Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow – read by 50,000+ to scale their companies and careers. GTMnow shares insight around the go-to-market strategies responsible for explosive company growth. GTMnow highlights the strategies, along with the stories from the top 1% of GTM executives, VCs, and founders behind these strategies and companies.
When sales and marketing leaders operate in silos, companies leave growth on the table.
But when CROs and CMOs build true partnership, something shifts: misfires turn into momentum. Metrics that once clashed, like MQLs vs. Closed Won, begin to move in sync. Friction gives way to flow.
In fact, research from the 2025 State of Sales & Marketing Alignment report by Mutiny found that teams with misalignment are 2x more likely to miss revenue targets, while fully aligned teams are 2.3x more likely to exceed them.
We spoke to revenue leaders across companies like G2, Carta, AppFolio, AdRoll, Upside, and Mutiny to understand what it actually takes to align these functions. This is not about vibe checks or shared Slack channels. It’s about systems, rhythms, and trust – built from the top and carried through the org.
Here’s a tactical breakdown of four practices for creating alignment from the top, from leading companies and GTM executives.
1. Start with a shared revenue mindset
Alignment begins with language. The best CMO-CRO pairs co-own one vocabulary: revenue.
At G2, they’ve created a culture of joint execution:
Sydney Sloan (CMO) and Eric Gilpin (CRO) and created this culture:
- Bi-weekly pipeline reviews to unpack deal flow.
- “Pipegen Tuesdays” to rally both teams on prospecting.
- Shared decision-making on pricing, packaging, and promotions.
At Carta, alignment started with early trust-building.
Nicole Baer (CMO) and Jeff Perry (CRO) aligned from day one:
- Weekly syncs before exec meetings.
- Bi-weekly funnel reviews.
- Monthly business deep dives.
They also modeled accountability. If marketing performance outpaced sales outcomes, both sides leaned in to diagnose root causes, not assign blame.
2. Build a cadence for candid communication
What gets surfaced, gets solved. But only if you build time for it.
At Carta, Nicole and Jeff maintain a three-tiered cadence:
- Weekly: Narrative alignment + exec prep.
- Bi-weekly: Funnel metrics and campaign audits.
- Monthly: Strategic deep dives with broader leadership.
This regular rhythm creates space to:
- Identify where GTM is off-course.
- Share credit and accountability.
- Reset priorities in real time.
Strong working relationships only go so far without a system behind them.
At AppFolio, the team built “UCE”: Unified Customer Experience.
Lisa Horner (CMO) and Marcy Campbell (CRO) created a cross-functional framework:
- UCE brings together marketing, sales, customer success, and services.
- Launches temporary “Stream Teams” to tackle GTM priorities.
- Tracks metrics across the full customer journey.
Learn more about the UCE and Stream Teams in this podcast episode.
At AdRoll, GTM Triads are used:
Each pod includes:
- A revenue marketer.
- An SDR lead.
- An AE lead.
These pods are aligned by segment or motion. The result?
- Planning becomes cross-functional by default.
- Campaigns launch with GTM baked in.
4. Measure what matters and tackle misses as a team
Alignment without shared metrics is wishful thinking.
Across the board, high-performing GTM teams track:
- Pipeline creation and coverage.
- MQLs → S0s/S1s.
- ACD (average contract duration).
- Conversion by stage.
What’s different is what happens when a number underperforms.
At Carta, performance reviews start with root-cause analysis:
- Is the data broken?
- Are goals misaligned with market realities?
- Do we need new plays for a changing buyer?
Marketing and sales ops dig in together, then assign ownership for next steps.
You can also leverage AI to strengthen feedback loops. AI doesn’t replace alignment, but it speeds up clarity.
To build alignment that sticks, don’t start with tools. Start with shared goals.
Use this checklist as guidance for implementing a system*:
☐ Define a shared revenue target between CRO and CMO
☐ Set a recurring GTM cadence: weekly, bi-weekly, monthly
☐ Launch a pilot GTM pod or triad to tackle a high-priority motion
☐ Create a shared GTM scorecard (pipeline, MQLs, S0/S1s, conversion)
☐ Implement AI to improve attribution and scale personalization
☐ Review underperformance collaboratively and assign clear owners
☐ Make alignment visible—share wins and failures in public forums
☐ Reinforce culture of “one team” from execs down to front lines
*Every organization is different. Use this playbook as directional guidance, not dogma. Adapt these practices to fit your team, culture, and GTM maturity.
