GTMcraft GTM Signal: Your quarterly number is fiction
Most targets are a top-down wish. Here is how to build it rep by rep, and pay for the one behavior that actually hits it.
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The 90-second version
Most quarterly targets are a top-down wish, then a plan reverse-engineered to fit. This week three different corners of the GTM world said the same thing in their own language: stop managing the number by its easiest proxy and start building it from the drivers underneath. CJ Gustafson made the capacity case, Everstage’s Siva Rajamani made the comp case, and Pierre Herubel, Primer, Full-Funnel, and Outbound Kitchen made the demand and outbound versions. The pattern is the same every time. The visible metric is not the lever.
Build the number bottoms-up, rep by rep, or you are forecasting fiction.
Roughly 90% of comp plans pay for raw activity, not the outcome you need this quarter.
Your demand gen only works on the 5% ready now. The other 95% decide later who they already trust.
Prospects do not care which channel you pick. Relevance built from real account facts gets the reply.
Watch the quiet leaks: renewals that turn last-minute, and pricing a competitor re-cuts while you sleep.
Read time: ~5 minutes.
Lane note: Saturday is GTM execution, Sunday is Claude. Here is the one move that matters most this week.
This week’s number #1 move
Build next quarter’s number bottoms-up, then pay for the behavior that hits it.
Two posts this week point at the same blind spot in how founders set the number. CJ Gustafson at Mostly Metrics walks through a sales capacity model built bottoms-up, rep by rep: ramp, real productivity, and attrition, not a top-down target divided by hope. On the GTMnow podcast, Everstage’s Siva Rajamani says he has seen more than 300 comp plans and roughly 90% make the same mistake. They reward raw activity and bookings volume instead of the specific outcome the business needs this quarter, whether that is margin, new logos, or multi-year deals.
Put them together and the move is simple. The target you commit to should fall out of real per-rep capacity, and the comp plan should pay for the one behavior that gets you there. Most founders do the reverse. They set an aspirational number in a board deck, then bolt on a comp plan that quietly pays for the wrong thing, and then wonder why the team is busy and the number still misses. The capacity model tells you whether the number is even possible with the people you have. The comp plan decides whether the people you have will run at the right thing. Those are the two dials. Almost everything else is noise.
Start here:
Take your current quarterly target and divide it by realistic per-rep productivity from your last two quarters of closed-won per ramped rep. If the rep count that implies is more than you have, the number is fiction, and the gap is your first conversation with your board or your CRO.
Sources:
Mostly Metrics, June 18 (https://www.mostlymetrics.com/p/how-to-build-a-sales-capacity-model-using-claude-excel)
GTMnow, June 16 (https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/p/gtm-194-sales-comp-plan-mistakes-siva-rajamani-everstage)
Problem 1: Your demand gen only sells to the 5% ready today
Three posts this week circle the same trap: treating every demand channel as a lead spigot aimed at people ready to buy now. Pierre Herubel’s 95/5 playbook is the spine. At any moment about 95% of your buyers are not in-market, so content that only chases the 5% with a form leaves the real game unplayed. Keith Putnam-Delaney of Primer, on GTMnow, makes the paid version: the new paid playbook is audience-first, building the right audience and earning attention, not blasting conversion ads at a cold list. Full-Funnel’s field-events playbook makes the in-person version, where the whole point is to engage target buyers and engineer the follow-up so sales is not ghosted the week after.
Across paid, content, and events, the winners build demand with the 95% so they are the obvious choice when those buyers finally enter the 5%. The teams that only run capture plays look efficient on a weekly dashboard and starve their pipeline 90 days out, because nobody was building trust with the people who were not ready yet.
Start here:
Open your last 5 pieces of content or campaigns and label each as for the 5% ready now or for the 95% not yet. If four or five are conversion plays, you are only fishing the small pond.
The rule:
If a campaign only works on buyers ready to purchase this quarter, that is lead capture rather than demand creation. Fund both, but never let the 5% plays crowd out the 95%.
Sources:
GTMnow, June 18 (https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/p/gtm-195-b2b-paid-advertising-strategy-keith-putnam-delaney-primer)
Full-Funnel B2B, June 19 (https://fullfunnel.substack.com/p/field-eventsconference-playbook)
Pierre Herubel, June 17 (https://pierreherubel.substack.com/p/the-955-playbook-for-linkedin-growth)
Problem 2: You tune the channel when the reply comes from relevance
Two posts from Outbound Kitchen this week take apart the favorite outbound distraction: which channel, which tool. Elric Legloire is blunt. Your prospects do not care whether you reached them by email, phone, or LinkedIn. They reply when the message is relevant to them right now. The companion piece says your outbound stack has one job, and most teams build it for the wrong one, optimizing sending and volume instead of the relevance and timing that earn a reply.
