WBIGTM Christmas Special: What This Year Taught Us About Go-To-Market

Louis recording an episode of the What's Broken in GTM and How To Fix It podcast

There are years in which the market demands innovation, reinvention, or boldness. And then there are years like this one — years that quietly insist on a return to the fundamentals. As 2025 draws to a close, it is striking how consistently SaaS leaders have rediscovered the same truth: the Go-To-Market engine is not a playground for clever tactics, but a system whose performance depends on clarity, discipline, and coherence.

This was a year in which noise finally began to give way to signal; in which the exuberance of the 2021–22 cycle felt very far away; and in which GTM teams were forced to move beyond slogans, hacks, and heroics. The organisations that thrived were rarely the loudest or most flamboyant. They were the ones that faced the basics without flinching.

Enablement

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I. Product–Market Fit: The Beginning of Every Story

If the past twelve months revealed anything, it is that Product–Market Fit is not a milestone to be celebrated but a condition to be maintained. PMF drift was more common this year than PMF failure. Companies did not lose their market because the market vanished; they lost it because they stopped paying attention.

Every breakdown we encountered across the year — motion misalignment, funnel inconsistency, bungled segmentation, erratic forecasting — could be traced back to a blurring of the fundamentals: Who do we serve, why do they buy, and what change do we help them realise?

Our discussions on TAM, SAM, and SOM reminded leaders that scale is not defined by fantasy markets on pitch decks but by the intersection of capability, demand, and reach. STP work reinforced the simple but underappreciated truth: GTM effectiveness is downstream of market clarity.

The organisations that grew with confidence in 2025 were those that continued to interrogate their PMF, not memorialise it.

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II. RevOps: The Architect of Go-To-Market, Not the Administrator

If PMF is the foundation, RevOps is the scaffolding that allows a business to build upward. One of the most striking developments of 2025 was the shift in how forward-thinking SaaS companies understood Revenue Operations. What was once a tactical reporting function increasingly became the architect of the customer journey, responsible for designing coherence, reducing friction, and ensuring that GTM operates as a system rather than a set of competing fiefdoms.

We described RevOps on the podcast as the glue that binds the revenue engine together — but that statement understates its emerging strategic role. When RevOps is reduced to dashboards and hygiene, it simply documents decline. When empowered, however, RevOps becomes the arbiter of focus, the coordinator of handoffs, and the guardian of the operating rhythm. It is no longer the clerk of GTM, but its conductor.

The lesson from 2025 is clear: no SaaS organisation will achieve repeatable, profitable growth without RevOps at the strategy table.

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III. Enablement: The Engine of Performance, Not the Event

Enablement’s evolution this year paralleled that of RevOps. Where RevOps provides the structure, enablement provides the capability to execute within it. Yet only a small minority of businesses treat it that way.

Most still confuse training with enablement. Training imparts knowledge. Enablement builds discipline, skill, and fluency. It is not episodic; it is continuous. As we frequently discussed, great performers do not practise until they get it right — they practise until they never get it wrong. This is as true of Federer’s forehand as it is of a value discovery conversation.

The data supports this. Highspot’s research shows that a robust enablement system can increase quota attainment by nearly 20 percentage points — a transformational lift in a world where average attainment hovers around 43 per cent. For all the investment poured into tools, tactics, and headcount this year, nothing moved the needle quite like consistent coaching and behavioural reinforcement.

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IV. Foundations Beat Tactics — Every. Single. Time.

Across every WBIGTM content arc this year — sales methodologies, forecasting, unit economics, segmentation, and the WbD series — one theme repeated itself with almost comic predictability: the basics always win.

Companies that led with tactics consistently underperformed those that led with coherent mechanics. Businesses that chased volume consistently lost to those that pursued impact. Those that treated brand investment as optional found themselves shouting into the void by Q3, while those that balanced long-term brand building with short-term sales activation — as Binet and Field warn us — grew more efficiently and more sustainably.

