The 12 GTM Days Of Christmas
- Louis Fernandes
- Dec 22
- 3 min read
As a bit of end-of-year fun, Louis put together some Christmas Video Cards that went out on LinkedIn. Here they are in all their splendour! Oh, and apologies for the absolutely hideous Christmas Jumper...
Most markets aren’t too small. They’re just misunderstood.
If your TAM feels enormous but growth feels hard, the problem probably isn’t demand.
It’s clarity.
Real scale comes from knowing exactly who you serve, why they buy, and what change they’re trying to create — not from ever-larger market narratives.
Bigger isn’t better. Clear is.
Misalignment is rarely a people problem. It’s a system problem.
When Sales and Marketing don’t align, leaders reach for workshops and goodwill.
But alignment doesn’t come from intention. It comes from shared models, shared metrics, and shared accountability.
Structure beats sentiment — every time.
Forecasting fails when hope replaces discipline.
The most common forecasting error isn’t bad maths. It’s optimism masquerading as insight.
Good forecasts don’t predict the future. They expose reality early enough to act.
That’s their real value.
Not every organisation needs more outbound. Many need better judgement.
High-volume activity is often used to compensate for low confidence.
In mature environments, fewer conversations — held by more capable people — outperform brute-force sequencing.
Quality scales better than noise.
Most execution problems aren’t execution problems.
They’re foundation problems:
Unclear market
Unclear motion
Unclear value
Unclear metrics
Unclear management
Until those are fixed, execution theatre is just theatre.
Customer Success isn’t about happiness. It’s about impact.
Satisfied customers churn all the time. Customers who achieve meaningful outcomes rarely do.
Impact creates retention.Retention creates resilience.
Everything else is decoration.
Leadership failure is usually quiet — not dramatic.
It shows up as:
delayed decisions
blurred priorities
optimism without evidence
Great leaders reduce ambiguity.
Poor ones unintentionally amplify it.
Management is having a quiet renaissance.
Operating rhythm.
Clear priorities.
Consistent coaching.
Predictable cadence.
In a volatile world, good management has become a competitive advantage again.
And none too soon.
Benchmarks are guidance — not guarantees.
When context is ignored, benchmarks mislead.
Conversion rates drift.
Markets evolve.
Motions change.
The only useful benchmark is one you understand well enough to challenge.
Technology doesn’t fix confusion. It multiplies it.
Every tool amplifies what already exists:
clarity becomes scale
chaos becomes cost
If your operating model isn’t clear, no stack will save you.
If Q4 feels frantic, the issue wasn’t December.
December just reveals what’s been building all year:
weak enablement
fragile assumptions
brittle systems
Pressure doesn’t create problems. It exposes them.
And so we arrive at the final window — the one containing something genuinely useful.
Here are twelve principles worth carrying into the New Year:
Clarity is a growth strategy.
PMF must be maintained, not assumed.
Segmentation is an operating decision, not a slide.
Motions must match markets.
RevOps belongs at the strategy table.
Enablement must be continuous.
Impact > activity.
Brand + activation beats activation alone.
Forecasting is a discipline.
Simplification is a competitive advantage.
Leadership without management is theatre.
Management without leadership is drift.
Together, they form something reassuringly simple: Better GTM is not about doing more — it is about doing the right things, well.
Less noise. Less complexity. Less theatre.
More clarity. More discipline. More impact.
That’s the work ahead.
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