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Launched Today: CEO’s Guide to B2B Positioning and What You are Missing
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This week’s research note includes:
GTM Research: CEO’s guide to positioning
GTM OS Certified Partner Spotlight: StageWise GTM
Upcoming Events and Access
New Research on Why GTM fails:
Last year, companies spent billions on go-to-market strategies.
And nearly 80% of those programs failed to deliver results.
Let that sink in.
How is it possible that despite incredible innovation, AI acceleration, and powerful platforms, most GTM efforts are still falling flat?
The answer is might be as simple as this: your positioning isn’t working.
We’re in a New Game—and the Old Rules Don’t Apply
In today’s B2B market:
Fewer buyers are entering sales cycles.
“Do nothing” is your biggest competitor.
Everyone has AI. Everyone sounds the same.
Buyers are overwhelmed. They’ve heard it all.
Your feature-function messaging isn’t moving the needle anymore. Your 38-slide pitch deck isn’t helping. Your reps are customizing their decks because there’s no clear narrative that wins.
You don’t need better technology. You need better positioning.
What Do Category Leaders Know That You Don’t?
Every high-growth, category-defining company has one thing in common:
They’ve nailed their positioning.
Powerful positioning:
Cuts through noise and creates urgency.
Commands premium prices and reduces discounting.
Helps you enter the sales cycle early and win more deals.
Drives alignment across sales, product, CS, and executive teams.
But most companies skip it—or treat it like a branding exercise. It’s not. Positioning is a company-wide, CEO-level, strategic priority.
7 Principles of Powerful, Buyer-Centric Positioning
To unlock your GTM investments, you need to shift from product-centric messaging to buyer-centric narratives.
Here’s how.
1. Know Your “Mary”
Your positioning starts with your next best buyer, not your current one. “Mary” is the one person in the buying group who owns budget, drives urgency, and can say “yes” even if others say “no.”
2. Have a Point of View
Don’t ask your buyer what’s wrong. Show them. Bring a fresh perspective, a new way of looking at their job, their pain, their future.
3. Own an Executive Buyer
Even if you don’t sell high, your narrative needs to. Create a conversation that makes your champion look smart in front of the C-suite.
4. Name the Multi-Million Dollar Problem
Great positioning sells the problem, not the product. Name it. Own it. Make it expensive, urgent, and impossible to ignore.
5. Take a Corner of the Room
Don’t crowd the center with everyone else. Define a clear, distinct space in the category that you alone can own.
6. Make the Fight About Differentiators
Most companies don’t win with one silver bullet. They win by combining multiple strengths no one else has—and building the case that only they can solve this problem.
7. Take Buyers on a Journey
Help them see a future they can grow into. Stage your story. Create an expansion path. Paint the promised land.
The 10-Slide GTM Narrative That Actually Works
Here’s what your GTM story should look like:
Market Change: The world has shifted. Buyers are at risk.
The Problem: Name the multi-million dollar challenge.
The Stakes: If it’s not solved, here’s what’s at risk.
The Status Quo Fails: Current tools won’t fix this.
The New Buying Criteria: To solve this, you need X, Y, Z.
The Hero Appears: Introduce your company—with purpose.
Why You Win: Three reasons buyers choose you.
Proof: Results, case studies, and architecture.
The Journey: Here’s how we’ll take you to the promised land.
Call to Action: Let’s go.
That’s it. That’s your story. Not features. Not speeds and feeds. Not “we were founded in a garage.”
Final Thought: Stop Wasting Your GTM Budget
You can’t afford to keep running GTM programs on weak messaging.
Your SDRs, campaigns, and webinars can’t fix poor positioning.
Done right, positioning becomes:
Your North Star
Your internal rallying cry
Your external edge
And it shouldn’t just sit in Marketing. It’s a C-suite initiative—and when executed correctly, it changes how your entire company shows up in the world.
If your go-to-market is stalled or inefficient, positioning isn’t your branding problem.
It’s your business problem.
OUR NEW COURSE LAUNCHED TODAY: CEO’s Guide to B2B Positioning
If you’re a founder, CEO, CMO, or revenue leader struggling to stand out, The CEO Guide to B2B Positioning is the course you didn’t know you needed.
This isn’t branding.
This isn’t messaging.
This is the foundational strategy that fuels every successful GTM motion—whether you’re inbound, outbound, PLG, or partner-led.
Bob Wright distills 20+ years of experience into a clear, actionable framework to help you position your company to win in today’s crowded, AI-washed market.
If your team is misaligned, your sales cycles are dragging, or your product sounds just like everyone else’s—start here. You’ll leave with the tools to create a narrative that buyers believe in, executives can rally around, and your company can grow into.
This week only, GTMonday readers get 100% off the cost of this course, normally priced at $499.
Use with code firebrick100
Editor’s Note: This course is developed in partnership with Bob Wright, founding partner at Firebrick Consulting.
Bob has led over 400 B2B positioning engagements with some of the most iconic and fastest-growing enterprise tech companies in the world. Firebrick is widely recognized as the go-to firm for high-stakes, high-impact B2B positioning—and their methodology is a foundational part of the GTM Operating System.
We’re honored to have Bob teaching The CEO Guide to B2B Positioning inside GTM University. This course is a must-attend for any leader looking to align their executive team, differentiate in a noisy market, and unlock the full power of their go-to-market investments.
GTM OS Certified Partner Spotlight: Scott Travis at Stagewise GTM
StageWise GTM helps companies achieve product-market fit and scale efficiently by aligning their go-to-market teams and messaging across every stage of the buyer journey. With a proven track record across high-growth startups and global enterprises, StageWise GTM specializes in designing clear messaging, effective enablement programs, and actionable GTM strategies that accelerate sales cycles and improve team alignment.
Whether you're launching a new product, entering a new market, or looking to optimize revenue execution, StageWise GTM brings the strategy, structure, and support needed to drive growth and improve GTM performance.
Learn more: StageWise GTM Partner Page →
If you’d like to be a certified GTM Partner like Scott Travis at StageWise GTM and many others, we’d love to talk to you about how to make that happen.
Events: Where We’ll Be Speaking in 2025
(DM Sangram for a discount code to attend or to get slides after the talk)
Summer is usually a bit quieter for events, but it’s not too early to grab tickets for the Fall schedule:
INBOUND (hosted by Hubspot), September 3-5 in San Francisco
DRIVE 2025 (hosted by Exit Five). September 10-11, Burlington, VT
Register for the GTM OS Certified Partner Course - join here ( to get $499 off use promo code: fractional100)
Register for GTM University for to access all our courses right here
Love,
Sangram (and Bryan is on a well-deserved family vacation this week and next!)
