- One of my most favorite sayings in business
is this quotation,
strategy without execution is useless
execution without strategy is aimless.
So strategy and execution, both of them are important
but here's the really important question.
How do you know whether you're actually properly executing
on your go-to-market strategy?
You put so much work into it, you define it.
How do you actually make sure you're doing the things
every single day to drive the growth of your SaaS business
to make that strategy very real in terms of execution?
How do you know whether it's working or not?
How do you know whether it's time to course-correct
and maybe tweak your strategy
because you're not quite getting the results that you want.
So in this episode, I'm gonna walk you through
the three principles that you absolutely need to know
in order to ensure you're executing
on your go-to-market strategy in the right way
not falling into the trap of overcompensating for strategy
and not enough on execution.
Intro.
(upbeat music)
What's up, everybody.
Welcome to "Unstoppable" I'm TK.
And on this channel, I help SaaS founders like you
grow your SaaS businesses faster
with an unstoppable strategy.
If you are new to this channel, welcome.
I drop an episode two to three times a week
with actionable strategies
to grow your SaaS business faster.
So be sure to hit the subscribe button and that bell icon
that way you'll get notified every single time
I drop an episode with the TK Energy.
Now, if you're already part of my SaaS coaching programs
if you are part of this community, welcome back.
It's really awesome to see you over here.
Now, one of the biggest forms
of procrastination that we as humans
myself included are guilty of is actually focusing too much
on planning and not as much on executing.
And it feels really good to sit down and make plans
to design a strategy, to build another to-do list
of here are all the things we're gonna do.
To think about the OKRs,
to do all the things except for doing the thing.
And this is one of the things
where I remember at a point in my life
where I had some setbacks
and I was talking to a coach of mine
and we were working through like,
all right, what have we learned?
What do we need to change?
And one of the things he asked me, he was like,
"Hey, if you actually did all the things that you have
in your notebook that you like built out into your notebook
wrote out, planned out
if you actually did all of those things,
what would happen?
Where would you be?"
And that was one of those moments where I'm like,
"Oh, my God," like execution is the most important thing
even if you have the best drawn out plans.
But so often we get distracted.
We actually try to chase too many things down.
We don't have that discipline to actually execute
on what needs to be executed on.
And that's really what makes or breaks successful founders.
They're the ones that truly have the discipline
and the grit to execute on what is necessary no matter what,
even if you're resource constrained
even if there's too many competing priorities,
even if you're tired and you just you're like
I can't keep going on
but you need to finish this one last thing.
That's what really makes the difference.
But the bigger question is how do you actually
ensure you're executing on the right things?
Particularly on go-to-market
because go-to-market is one of those things
where conceptually, you can lay out a lot of things
you should be doing but they don't always translate
into day-to-day activities that you must be doing.
Whether it's you or your team or all of you combined.
So in this episode, I'm gonna walk you through
the three principles that I've used personally
to transform myself and my team into an execution engine
especially on our go-to-market, which is super important.
And when you actually follow these three principles
you'll actually be able to put your strategy to work
and you'll actually be able to accelerate the growth
of your SaaS business.
So if you're excited to dig into principle number one
go ahead and smash that like button
for the YouTube algorithm and let's go right into it.
Principle number one is actually to first gut check
do you have a defined go-to-market strategy?
So a lot of times people walk around like,
"Oh yeah, we totally have a strategy."
It's like, "Well, what's your strategy?"
"Our strategy is to win."
That is not a strategy that is a wishlist.
But do you actually have a go-to-market strategy?
Quick gut-check on this, number one,
do you actually have a defined ICP?
Number two, do you have properly defined narrative
and messaging and positioning?
And number three, do you actually know which channels
you're going to be doubling down on
and really getting good at?
There are nine different SaaS channels
that you can grow through.
You can't be great at all of them in the early stages.
So you've got to pick one or two and really go dominate.
That is essentially your go-to-market strategy.
So the first thing I wanna get out of the way
principle number one is before you start beating yourself
up around in your execution,
when you wanna make sure
that you actually have a well-defined strategy.
