The audit finds it. This fixes it.
Three ways we stay in the room after the readout: private advisory for the board, GTM oversight alongside the CEO and the leaders carrying the plan, and leadership development for the people carrying the number. All built on one belief. AI didn't make GTM leaders less important. It changed what they're for.
Private Board Advisory
Most board packs are a rear-view mirror. The numbers look fine right up until they don't, because dashboards lag the engine by quarters. We give the board a forward signal instead, and a straight-talking sparring partner between meetings.
Talk about advisory- →Quarterly GTM exposure reviews: discovery-call signals, closed-lost reasons, customer and QBR data, read for what's actually changing in how your buyers buy
- →A standing view on capital allocation. Where the spend goes, and whether it's still connected to the sales motion
- →Pre-board preparation and a private read on what the GTM slides aren't saying
- →Lock-step with the CEO and chair. No surprises, full visibility. Boards remove leaders; we make sure ours never get ambushed
- →An honest trigger for when to bring in others: product, technical, or a hire we can't coach around
The board stops discovering GTM problems two quarters after they started. And when the exit conversation comes, the engine has a track record instead of an excuse.
Discovery-call signals, closed-lost reasons and customer data, read every quarter. The board stops being the last to know.
GTM Oversight
Private Board Advisory helps the board understand and decide. GTM Oversight works one level down. We sit alongside the CEO and the GTM leaders, reviewing the strategy, the plans, the performance and the work itself, and saying plainly whether it’s right before it costs a quarter to find out.
- →A standing review of GTM strategy, plans and performance. One function or the whole engine: Sales, Marketing, RevOps, GTM engineering, Customer Success
- →A second read on the deliverables that carry consequences before they ship: annual plans, forecasts, pricing moves, campaign bets, renewal playbooks
- →Hiring done properly. Job descriptions that describe the actual job, and experienced eyes in the interviews before the offer goes out
- →A regular working call with the leaders in scope. Prepared, specific, and about the work rather than the weather
- →A straight line to the CEO on whether the function is doing the right things and delivering impact
Advisory works at board altitude. Oversight sits with the work itself: one GTM function or all five.
After the audit
The findings are agreed and the fixes are underway. Oversight makes sure the change actually happens, at pace, and doesn’t quietly revert by Q3.
Through a change
New motion, new market, new pricing, new operating model. Deliberate change fails in the details. We read the details.
While leaders grow
Capable people who haven’t seen this movie before. They keep their jobs and their authority, and get an experienced read on every big call before they make it.
The CEO stops being the only quality check on GTM. The board gets assurance that the work is right, not just reported. And the leaders sharpen faster, because someone who has carried the number is reading theirs.
Leadership Development: the Demand Karma Method.
Here's what nobody on your board will say out loud: most GTM leaders learned a job that no longer exists. Scaling execution through headcount was the whole playbook. AI removed that constraint. The leaders who thrive now make twenty times the decisions, with judgement and taste doing the work that process used to do. This is what it means to be an AI-era GTM leader: fewer hands on keyboards, more judgement per decision, and the whole engine aligned around the customer. The Demand Karma Method coaches exactly that, continuously.
- Scale people to deliver the work
- Growth means headcount
- Lead the execution, manage the process
- A team meeting on Monday counts as an operating model
- Report the lagging numbers to the board
- →Enable people to scale technology and decisions
- →Smaller, higher-performing, AI-leveraged teams
- →Lead with judgement, taste and customer-closeness
- →A real operating cadence that survives any one hire
- →Give the board a forward signal, not a rear-view mirror
Coaching for a job that just changed underneath you.
Operating cadence
Ask most GTM leaders about their operating rhythm and you get a blank look, then "we have a team meeting on Mondays." We install a real cadence: planning, review, decision loops that don't depend on one great hire being in the building.
Decision quality
When execution is nearly free, the bottleneck moves to judgement. What to automate. What to kill. When to hire, and at what level. We coach the decisions, not the busywork.
Team design
Smaller teams, higher bar, technology doing the heavy lifting. Building 10x humans superpowered with AI, instead of adding a layer of managers to manage a problem.
Customer-closeness
Be more human on the outside, optimise the machines on the inside. Listen to discovery: every question a prospect asks is something that isn't clear. Leaders who stay close to customers make better calls than any dashboard.
- →A baseline session against the audit findings, so we're developing against evidence rather than vibes
- →A weekly 45-minute 1:1 with each leader in the programme
- →A monthly board-prep review: what the GTM slides say, and what they should say
- →A quarterly refresh of the exposure read, so progress gets measured against the same yardstick that found the problem
- →Async access in between. Voice notes welcome. The good questions usually arrive at 3am anyway
It's a continuous engagement, because the rules will keep changing. That's rather the point.
Audit. Assure. Accelerate.
Audit
A diagnostic finds where the value is leaking and which of it is AI-shaped. The diagnostics live here.
Assure
Board advisory keeps a forward signal on exposure, quarter by quarter, so nothing gets priced in behind your back.
Accelerate
The Demand Karma Method develops the leaders who have to run the new engine. Because a plan without capable owners is a wish.
The two founders. Every engagement.
No leverage model, no analysts learning on your fees. The people on the first call are the people in the boardroom, and in the data room.
Edwin Abl
Co-founder · Silicon ValleyGTM Operating Partner at Mercia Ventures. Marketing-native, Valley-based, 100+ scale-ups deep.
Josh Morse
Co-founder · LondonEx-CRO and CMO of VC portfolio companies. He has carried the numbers we now audit.
Real words, real cheques…
Old rules got you here. They won't get you out.
Tell us where you are. We'll tell you, honestly, whether we can help.
Book a call