How to build a
high-performing GTM system

High-performing GTM is built, not hired.

Most companies try to fix GTM by hiring better people.

Better reps. Better managers. More experience.

I used to think that too.

It rarely works.

Because it’s the system those people operate in.

You can put great reps into a broken system and get average results.

You can put average reps into a strong system and get great results.

I’ve seen both.

System > employee.

What I’ve seen across companies

I’ve been around Oracle, Zendesk, HubSpot, and CYGNVS.

Very different companies on paper.

Under the hood?

Same problems show up over and over again.

The teams that performed best weren’t always the most talented.

They operated in better systems.

Oracle

At Oracle, everything started with infrastructure.

Database first. Then everything built on top.

HR. Supply chain. ERP.

They understood something early:

If you control operations, you sit at the center of the business.

That stuck with me more than anything else.

Even with all of Oracle’s flaws, they got that part right.

Zendesk

Then I got to Zendesk.

Great product. Clean UI. Easy to adopt.

Internally?

That tells you everything.

A lot going on.

Too many tools. Too many processes. No clear system tying it all together.

At one point, they got into sales software.

They didn’t even use it themselves.

Their Salesforce instance was massive.

Fields everywhere. Layers of process on top of process.

No one really knew what mattered.

Half the job wasn’t selling.

It was figuring out where to click next.

Which is kind of insane when you say it out loud.

That's not a selling problem.

HubSpot

HubSpot was similar.

Different UI. Same story.

HubSpot 53.

The 53rd version of their own system.

Too much going on.

Onboarding took months just to understand the tools.

Not the customer.

The tools.

Where companies break

This is where most companies quietly break.

They don’t build systems.

They accumulate things.

Tools, processes, workflows.

And hope it somehow turns into a system.

The pattern is predictable.

Too many tools.

Too much noise.

No single source of truth.

People don’t know what they have.

They don’t know how to use it.

They don’t know what matters.

So they default to activity.

Pseudo-productivity.

Busy, but not actually moving anything forward.

What actually works

I used to build my own single source of truth everywhere I went.

One page.

What tools to use.

What teams to work with.

How to reach them.

What the expectations were.

No guessing. No hunting. No Slack ping pong.

Less friction. More execution.

Deep work over logistics.

That’s where performance actually comes from.

CYGNVS

CYGNVS was the first time I got to build this intentionally.

No legacy system. No inherited mess.

Just a blank slate and a question:

What does the GTM team actually need?

Not what’s trendy.

Not what other companies are doing.

What do we actually need to execute?

We stripped it down to the 80/20.

A single source of truth.

Clear workflows.

Minimal tools.

Everything had a reason to exist.

Reps ramped in a week.

Not because they were better.

Because the system made it obvious what to do.

AI

Then we layered in AI.

Not everywhere.

Only where it made sense.

Territory planning.

Account research.

Outbound execution.

Meeting prep.

Follow-ups.

The repetitive stuff.

But we didn’t remove thinking.

We made more room for it.

Human + AI.

Not more output. Better output.

Adoption

Every part of the sales cycle had structure.

Prompts. Context. Clear next steps.

Reps weren’t guessing.

They were executing.

And this part matters more than people think.

The system wasn’t “mine.”

It was ours.

People need to feel like they have a say.

They need to believe in what they’re using.

Otherwise they’ll ignore it or work around it.

Adoption is everything.

So we built feedback loops.

Learn. Practice. Teach.

Mostly async.

Minimal meetings.

Optional office hours.

People are smart.

Give them clarity and space.

They figure it out quickly.

The problem today

The result compounds.

Faster ramp.

Better execution.

Happier teams.

Less overhead.

Most companies do the opposite.

More tools.

More meetings.

More process.

It feels productive.

It’s not.

AI is making this worse right now.

Everyone is forcing it into everything.

But AI is not the system.

The shift

And honestly, sometimes it just makes things slower.

Same thing happened with email.

At some point, the job became answering emails.

Now it’s becoming talking to LLMs.

That’s not the job either.

The job is execution.

Revenue. Outcomes.

What to do

What actually works is simpler.

Digital minimalism.

Deep work.

Clear rules of engagement.

Build a system where:

People know what matters.

They know how to execute.

They have the tools they need.

Nothing more.

Final thought

Learn from your top performers.

Break down what they actually do.

Question everything.

Why this step?

Is it necessary?

Is there a better way?

Refine it.

That’s your system.

Then scale it.

If I had an hour to cut down a tree, I’d spend 45 minutes sharpening the axe.

Most companies do the opposite.

They just start swinging.

GTM today is inefficient.

Overloaded. Fragmented. Honestly kind of inhumane.

It doesn’t have to be.

Build the system first.

Then hire into it.