Nothing this year reinforced this lesson more clearly than unit economics. Software may scale, but cost does not disappear. Discounted deals, bloated tech stacks, spray-and-pray pipeline generation — these were the hallmarks of a company that had abandoned discipline. In contrast, companies that made cost, conversion, and time the centre of their operating model were the ones still standing by autumn.

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V. The WbD Lens: Data, Impact, and Exponential Reality

2025 was also a year in which the Winning by Design Revenue Architecture became an essential interpretive tool for SaaS leaders.

The Data Model forced teams to shift from vanity metrics to meaningful ones: CR1, CR2, handoff rates, the distinction between activation and impact. The Mathematical Model showed leaders why they had been misled for years — sales is not linear but exponential. Small improvements across multiple CRs compound dramatically; small degradations create outsized decline.

Benchmarks that once looked comfortably achievable suddenly appeared fragile. CR1 and CR2 erosion meant that traditional rules of thumb — “3x pipeline,” “4% lead-to-opportunity” — no longer applied. The organisations that thrived were those that replaced folklore with math and sentiment with system.

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VI. Leadership & Management: The Lesson Beneath All Lessons

Having travelled through the tactical, operational, and structural layers of GTM, we arrive at the final, synthesising truth of the year: none of this works without effective leadership and competent management.

We spent twelve weeks unpacking this distinction, and not without reason. Leadership provides direction, coherence, and meaning. Management provides cadence, clarity, and accountability. They are not interchangeable; they are symbiotic.

This year made painfully clear that many companies possess neither. Some over-indexed on visionary rhetoric and under-indexed on managerial discipline. Others became so operationally obsessed that they lost the ability to inspire, align, and mobilise. Only a minority understood that great organisations require leaders who can manage, and managers who can lead — but that each discipline must retain its identity.

The striking conclusion from Q4 was this: The companies that hit their number were rarely those with the flashiest strategy, but those with the most stable operating rhythm.

And operating rhythm is a managerial responsibility.

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VII. What We Are Still Getting Persistently Wrong

If this were a tidy story, we would end here. But GTM is rarely tidy. Across the year, several dysfunctions remained stubbornly persistent:

• The fetishisation of MQLs and SQLs despite their corrosive effects on alignment

• The overuse of SDRs in motions where they add no value — and the underinvestment in capable BDMs

• The continued misinterpretation of benchmarks, particularly around CR1/CR2 expectations

• The delusion of technology as strategy, rather than an amplifier of clarity

• The chronic underinvestment in onboarding, coaching, and enablement

• The astonishing recurrence of PMF drift, even in scale-ups

The honest conclusion is that the industry continues to confuse activity with progress — and yet appears surprised by the absence of results.

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VIII. Five Questions Leaders Should Take Into 2026

Not predictions. Not prescriptions. But questions — because good leaders interrogate before they act:

1. Are we genuinely clear about whom we serve and why they buy?

2. Do we have an operating rhythm, or are we improvising at scale?

3. What impact do we expect each GTM function to create — and can we measure it?

4. Are we investing enough in our people to achieve consistency?

5. Where must we simplify in order to grow?

SaaS leaders do not need more noise in 2026. They need more clarity.

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IX. Closing Reflection: A Year of Hard Lessons, and Valuable Ones

WBIGTM has grown immensely this year — not just in scope or audience, but in depth. The conversations with Simon, the insights from guests, the engagement from readers and listeners: all of it has contributed to a more honest, more rigorous exploration of what GTM leadership truly requires.

As we head into the break, it is worth remembering that great GTM organisations do not emerge from heroic effort but from consistent fundamentals executed well.

Thank you for reading, listening, challenging, and contributing. We will return in January with the Talent Arc, the continuation of the Winning by Design series, new guests, and the next evolution of the WBIGTM mission.

Until then — step away, recharge, and enjoy the silence. Impact will wait until the New Year. 

A WBIGTM Year-End Reflection