GTM 2024: Start your new year with these 3 things
Hey - it’s Alex!
Welcome to Startup Business Tips, a bi-weekly newsletter, where I share with you 3 actionable growth tactics that will help you quickly grow your SaaS business from €0 to €1 million ARR 🚀.
Today we cover:
1️⃣ Step 1: Set (big yearly) goals and unpack them (reverse engineering goals)
2️⃣ Step 2: Revamp/Build your GTM Strategy
3️⃣ Step 3: Build an Execution Plan (Activities/Initiatives you want to do)
👉 Bonus material (software, content, news) - GTM Masterclass for SaaS Founders
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New year - it’s time for most SaaS founders to set their priorities and goals for the year.
Don’t make the mistake of jumping into execution mode (step 3) without proper planning.
Instead, follow my 3 steps.
1. Step 1: Set Goals (OKRs) and Reverse Engineer your Goals
💡 Goal Setting also means focus and priorities.
Without proper goal setting, you will easily get distracted, follow every new trend, test millions of things, and be always in the ‘hustle’ mode.
Setting goals means clarity for you.
It’s good to have a revenue goal (e.g. Hit 1€ million ARR) and implement a North Star metric.
One great way to set goals are OKRs (Objective and key results).
It’s a great framework for formulating strategic goals and operationalizing them.
It consists of 3 elements:
Objectives: What are the goals you want to achieve?
Key Results: How do you measure/track the progress/achievement of the objectives?
Initiatives: What actions will you take to achieve the goals?
Here’s an example of how this could look like.
Objective: Be ready for seed funding
Key result 1: Increase New Business ARR from 400k€ to 1million€
Initiative 1: Start with outbound sales and contact 50 new leads per week
Initiative 2: Launch a referral program
Key result 2: Increase average contract value (ACV) by 20% from 5k€ to 6k€
Initiative 1: Sales training on how to do a powerful sales demo
Initiative 2: Switch from feature-gating pricing to value-based pricing
Key result 3: Increase the deal win rate from 20% to 30%
Initiative 1: Follow a clear sales methodology (e.g. SPIN selling)
Initiative 2: Reduce the trial period from 30 days to 14 days
Check out these 2 pages, they have great OKR examples: Okrify or datalligence.
But how do you know the right numbers for your goals?
This is when reverse engineering is powerful. Reverse engineering your goals means that you are calculating backward - you unpack the big numbers into digestible ones.
💡 Because “Our goal is to close 700k€ in new revenue” is very hard to understand on a daily, weekly, or even monthly base.
Example: Reverse Engineering
So let’s say your goal is to increase revenue in Q1 by 200k€.
Assumptions:
ACV = 10000€
Deal win rate = 30%
Discovery (Lead) to Demo conversion = 50%
Channels = 100% Outbound
Meeting booked rate (Outbound contacted to discovery call) = 5%
Sales Cycle = 1 month (to keep the calculation here simple)
Here is what you need to achieve:
Win 20 new deals (200k€ / 10k€)
—> 6,6 new deals per month or 1,5 deals per week
66 New Deals in Pipeline (20 won deals / 30% win rate)
—> 22 new deals per month or 5,1 per week or 1 per day
132 discovery calls (66 new deals / 50% conversion)
—> 44 discovery calls per month or 10 per week or 2 per day
2640 leads contacted (132 discovery calls / 5%)
—> 880 leads contacted per month or 204 per week or 41 per day
This is a super simple calculation, but do you see the difference???
“You need to get in touch with 41 leads per day” vs. “You need to close 200k€ new revenue”
Those tangible goals, you can easily track on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis and get early feedback if you’re hitting your goals (or not).
P.S. Finetune this calculation with your specifics (e.g. Inbound/Outbound Ratio, #FTE, sales cycle, etc.).
2. Step 2: Revamp your GTM Strategy
Do NOT make the mistake to skip this crucial step and jump right into execution (step 3).
Why?
Because with a solid GTM foundation, your execution gets so much easier and you will see 10x results.
After step 1, you know your numbers. Now make sure to have a solid GTM strategy in place.
Focus your work on a strong GTM triangle.
Know who your ideal audience is.
Know your value proposition and how to communicate it, so it resonates with your ICP
Know how you position your product in the (competitive) market.
Here are a few in-depth materials, that will help you build/revamp your GTM.
3. Step 3: Build an Execution Plan (Activities/Initiatives/To Dos)
The execution part is the last step. Based on the goals and strategy, you define what you need to do (to achieve your goals).
For me, execution consists of 3 things:
(GTM) Initiatives = new things you want to implement (e.g. Change the pricing page or do cold calling hours, Collect customers’ NPS scores)
(GTM) Activities = Things you do consistently (e.g. Send 10 cold emails per day or Publish 1 blog post per week)
To-Dos = smaller tasks/things you spend your day with (e.g. Research top 10 industry newsletters, Write a new LinkedIn sequence, Send NPS survey to customers)
Let’s quickly summarize the different words and the definitions:
Goals = What you want to achieve (see step 1)
GTM strategy = the foundation for your GTM execution (see step 2)
GTM execution = the operational things you do daily (initiatives, activities, to-dos)
So now, finally, it’s time to do what you love the most ♥️
❤️ Build your beloved Trello, Asana, or Notion “Execution Boards” with a list full of To-Dos.
Execution Board
Your Execution Boards are now your compass. Open them in your weekly team meetings.
💪 Bonus material - Live GTM Masterclass
If you feel you need some extra help with your GTM triangle, then my new GTM Masterclass is for you.
Together with Björn W. Schäfer, I'm hosting a 3-week Live GTM Masterclass for SaaS founders.
👉 Grow with clarity in 2024.
The SaaS GTM masterclass runs 3-weeks and includes in total 3x Sessions a 60min:
Session 1: Value Proposition (JTBD, Usecases, Value Mapping)
Session 2: Ideal Customer Profile (Company & Personas)
Session 3: Q&A Session
Plus on top, you will get:
ICP Framework (Template)
Value Proposition (Template)
Slack Channel for ongoing Q&A
Happy growth 🚀
🚀 3 ways I can help you grow your SaaS to €1 million ARR:
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90+ actionable SaaS Growth Tactics (helped 200+ SaaS leaders) and Free SaaS GTM Strategy Worksheet (helped 3000+ SaaS leaders).
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