- At the heart of the growth of your SaaS business, is your go-to-market strategy. But most people these days, tend to overcomplicate their go-to-market strategy. There's too many trends, there's too many hacks, there's too many tricks, and they don't really last.
So before you send that cold email, before you run those ads, before you sponsor that event, or start that TikTok channel, you need to actually diagnose and identify, the right go-to-market strategy to grow your SaaS business. But here's a big question though. What makes for a simple and effective go-to-market strategy?
What are the key components? How do you know if your current go-to-market strategy is the right one? In this episode, I'm gonna walk you through the three principles that you absolutely need to know to diagnose and identify, the right go-to-market strategy for your SaaS business, so that you can accelerate your path to that next stage of growth.
Intro. (logo woosh) (heavy beat music) (TK claps hands) What's up everybody, welcome to Unstoppable, I'm TK and on this channel, I help SaaS founders like you grow your SaaS business faster, with an unstoppable strategy. Now if you're new to this channel, welcome.
I drop an episode every single Sunday, with actionable strategies and tactics from the trenches, on how to grow your SaaS business faster. (subscribe graphic whooshes) So be sure to hit that subscribe button, and that bell icon, (bell graphic rings) (notification graphic dings) so you'll get notified, every single time I drop an episode, (TK fingers snapping) with the TK Energy. If you're already part of this channel, if you're part of this community, if you're part of my SaaS and go-to-market coaching programs, (TK slaps chest) my people, welcome back, it's really awesome to see you over here.
So having been in the SaaS industry for nearly 15 plus years, having coached over 250 SaaS companies on their go-to-market strategy, to drive anywhere from 2X to 5X growth, all the case studies are in this channel. Having done all of that, here's the three principles you absolutely need to know, on how to diagnose and identify, the go-to-market strategy for your SaaS business. So if you're excited to dig into principle number one, go ahead and smash that like button (like button squeaks) for the YouTube algorithm, it really likes it when you do that, (finger tap clicks) and let's get right into it.
So principle number one in diagnosing and identifying your go-to-market strategy, is to define the who. Who are the specific people that your product is perfect for? A lot of times, people get confused between tam, which is total addressable market, and the specific group of people, that will buy your product now.
We call this an ideal customer profile. Let's just say you are at a million dollars in arr. Take that here, and let's define what 12 months from now, what your revenue should be, or what your target is.
The people that are most likely to buy from you, to get from this stage, to this stage, is your ideal customer profile. When I work with founders on their ideal customer profile, everyone thinks they have one until they work with me. They're nearly 29 points that go into it.
We teach you how to do it, and when you do it, you actually get a proper ideal customer profile. And that is one of the key tenets, of a go-to-market strategy. And it also helps you define, exactly what features you need to build, where you need to position yourself, how to talk about your product versus the competition, and actually target the right people, so that you are not wasting cycles selling to the wrong people.
So principle number one in your go-to-market strategies, is really to ask yourself, Do we really know who we are selling to? Do we really know why they would buy from us? Do we really know where they live, and what attributes about them makes them more likely to purchase from us?
That is one of the first principles, of a proper go-to-market strategy. If you don't have that, any cold email that you run, any ad that you're running, any blog posts that you're doing, will miss the mark because you're not really clearly targeting your ideal buyers. With principle number one out of the way, then comes principle number two.
Principle number two is, do you have a 10X differentiated solution? A 10X differentiated solution, it's a mouthful, is the benchmark that we wanna set, when we're going out into the market. And this is one of the critical components to your go-to-market strategy.
Another way to think about this, is defining the why. The why, on why these group of people, in your ideal customer profile, would pick you versus the competition. Now regardless of what dynamic you have in your marketplace, whether there's a direct competitor, there's big players, or small players, you're competing against a bunch of startups, there's always competition.
Worst case scenario, people can just do nothing. Instead of buying your software, they can just say I'm not gonna do anything. I'm not gonna spend any money, I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing, the status quo.
And that in itself, is the competition. And sometimes that's good enough. They're not gonna make a move, even though your software may be brilliant.
And so, and super important, this is principle number two. When you're diagnosing and identifying the right go-to-market strategy for your SaaS business, you really wanna figure out what your messaging is, and what your manifesto is, as you're going into the market, that communicates why you are 10X differentiated than any of the competitors out there, including, the status quo. This is super important, because a lot of times folks skip this part, and this part, and jump right into, running those ads, writing those blog posts, outsourcing to a fractional CMO who can't hold a real CMO job so they're tricking founders into giving them money, and the list goes on.
And thereby, losing out on actually getting an effective go-to-market strategy. So what's super important for you, is to really get specific about who you are targeting, and why they would buy your solution, versus sticking with the status quo, or saying yes to a competitor that's likely talking to them as well, if you're in a right market. Now, those are the first two principles.
There's the third one, before I go into this, this is the one that really brings it all together. But let me pause here for a second before I go to principle number three. Are you starting to see the power in this?
Are you starting to see the power of what the difference is between just executing and running a bunch of plays, versus really thinking about a proper go-to-market strategy? These questions are not difficult. They're simple, but simple is not always easy.
But when you answer these, I've worked with enough founders to know this, I've done this myself. When you start to answer these questions in a step-by-step way, then you really start to get a go-to-market strategy that can fuel the growth of your SaaS business. If you skip these questions, and just keep doing the execution of running the random plays, you really won't differentiate yourself in the market, and you'll be neither here nor there, and the growth will stall.
