From Strategy to Execution: Building a Culture of Accountability in Your GTM Plan

Once annual plans are set, creating shared accountability for go-to-market (GTM) goals is critical to connecting financial investments with measurable outcomes. With budget constraints and growth goals at the forefront, CFOs must ensure every dollar spent on sales, marketing, and customer success delivers a return, while CHROs focus on aligning talent and incentives to drive these goals. 

In a conversation with The Circle, VIPs Chris Semain (Partner at Alexander Group), Yevgenia Fink (CFO at Hover), Brit Malinauskas (VP, People & Workplace at Hover), and Mahesh Patel (COO & CFO at Druva) shared strategies for creating a culture of accountability that integrates financial discipline with talent management.

The Background

Executives in The Circle were asked which aspects of their current GTM compensation and performance strategy were driving the most accountability for progress against company goals. 

The results showed that the top answer was effective alignment of key metrics to desired outcomes, with 48% of respondents choosing it as the primary tool in their toolkit. The second most popular answer was a company’s approach to basic compensation structure with 17% of executives agreeing with this tactic. 

With companies going public later, interest rates potentially easing, and many organizations sitting on cash reserves, M&A opportunities are becoming increasingly attractive. However, navigating the buy side in today’s environment presents unique challenges—fluctuating valuations, evolving financing terms, and the influx of burgeoning AI companies mean there’s a lot for CFOs to weigh. The ultimate goal? Securing deals that not only align with your cash strategy but also ensure smooth integration and retain key talent. 

In a survey of finance leaders in The Circle, 42% said their primary motivation for exploring M&A opportunities from the buy side was to increase market share/expansion. The second most popular reason at 23% was to bolster product and tech capabilities. 

6 Key Levers to Drive GTM Success & Accountability

1. Start with a Uniform Sales Motion

Mahesh kicked off the conversation by naming where he believes a COO can drive the most impact to GTM accountability.

 “The lever that’s really important for me is creating a uniform sales motion. We want to make sure that the nomenclature is aligned, the processes align, and we are all  operating along a common framework.” – Mahesh Patel, COO & CFO at Druva

A uniform sales motion ensures consistency and accountability, allowing leadership to forecast accurately and avoid reliance on guesswork. Druva operates internationally, and Mahesh shared that the team has worked to minimize variability in expectations across regions and routes to market. Standardizing processes for pipeline management and sales stages, as well as emphasizing CRM hygiene and activity tracking, are key to avoiding diverse sales approaches that can create misalignment in pipeline definitions and forecasting.

2. Create Structure for Better Forecasting

To achieve accurate forecasts and sustainable growth, the VIPs agreed that it’s crucial to empower first-line managers with clearly defined metrics for success. It’s important that some of these metrics are shared across different functional groups to create better holistic GTM alignment between product, sales, marketing, and customer success; our VIPs specifically like Net Revenue Retention (NRR) and Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) for this purpose. 

Effective forecasting is essential for driving organizational success, but achieving accuracy and accountability requires more than just robust tools — it demands a structured approach. Establishing a governance model for forecasting processes ensures clear ownership, consistent methodologies, and alignment across teams. 

Data and technology are critical enablers, but they must be complemented by disciplined processes and cross-functional alignment. Once you’ve invested in the fundamentals above, consider leveraging AI to support your forecasting strategy. Tools like Clari can be leveraged for AI-informed insights to bolster the “science” of forecasting, but VIPs agreed that there are limitations of machine learning in predicting the “art” of more complex elements like deal timing.

“You want to have centralized processes for ensuring that the forecast is accurate, but then personal accountability throughout the forecasting cycles and report outs – in front of the board, the executive team, and the company – to instill the importance of transparency and shared ownership.” – Yevgenia Fink, CFO at Hover

3. Equip Managers as Your Primary Enforcers 

A strong go-to-market strategy hinges on cultivating a culture of accountability across the organization. This involves creating a high-stakes environment where individuals at all levels take ownership of forecasts and outcomes. 

Chris echoed Mahesh’s call out of fine tuning your sales motion as a first step and then putting the right people in place to enforce it. 

