6 weeks, 8 conversations, 1 yes
The hiring marathon that finally closed, and 2 more moves you can steal from a European operator’s week.
Week in the Trenches: Own The Room - Monday July 13, 2026
This week I closed a 6-week hiring marathon, told a rep to be more egoistic, and drove to a customer instead of dialing in, and all 3 came down to the same thing: who shows up and owns it.
From my week as a European GTM operator. 3 lessons. 1 play to steal. Read time ~5 min.
Save this. 3 lessons from my week as a European operator, closing a hiring marathon and showing up in person, each turned into a move you can run today and the play behind it. My own take from the trenches.
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
After a 6-week process and 8 conversations, we hired our new Benelux country sales manager. I knew in the first 15 minutes. The rest was making sure.
I told an underperforming rep to become more egoistic: stop waiting on my time, own your top 5 deals cold, and know your MEDDICC by heart, not from AI.
I drove to Ghent for a customer instead of taking the call remotely. In person still wins the deals that matter, if you bring the right people and weigh the whole contract, not just the ACV.
The European read: when you run one team across several markets, the hire, the deal, and the customer visit all compete for the same scarce hours, so you have to be deliberate about which room you show up in.
The thread: the hire, the deal, and the account get owned by whoever is present enough to take them.
Read time: 5 min
The set-up
Most of my week was invisible. On the surface it was a strong start to Q3, revenue goals already at 20% of the quarter, all 3 Benelux leadership seats filled, a customer trip to Ghent. Underneath, I was running 2 roles at once, my international director seat and the interim Benelux country manager seat, while quietly building the FY27 re-acceleration plan I present in Munich this week. Nobody on the team sees that juggle directly. What they see is the output, and the output this week came down to 3 calls about presence and ownership.
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: A great hire is a decision you make fast and verify slowly
We closed a hiring marathon this week that had run 6 weeks and cost 2 earlier finalists a no. Our new Benelux country sales manager starts September 1. Here is the part that matters: I knew inside the first 15 minutes of the case interview that I saw myself working with this person, a clear bar raiser who could lift the whole mid-market team. The other 8 conversations, the cross-functional interviews, the cultural round, the CRO interview and the founder interview with the CCO, the team meet-and-greet, were not me deciding. They were me making sure, and letting the team decide into it before the offer went out.
Conviction and rigor are not opposites. The 15 minutes gave me the conviction. The 8 conversations earned the team’s buy-in, so the hire lands with a bench that already met them.
My take: I ran the full marathon rather than settle, and I would do it again. The 15 minutes gave me the conviction. The 8 conversations are what made the hire the team’s, not just mine.
The European read: on a lean team spread across markets, one leadership hire lifts or drags the whole bench, so the bar has to clear your best performer, not just fill an open seat in one country.
Do first: for your next leadership hire, write down in one line whether you saw a bar raiser in the first 15 minutes. If you did not, no number of interviews will fix it.
Do this week: replace one interview with a live working case on a real problem, and score the candidate against your best current performer in that role.
Do this month: bring the team into the process before the offer, a meet-and-greet or informal input, so they own the hire with you.
The rule: if you need 8 interviews to decide, it is a no. Use them to be sure of a yes, and to let the team own the hire with you.
You know it worked when: the team met the finalist before the offer and is already pulling for them on day one.
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 ↓
Lesson 2: Tell the underperformer to be more egoistic
The most honest conversation of my week was a mid-year review with a mid-market rep sitting at 75% in his first mid-market quarter. I did not soften it. I told him to become a little more egoistic: stop waiting for my time when you are stuck, ask for help directly, and take ownership of your own pipeline instead of pacing to the partner or the customer.
The concrete version was 3 things. Prioritize revenue-generating activity over everything else. Know your top 5 deals cold, full MEDDICC, by heart, not pulled from AI in the meeting. And be the orchestrator of each deal, the one who sets the pace, rather than the one who waits on it. Ownership of your pipeline is not optional, and no manager’s calendar is a substitute for it.
My take: giving a rep permission to be egoistic about their own number is some of the kindest coaching I know. Waiting on my calendar was never going to move his pipeline for him.
The European read: on a lean team spread across markets there is no manager with spare bandwidth in every country, so rep ownership is the only thing that scales. The number cannot wait on one person’s calendar.
Do first: in your next 1:1 with a struggling rep, ask them to walk their top 5 deals from memory on full MEDDICC. Where they cannot, that is the gap.
Do this week: agree the 2 or 3 revenue-generating activities that matter most, and cut a low-value commitment to protect them.
