The 90-second version
My plan for next year went to finance with 4 years of data, 3 scenarios and 3 levers. It came back with 1 line: scale with less net added headcount.
The next morning, after a late flight home, I sat with the directors of a family-owned group with entities across Europe. Their question was not the product. It was whether we still fit in 3 years.
Looking back at both, I did too much of the plan myself and shared it too late. My leaders got time pressure instead of ownership.
The European read: “we act local, but we are European” won more trust in that room than any feature.
The thread: the plan, the customer and the team ask the same question. Can this scale without you carrying it alone?
Read time: ~8 min
4 years of data, 3 levers, 1 line back from finance
Mid-October is when finance sends the first draft of next year’s plan back. The second version is the one that gets signed.
My week had 1 word: stretch. 2 days defending next year’s plan, a late flight home, a customer the next morning, then a wall of 1:1s. The second version of a plan needs fewer seats, more trust and more owners.
Hi, it is Koen Stam and welcome to GTMcraft OS: The European 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 and GTM operators scaling their next 2M, 5M or 10M ARR.
Lesson 1: finance answered my plan with 1 line about headcount
It was not a presentation. It was 2 days of conversations with senior people across departments, ending at a lunch with our finance director. I worked on the plan every spare hour in between. If you lead, you defend your flank: you learn what other departments need and form pacts before you ask.
I opened with the last 4 years in my org: lower cost of acquisition, better net revenue retention, ARR growth every year. Then 3 scenarios, realistic, stretch and aggressive, each with its NRR, CAC payback and pipeline needed. Then 3 levers. Brand and demand. Partnerships. Productivity across BDRs, AEs, AMs and CSMs, with AI and a dedicated engineer.
Then a plan per market and an investment list, with where the plan breaks without each item.
The reply, in short: a fair point, but go back to the drawing board and make it even more efficient. Scale with less net added headcount, and lean more on automation, process and AI.
My take: I should have asked myself that question first. A plan that adds a seat for every gap is not defended. It is a request. CJ Gustafson gives the finance view: AI spend does not get grandfathered in. It competes from zero against every other dollar, whether that dollar goes to a head, a tool or a token budget. My next version prices every new seat against the cheaper ways to get the same output. I will fight for the seats that survive.
The European read: across several markets, the reflex is 1 more seat per country. Split what must be local, the voice on the call and the person in the room, from what can be shared: research, prep and reporting.
Do first: take your investment list. Next to every new seat, write the output it must produce. Then write the 2 cheaper ways to get it: a process fix or an automation. Founder fallback: do this for your next 2 hires.
Do this week: sit with whoever signs off the money before you present again. Ask what would make them say yes to the seats that remain. Founder fallback: your co-founder or your lead investor.
Do this month: rebuild the plan with net added headcount as a line you defend, not a default. Founder fallback: 1 page, headcount today versus in the plan.
The rule: every new seat names the output it produces and the cheaper way you rejected.
You know it worked when: every new seat in version 2 has its output and 1 rejected cheaper option written next to it. Founder read: you can say in 1 sentence why your next hire beats a tool or a process fix.
The play: 5 steps to add output without adding headcount. It starts with the share of your won base that nobody touched last quarter. You point the team at that revenue and give each person 1 owned outcome, all before you open a seat.
Lesson 2: the directors asked whether we still fit in 3 years
Thursday morning, after a late flight home, 3 of us drove 1 to 2 hours south for a customer onsite. We met the directors of a family-owned group with entities across Europe. It could be one of the bigger first deals on our board this year.
They want to bring one core system together across every country. Their real question was not the demo. Can we lean on you today, and in the years to come?
They also look at the leadership, the philosophy and how we are financed.
1 director asked: what is the main difference between the local competitors and you?
I said: “We act local. We have an office here, that is why 3 of us are here with you. But we are European. We help European-headquartered companies with international ambitions, like yours. The local players focus mainly on this one country.”
1 more thing helped. I explained how consciously we decide where our money goes, down to sponsorships. It built credibility with those executives.
My take: an onsite costs almost a full day for several people, and it is worth it. Executives buying for several countries buy trust and long-term fit. A feature list answers neither. Have the local-competitor answer ready before you walk in, and make it true. I could defend it without being salesy, because it is what we stand for.
The European read: I did not walk in alone, and that was half the answer. A group with entities across Europe needs a partner who is local in every room and European in the plan. Say both, in that order.
Do first: write your answer to “what is the difference between you and the local players” in 3 sentences. Local proof first, then the wider promise. Founder fallback: say it out loud to your co-founder and time it.
Do this week: pick your 3 biggest open deals with buyers in more than 1 country. Book an onsite for 1 of them, with at least 2 people from your side. Founder fallback: you and your first seller, 1 deal.
Do this month: after each onsite, log the executive questions that were not about the product. Put the top 3 into your next deck. Founder fallback: 1 shared note, updated after every executive call.
The rule: in a multi-country deal, answer the fit-in-3-years question before the feature question.
