GTM observations and take-aways from 2025

• On AI: Depending on who you ask, you get a lot of varying opinions on what the implications and impacts are of AI, and what the future will bring. And while there is plenty of room for debate and there are plenty of examples of where AI investments have fallen short, what I have seen is that it can be a game-changer in GTM. My takeaway from 2025 is that success or failure with AI in GTM largely depends on your approach, more so than which tools you use. Key considerations to achieving a strong ROI with AI include:

  • Hybrid Human+AI processes are generally the best performing

  • A bottoms-up approach to process redesign coupled with a bias towards experimentation, often leads to faster and greater improvement.

  • Selecting individuals who naturally gravitate towards new tech and using AI to run experiments and up-level processes is a key success factor. Someone with a desire to discover new ways to improve processes and who likes to try-out new tech is far better than someone who is simply willing to accept the assignment to do so.

  • For each project/experiment, setting clear objectives and metrics from the start, monitoring progress and measuring results is as important as providing the resources and support for doing them. Coupling this with a test/learn/iterate approach is key. Also important is to have a baseline or “control” process to compare the results of the experiment with.

• On New Logo Acquisition: New logo acquisition is harder than ever, but there are ways to regain some ground in the battle. Top observations and considerations include:

  • Demand generation generally is falling well short of targets. In most companies it requires a comprehensive overhaul in order to restore efficacy, likely due to a combination of buyer fatigue from ever-rising volumes of under-personalized GTM traffic, internal budget pressures, and failure to keep up with the shifts in buyer behavior (e.g., GenAI research versus old school searches and information gathering). Best-in-class performance requires applying new tools and techniques to up-level most aspects of the traditional demand generation process. Examples of how to do this include:

    • Account targeting needs to be more accurate via more in-depth data gathering and analysis of win/loss data, firmographic and technographic information, product adoption, etc..

    • Outreach to prospects needs to be hyper-personalized to extract relevant messaging and triggers from a variety of signals and to generate tailored content in real time efficiently and at scale.

    • ICPs and predictive models need to be enhanced via more in-depth data gathering and analysis to more accurately identify and rank the attributes that have a high correlation with accounts’ propensity to buy, and to do so on a segmented basis which is specific to the sub-verticals and niche segments that are best to target (not a one-size-fits-all approach).

    • Product marketing needs to identify the commonly occurring “Desired Customer Outcomes” (hat tip to Jake Athey on DCOs) and to develop and refine the content that is used at each stage of the demand generation process to make a clear connection between those DCOs and the product’s ability to enable achievement of them (and to do it better than alternatives).

    • AI-powered processes should be used to convert core assets into other forms which are tailored to specific segments and audiences and to automate the dissemination of that content on a targeted basis.

    • Agentic AI can be used to qualify website visitors, answer questions and dynamically adapt CTAs based on a personalized basis.

  • In Pipeline Generation, using technology to improve people and processes is more important than ever. The conventional frameworks that we have used for years still apply, but how they are utilized needs to be updated to be more efficient and effective. Best-in-class performance in managing people requires a more rapid, accurate, custom-tailored and fine-grained approach. New and improved ways of doing this include:

    • Real-time coaching and deal support is a game-changer. It is no longer enough to record calls and attend meetings and have managers manually determine what their reps could have done better, what was missing, what the best next steps are in deals, etc.. One of my clients utilizes an AI-powered tool to provide instant insights and feedback to reps and to enable managers to massively scale the volume of coaching and support they provide to their teams (among other things). And a budget bonus with that tool is that they used it to replace Gong, at a substantially lower cost.

    • Using a data-driven approach to identify areas of weakness in the pipeline, in people and in territories enables managers to leverage the “science” part of sales management more accurately and effectively. This coupled with a bias towards continuous, active coaching and a regular cadence of reviewing performance vs. expectations produces better results. Pipeline management and forecasting tools can be employed not only to improve accuracy but to also improve identification of and visibility into gaps and issues that introduce risk in deals and to flag when actions are needed to keep them on-track.