If you're starting to see the power in this, can I just get a "yes" in the comments below, (Yes graphic swooshes) and also, smash that like button (logo squeaks) for the YouTube algorithm, it really likes it (finger pointer clicks) when you do that. And also, if you're in that stage where you're defining your go-to market strategy, maybe you've gotten to a point where you're like, "You know what, what got us here isn't gonna get us to what our revenue target is 12 months from now. " So if you're in that stage where you're trying to figure out, well we need a better go-to-market strategy to get to our next stage of growth, then I encourage you to check out my SaaS go-to-market coaching program.
Inside of the program, I work with you one-on-one to actually help you execute on your go-to-market strategy. Now, you don't have to go anywhere right now. I'll tell you more about this at the end of this episode.
What's more important in this very moment, is that you smash a like button for the YouTube algorithm, and also we talk about principle number three, 'cause this is what brings it together. Okay, so if you have defined the who, and you've defined why they should go with you, then the third piece, the third principle you need to define is how they will discover you. How they will discover you.
Now, this builds on the prior two things, because what you're essentially doing is you're saying here's specifically, here's our ideal customer profile, here's our differentiated message, we need to figure out how we can get this message to these people. And that's what this third piece is, and we call this a Broadway show. Now most people, when they don't have a clear go-to-market strategy, every week they're trying some random new thing, that they learned about by some influencer, about growing a SaaS company.
Maybe they'll try TikTok, maybe they'll say, "Oh, I should set a a Substack", or "Maybe I should do a podcast. " They go all over the place. We look at this differently.
What I've learned, is if you get consistent about specific channels where you can achieve mastery, and you can keep driving your message targeting your ICP, then you tend to win. Most successful SaaS companies have that one growth channel where they master, and they do really well, and they do it over, and over, and over, and then they grow from there. And that's the power, of what I call a Broadway show.
Broadway show is a consistent set of marketing and sales activities, that you run every single week, to bring your message to your target customers. That's it, and that's principle number three of diagnosing and identifying, the right go-to-market strategy, the most effective go-to-market strategy, for your SaaS business. So to recap, in order to drive growth for your SaaS business, you need a proper go-to-market strategy.
If you skip any of these steps, you outsource it, you don't really own it, then your growth will stall. What got you to this point, will not necessarily get you to that next stage of growth. This is when it's best to diagnose and identify, the right go-to-market strategy, for this next stage of growth.
In order to do that, let's recap. Principle number one, you really wanna define who are gonna be the customers you're gonna sell to for this next stage, and define it into an ideal customer profile. Number two, you wanna figure out what is your 10X differentiated message that you bring to these people that convinces them that they should go with you versus the status quo, or the competition.
And number three, you wanna figure out what is the consistent set of sales and marketing activities that you run, we call this a Broadway show, to bring your message to your target audience on a consistent basis, so you generate quality pipeline, you close those deals, whether you're product led or sales led, and you drive growth. Those are the three principles you absolutely need to know, and now you know them. What you may not know, is TK.
How do I define an ideal customer profile? You said there are 29 points that go into it. How do I craft a differentiated message?
I'm in a crowded market, or, no one knows they need this yet, I'm educating this market. You may be wondering, what is the key channel to use for my business, and my ideal customers to reach them and get my message to them? This is why I created my SaaS and Go-To-Market coaching program.
(screen graphic pops) Inside of this program, we work together to actually define and execute on your go-to-market strategy. There are three steps through this program, it's an incredible program. (screen graphic pops) We flesh out your ideal customer profile, then we teach you how to build out your manifesto, and then I'll teach you how to run a consistent set of sales and marketing activities, called a Broadway Show, to drive revenues, and drive pipeline, and close deals, and drive growth.
(soft orchestral music) It's an incredible program, I've been running it for almost three years now. Over 170 companies have gone through this specific program. We've published so many incredible success stories of companies that have kickstarted profitability, that have gotten to that next stage of growth, have raised follow-on funding, it's an incredible program.
And right now, we're accepting more members into this program. If you are at the stage where you need to define your next stage of growth, you need to figure out how to drive that growth, you need to figure out how to flesh out your go-to-market strategy and execute on it, and you wanna reduce execution risk, then all you need to do, is just go to TKKADER. COM/GTM.
TKKADER. COM/GTM, and all the details will be there (text whooshes) about the program. If it looks like it's a good idea for you and it's a fit, then just fill out a little form, and we'll get on a call, we'll make sure that you are the right fit.
The better the fit, the better the results. And when you're on board, we're off to the races. Typically, within the first three weeks of joining, founders are able to implement the steps I teach you, get my coaching, and start to revamp their go-to-market strategy, and test it in the market, and then we iterate from there.
It's an incredible program, so just go to TKKADER. COM/GTM. Also, if you got value from this video, please smash that like button (like button squeaks) for the YouTube algorithm, it really likes it (finger pointer clicks) when you do that.
If you have a fellow founder, a team member, a group, a Slack group, a WhatsApp group, a message board of other founders that will get value from this video, please share this with them, it would just mean the world to us. We put a lot of love into these videos. Also, I drop an episode every single Sunday, with actionable strategies and tactics from the trenches, on how to grow your SaaS business.
So be sure (Subscribe button whooshes) to hit that subscribe button, (bell rings) and that bell icon, (notification button dings) and then you'll get notified, every single time I drop an episode. And lastly remember, everyone needs a strategy for their life, and their business. When you are with us, yours is gonna be unstoppable.
I'm TK, and I'll see you in the next episode, or inside, of the SaaS Go-To-Market coaching program. I'll see you there, take care.
