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Why GTM Alignment Breaks Down and How to Fix It with Martha Mathers

Why GTM Alignment Breaks Down and How to Fix It with Martha Mathers

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About This Episode Everybody talks about GTM alignment. Sales, marketing, and customer success all working together around the customer. But actually making that happen changes how teams work together, and that’s where most alignment efforts quietly stall. In this episode, Brian talks with Martha Mathers about where GTM alignment breaks down and what it really takes to fix it. Martha starts with pipeline first and top of funnel second, because pipeline is the one thing sales, marketing, and success can all agree on. From there, she walks through mapping the journey from the customer’s side, what happened when a new sales team at OPEXUS kept jumping straight to the demo, what thousands of sales conversations taught her, and why she listens first (and says as little as she can) when she steps into a new role. Here’s the thread running through the whole conversation: the problem you see when you walk in usually isn’t the whole problem. About Martha Mathers Martha Mathers is a B2B marketing and go-to-market leader who has led marketing at Bloomberg Industry Group, BigTime Software, and OPEXUS. Her experience spans marketing, sales, customer growth, and leading cross-functional GTM teams. What We Cover Why Martha starts with pipeline before top of funnelGetting sales, marketing, and customer success working around the customer journeyWhat changes when you think beyond the funnel and include expansionEnablement as the connective tissue across GTMWhat Martha learned from listening to thousands of sales conversationsUsing AI to learn from more data and conversations, not just create more contentWhy experience can get in the way when a leader walks in thinking they already know the answerHow much consensus it really takes to make change in a large companyMaking change a step at a time instead of trying to do everything at onceWhat marketers need to learn outside of marketing if they want to eventually lead the business A Few Things Worth Taking Away Pipeline gives sales, marketing, and success something they can agree on. Start there and work backward.Look at the journey from the customer’s side. That’s where the gaps between teams become easier to see.Listen to what customers and salespeople are actually saying. You may find that the story being told in the market isn’t the one marketing thinks it’s telling.Experience can create blind spots. Martha’s approach is to ask questions before assuming the answer that worked somewhere else will work here.Big companies take more consensus than you think. Knowing who needs to be involved is part of making the change.Change doesn’t have to happen all at once. Sometimes the better question is, “What is the change I can make this week?” A Few Lines That Stuck With Me “I’ve seen many leaders come in and assume by telling stories of everything they’ve done in the past, they will be able to fix the problem ahead of them.”“I listen first, ask a ton of questions, and share honestly as little as I can.”“Those are all different owners and different initiatives, but at the end of the day they all go back to the same account.”“We have a tendency to lead with the shiniest thing we can.”“I tend to value it, you know, more from an intelligence perspective than perhaps a content creation perspective.”“What is the change I can make this week?” Resources Mentioned Matt Heinz, whom Martha credits with the line “an MQL can’t buy you a beer”Gartner’s research on the B2B customer journey Chapters 00:00 Why GTM alignment breaks down00:56 Where GTM alignment gets disconnected02:33 Why pipeline should come before top of funnel03:45 Aligning GTM around the customer journey05:17 Expanding customer relationships after the sale06:49 Why enablement is the connective tissue of GTM10:30 What thousands of sales conversations can teach you13:26 How AI can improve GTM alignment and enablement15:53 The biggest mistake leaders make with GTM alignment19:36 Stakeholder consensus and leading GTM change23:34 How marketing leaders can prepare for the CEO role Transcript Brian Carroll (00:01) Welcome to the B2B Roundtable. I’m Brian Carroll, So everyone talks about GTM alignment. That’s from marketing, sales, customer success, all aligning around the customer. But actually making that happen changes how teams work together. And so the question I wanted to ask is: what really works? How do we actually make this happen in reality? And that’s why we have our guest today, Martha Mathers. Now, Martha has been the head of marketing at companies from Bloomberg Industry Group to Big Time Software to OPEXUS And I wanted to talk with her because she understands this. And something I saw her talk about recently in a panel discussion on YouTube is that for her, they started by focusing on the pipeline first and top of the funnel second. So, Martha, welcome. Martha Mathers (00:53) Thank you so much, Brian. I’m really excited to be here. Brian Carroll (00:56...
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