Filters
How to apply the MOVE GTM framework at different stages of growth
We talk to a lot of companies about solving GTM Problems.
In addition to leveraging our Go-to-Market Operating System, we use the 4-question MOVE framework and the 3 P’s to establish, at a high-level, where a company should be in terms of the following areas:
Marketing
Operations
Velocity
Expansion
The 3 P’s
As companies grow and evolve, they tend to follow a maturity scale we call the 3 P’s: "Problem-Market Fit," "Product-Market Fit," and "Platform-Market Fit."
If we try to slap too much structure onto a business that's still finding its feet in Problem-Market fit, we might end up stifling creativity and getting stuck with a shaky plan. That means we're using up time and energy in ways that might not be the most effective.
On the flip side, if we're running a more established business (Product-Market Fit) but we don't have enough structure in place, it feels like chaos. The Go-to-Market team is all over the place, resources get wasted, different groups start butting heads, and the whole organization ends up underperforming.
And then there's the Platform-Market fit phase which can feel a bit like a mix and match game. Some business units, products, or target industries might still be still figuring out their Problem-Market fit structure, while others need to operate with a more solid Product-Market Fit. Figuring out how to blend those needs across different parts of the business and product lines can be where the real coordination challenge kicks in.
The MOVE framework will apply differently depending on which phase you’re in.
The best idea is to ask your leadership team to all take the MOVE Assessment together.
Below is a list of characteristics of each stage and what questions you might be asking yourselves to spur efficient growth.
Problem-Market Fit (aka the Ideation Phase)
Here are some signs you’re in Problem-Market Fit.
You are a sales-led organization, and each sales cycle has a unique challenge
You are building bespoke solutions for each buyer
The language your buyers use to describe their issues is inconsistent
There is no benchmark data on what “good” looks like
There is no Google trend data
There is no category definition that fits your value proposition
Churn reasons are inconsistent
MOVE applied to Problem Market Fit
These are the questions you need to discuss with your team in order to work through your strategic, alignment, and transformation challenges when you’re in Problem-Market Fit.
MARKET Questions
What problem are you solving?
How big is your market?
How are you positioned?
Who is your buyer?
What size of company and verticals are you having the most success with?
Which territories are you focusing on?
Which use cases are working the best?
What’s stopping you from creating repeatable sales motions?
What changes in market approach would speed up market adoption?
OPERATIONS Questions
What KPIs are you looking at to see if there is a problem-market fit?
How are you incentivizing teams to deliver on these KPIs?
What tech is helping each of your GTM teams to deliver business outcomes?
How do marketing, sales, and finance operations teams align on common definitions and KPIs?
What’s stopping you from focusing on your best-fit accounts over lead funnels?
How quickly can you look at all operational metrics across GTM functions to make business decisions?
VELOCITY Questions
How is your sales force trained and iterating on the product pitch?
How quickly is your sales team hitting quota, and how quickly is marketing creating more demand?
Is there a team dedicated to training sales hires and providing ongoing support?
How are you tracking and testing ramp ratios for sales ramp to quota, marketing ramp to demand gen, SDR ramp to pipeline, and customer to ROI?
What’s stopping you from creating higher velocity in your ramp ratios?
What would you need to know to hire proactively?
EXPANSION Questions
How are you selling? Direct, channels, partners, agencies?
What percentage of your revenue is coming from each distribution type?
What distribution type should you focus on?
How quickly can you test new distribution channels?
What’s stopping you from going in different industries, verticals, geographies?
Should you be going upmarket or down market?
How do you increase your average deal size?
Product-Market Fit (aka the Transition Phase)
Here are some signs you’re in Product-Market Fit.
You are building a demand machine that creates a predictable pipeline
Your commercial strategies are consistent, and you can forecast with surety
Your category has been validated by 3rd party analyst or rating firms
Your buyer is coming to you with a consistent set of needs
You are able to sell the same product in the same way at scale
MOVE applied to Product-Market Fit
These are the questions you need to discuss with your team in order to work through your strategic, alignment, and transformation challenges when you’re in Product-Market Fit.
MARKET Questions
What segments are your best performing and why?
Can you replicate that success into other segments?
What new use cases would drive up your deal size?
How is your GTM team aligning around segments?
How do you align your messaging and value proposition for each segment across GTM touchpoints?
How are you going from TAM to TRM to further prioritize within each segment?
How will you achieve top ranking in analysts for your key category?
What’s stopping you from selling similar solutions to similar buyer for similar problems at scale?
