Othmane Khadri recently shared something that caught my attention: "8 questions to build your GTM strategy. Answer them before skipping to execution." He also warned that three common questions are not the starting point: "Should we try cold email?" "What about LinkedIn ads?" "Maybe we need an AI SDR?"

That framing resonates because most go-to-market (GTM) failures are not channel failures. They are foundation failures. When teams jump straight to execution, they often create a lot of activity that does not compound, because the basics were never decided.

Below is my expanded take on Othmane's checklist. I will keep his intent intact: answer the strategic questions first, then choose tactics that fit the answers.

The real problem with starting from tactics

Tactics are seductive because they feel measurable and fast. You can launch a sequence, spin up ads, or buy an AI SDR tool in a day.

But without clear targeting, buying signals, narrative, proof, and measurement, your team is basically doing random walks across the market. You might get a few meetings, but you will not build a repeatable system.

The goal is not to "do marketing" or "do outbound". The goal is to design a buying journey you can reliably trigger, measure, and improve.

The 8 questions that create a GTM foundation

1) Who exactly are we targeting and why them first?

Othmane starts with precision: define the first target segment, not the total addressable market.

I like to push this further by forcing a sequence: Segment 1 now, Segment 2 later, and a clear reason why. Reasons can include urgency, budget, ease of reaching buyers, strong fit, faster sales cycles, or better retention.

Practical output:

A one-sentence ideal customer profile (ICP) plus 2-3 disqualifiers
A short list of titles involved in the decision
A simple segmentation thesis: "We start with X because Y"

2) What signal makes them ready to buy right now?

If you cannot define a readiness signal, your outreach becomes generic and your ads become expensive.

Signals can be internal events (funding, hiring, leadership change), operational pain (tool sprawl, slow cycle times), or intent indicators (pricing page visits, competitor comparisons, category searches).

Example signals for a B2B tool:

They just hired a RevOps lead (process change window)
They added headcount in SDR or AE roles (pipeline pressure)
They are migrating CRM or data stack (integration need)

Your GTM improves immediately when you can say: we reach out because we saw this signal, and that signal implies this problem is active.

3) Where do they already go to solve this problem?

This is the distribution question. Before you pick channels, map existing behavior.

Ask:

Who do they trust (peers, communities, analysts, creators)?
Where do they research (search, YouTube, review sites, Slack groups)?
What do they attend (webinars, conferences, meetups)?

If your buyers are already searching for solutions, search and comparison content might outperform cold outbound. If they live in niche communities, community partnerships might beat broad LinkedIn ads.

4) What's our narrative and who's the villain?

Othmane's "villain" idea is a powerful shortcut: people buy change when they can name what is wrong with the status quo.

The villain is not a competitor. It is the existing pain pattern.

Examples:

"Spreadsheet operations" as the villain for a planning platform
"Data silos" as the villain for an analytics product
"Random acts of outbound" as the villain for a GTM platform

A strong narrative usually includes:

The old way (and why it fails)
The cost of staying the same
The new way (your point of view)
Proof that the new way works

If your team cannot tell the story the same way, your market will not hear it the same way.

5) What makes us believable before we talk?

This question is underrated. Buyers form an opinion before they book a call.

Believability can come from:

Specific proof points (case studies with numbers, recognizable logos)
Credible third-party signals (reviews, partners, integrations)
Clear expertise (deep content that shows you understand the job)
Strong product cues (demo quality, onboarding clarity, security pages)

A useful exercise: open your website and LinkedIn in an incognito browser and ask, "Would I trust this enough to risk my time and reputation internally?" If not, fix that before scaling outbound.

6) What's the offer that gets us in the door?

Not everyone is ready for a demo. A good offer reduces friction and matches the buyer's stage.

High-performing offers are usually:

Specific: tied to a clear outcome
Low risk: minimal time, minimal commitment
Relevant: connected to the buying signal

Examples:

A 15-minute teardown of their current workflow
A benchmark report for their segment
A migration plan (if the signal is stack change)
A short pilot with predefined success criteria

The key is to design an offer that starts the relationship and creates momentum toward a real evaluation.

7) How does data flow between channels?

This is where many GTM motions break. Teams run outbound, paid, and content, but cannot connect touchpoints to pipeline.

At minimum, define:

Source tracking (UTMs, referral parameters, landing pages)
Identity resolution (forms, enrichment, matching to CRM accounts)
Lifecycle stages (lead, MQL, SQL, opportunity) with consistent rules
Handoffs (what sales sees, what marketing updates, when)

If a prospect clicks an ad, reads a post, then replies to an email, your system should tell you that story. Otherwise, you will argue about attribution instead of improving performance.

8) How do we know it's working before revenue shows up?

Othmane calls this the most important question, and I agree. Revenue is a lagging indicator. You need leading indicators that tell you the system is healthy.

Pick a small set, such as:

Target account coverage (how many ICP accounts touched weekly)
Buying-signal capture rate (how many qualified signals identified)
Conversion between stages (reply rate, meeting rate, show rate)
Sales cycle velocity signals (time to first meeting, time to next step)
Content distribution signals (not vanity views, but clicks to relevant pages, demo interest, email signups)

The goal is to spot problems early: wrong ICP, weak offer, unclear narrative, broken handoff, or missing proof.

Putting Othmane's checklist into a simple GTM workflow

If I were implementing this with a team, I would run it as a short sprint:

Define ICP and sequencing (Question 1)
Define buying signals and build a signal list (Question 2)
Map buyer destinations and pick 1-2 primary channels (Question 3)
Write the narrative and align sales plus marketing on the villain and the new way (Question 4)
Upgrade credibility assets (Question 5)
Package one offer for outbound and one for inbound (Question 6)
Wire tracking and CRM hygiene before scaling volume (Question 7)
Agree on leading indicators and review them weekly (Question 8)

Once these are in place, then you can safely ask the tactical questions: Should we do cold email? Should we run LinkedIn ads? Should we add an AI SDR? You will have a foundation to evaluate each option, and you will know what success should look like.

This blog post expands on a viral LinkedIn post by Othmane Khadri, AI native GTM agency. View the original LinkedIn post →