MEDMEN: Is GTM A Buzzword?

00:00 Pim Roelofsen: Welcome to The MedMen Show. My name is Pim, that's Andy — and today we are going to talk about GTM, and specifically whether GTM is a buzzword. So Andy, what's your take on that? 00:11 Andy Whyte: I think the term GTM is being used as a buzzword. I definitely don't think that bringing the entire go-to-market team together as one team, one goal, one aim is a buzzword — that's incredibly important. But I think nowadays a lot of people are just putting the term GTM onto things. If you think back to our first MEDDICC event — which was maybe three or four years ago — I remember we had this important debate about whether MEDDIC could work for the entire go-to-market team. And we were saying: "We should say the go-to-market team" — but then going: "People won't know what that means." People weren't using the term GTM or go-to-market back then. We almost said "revenue team" — in fact, in some of the early versions of that conversation, we were saying the whole "revenue team." Then: "No, let's lean in. Let's go for go-to-market." 01:12 Andy Whyte: So in that short space of time, when we were thinking about it as something people probably wouldn't fully understand, we'd have to explain it a little — now everyone knows what it means. And it's got to the point where you see it thrown onto things. Instead of SKO, you see GKO. I've even seen account executives calling themselves GTM — just GTM — which for me is the peak of the buzzword, because unless those account executives are also doing marketing, product marketing, channel, SDR work, selling, customer success, renewals and upsells — then they aren't GTM. They are in the sales part of it, which is of course a very important part. But it's not just about selling and closing, is it? 01:57 Pim Roelofsen: Yeah. I think the only scenario where that would be true is like a three-person startup where one person genuinely does everything. That's a great situation — but typically it's not the case. And you made a good point about events — kick-offs. It's like slapping the letter G on it. Calling it the Go-to-Market Kickoff rather than the Sales Kickoff doesn't necessarily change anything — unless you do the work. Unless you actually unite your go-to-market team at that event and give them a common language to act with. 02:28 Andy Whyte: Yeah. And that common language — as we've talked about before — isn't just giving everyone one language. It has to be common in the sense that it's used by everyone outside of your organization too, so you can hire for it and people know what you're talking about. But then it also has to be used across the whole customer lifecycle and across every go-to-market function to make it truly common. And I think there are some great movements out there, great consultancies creating operating systems for go-to-market and that type of thing. But if they're using a patchwork of different languages — marketing and product talking about "problem statements," then the sales team using a different word like "negative consequences," and then the customer success team talking about "value delivery" — you're not creating a go-to-market team. You're creating lots of individual teams under an umbrella. That isn't a go-to-market team. They're not in the same motion. And the thing you bring to market — yes, including the actual product and the product team. 03:31 Pim Roelofsen: Absolutely. Yeah. I haven't seen this articulated enough. Going back to what I said before — about how sometimes we feel like something should be obvious, but then find ourselves having to explain it. When we talk about the go-to-market team, we say it starts with product ideation. Because what are you going to take to market if you're not connecting product ideation to what you're actually taking to market? That's not go-to-market. So we include product all the way through the lifecycle to customer success. But I feel like every time I talk to someone about the full scope of go-to-market, we have to clarify: by the way, we mean this whole thing — not just the middle parts. We mean the product team and the customer success team. And the other thing people get wrong is thinking go-to-market has a start and an end — no, it's a cycle. 04:23 Andy Whyte: Yes — of course it starts with product ideation. But once it goes all the way through to delivery to customers, we want to make sure we're connecting the product team so they're looking all the way through the customer lifecycle. Asking: how is this product idea resonating in the field? What's winning, what's losing? What are the strengths, what are the weaknesses? And that's decision criteria — what is it customers want, what is it helping us win? What's missing when we lose? What can we supply? And all the way through to being delivered — what value are customers actually getting? Which means you can complete that metrics cycle. You can say: here's our hypothesis of value on this new product or feature — and then track all the way through selling it, delivering it, and confirming: yes, we actually delivered the value we promised. So that when the go-to-market team talks to new customers, you don't just have a hypothesis of value. You have a true story — proof points from an existing customer where you've delivered it, whether you mention their name or not. 05:36 Pim Roelofsen: Yeah. I see how you're tying the entire go-to-market team together across the full customer lifecycle. And this is where it gets powerful. Now — we all know there are people out there saying MEDDIC is just a qualification tool and doesn't do all of that. But think about it: 20 or 30 years ago you wouldn't have been watching this very episode on your phone. Things evolve. Things get better. Not all MEDDIC is equal, and the way you deploy it may not be equal — but the most powerful versions we see out there today, in real life, are ones where the entire go-to-market team is using this together to have a much bigger impact on their customers through a common language. 06:27 Pim Roelofsen: And the product example is such a powerful one. Because if everyone is using the same language, they can say: "This is why we might be losing out there, or why we might not be adding maximum value for our customers — so let's fix that." And suddenly you have a very direct way of addressing things that in the old world would have taken much more time to get to. And by that point, some of your rivals might already be ahead of you. 06:43 Andy Whyte: Yes, exactly. So — GTM, go-to-market. Not a buzzword if you think about it for its true purpose: aligning the entire go-to-market team, including product, all the way through to the post-sales team. Everyone pointing towards the customer, everyone focused on creating value for customers. It's not a buzzword if you include all of those people. If you're just putting GTM in front of something because it sounds better than "revenue" or "sales" did before — then yes, in that context it's a buzzword. 07:13 Pim Roelofsen: Cheers to GTM — done properly! 07:15 Andy Whyte: Cheers!