Episode #77 Exposing the Go-To-Market Gap: 2024’s Biggest Mistakes & 2025’s Must-Know Revenue Secrets

In this special year-end episode, Adam and Dale dive into the journey of Revenue Reimagined over the past 18 months and lay the foundation for what’s next in 2025.

Key takeaways from the conversation:

🌉 What is the Go-To-Market Gap?
Discover the groundbreaking framework coined by the Revenue Reimagined team that’s transforming how companies approach growth. From stabilization to scalability, see why it’s resonating with founders, investors, and boards alike.

🩹 “Stop the Bleeding” Before Scaling
Why rushing to scalability often leads to failure—and how to stabilize your go-to-market strategy first.

📈 2024 Recap + 2025 Trends
Reflections on lessons learned, including the pitfalls of scope creep, and predictions for 2025, from AI-powered revenue strategies to the resurgence of in-office collaboration.

🔥 What Needs to End in 2025
Why generic “playbooks” and inexperienced advice aren’t cutting it—and how authenticity and experience will win the day.

🎯 Our Mission for 2025
Helping founders and companies stabilize faster, build better foundations, and democratize the path to revenue generation.

Thank you to everyone who has joined us through this show! Whether you’re a loyal listener or new to the podcast, your support means the world to us.

👉 Sign up for our newsletter for exclusive giveaways, tactical advice, and tools to uncomplicate revenue: https://revenue-reimagined.com
💡 Like, Subscribe, and Share to help us spread the word.

PS - huge shout out to Sendoso for sponsoring our show.

We could not do this without you.

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🎁 Lastly, we have a gift for you!

Struggling to understand why your revenue isn't growing at the rate you want?

Take your free GTM Gap™ Self-Assessment to uncover reasons why and what to do about it.

https://revenuereimagined.typeform.com/gtmgap

Transcript

00:00 
This is the Revenue Reimagined podcast where we talk about what else all things revenue with the best senior leaders across sales, marketing, customer success, and RevOps so that you can scale your business by reimagining how you think about revenue. 

00:15 
I'm Adam Jay and I'm Dale Zielinski. As always, thanks for hanging with us. There's a million ways you can be spending your time and we're grateful that you're choosing to spend it with us. Be sure to check out our newsletter if you want the show notes, amazing giveaways, and the tactical advice on how to uncomplicate revenue. 

00:32 
Let's get to it. Welcome back to another episode of the Revenue Reimagined podcast. We are joined by a very special, no we are not joined by a special guest today. You are stuck with Dale and I. Dale is wearing his vacation shirt. 

00:47 
What I was saying before we started recording, I actually bought a shirt very similar, which is interesting because I don't wear button-downs, I don't wear flowers, and is that short sleeves or long sleeves? 

01:00 
Short sleeves. Yep, so I have a very similar shirt from Tommy Bahama, so cool shirt, but we are not here to talk shirts. What we are here for is a really quick, it won't be 30 minutes, but we want to close out the year super strong with all our listeners. 

01:16 
We really want to talk briefly through quick 2024 recap. What we're seeing in relation to the go-to-market gap, a term that we coined this year that I don't think we expected to take off like it did, and I'm excited for you to talk about where we saw it this past week, that like I'm smiling and even blushing just thinking about it. 

01:37 
And then just a quick look ahead to 2025, so thanks for being here, Dale. Thanks, Adam. I appreciate the introduction, and actually I wanted to take a quick second, thanking everybody that kind of listened, like it's kind of interesting, this journey of this podcast over really more like 18 months now, but like this evolution of people that have listened to it. 

02:00 
to it, people that actually when we're interviewing or having prospect calls that actually have gone to the podcast and listen to it. So appreciate anyone that's listening to it, even like if it's two or three people. 

02:12 
But and, and going into 25, so many really cool things that we've been thinking about. So the first thing that we built out over actually really the last three, four months has been not even over the last year is is what we've turned to go to market gap. 

02:30 
And what we saw in the market was people were trying to get to repeatability and scalability from a go to market perspective, like right away. And the problem with that was they had the product they will come. 

02:44 
They have a bunch of broken stuff in the in the front end. And so we sat together and we're like, okay, what can we call this first phase? And it's like the thing that came to our mind was, we have to stabilize the organization, we have to stabilize the go-to-market strategy and so I was, I talked to somebody this week and I was like we have to put a tourniquet on like this bleeding like you may be going into a new market or you may not get more top of funnel or you may be struggling with your close rates or not getting the revenue that you need to generate and it's like the question is why, 

03:18 
like why is it happening? We know that it is happening and you really transparent and honest on why it's happening, like what is it? And so we spent a lot of time this year sitting with companies in stabilization and it's hard even on us like you want to get into this foundation building and like building processes but I think we spent a lot of time in 2024 in this place of putting the tourniquet on the bandage or on the wound and so I look forward in the 25 I'm actually getting into building the foundation with a lot of our current clients and new existing client and new clients we bring on. 