So that's principle number one.
Now, if you're a follower of this channel
maybe you kind of know what goes into a strategy.
If you're part of my SaaS coaching programs
you definitely have a strategy.
So that's like, just make sure that you have that.
Principle number two is once you have that strategy
you got to just like, get into the discipline
of what do I need to be doing daily?
Whether it's yourself as a founder,
because it's still founder led sales
or it's your sales team or your marketing team
or your team in general,
if all of you are collectively working on it,
especially when it comes to your go-to market strategy
and your execution you really need to dig into like,
look what are the things as we need to daily.
Daily we need to do.
You need to have checklist.
So principle number two, in terms of your daily cadence
you need to actually make sure
maybe every day you need to be tweaking your ads
or talking to your ads team.
Every day you should be outbound prospecting,
connecting with them more people in your ICP, in LinkedIn.
Every day you should be following up on the deals
that you have in flight or the deals that you lost
and maybe now is a good time to re-engage.
And every day you should be figuring out
are there customers that are doing really well
that I can ask for referrals.
Now, this is not an exhaustive list
but this gives you an example
of every day what you should be doing
in terms of execution around your go-to market strategy.
And if you don't have something like this every day
then chances are, you're not executing enough.
If you're wondering why you're not growing faster
if you're wondering why it's a strategy, right, or not
you're not gonna know
because you're just not putting it into play.
You have these beautiful drawn out plans
but maybe you're not actually executing.
And what I like to do is basically I go, I use Asana.
We all use Asana in my team
and we actually have a recurring checklist for ourselves
on a daily basis or on a weekly basis.
Meaning on a weekly basis
here are all the things we must do
on a daily basis here are all the things we must do.
And I have it set up where I'm gonna check off
on all each and every one of these key things
every single day.
And that's my daily cadence.
If I know I'm doing this daily cadence
and other members of my team that are revenue facing
are doing these key things then I know my strategy
is actually getting put into play.
If we are not doing these things on a daily basis
then chances are, we're not collecting enough data.
We're not driving enough activities.
We're not making enough movement in the market
to actually make a difference.
Before I go to principle number three
let me just pause here for a second
are you starting to see the power in this.
How many of you and you can put this in the comments
if you feel like you have a daily cadence
and you're driving towards it, tell me about it.
Tell me what are the three or four things
that you absolutely put on your daily cadence.
If you aren't doing it
I know a lot all of us are like that.
It takes some time to get into this discipline
and get the momentum going, put that in the comments.
Just say like, no, I haven't started it
but I'm gonna start now.
Here's what's gonna be on my daily cadence.
Put that into comments.
I love hearing from you guys.
Also if you don't wanna put either of those
let me just get a yes in the comments below
so that I know this is resonating with you.
Also, if you haven't smashed up like button yet
for the YouTube algorithm, please do that.
The YouTube algorithm loves it
when you smash the like button.
Now I wanna go into principle number three
but also if you're looking for help on these pieces
how to actually get the go-to-market strategy in place
how to drive that daily cadence
how to actually dig into whether it's working or not.
This is exactly why I created
my SaaS go-to-market coaching program.
There are nearly 65 founders in the program right now
and we're growing.
And this is for an exclusive group of founders
that wanna grow faster
with an unstoppable go-to-market strategy.
I'll tell you more about it at the end of this video,
but let's go to principle number three.
Principle number three is you need to have
a weekly experiments and metrics spreadsheet.
This is super important.
When you're in my coaching program,
we actually give you the spreadsheet
that will help you track on a weekly basis
exactly the key metrics that matter.
Now we follow a very specific system
and defining our go-to market strategy
and executing on it inside the program,
yours may be different.
So I'm not gonna get super prescriptive
or on the metrics you should look at
you'll know best based on your go-to-market strategy.
But for us, the big things that we like to look at is,
well how much engagement are we getting from our activities?
How many leads are we generating?
Or how many users are signing up?
