'Is our GTM working' is the wrong question. The right question is which stage of GTM maturity you are in, and whether your operating model matches it.
Scale-up boards make better commercial decisions when they replace generic GTM diagnostics with a stage-based model — and the cost of misdiagnosing the stage is the most common reason boards over-invest or under-invest at exactly the wrong moment.
Stage one is founder-led selling — the CEO and one or two early hires close every deal. Stage two is the first repeatable motion — a handful of reps closing deals using a playbook that works for a defined segment. Stage three is segment expansion — building a second motion for a different buyer or segment, alongside the first.
Stage four is the operating-model build — moving from individual rep performance to predictable team performance, with the management cadence, enablement, and forecasting to match. Stage five is enterprise GTM maturity — multi-product, multi-region, with proper revenue operations and partner channels.
The most common stage-one mistake is hiring a VP Sales too early. The most common stage-two mistake is broadening the motion before the first one is genuinely repeatable. The most common stage-three mistake is treating the second motion as an extension of the first, without recognising it needs its own playbook.
Stage four breaks most reliably on management capability — the move from 'reps who can sell' to 'managers who can scale teams' is structurally hard and rarely planned for. Stage five tends to break on revenue operations under-investment — RevOps gets resourced as administration rather than as a strategic function.
For boards, the practical use of the model is in three places. First, in diagnosis: an honest stage assessment, made by the board with the CEO, prevents the most common over- and under-investments. Second, in hiring: the right commercial leader profile is stage-specific, and stage mismatches are responsible for a substantial portion of CRO failures.
Third, in expectation setting: each stage has typical efficiency metrics, and benchmarking the wrong stage produces either complacency or panic. A board that has done this work makes better decisions on the things that actually compound — leadership, segment focus, and capital allocation.
Grant & Graham works with scale-up CEOs, CROs, and growth-stage investors. If your organisation is dealing with a GTM diagnosis that has not yet produced a clear stage assessment or hiring decision, we can help. Our interim commercial leadership and GTM operating-model design are deployed in days, not months. Get in touch or email andrew@grant-graham.co.uk.