You know it worked when: each of your top deals has an in-person executive meeting on record, and every seller gives the same local-versus-European answer. Founder read: you can give the answer without notes.
The play: 5 steps to run team selling that multi-threads every deal. 3 people in that room only count if each owns a thread: the director, the operational lead and the person who signs.
Lesson 3: I built too much of the plan myself, and my leaders paid in time pressure
Looking back, I did run the plan across functions. I built bottom-ups with marketing, field marketing, country leaders and my second-line lead for account management and customer success.
Still, I did too much myself. And I tend to start this prep too late, or share it too late. That puts time pressure on my people to deliver their part.
When I put myself in their shoes, a lot of the plan comes from them. If they are part of the bottom-up from day 1, they build buy-in for the plan along the way.
The same pattern shows up in my 1:1s. Next steps are not always written down, so we forget who owns what. I keep AI out of my 1:1s, because they are private. So the mechanism has to be human: the report writes the next steps and owns them.
The 1:1 I got right this week was a growth conversation with a former AE who now runs a proposition across our markets. I had promised him the time, so I prepared the night before, at the end of a stretched week. We covered what he did well over 3 months, where he can grow, and what the next step needs. We documented all of it.
My take: ownership I keep is buy-in I lose. Toni Hohlbein and Mikkel Svane name where that road ends: the CFO writes the plan, the CRO carries it, and the CRO gets fired when it misses. My fix for the next round of planning, in the coming weeks: set the guidelines with RevOps first. Then hand each leader their key topics early enough to think, prep and present their part. We iterate on their version, not mine.
The European read: a country leader sees what head office cannot. Give them their topic before the numbers, so their market is built into the plan, not added later.
Do first: list the topics in next year’s plan. Put 1 leader’s name on each. Founder fallback: your own name goes on fewer than half.
Do this week: send each leader their topic and a date to present it. Founder fallback: your best seller presents pipeline.
Do this month: end every 1:1 with next steps written by the report, in their words, in a doc they own. Founder fallback: 1 shared note per person.
The rule: hand out the topics before you write the plan, and let the report write the next steps.
You know it worked when: each leader presents a part of the plan they built, and every 1:1 doc has next steps in the report’s words. Founder read: your plan has at least 1 section you did not write.
The play: 5 steps to reset the quarter with your leaders and 3 owned initiatives. 1 initiative, 1 named owner, no shared ownership, and a weekly check that it moved.
Save this. 3 lessons from my week as a European operator, each with a play you can run today.
Send it to 1 founder or GTM operator redrafting next year’s plan this month.
This week’s play to steal
Fewer net new heads means every remaining hire counts double. I keep the last 30 minutes of every final interview for motivation, the skills they lack, and what they built with AI lately. In BDR interviews lately, AI use rarely goes past research and prep. Maybe our bar is high. We still need that productivity from every person. Ruben Dominguez reports that ElevenLabs now hires on what candidates built unprompted, not years in a role.
Fixes: interviews that reward a polished story over proof of work.
Best for: 2-10M and 10-25M teams adding fewer seats next year, where every hire has to lift the average. Across markets, run the same case in every country, in the local language.
The 5 steps:
Write the week-one proof task before the job description: 1 real, paid task a strong hire finishes in an afternoon.
Build a 1-hour case and a scorecard with 4 to 6 dimensions. Set the bar before the first interview.
Run the final round in person, in assessor mode. Ask 2 questions they could not prep, and 1 on what they built with AI themselves.
Score against your 2 or 3 best performers, not the other applicants. Write a feedback doc for every finalist.
Say no unless it is a clear bar raiser.
Template: 1 scorecard per finalist. Score 1 to 5 on reasoning under pressure, quality of the work, GTM judgment, communication, and AI fluency (built, not just used). Close with 1 line: lifts the team average, yes or no.
Paste this into your AI:
Here is the role I am hiring for and the 1 outcome it must produce in its first month: [paste]. Here are my 2 or 3 best performers in similar roles and what makes them strong: [paste]. Draft a paid week-one proof task with a definition of done, a 1-hour case built on a real problem from my pipeline, and a scorecard with 5 dimensions scored 1 to 5, including AI fluency. Describe a bar-raiser answer for each. End with 2 off-script questions I should ask live.
Why this matters now
The October default is a shorter list of the same seats.
Run it the other way. Price every seat against its output. Earn trust in the customer’s room. Hand the plan to the people who carry it.
3 questions for the room
Which seat in next year’s plan would you still defend if finance asked for the cheaper way?
In your biggest multi-country deal, what is your answer to the local competitor, and has an executive heard it in person?
Which section of next year’s plan did someone other than you build?
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I have scaled B2B SaaS to 10M ARR 3 times now and I run a GTM org pushing toward 40M ARR, in Europe. You get what I am running this quarter, not what I remember from 2019.
Master your human GTM skills AI can’t replace inside GTMcraft,
Koen
Your (human) GTM Coach
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PS. Co-written by Wispr + 3 GTMcraft Skills + Claude Opus 5.5; edited & approved by Koen
