Building a Go-to-Market (GTM) Playbook

Providing your early go-to-market (GTM) team with a playbook is one of the most effective ways to support their successful ramp-up.

But why is it so important?

Not only does a playbook give your team a clear plan for achieving success, but it also enables you to iterate quickly by identifying what's working well and where improvements are needed.

The right time to build a GTM playbook

For founders just starting out on their GTM journey, it is crucial to establish a strong foundation by designing an overall GTM System. This includes defining your Leading Indicators of Retention (LIR), Leading Indicators of Unit Economics (LIUE) and drafting a Bottoms Up Model to ground your growth plans in reality.

Once you have laid the groundwork for your GTM System, you can then begin to incorporate the necessary resources to execute your GTM playbook. At the heart of every GTM Playbook is the customer. Focusing on the ideal customer profile (ICP), their relevant colleagues that might be included in the process, and the journey they all take is critical to aligning all GTM and product functions.

Resources to build a GTM playbook

You can kick off the creation of your GTM playbook by honing in on the ICP, allowing you to tailor your revenue-generating efforts specifically to the audience most likely to benefit from your product or service — Get your ICP Worksheet HERE.

Next, we recommend laying out your buyer personas to get detailed, accurate representations of your customers and gain valuable insights into their demographics, preferences, pain points, and motivators — Get your Buyer Persona Worksheet HERE.

Then, it's time to arm your salespeople with guides aligned to the buyer journey:

Begin by equipping them with an overview on prospecting to help them engage with high-potential leads — Get your Prospecting Guide HERE.
Offer up a step-by-step approach to uncovering customer needs, pain points, and motivations during your reps' preliminary calls with prospects — Get your Discovery Guide HERE.
Provide actionable tips and techniques for creating persuasive, compelling pitches — Get your Presentation Guide HERE.
Create a comprehensive plan for enhancing customer satisfaction, retention, and overall business success — Get your Customer Success Playbook HERE.

Last but not least, if you find your initial playbook isn't driving customer retention, experiment with another strategy — Get your Customer Retention Strategy slides HERE.

Putting resources to Build a GTM Playbook into action

You can view all of Stage 2 Capital's tools and templates to build a GTM playbook in our Resource Center. If you need further guidance, we recommend downloading our eBook — 5 Steps to Build the First GTM Playbook:

Gabrielle Bier

As Head of Marketing at Stage 2 Capital, Gabrielle leads the development and execution of all Stage 2 Capital marketing initiatives. Her previous experience includes managing content and brand marketing for Lyft Business, as well as being the first content marketing hire at Gong.

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