GTM friction audit

Reconstruct the sales math

I start with historical closes to build the foundation for the pacing model. I want to understand the sales math well enough to spot problems in funnel conversion, ICP, top-of-funnel volume, ACV, and sales velocity. I pair that analysis with conversations across sales, marketing, product, and leadership.

Work backward from won business through the funnel. Use one segment, sales motion, financial measure, and comparable period. Retain wins, losses, and still-open opportunities with their entry and outcome dates. Separate mature-cohort conversion from current open pipeline, and keep unresolved deals visible.

Compare the numbers with the team’s account

A CRM report can locate a change without explaining it. Ask people to walk through actual accounts and deals, then compare their explanation with the relevant cohort. Keep disagreements visible until the records or conversations resolve them.

Choose one workflow to improve

Choose one segment and workflow with a defined trigger, end state, and eligible population. A signup, active user, buying process, and paid customer represent different states. Connect company, contact, workspace, opportunity, and billing IDs rather than trusting a shared domain alone.

• Inspect successful, stuck, duplicate, and exception paths to discover mechanisms.
• A deliberately selected diagnostic sample does not estimate prevalence; use a full eligible cohort or justified sample for a baseline rate.
• Trace when the trigger occurred, when someone could act, and when a useful action happened. Separate queue wait from work effort.

Find the repeated obstacle

Trace a stuck case from its trigger to its current owner. Identify who can take the next step, what they are waiting for, and which rule, incentive, or automation prevents them from acting.

• Look for a recurring rule or failure mechanism rather than assigning blame from one example.
• Write the normal sequence of actions and name the person who handles cases that fall outside it.
• Reuse existing CRM evidence and remove a repeated check or handoff when it adds no useful decision.
• Separate customer service and billing problems from acquisition or expansion work.

Separate waiting time from work time

For one workflow, record the queue entry, first useful action, completion, and current age of unresolved cases. A fast average for completed cases can hide a large queue that has not moved.

Little’s Law relates average work in process to throughput and average time in the system, using the same unit and boundary over a representative period. In a GTM audit, use it to check whether more active work is accumulating without more completions. It does not establish a safe deal limit or prove that closing records will improve sales.

• Count accounts, requests, or opportunities consistently. Do not divide an account queue by a contact-level response rate.
• Inspect both the age of unresolved work and the elapsed time of completed work.
• Distinguish work waiting on the buyer from work waiting on internal ownership, approval, data, or available selling time.

Source: Project Production Institute: work in process, throughput, and cycle time

Test one change in one workflow

Choose a small account group, record its current delays and manual steps, and change one rule or handoff. Name the owner, review date, and conditions for reverting the change. Check for changes in account mix, seasonality, or effort before attributing the result to the new rule.

• Record workflow and eligibility, observed friction, cause hypothesis, smallest change, and work removed.
• Name who acts, who resolves an exception, and when a case leaves the queue.
• Check whether the change causes duplicate outreach, lost buyer commitments, or customer complaints. Handle those exceptions without adding approval to every routine action.
• For ownership rules, adapt notice periods, evidence requirements, and hold expiries to the business; example thresholds are starting choices, not universal defaults.

Measure useful work and unresolved cases

Compare the delay and manual work before and after the change. Check for duplicate outreach, lost account history, and customer complaints alongside the speed improvement.

• Track time to useful action with median, an upper percentile, and unresolved case ages.
• Measure stuck cases against a consistent eligible population at a stated snapshot.
• Compare manual touches per resolved case while keeping reopened cases and conflicting outreach visible.
• Stop the rollout if the change causes conflicting outreach or harms buyer commitments, or if the remaining delays come from a different cause.

Write the diagnosis and the next test

Finish the audit with a specific change to investigate or run. Retain the baseline and the evidence that could disprove the diagnosis.

• Record the affected cohort, observed change, likely mechanism, proposed action, owner, and review date.
• State which observation would make you change the diagnosis.
• Use a reversible pilot before applying a rule across the organization.