How many of them are becoming real opportunities?
Even if you just monitor those three key metrics
it'll help you start to understand
is our execution actually working?
Is our strategy sound?
What have we learned?
And what do we tweak?
And also it allows us to experiment every week.
Every week we go in and say, cool, what do we tweak?
Do we change the landing page?
Do we change the ad?
Do we actually change our outbound subject lines?
What do we tweak and how do we measure?
And does that make the week after week number change?
When you start to thinking this way
not only are you getting into this momentum of executing
you also get addicted to improving
because every week you'll do a little experiment.
You'll see, well, did it go up or did it go down?
If it went up, let's double down on it
and what's a new experiment we run.
And all of a sudden you get in this loop of putting things,
into play, doing their activities
seeing what happens and getting better
and better and better and better and better.
We call this Kaizen.
Kaizen is one of my most favorite principles.
You can look it up.
It's about continuous improvement.
And when you start to get into that
this discipline of the daily cadence actually becomes fun.
This is not something that becomes like,
"Oh God, I got to check off this boxes again."
It's like, no, let's put this into play
we have a new experiment running
and we'll look at the metrics on Monday
and we'll see if it gets better and better.
And we wanna make it get better and better.
And when you get into this
the discipline is actually not difficult.
You basically traded in for regret later
you actually start to see success now
which is super, super important.
So to recap, in order to ensure
that your go-to-market strategy
is actually driving execution.
Number one, do a gut check of whether you actually have
a go-to-market strategy.
Do you have a properly defined ICP
a specific strategic narrative, your messaging
your positioning, the channels you're going after?
Do you have actually have a strategy?
Number two, have you taken that strategy
and put in a daily cadence that you can execute on?
What are the set of activities you need to do every day
and with your team to ensure you're actually
putting that strategy into motion?
And as you're doing that every week
are you actually measuring it
and running experiments to see how you can make it better
and better and better and better and better?
You do these three things
then you're gonna ensure
that you're not only do you have a go-to-market strategy
but you're gonna be executing to accelerate the growth
of your SaaS business.
Now, if you got value from this
but you're like, you know what?
We need to revamp our strategy
or we need to actually get better about our daily cadences.
We need to understand what metrics to measure.
We need to actually figure out how we can embrace Kaizen
and build this go-to-market machine.
This is exactly why I created my SaaS
go-to-market coaching program.
Inside of this program, we actually guide you through
in developing your ICP, developing your manifesto
which is a strategic narrative
and then running a Broadway show every week
with a specific set of activities to help put that strategy
into execution and drive the growth of your SaaS business.
Now, this program is not for everyone.
It's for founders who are looking to scale faster.
So if that's you, I invite you to check out tkkader.com/gtm
tkkader.com/gtm.
You go over there
you get all the details around the program.
You'll be able to put in your email address
and apply to join.
When you apply to join you just basically
answer some basic questions
and then you'll get on a call with myself
or a member of my team we'll go through your questions
will understand strategy on whether we can help you grow.
And then if it's a fit, we'll start working together.
Super easy.
Just go to tkkader.com/gtm
and you'll get all the information
on my SaaS go-to-market coaching program.
Lastly, if you got value from this video
be sure to smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
Also, I drop a video like this with actionable strategies
to grow your SaaS business.
Strategies and principles that I learned
because I lived the same path that you have.
I have been a founder I have scaled a business
I have exited my business, and this is why I bring it to you
every week, two to three times a week.
So be sure to hit the subscribe button and that bell icon
if you haven't already.
Also, I would love to hear from you.
So put in the comments, what are your daily activities?
How do you think about driving execution
around your strategy?
How are you feeling about your strategy
and any questions you have or on any of the things
that I mentioned in this video
I respond to every single one.
My team monitors the comments all the time
to make sure that I get to them.
So I welcome comments, I absolutely love them.
And if you have a fellow founder
that would get value from this,
please share it with them also
it would mean the world to us
we put a lot of love into these videos.
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.
(distorted upbeat music)