04:00 
Yeah it's, it's funny to me right? You know every founder and this isn't even just with revenue reimagined, I think this is even when we were working full time has this mindset of build a product, hire a person or 10 whatever and just flip a switch and it's going to replicate itself and the world is great and like I half joke when I say you know build it and they will come but that is kind of the mindset of like we've built this, 

04:29 
we have this V1 ICP, we have this V1 messaging, we have this MVP product and let's just go make it repeatable and like the business is going to grow and we're going to you know have this massive exit for 100 million dollars and it doesn't work that way and when the go-to-market gap was built starting with that that bridge if you will of stabilization foundation repeatability, scalability. 

04:56 
I get asked a lot, well, what do you mean stabilization? Like don't you just come help build the foundation? And the problem transparently is, and I'm gonna be a little bit unkind here, is typically when we come in, things are so fucked up that it's not build the foundation. 

05:11 
It's like, we have to stabilize what's wrong and stop the bleeding for lack of better terms because every message you send out is the wrong value prop and you're totally messaging the wrong ICP and burning your TAM. 

05:22 
And you're sending out 6,000 messages a week and burning your domain. Like if we don't stabilize that, there's gonna be no foundation because there's gonna be no business. So you have to take the step back to stabilizing the company and then using the house analogy, building this foundation and making sure that you're getting things the right way. 

05:42 
I'm shocked at how well it's been received by prospects, by customers, And I'll let you talk a little bit about where we've seen the go-to-market gap go from this initial idea to the ethos of our business and how we structure our sprints, how we structure our engagements, how we interact with our clients. 

06:07 
But I think it's been taken one step further over the past month that I certainly never, in my wildest dreams, thought would happen in the time course of a quarter. Yeah, and that evolution actually came to kind of a crescendo, I guess is the best way to put it, during some meetings we had with clients this week as they're putting together board decks and putting together investment requests and talking with the chairman of the board on some of these companies and talking and putting that go-to-market gap and framework right into their deck and how not only they've gone from where they were before, 

06:51 
like in the stabilization phase and what is happening currently in the stabilization phase and moving them into the foundational elements of the organization, the foundational elements of how we're going to build it over the next three to six months and then getting out to repeatability and scalability. 

07:08 
And the client realized that they need to take a step back before moving forward and this was just, it's an easy framework for people to grasp and get a hold of. Too many times these frameworks are too difficult or they're really, how do you figure out where you fall in this? 

07:30 
And so it was nice to see them just take the fundamental wording of it, build it into the deck and see kind of how it was going to evolve over the next six to 12 months. And then even getting into 26, right? 

07:45 
25, they realized they were bleeding a lot. They realized that now in 20. uh, 24 that they're kind of getting into stabilization. Like they could realize that then they're like, okay, we're going to build our foundation in 25. 

08:00 
And then we're really going to drive to repeatable scale building 26. I think that that's the part that blew my mind the most, right? Like, certainly seeing the four stages in a board deck, um, was pretty darn cool. 

08:15 
But seeing the three to four year plan mapped to each of those stages, right? Very specifically with like little circles and then talking about what happens in each of those stages. Um, I didn't expect it. 

08:33 
And then the icing on the cake to me was the other day sitting in a executive leadership team meeting with the lead investor of this company and the entire meeting is focused on the go to market gap. 

08:49 
And what that tells me is we didn't just come up with a great idea that sounds good for us, but investors are deeply understanding this concept and actually keen to have a framework that they could tie these engagements to to create some predictability on how you're gonna move the business forward. 

09:11 
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09:27 
Trust me, I led sales for a Sandoso competitor and I could tell you no one does gifting better than Sandoso. If you're looking for a proven way to win and retain more customers, visit Sandoso.com. Yeah, and I think the actual wording from that investor was like, after what, like eight hours of the meeting, that slide was impactful. 

09:50 
He said that was the most impactful slide of the deck, right? So he could see how that, trust me, we had financials and numbers and all sorts of other things, but he felt like he could pitch this back to the other owners and the other investors in a way that would make a lot of sense. 

10:10 
So that was really cool. I think it also grounds founders or leaders into a path and a process, because everyone, like we want repeatability for you guys as much as scalability. I used to say this when I was selling all the time and everyone would be like, well, what happened, like, can you get to your quota? 

10:33 
Like, we'll get your quota. I'm like, or can you get the deal size higher? And I'm like, you don't think I wanna sell this as the highest price that I can or that I'm not trying like, you know, extra hard to like hit your quota? 

10:47 
Like, I always felt like salespeople. are trying to do this, but there's things that end up happening. So this just gives them, you don't know where you're going unless it's designed and mapped out, and then you have a path to get to it. 

11:00 
And so that's why I think the framework is done. I'm super excited as we roll out some new assets, as we revamp the website that'll be coming out, as we're building some ability for people to almost do it on their own, but enable them to have an understanding of how to get there. 

11:25 
And that's what's exciting for me in 25. When we started the business, it was all like, how can we help as many founders as possible get to a revenue generation faster, right? We've all gone through these hard times of, we have a good product, we have a good. 