“You can design and roll out a fairly repetitive and codified sales motion, but it does little good if people aren’t actually executing against it. The unlock we see with our clients is having strong operators in first-line manager roles so that they have the practical skills to hold reps accountable to executing the sales motion that you’ve defined, allowing you to accurately boil up the forecast up to the executive team.” – Chris Semain, Alexander Group 

Beyond the sales motion, Brit agreed that middle managers are the most directly responsible for instilling discipline and alignment within their teams. 

“Invest heavily in your middle managers because they are instrumental in defining team norms and ensuring adherence to revenue goals. Each of those leaders really sets the culture on their team of what is acceptable and what is not.” – Brit Malinauskas, VP of People & Workplace at Hover 

Effective leaders balance support with strict compliance, particularly in deal approval processes. Performance reviews and recognition programs can reinforce this accountability. 

Additionally, Chris warned members to avoid the common pitfall of promoting top-performing reps who may lack managerial skills; in his experience, the best reps aren’t always the best first-line managers.

4. Design Effective and Flexible Compensation Plans

As Chris aptly pointed out, “Money drives behavior.” Clear, adaptable compensation plans ensure alignment between individual incentives and organizational KPIs. Within the sales organization, Yevgenia suggests structuring compensation plans to incentivize revenue realization rather than just bookings.

“I believe it’s important for salespeople to earn their commission when the company earns revenue, not at the point of booking. That creates an incentive to ensure that there’s revenue recognition and there’s short-term alignment against company objectives, as opposed to just being focused on bookings, which is really a long-term objective.” – Yevgenia Fink, CFO at Hover

Chris voiced support for using SPIFFs (Sales Performance Incentive Funds) and bonuses to encourage specific behaviors like renewals or pipeline creation, while Mahesh talked through Druva’s unique over OTE and bonus structure where reps north of 120% net retention receive a $50,000 bonus. “It actually created really interesting behaviors,” said Mahesh. “Our reps started caring about the renewals more because it’s not a $2,000 commission earned for that renewal, but a $50K prize at the end of the day.”

It’s also helpful to make space for adapting plans when organizational needs shift. “How do you actually write compensation plans in a way that provides clarity to the sales rep and, at the same time, is comprehensive of all the situations that are going to arise?” asked Yevgenia. Proactively address expected changes – such as leaves of absence, account transitions, and ramp periods – through thoughtful plan design.

5. Diagnose the “Real Problem”

When there’s an issue with sales performance, it can often be difficult to tell if the root cause is GTM execution or a larger product issue. Customer success managers (CSMs) who interact directly with product users can provide invaluable insights on product quality and user satisfaction. Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and input from satisfaction surveys highlight areas for improvement and pinpoint where the product might be falling short. 

Additionally, evaluating metrics like win rates, deal velocity, and pipeline figures can help isolate GTM problems. For example, a sudden drop in these metrics may indicate a go-to-market strategy issue rather than a product flaw. 

There may be an even larger problem at play related to the Total Addressable Market (TAM) of your product. 

“When looking under the hood for GTM problems, make sure you’re asking yourself ‘is this actually a TAM problem? Have we exhausted our TAM?’” – Chris Semain, Alexander Group  

If growth stagnates despite prior success, it may signal that the TAM has been saturated, requiring a shift in strategy.

6. Invest in Strong Cross-Functional Partnerships

There needs to be alignment between all functions of the business — from Sales to Customer Success to Product to HR to Finance and beyond — to build and execute an effective GTM plan. Cultivating relationships with other stakeholders beyond individual team silos is imperative.

Brit spoke to HR’s role in GTM success and called out the importance of balancing organizational design, compensation structures, and role clarity. She mentioned the impact that HR Business Partners (HRBPs) can have and reiterated HR’s position in serving as a coach and mentor to align team objectives with company goals.

This sentiment of prioritizing cross-functional collaboration was echoed by Brit’s colleague Yevgenia Fink, CFO at Hover. 

“It really starts with a good partnership with a CRO and across the entire executive team because the go-to-market accountability doesn’t just live with the go-to-market team, it also spreads to the product teams as well.” – Yevgenia Fink, CFO at Hover

The Takeaway

Accountability to the GTM plan is a company-wide effort. Focusing on key “levers” like a uniform sales motion, clear structure and metrics for forecasting, and effective compensation plans ensures that the fundamentals are strong. At the same time, it’s critical to keep asking deeper questions about cross-functional partnerships, manager capabilities, and product or TAM issues to ensure you’re identifying and solving the right problems along the way.

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