Do this month: set a self-sourced pipeline expectation for every rep, so owning the book is the standard, not the exception.
The rule: a rep who waits on your calendar does not own their pipeline. Give them permission to be egoistic about their own number.
You know it worked when: a rep asks you for help on a specific deal step instead of waiting, and can recite their top 5 without notes.
The play: 5 steps to make every AE own pipeline generation in their book (2026 series). Move deal and pipe ownership to the rep, so the number does not wait on a manager’s time. Get full access below ↓
Lesson 3: Show up in person, for the rooms that decide the number
My one word for the week was in-person. I drove to Ghent for a customer rather than taking the call remotely, and I keep coming back to the same read: the deals and relationships that move the number are still won in the room. But it is a spend, so I am deliberate about it. I bring a second person only when the right senior personas are on the customer side, so the extra seat has someone to talk to. And I weigh the whole contract value, not just the first-year ACV, because a lower ACV deal with a large multi-year commitment can easily justify the trip.
This is sharper in Europe than most places. Showing up in person means travel across markets, not a cab across town, so every visit has to earn its cost. The upside is real: presence closes what a video call leaves half-open, and it is an edge a fully remote competitor will not pay for.
My take: in person is a spend, so I am deliberate about it, but the rooms that decide the number are still won face to face, and a remote-only competitor will not pay for that.
The European read: showing up in person means travel across markets, not a cab across town, so every visit has to earn its cost. The ones that do are an edge a remote-first competitor skips.
Do first: for your next in-person visit, confirm 2 things before you book: are the senior personas in the room, and does the total contract value, not just the ACV, justify the travel.
Do this week: pick one deal you have been running remotely where the senior buyer is reachable, and get in the room.
Do this month: set a simple travel rule for the team, senior personas confirmed plus total contract value over a threshold, so visits are deliberate, not habitual.
The rule: in person is an investment, not a default. Spend it where the senior personas and the whole-contract value both say yes.
You know it worked when: your in-person visits close at a higher rate than your remote ones, and you can name why you went.
The play: 5 steps to run team selling that multi-threads every deal (2026 series). Bring the right second person into the room and thread the buying group, so a visit closes more than it costs. Get full access below ↓
This week’s play
You hired the bar raiser. This week’s inline play is the next move: ramp them fast, so the seat you just filled starts paying.
Play: 5 steps to ramp a new rep to real pipeline (2026 series)
Fixes: a mis-hire and a slow ramp that burn the capacity you already bought, so you pay twice for one seat.
Best for: operators at 2-10M ARR onboarding a new rep or leader into a lean, multi-market team, where a slow ramp in one country stalls the whole number.
The 5 steps:
Write the 1 number that is the job before day one, so the hire and the manager both know what ramped means.
Onboard in the order industry, then product, then sales, because under stress reps fall back on what they learned first.
Pair every classroom hour with a doing hour, so reps build real pipeline during ramp, not after it.
Run 20-80 after onboarding: 1 skill taught in visceral detail each month, reinforced weekly with 4 real call or deal reviews.
Check the 1 number at the end of cycle 1. If it did not move, act, because every week you wait burns capacity you already bought.
Template: a ramp scorecard with the 1 number that is the job, the week-1 doing task, the skill taught this month, and a cycle-1 checkpoint banded moved or not moved.
Paste this into your AI:
Here is a role I am ramping and the 1 number that is its job [paste]. Draft a 30-day ramp plan ordered industry, then product, then sales, with a doing task paired to each classroom block, a 20-80 skill schedule for months 2 and 3, and a cycle-1 checkpoint that tells me whether the number moved.
Full play, template and workbook inside GTMcraft OS. Reply to this email or DM me to get access.
One question for the room
Look at your last hire, in your market: did you decide in the first 15 minutes and spend the rest making sure, or did you talk yourself into a maybe over 8 interviews?
Reply or send me a DM.
Go deeper with GTMcraft OS
Scale on plays, not prompts.
You do not need another newsletter, podcast or LinkedIn post. You need the system under it.
Read the plays. Every single play is free and live in the Operator Room on Notion. Click through from any edition.
Build your own. GTMcraft OS members connect the full libraries, 100+ plays plus 100,000+ LinkedIn, newsletter and podcast signals, straight into their own AI or Claude context, so their team builds on the whole corpus instead of one-off prompts.
The single plays are free to read. Wiring the whole corpus into your own operating system, and keeping it current, is what the membership gives you.
Curious to see inside GTMcraft OS, DM me or reply on this email.
See you inside GTMcraft’s Operator Room,
Koen
Your (human) GTM Agent