The through-line is uncomfortable. Channel-hopping and tool-stacking are how teams avoid the harder work of being relevant. Adding LinkedIn to the sequence feels like progress. Buying a new sequencer feels like progress. Neither one makes a single message more relevant to the person reading it. Relevance comes from a real fact about the account, a trigger, a role change, a public announcement, not a cleverer subject line. That is slower to produce and it does not show up in a tool demo, which is exactly why most teams skip it.
Start here:
Pull your last 10 outbound messages and read the first line of each. Does it name something specifically true about that account right now, or could it be sent to anyone in your ICP? Count how many pass.
The rule:
If your opener could be sent to any account in your ICP, the channel will not save it. Rewrite for relevance before you touch the tool.
Sources:
Outbound Kitchen, June 15 (https://newsletter.outbound.kitchen/p/stop-debating-email-vs-linkedin)
Outbound Kitchen, June 14 (https://newsletter.outbound.kitchen/p/your-outbound-stack-has-one-job)
Problem 3: Your comp plan pays for the wrong behavior
The number 1 move names the pattern; this is where it bites your team day to day. Siva Rajamani’s read of 300-plus comp plans is that roughly 90% reward volume, because volume is easy to measure and easy to pay on. CJ Gustafson’s capacity work is the other half. When the model underneath is built rep by rep, you can see exactly which behavior closes the gap to the number, and that is what the plan should pay for.
The trap is a comp plan written once, then left alone while the business changes what it needs. A plan that paid for new logos last year may be quietly funding low-margin renewals this year, and the reps are doing exactly what you are paying them to do. You do not have a motivation problem or a talent problem. You have an instructions problem, and the instructions are the comp plan.
Start here:
Write the one sentence your comp plan rewards most, in plain words. Then write the one outcome the business needs this quarter. If they are not the same sentence, that is your leak.
The rule:
If the behavior your plan pays for most is not the outcome you need this quarter, your reps are not the problem. The plan is.
Sources:
GTMnow, June 16 (https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/p/gtm-194-sales-comp-plan-mistakes-siva-rajamani-everstage)
Mostly Metrics, June 18 (https://www.mostlymetrics.com/p/how-to-build-a-sales-capacity-model-using-claude-excel)
Also on the radar
PricingSaaS, June 19: Linear re-cut its seat-based model deliberately while peers bolt on AI credits. Packaging is being re-engineered in public, so if you have not revisited yours this year, a competitor has. (https://newsletter.pricingsaas.com/p/how-linear-evolved-its-seat-based-model)
CS Cafe, June 14: your best CSM keeps landing on the renewal email chain at the last minute, and the cause is structural, not effort. Become the person who proves value before the renewal, not during it. (https://www.thecscafe.com/p/customer-success-default-owner-system)
Elena Verna, June 18: as build costs collapse, tiny markets that were never economic become viable, so expect more small focused competitors, not fewer. (https://www.elenaverna.com/p/the-mom-and-pop-saas-era-has-arrived)
Cannonball GTM, June 15: a worked inventory of free public data for outbound shows the edge is assembling real account facts nobody else pulls, not buying another list. (https://cannonballgtm.substack.com/p/public-data-sources-for-the-construction)
Steal this move
Rebuild your number from the drivers up in four weeks. For you if you are 0 to 10M+ ARR and your quarterly target is a top-down guess your team quietly does not believe.
Week 1, build the number: divide your target by real per-rep productivity to see how many ramped reps it actually needs. Fix the gap on paper.
Week 2, re-point comp: name the one behavior your plan pays for most and re-aim one accelerator at the outcome you need this quarter.
Week 3, feed the 95%: add one demand play for buyers who are not ready now, and pre-write the follow-up for your next event.
Week 4, earn the reply: make names a real account fact a pass-or-fail check on every outbound first touch, independent of channel.
Why this matters now
The cost of building has collapsed, which means more competitors and less room for a number you cannot defend. The teams that win build from the drivers up: a target that falls out of real capacity, comp that pays for the outcome, demand that courts the 95% and not just the 5%, outbound that earns the reply with relevance. None of it needs a new tool, only the numbers and customers you already have. Pick one dial this week and turn it on purpose.
What is your number one takeaway from this week’s GTMcraft Saturday signal?
Reply or send me a DM.
See you inside GTMcraft’s Operator Room,
Koen
Your (human) GTM Agent
