222. How to build a GTM strategy that holds in a downturn

Speaker A: Hi, it's Phil Hayes. Sinclair. Thank you so much for being here. If you've listened before, shared a moment from the show, or even just used one idea in a real conversation, that means more than you might think. Every episode of this podcast is designed to help leaders just like you, think more clearly about partnerships, growth, and the responsibility that comes with being a, uh, leader. And it's grown almost entirely because people pass it on. So here's a simple ask I have of you. If this episode gives you language, clarity, or a moment of perspective, consider sharing it with one person who's carrying a lot right now. It could be an entrepreneur, a CEO, or a leader that you respect. That's how this work travels, quietly but meaningfully. All right, let's begin. What holds your go to market strategy together when the market slows? This is the partnership playbook, the podcast for leaders who want to grow with clarity, create leverage through partnerships, and bring real meaning to their teams. I'm your coach, Phil Hayes and Claire. Welcome to the show. You know, markets have a rhythm. There are periods where demand feels almost effortless. Budgets are available. Buyers move quickly. Small mistakes are hidden by strong market momentum. Then the market changes. Budgets freeze, Buying commitments grow, Procurement becomes more involved. Deals that look certain begin to drift. And then forecasts become less reliable. The same sales team, the same product, the same strategy suddenly delivers very different results. When that happens, many leadership teams assume that they a sales problem. Well, often they don't. They have a go to market motion problem. A strong go to market motion isn't designed for favorable conditions. It's designed to continue producing opportunities when favorable conditions disappear. That's the difference I want to explore with you today. Because downturns don't usually expose weak salespeople, they expose weak systems. The organizations that continue growing through uncertainty rarely discover a new tactic halfway through a downturn. More often, they've already strengthened the parts of their commercial engine that matter most before everyone else realized they needed to. The encouraging part is this. You don't need 20 initiatives. You need clarity about the two parts of your go to market motion that determine whether revenue continues to move when everything else slows down. The first is pipeline creation, and the second is deal progression. Strengthen those two areas before the market turns, and you'll give your business a very different experience from competitors who rely on momentum alone. So let's begin with pipeline. One of the first casualties of a slowing market is inbound demand. Marketing efficiency drops. Referrals become less frequent. Prospects delay responding. Companies waiting for opportunities to arrive often discover There simply aren't enough arriving anymore. That's why resilient organizations build multiple ways of creating conversations. Partnerships become more valuable. Customer introductions become more intentional. Executive networking matters more thought leadership carries more weight. And target account outreach becomes disciplined rather than occasional. Notice the common thread. None of these depend entirely on advertising budgets or favorable marketing sentiment. They depend on relationships because relationship compound. When advertising pauses, relationships keep working. That's the important distinction, because when markets tighten, trust becomes a commercial advantage. People still buy. They simply become much more selective about who they buy from. Which means your ability to generate qualified conversations increasingly depends on credibility rather than visibility. Now, of course, visibility gets attention, but credibility creates meetings. And there's also something interesting that tends to happen during downturns. Many organizations reduce prospecting because response rates fall stronger. Organizations, on the other hand, increase the quality of prospecting instead. Instead of sending more emails, they improve relevance. Instead of widening target markets, they narrow it. Instead of talking about product features, they speak directly to commercial outcomes. Buyers are under pressure to deliver. The volume becomes precision. And that's how pipeline continues growing even when overall demand contracts. Now let's move to the second part of the motion. Deal progression. This is where many forecasts quietly fall apart. The opportunity enters the CRM. The buyer sounds interested, meetings happen, everyone feels positive. Then nothing happens. The opportunity sits, the weeks pass, new stakeholders appear, budget reviews begin, decision dates move. That's not unusual. It's what uncertainty looks like inside buying organizations. Because when pressure increases, companies naturally become more cautious and more people become involved because more people are accountable. The mistake many sellers make is interpreting slower progress as a reason to apply more pressure. Usually the opposite is needed. More clarity, better structure, and greater confidence. One of the simplest questions you can ask through a sales process is this. What needs to be true for you to confidently move forward? It's a remarkably different conversation from asking whether somebody is ready to buy. Because it uncovers obstacles while they're still manageable. It surfaces missing stakeholders, it identifies approval processes, and it reveals uncertainty before it becomes delay. The big idea here is that good deal progression isn't about chasing, it's about designing momentum. That means every meeting should produce one clear outcome. One agreed next step, one identified decision, or one reason for another conversation. If meetings repeatedly end with we'll come back to you, your process isn't progressing, it's pausing. And there's another principle worth remembering. In stronger markets, enthusiasm often carries deals forward. In weaker markets, process carries them forward. That means your qualification becomes more important. Your discovery becomes deeper. Your understanding of the customer's commercial priorities becomes sharper. You're no longer selling into optimism. You're selling into scrutiny. That changes the quality of conversations required. And this is at the center of today's conversation. When markets slow, companies don't need more activity. They need stronger movement. Activity creates busyness. Movement creates revenue. And you and I both know those aren't the same thing. You can double down on the number of calls while creating fewer meaningful opportunities. You can attend more meetings while advancing fewer deals. The question isn't whether your team is busy. The question is whether your commercial motion keeps creating progress. So here's something practical you can use with your leadership team over the next week. Take every commercial initiative you're currently running and ask which of these two outcomes it strengthens. Does it increase qualified conversations, or does it improve deal progression? If it does neither, ask why you're investing time in it. And this exercise is surprisingly revealing. Many businesses discover they've accumulated projects that feel productive but contribute very little to either part of the commercial engine. Perhaps it's another reporting process, another internal meeting, another dashboard, another campaign with unclear commercial intent. There's nothing inherently wrong with those activities. But when resources tighten, focus becomes a, uh, competitive advantage. Imagine two organizations entering exactly the same downturn. One spreads effort across 15 initiatives. The other concentrates relentlessly on creating qualified conversations and moving qualified deals. Which one recovers fastest when confidence returns? It's usually the second. Not because they worked harder, because they protected the parts of the system that actually produce revenue. That's the mindset I'd encourage you to adopt before conditions force the decision from you. Because every market eventually changes. Growth returns, Budgets loosen, buying speeds increase. But organizations that emerge strongest are rarely the ones that simply survived. They're the ones that used slower markets to strengthen their operating rhythm, while competitors became distracted. So if you're leading a go to market function today, don't ask whether the market will slow. Ask whether your motion will still hold when it does. Because resilient revenue isn't built during a downturn. It's built beforehand. Strengthen your pipeline creation. Strengthen your deal progression. Everything else becomes easier to improve once those two foundations are working together. And that's where sustainable commercial confidence comes from. Not from hoping markets will change, but knowing your motion still works when it does. You've been listening to the partnership playbook. If today's episode was useful, I made something for you. A private podcast feed with five curated leadership episodes, each under 10 minutes. It's called the CEO Leadership Collection, and it's free. You can get it at uh, listento phil.com. that's listento phil.com. i'm Phil Hay sinclair. Thanks for being here, and I'll see you in the next episode.