    • AI-powered tools and capabilities can be used to drive RevOps automation and to reduce AEs & AMs administrative work, freeing up substantially more time for prospecting and selling.

  • The traditional ratios of budgets and resourcing for sales & marketing need to be recalibrated. I’ve seen too many cases where demand generation is under-resourced and sales is over-resourced, relative to each other.

    • For companies that have acceptable conversion rates on sales-qualified leads/opportunities (generally in the range of 25% - 35%) but that have delivered <90% of their bookings targets for the last 12 months, serious consideration should be given to what could be expected if the ratio of demand generation to sales spend were increased (even if the overall budget was not increased). Having a high-performing sales process costs too much if your reps don’t have enough “at bats” to hit the plan and you don’t have the ability to further increase outbound pipeline generation at a reasonable cost. All else being equal, it is better to have fewer reps who are mostly hitting their plan than to have more reps who are regularly missing their plan.

    • For companies that are “stuck” with a traditional ratio of sales and marketing as a percentage of revenue, they need to over-index on utilizing AI-powered, best-in-class approaches to improving the productivity of their demand generation (marketing’s budget) and outbound pipeline generation (sales’ budget).

• On Sales: For sales teams, the key components for managers have and continue to be people, process and pipeline. There is almost always room for improvement in each area, and there have been some common themes recently:

  • Talent development & management in sales is still paramount. You need to constantly strive to have everyone on the team be as hard-hitting and high-velocity as possible. Ways to level-up their capabilities and velocity include:

    • Establish a “Sales GPT” - an internal instance of ChatGPT which knows all of your content (i.e., marketing, training, technical, support, sales enablement, services, etc.) so that it can act as an expert (think super-SE) to answer any questions that come up, in real time.

    • Enable real-time coaching for reps so that after every interaction with a prospect or customer, they get immediate feedback (based on best practices from within your company) that informs them about what they did well, what could be improved (and how), what was missing, what the next steps are, what the risks to the deal are, etc..

    • Free your leaders up to participate in more sales calls, enabling expert teaming, both increasing your odds of converting each opportunity and also fostering “on the job training” for your reps. Do this by changing the process by which they do their job, through automation/elimination of administrative work, better tools and shifting what they are expected to focus on.

    • Metrics provide excellent indicators for areas that additional support, development and rigor are needed. Today’s tools enable better instrumentation of the entire sales process at an individual level and clear diagnostics for more rapid and personalized coaching.

    • Managing the bottom third performing portion of the sales team “up or out” is critical. Assessing each individual’s attitude and aptitude usually results in a clear direction. If you have underperforming reps who score highly in both, invest in them (using the tools and techniques above), they are likely to become successful and they will thank you for it.

  • Clear visibility into pipeline health is critical. In today’s world, we have the metrics and the tools to have a clear view, not just in the rearview mirror, but also through the windshield. It is possible to know at least one quarter in advance (in short cycle, high velocity businesses, and in enterprise-focused businesses, multiple quarters in advance) what the future sales outlook is. This forward visibility provides the time to make changes to improve the outcome, enabling us to be drivers instead of passengers in the GTM process. Examples of tools and techniques to achieve this include:

    • Reality vs. hope - use a deal inspection framework to get real and to focus team on the deals that are worth investing in

    • Pipeline coverage ratios - analyzing historical conversion rates (from SQL to closed won) on a segmented basis allows you to analyze current pipeline to determine the current outlook for this quarter, next quarter, and often future quarters.

    • Assessing pipeline velocity (again, on a segmented basis) and tracking the trend over time allows you to identify whether to expect improvement or degradation in the future. It also allows you to drill down into the constituent components (Number of Opportunities, Average Deal Size, Win Rate, and Sales Cycle Length) to determine what the problem sources are and what needs to be improved.

If you'd like more details on any of the above, I’m happy to share specific tools, metrics, tactics and strategies. You can reach me via email via chris [at] revenuepi.com.