We’re excited to add a new service to our expansion portfolio to help you expand to Europe faster. Our Go-to-Market Plan offers a step-by-step guide to successfully launching your product or service to a new market, including:
While this is new to our portfolio of packaged services, our partner Petri Rinne has been providing go-to-market (GTM) planning to our clients for 15 years now. We're just making it more of a formal part of our full service European expansion.
“We believe that our Go-to-Market services, which have roots in many successful international engagements, are a great value-add to SFE’s customers,” said Petri. “We have helped numerous companies to define their strategies and tactics on opening new territories, building a foundation for solid and consistent execution.
Does Petri’s name sound familiar? He’s been heading up our Nordic outreach since 2008. As he put it, “This Go-to-Market plan is a natural progression of our end-to-end European expansion services.”
Don't forget to download our free ebook "Build Your Go-to-Market Strategy"
That's a good question that we as a team asked! We already defined what is a go-to-market strategy last week, but, in short, in Petri's own words, the more popular term go-to-market strategy is more of a high-level review, while a go-to-market plan is a detailed plan made with not just strategy but direct execution in mind.
On the surface, a go-to-market strategy, plan, and process appear to be "the same thing." But we thought we'd open up about how we work with go-to-market frameworks to ensure that we maximize the probability of success in each strategy execution. Many companies are still only making go-to-market strategies, and too many are printing them out on excellent posters and forgetting them the second they put one up beside the coffee machine or share in the Slack channel.
A go-to-market strategy is a guide that tells us we want to move from our current situation (point A) and head towards a specific goal (point B). It helps us explore all possibilities while minimizing risky outcomes. Often it includes the company's and its owners' mission and vision. The strategy of high-growth tech companies is often very unmoving and only shifts when vital milestones such as funding rounds or exit planning mergers and acquisitions occur. Having everyone on the same page headed in the right direction is important, but a go-to-market strategy alone isn't enough.
Now, a go-to-market process involves completing pre-planned steps efficiently, such as executing growth scenarios and utilizing corresponding growth hacks. The plans involved in a go-to-market process are static to a certain extent, as we rely on tried-and-true growth strategies and newer growth hacks to achieve a steady accelerating flywheel effect. We fine-tune the process. For example, if we were climbing a cliff wall, our approach would be to progress slowly enough so that your tech company doesn't fall but quickly enough that you don't freeze. The mission that reaches the top is still what we aim at – now, we are simply optimizing our execution on your journey.
Finally a go-to-market plan is then planned to include rope, climbing gear, etc. The elements of the GTM process are somewhat defined as plans to climb 1 meter at a time. Still, as we might have to adjust to wind and weather, we might want to iterate along the climb and move vertically to avoid a particularly tough or windy spot on the cliff wall. Our strategy has not changed, most of our plans are still being executed, but that process tells us to find the safest and most accessible spot for each move we make toward the end goal.
The thing with both a go-to-market strategy and go-to-market plan is you can never know how the conditions might suddenly change or how tired you will get during the execution of the climb to the top. But that's OK! We've got your back. We're here to support you as you plan your way to and across Europe.
We're excited to officially add a new tool in your tech company's European expansion kit. Any questions about how you can leverage a go-to-market plan with us? Contact us and we'll be happy to chat!
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