OPERATIONS Questions
What KPIs are you looking at to see if there is a product-market fit?
How are you adjusting the incentives of leaders and teams to deliver on the new KPIs?
How predictable are your conversion metrics?
How are you balancing the tradeoffs between retention and acquisition?
What’s stopping you from creating a single source of truth?
How are your tools across GTM teams integrated to help you generate better business insights?
VELOCITY Questions
What are your highest priority velocity ramps (people and enablement) that need improvement?
What key leadership hires are needed to add new functions and scale your organization?
How are you coordinating training, documentation, kickoffs, and release launch schedules across the GTM team and customers?
How are you making holistic hiring decisions to support your highest priorities rather than the needs of departments?
What’s stopping you from aligning enablement functions across departments?
What changes do you need to make to deliver a unified experience to your customers?
EXPANSION Questions
How quickly can you expand into different industries, verticals, or geographies?
What new products or services will your existing customers happily pay for to solve their problems?
How would your business model shift if you went upmarket or downmarket?
What makes your product sticky?
What’s stopping you from having the biggest deals with your top customers?
What’s stopping you from adding pro-serves to increase deal size?
What percentage of your revenue is coming from each coverage area?
Platform-Market Fit (aka the Execution Stage)
Here are some signs you’re in Platform-Market Fit
You have a variety of businesses under a corporate umbrella
You have a variety of products that serve multiple needs
Some of your products may be in Product-Market fit, while others are still in Problem-Market fit
You manage your business through centers of excellence that support multiple product teams
A single product line does not generate a bulk of the organizations revenue
MOVE applied to Platform Market Fit
These are the questions you need to discuss with your team in order to work through your strategic, alignment, and transformation challenges when you’re in Platform-Market Fit.
MARKET Questions
What additional problems could you solve to expand your value for existing customers?
Which build, buy, or partner approach(es) will ensure you can scale growth?
Who are your competitors today versus tomorrow, and how will you transition for this?
How do you sequence your “land and expand” offering?
How will you identify customers who are ready for expansion opportunities?
Which adjacent categories should you move into?
How are your customers helping you redefine the new North Star?
OPERATIONS Questions
What additional problems could you solve to expand your value for existing customers?
Which build, buy, or partner approach(es) will ensure you can scale growth?
Who are your competitors today versus tomorrow, and how will you transition for this?
How do you sequence your “land and expand” offering?
How will you identify customers who are ready for expansion opportunities?
Which adjacent categories should you move into?
How are your customers helping you redefine the new North Star?
VELOCITY Questions
How do you create and enable new lines of business?
How do you keep the customer at the center of every process?
What are the key hires (e.g., business line general managers, GEO executives) to support platform growth or global expansion?
How frequently and seamlessly does your GTM enablement team work to create and deliver employee onboarding, bootcamps, certification, decks, playbooks, and quarterly business reviews?
What’s stopping you from creating centers of excellence and benchmarking ramps and making investments toward even bigger growth?
EXPANSION Questions
Which channels can you invest in for nonlinear growth?
How do you create and enable new lines of business?
What percentage of your revenue is coming from each line of business?
How do you prioritize new product releases, budgets, and resources across multiple products?
What percentage of revenue is coming from customers versus net new customers?
What will it take to create the top ten biggest deals in your category with your platform + multiyear + pre-commit + pro-serve attachment rate?
What percentage of your revenue is coming from six-figure deals?
Schedule a workshop
GTM Partners and our licensed partners do workshops with companies looking to understand which phase of growth they’re in and how that phase should inform GTM strategy.
Below is an example of an assessment taken by a leadership team. Every individual is a different color dot. Here are a few things that are apparent:
The CEO (the gray dot) is not on the same page as her team. She clearly marked four categories in Platform-Market fit while her employees clearly feel the company is in Problem-Market fit. It will take some unpacking to understand if she is correct and hasn’t clearly articulated her vision, or whether she is too optimistic and needs a reality check.
Most of the dots are mapped to Product-Market Fit, or the Transition Phase. The outliers are in Expansion and KPIs, which lag behind. These are opportunities to catch up Expansion efforts and KPIs to their actual maturity stage.
One-third of the team still feels they are in reactive mode, which means work needs to be done to align priorities.
Bryan and Sangram, the authors of the MOVE book, can come in and do a session with your leadership team to help you understand where you are today and prioritize the GTM strategies that will help you grow the most efficiently.
Schedule a call with Sarah to learn more about how we do it:
See many of you in Tampa this Thursday and Friday. Have a wonderful week!
Love,
the GTM Partners Team
