot. I’d present my case better and prepare the ground first. 

5. What is the best way to get there? You know how it is- you can do anything, but you cannot do everything. Choose your battles. Create a simple plan, which is realistic and will most likely get you there. There always are dependencies. Prioritize like a boss! Overcommitting and having FOMO is the key to failure. You have to be sharp. 

Your turn. 

• Set some time aside. Create a calendar slot where you can think in peace and quiet in December right now. There will always be something, which is more urgent. But setting up your plans for 2024 is important. 

• Explore GTM Strategist Templates that we recommend from Miroverse. The awesome team from Miroverse kindly gathered them in a special section 🙌

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