
Over nearly two decades in the B2B technology space, I’ve noticed an uptick in the use and prevalence of the term “go-to-market” within companies, but the definition remains elusive. In some companies, it’s a team focused on product launches. In other companies, it combines marketing, sales, and customer success teams (the market-facing teams). In other companies, it’s a combination, leading to a lack of clarity around roles, responsibilities, and accountability. Providing clarity and definition around “go-to-market” is fundamental to a company's strategy and execution. In the absence of clarity and definition, silos, inefficiencies, and misunderstandings will persist. All to the detriment of company performance.
Enter the case for defining and designing your Go-to-Market Continuum (GTM Continuum). Let's start with some definitions.
Continuum: Something that keeps on going, changing slowly over time, like the continuum of the four seasons. A whole made up of many parts (Vocabulary.com). The color spectrum is a continuum, slowly transitioning from one color to the next (WordUp).
Go-to-Market: To me, “go-to-market” is a continuous motion made up of many parts (teams) with a shared set of goals, information, workflows, and deliverables. It is a continuum with these 5 characteristics.
Action: A united action and continuous motion involving groups of cross-functional teams with a shared set of goals, roles, and responsibilities.
Goals: Everyone involved in the GTM continuum shares the ultimate goals of driving sales, usage, adoption, and a positive customer experience.
Information: These teams operate from a shared view of the market opportunity, existing customer base, ideal customer profile(s), competitive landscape, and an honest assessment of what it will take to win and what challenges stand in their way.
Independent and Interdependent Workflows & Deliverables: These teams acknowledge that they are part of a larger continuum where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. They are accountable for their own independent objectives, workflows & deliverables, and interdependent workflows and deliverables that are part of the larger combined go-to-market strategy and plan.
Trust & Respect: These teams and individuals trust and respect each other. This is non-negotiable. In a culture of us vs. them, the continuum will inevitably crack and, worst case, break altogether.
Generally, a GTM Continuum within a company could look like this.

Insights from Experience
This point of view comes from direct experience operating and leading across almost all aspects of the continuum illustrated above. Over the past 17 years working across technology companies, from startup to scale-up to enterprise, I have always been part of the GTM continuum. I’ve been an individual contributor and leader of teams across product marketing, sales (account management and greenfield), market research, B2B marketing, sales enablement and training, customer education and enablement, and often led at the intersection of cross-functional initiatives uniting teams across the continuum. Specializing in one area and then shifting to another.
With each shift, I realized the importance of connectivity, communication, and collaboration across teams focused on building and bringing products and services to education and learning markets. I also realized the importance of clarity around roles and responsibilities, accountability, and transparency into qualitative and quantitative data that inform the decisions and actions of all teams involved.
Over time, I would describe my experience to prospective employers and clients like a pendulum along the GTM continuum, and it started to resonate. I leveraged this broad and deep experience when I started my consulting business in 2018, providing bespoke consulting services to technology companies for 4 years, plugging holes or building bridges across each organization's GTM continuum. After an intentional two-year stint leading across the GTM continuum in the K12 space, I am relaunching my consulting business with even greater conviction around the case for defining and optimizing the GTM continuum within the organizations I serve. After all, this is the path to bringing great products and services to market, and keeping them there.
How does this apply to your organization?
The GTM continuum at your organization might look different depending on the size of the organization, the products/services mix, and the current organizational structure. However, I believe that there are fundamental components that make up a continuum working together to reach peak performance. If “go-to-market” or “GTM” lacks clarity in your organization, I encourage you to:
Identify the teams and individuals involved in building and bringing products and services to market;
Establish and reinforce a sense of shared ownership and accountability along the continuum from product creation to delivery;
Provide collective visibility and transparency into the underlying information (qualitative and quantitative data) that is informing the decisions and activities across these teams;
Prioritize continuous improvement, creating intentional opportunities to review the GTM continuum through the lens of what’s working, what’s not, and what’s next.
What's missing?
What does the GTM continuum look like at your company? What's missing from the examples I shared above? For those of you who are part of (or believe you should be part of) the GTM continuum at your company, I’d love to hear how it’s defined and implemented and what best practices you can share for optimizing how you bring products and services to market and keep them there.
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