Alignment isn’t a leadership ideal, it’s a competitive advantage.
And like any advantage, it compounds when built with intention.
Tag GTMnow so we can see your takeaways and help amplify them.
✅ Recommendations
There’s a lot of debate around AI SDRs, but the conversation often gets oversimplified. Inbound and outbound are fundamentally different motions, with different use cases and success rates.
The debate gets more nuanced when it comes to outbound AI SDRs.
But for inbound, the results are already here. GTM leaders in our community are consistently using AI SDRs to handle inbound and seeing strong performance.
Meet Piper, the #1 ranked AI SDR agent on G2. She works every lead, 24/7—following up, booking meetings, and surfacing real buying signals, all without adding headcount.
Hundreds of GTM teams are already using Piper to scale smarter—freeing their reps to focus on what matters most: closing deals.
Discover why Piper has over 1,000 5-star reviews and why agentic GTM is taking over. Explore the rise of AI SDRs at qualified.com/ai-sdr.
👂 More for your eardrums
GTM 148: Winning Every Tech Shift from a 3X Founder (From Internet to AI)
This episode explores what it takes to build and scale companies during massive platform changes.
Sean Whiteley, a 3X founder, shares what it’s like to build companies during some of the most pivotal shifts in tech history – from the on-premise and internet era, to cloud computing, and now AI. He shares how expectations, team structures, GTM strategy, and startup velocity have evolved across each era, and what founders need to understand to succeed in this next wave.
Sean is the Founder of Qualified, an AI pipeline automation platform for B2B companies. Previously, he was the founder of GetFeedback, which was acquired by Campaign Monitor in 2015. He also founded Kieden, a search marketing company, that got acquired by Salesforce in 2006.
Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts by searching “The GTM Podcast.”
🚀 Startup to watch
Stotles – announced a $13M Series A round to grow public sector revenue.
Stotles is an AI-powered platform that helps businesses grow public sector revenue by streamlining the entire B2G sales process – from strategy and pipeline building to tender discovery and bid qualification.
Zoca – announced their $6M Seed round to support SMBs. Salons, spas, and wellness other local business entrepreneurs are expected to post daily, run ads, and learn SEO – while juggling clients, staff, and operations. Zoca solves for that. Its AI engine drives demand, boosts visibility across Google and GPT, follows up with leads, and rebooks past clients. Already, it’s powering over 1,000+ small businesses.
👀 More for your eyeballs
Turning compliance into a competitive advantage and key learnings from $0 to $100M ARR. Vanta’s CEO, Christina Cacioppo, hosted a live conversation went through everything from differentiation in a hot market to hiring their first “Founder in Residence” and why it may be the new hottest job in the AI era.
Owner’s playbook for scaling $2M ARR to $40M. Kyle Norton, CRO, breaks down how they’ve successfully scaled selling to SMBs and all things sales leadership.
🔥 Hottest GTM jobs of the week
- Enterprise Account Executive at Tavus (Hybrid – San Francisco/New York)
- GTM Engineer at Document Crunch (Hybrid – Atlanta)
- Enterprise Customer Success Manager – LATAM at Atlan (Remote – US)
- Partner Operations Manager at Northbeam (San Francisco)
- RevOps Lead at Tavus (Hybrid – San Francisco)
See more top GTM jobs on the GTMfund Job Board.
If you’re looking to scale your sales and marketing teams with top talent, we couldn’t recommend our partner Pursuit more. We work closely together to be able to provide the top go-to-market talent for companies on a non-retainer basis.
🗓️ GTM industry events
Upcoming go-to-market events you won’t want to miss:
- GTM 25 Roadshow Boston: June 3, 2025 (Boston, MA)
- Pavilion CRO Summit: June 3, 2025 (Denver, CO)
- GTMfund AGM: June 5-6, 2025 (NYC, NY)
- GTMfund Dinner: June 11, 2025 (London, UK)
- GTM 25 Roadshow London: June 19, 2025 (London, UK)
- Pavilion GTM Summit: September 23-25, 2025 (Washington, DC)