11:46 
position, we know what we're hitting in the market, but we just can't seem to generate the revenue. And so, like, as many founders and companies that we helped this year, I look forward to helping even more next year. 

11:58 
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. When you look at 24 Dale, what's the one thing we did that looking back, you're like, yeah, probably shouldn't have done that. Um, I think not having an audit done properly, because we had a lot of scope creep. 

12:18 
So I think in the middle of the year, we learned like, let's get a go to market audit, put together is super comprehensive. And I think that was that helps, like, at least level set us. And so I'll flip that back on you. 

12:34 
What was one thing that you would have changed over the last year? I would have blocked out what we what I call sprint time much earlier, I, I hate scope creep, but at the same time, I truly believe that we're an extension of our clients executive team. 

12:52 
So I as much shit as I give you, I have a hard time saying no to clients as well, because like, our job is to make you successful. And what I found is, you know, my calendar is arguably worse than anyone's I have a lot of meetings, and I wasn't allowing the right time to like have heads down building time. 

13:09 
And it took me probably until July, where I block time every morning, every afternoon, and an extended midday block on Wednesday is to like do deep sprint client work. And it's made me so much more productive. 

13:23 
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Going into 25. What do you see as some trends that are gonna actually turn into like, real things going into 25? Yeah, it's a great question. AI for sure, but not like everyone's thinking. 

13:44 
I'm doing a talk at an event where going to end of January, the Growth Elevated Summit, specifically about AI and go-to-market. And I think when you look at AI agents, that is where I think you're going to see the biggest uptick in go-to-market. 

13:58 
The days of people doing long, drawn-out list building, research, and data scraping are over. And I, for one, think it's a great thing, because every revenue person will now focus on revenue-producing activity, not building lists and grabbing data. 

14:21 
So I think that's one. And then number two, as much as it pains me to say, I think we're going to see a big return to office shift. Yeah. What I'm seeing going in there, there's going to be a lot of AI pieces in the process. 

14:39 
But I still think we're going to get this continuing shift of. customer success, value creation, value creation at a very quick timeframe. One of the things that we get stuck with sometimes is just scalability. 

14:53 
Like we get to a place where we have challenges scaling. So one of the things that I'm super focused on in 25 is how to even democratize, go to market further, how we can help founders, companies, investors, start a process even without us and get to a place of stabilization so that when they're ready and they want to go build the foundational pieces, they've already stabilized their business. 

15:27 
Like we're, so when we start, cause when we've been starting with companies, we're in a stabilization mode. Can we get to the place where we're at the end of stabilization and getting into foundation building within the first two months? 

15:39 
Like that would be a goal that I have in the 25. So we're not spending the first two to three months stabilizing all the things that we need to do before we can start building. So that's something I want to get into in 25. 

15:54 
What do you, last question. As you look to 25, what trend do you want to see go away? What's the trend to 24 that you're like, shit dude, like this has got to stop. It's funny. I saw Mac post something today on LinkedIn about all of these LinkedIn influencers that just talk about AI dying. 

16:17 
Like people just trying to get clicks and comments and starting to get real engagement. So I would love to get to a place where networks are getting stronger, communities are getting stronger. Like I think the tech is starting to get there. 

16:32 
And we get away from people trying to make a quick buck with founders, investors, something like that. At a G. PPT level strategy. I'll put I'll put it that way. I was gonna say something relatively similar. 

16:50 
If I never see someone who has minimal to no experience hawking their 1999 course or 2999 playbook, promising to fix a founder or a company's or a person's problem to only fail to deliver. It'll be too soon. 

17:10 
It's a trend that's gotta stop. Show me the receipts. We say it over and over again. If you haven't been there and done that you probably don't have the right to teach others how to do it. I for one am extremely excited about 2025. 

17:24 
For a plethora of reasons. I think there is a lot of changes in the market. I think there are new products that we are taking part in right now that are going to really disrupt the market. I think sales as we know it is going to continue to change continue to evolve. 

17:40 
You're going to see tech strategies going over to services, service strategies coming over to tech and really start to see these things blending together. I don't know how I feel about another year working alongside you. 

17:53 
We will see how that I'm kidding. It's been an amazing year. I'm excited for 2025 and all that's to come for everyone that has given us an hour of your week, whether it be once a week, whether it be, you know, multiple times a week where you're going back on episodes, if you've listened one time or if you've listened to all, I think, 70 episodes that we've put out this year because there were a couple special episodes from the bottom of my heart. 

18:20 
Thank you for spending your time with us. Thank you for working out with us and keep the feedback coming. Let us know how the show could get better. Yes, I appreciate it. I appreciate all the effort that you put in as well out of my super grateful for everything we put together and looking forward to a great 25. 

18:37 
So happy new year everybody and look forward to connecting in 25. Thanks so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. As we say at the end of every show, give more than you receive, reach out to someone today and offer your assistance. 

18:52 
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19:09 
Until next time.