108K ACV, signed 90 minutes before Q2 closed
What separated the deals we closed from the ones that slipped, and the fundamentals I reset for Q3.
Week in the Trenches: Fundamentals Win Quarters - Monday July 6, 2026
This week I closed one quarter in the dark and opened the next one on a beach, and both came down to the same thing: fundamentals, not more effort.
From my week as a European GTM operator. 3 lessons. 1 play to steal. Read time ~5 min.
Save this. 3 things from my week as a European operator, closing a quarter and opening the next one across markets, turned into moves you can run today on your leg of scale.
Send it to 1 founder or GTM operator scaling toward 10M in Europe who reads everything and ships none of it.
The 90-second version
A six-figure deal that ghosted us for days signed 30 minutes after the buyer’s last question landed, because one rep had a mutual action plan and the others did not.
I stepped back into a country manager seat I left 3 years ago as interim, and started Q3 with a full day on the beach with my leaders, no laptops, no pipeline review.
We said no to 2 finalists this week. Good was not the bar. On a lean team, one mediocre hire drags the whole average.
The European read: when your quarter closes across several small markets at once, procurement moves at a different speed in each one, and the only thing that scales is a plan the buyer co-owns, not your effort at the end.
The thread: the operators who win the quarter are the ones who go back to fundamentals before they touch the numbers.
Read time: 5 min
The set-up
Last week was the end of Q2 and the first days of Q3, across the markets I run. 2 weeks out we were behind pace on mid-market, with the pipeline sitting there on paper but the late stages soft. In the same week I stepped back into the Benelux country manager seat I held myself 3 years from Sept 2022 to August 2025, as interim, on top of my international role, likely into October. So I closed one quarter from the trenches and opened the next one as a first-line leader again.
Here is what that taught me…
Hi, it is Koen Stam and welcome to GTMcraft: The Future GTM Operator. This newsletter is built from 100,000+ GTM signals collected from 100+ operators and founders, combined with 13+ years of my own lessons and failures from the trenches. I write at the intersection of go-to-market practice and AI-powered systems for founders scaling 0 to 10M+ ARR.
100,000+ GTM relevant signals from LinkedIn, Newsletters and Podcasts indexed. Translated into 100+ GTM plays for you to implement today.
13+ years over 3 GTM operator jobs across 3 GTM motions (SMB, MM, ENT). Scaling from 2-10M+ ARR multiple times. Same recipe. Different motions.
Now all part of the GTMcraft Operator Room.
Lesson 1: The late stage is where reps separate, and a mutual action plan is the separator
We were ghosted since Friday on a deal worth 100k plus. On Friday the CFO said he would sign. Then nothing, all of Tuesday, the last day of the quarter. Late in the evening one line arrived: the HR director will come back to you. The country manager, the rep, and I sat on Slack looking at each other. Then the buyer came back with one final question. We turned it around, and 30 minutes later the contract was signed.
That deal did not close because we chased harder. It closed because the rep knew the decision date, the decision process, every step left to signature, and was multi-threaded across the buying group. The deals with that clarity closed. The deals without it moved to next month. Coverage was never our problem. Late-stage control was.
Steal this: open every deal you expect to close this quarter and answer 3 questions with the buyer in the room: what is the decision date and the exact steps to signature, who signs and who can kill it and have you spoken to each, and does the buyer have the same plan written down that you do. If you cannot answer all 3, it is not a late-stage deal.
The rule: if the buyer does not co-own the plan, you do not control the close. You are waiting on it.
The play: The Mutual Action Plan GTM Playbook (2026 series). Turns late-stage control into a repeatable discipline. Get full access below ↓
![[Access the GTMcraft Play via below button ↓]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!h8wA!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9d76f194-5de0-48a9-abbb-1c3506fce3a4_1040x1269.png "[Access the GTMcraft Play via below button ↓]")
Lesson 2: Reset the leaders before you touch the numbers
Day one of Q3, I did not open the pipeline or start the planning deck. I took my 4 Benelux leaders to Scheveningen for a full day on the beach. No laptops. No number review. A long walk and honest conversation about where the team’s energy, belief, and focus actually are.
We came back with 3 named owners for the quarter, one each: a more dynamic ICP built on real H1 signals, cross-functional collaboration and the office culture, and a mid-market pipeline-generation culture, which we named as the single biggest bottleneck for H2 and 2027. 3 owners, 3 problems worth solving, and nothing else on the list. The textbook says start a quarter with analysis. I reset the leaders first, because they carry the message to everyone else.
Steal this: before you build your Q3 plan, take your leadership group somewhere with no screens for half a day. Come back with a maximum of 3 named owners for the 3 problems that decide the quarter. Alignment first, spreadsheet second.
The rule: if your leaders are not aligned on the 3 things that matter, no plan survives contact with the team.
The play: 5 steps to reset the quarter with your leaders and 3 owned initiatives (2026 series). The exact move above as a repeatable play: a no-laptop leadership reset that ends with 3 named owners. Get full access below ↓
Lesson 3: Hold the bar, even when holding it costs you
Same week, we said no to 2 finalists, one for country manager, one for solutions engineering. Neither was bad. Good was simply not the bar. On a lean team, a bar raiser lifts the average and a mediocre hire drags it, so I would rather hold a seat open and step in myself as interim than settle to fill it.
That is the harder version of the decision. Holding the bar meant I took the country manager seat back on top of my other role, which is a real squeeze on my week. But a lean team scaling toward its next 10M cannot carry a hire who does not raise it. The way I test it: I put the person in a live case, a real conversation not a rehearsed pitch, and I ask myself if I see a bar raiser I would want to build with. If the answer is not yes, it is no.
Steal this: for your next hire, replace the pitch with a live working session on a real problem, and benchmark the candidate against your best current performer in that role. If they do not clear that bar, hold the seat and cover it, rather than settle.
The rule: on a lean team, one wrong hire costs more than an open seat. Hold the bar or carry the gap yourself.
The play: 5 steps to hire GTM bar-raisers on a real work sample (2026 series). A paid week-one proof task, a scorecard against your best performers, and the discipline to say no. Get full access below ↓
This week’s play
Play: The Mutual Action Plan GTM Playbook (2026 series)
Fixes: deals that stall in the late stage because the buyer is not co-owning the path to signature.
Best for: operators at 2-10M ARR closing mid-market deals across several European markets at once, where each country’s procurement and decision process runs at its own speed and the only thing that travels is a plan both sides hold.
The 5 steps:
Map the buyer’s real internal decision stages, not your CRM stages.
Co-create the mutual action plan live on a call, with the buyer typing too.
Use one simple template so a rep can activate it in minutes, not build it from scratch.
Coach reps on the conversation, not the document. The skill is asking, not filling in.
Inspect the plan in every deal review, so it becomes how you forecast, not paperwork.
Template: score each open late-stage deal 1 to 5 on plan health. 1 = no dates, single-threaded, no buyer copy. 5 = dated steps to signature, multi-threaded, buyer co-owns it. Anything scoring 3 or below is not a committed deal this quarter.
Paste this into your AI:
Here are my open late-stage deals with the next steps and stakeholders I have on each [paste]. For each deal, score plan health 1 to 5 on: dated steps to signature, number of stakeholders engaged, and whether the buyer has a copy of the plan. List the deals scoring 3 or below and the single question I should ask the buyer this week to raise the score.
Full play, template and workbook inside GTMcraft
→ Reply to this email or DM me to get access.
One question for the room
Look at the deals you expect to close this quarter, in your market: how many would still be there if you asked the buyer to show you their copy of the plan?
Reply or send me a DM.
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Koen
Your (human) GTM Agent
