What's up, it's Zayd
Most founders hire their first GTM person with the expectation that this person is magically going to bring in leads, then they're surprised three months later when the pipeline hasn't moved and the hire is frustrated, wheels spinning on things that were never set up to begin with.
If magic has never been the case with any other hire before, why do we expect it here? The hard truth here is that the failure usually isn't the hire…it's the founder.
points at self
I’ve done it. Hired wrong, hired right, built GTM from scratch twice. It took doing it so wrong to know that the quality of your first GTM hire's output is almost entirely a function of what you hand them on day one.
If you give them ambiguity, you get ambiguity back. If you give them a real system to build on, they build.
So, I sat down and wrote out exactly what I'd give someone if I were hiring a Growth and GTM person at Valley today. The full operational checklist for the first 6 months.
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Zayd’s Picks
My favorite finds of the week
LinkedIn tactic that got 32 sales calls in 40 days (link)
The 7 things GTM orgs need to run effectively (link)
Use cost of inaction to show prospects the magnitude of their problems (link)
Get higher conversion rates on cold calls (link)
Strategy that led to 950 inbound calls (link)
Outbound is simple (link)
First, Why GTM Hires Fail
Founder hires a growth person.
Promises them autonomy.
Big upside.
Chance to 'build from scratch.'
Growth person starts.
There's no CRM. The ICP is loosely defined. There's no outbound infrastructure. The founder is still the one closing deals…
Six months pass. Growth person has been doing the wheel turning work. They’ve been feeling productive cleaning up the website, sitting in on sales calls, posting occasionally on LinkedIn.
Founder looks at pipeline.
Nothing has changed.
Growth person gets let go.
Founder concludes 'GTM hires don't work at this stage.'
I definitely wrote those lines in the voice of the Easter Island head in Night at the Museum
But anyway, I wish I could say that this was a hypothetical, or a thing I see “time and time again.” “Something that happened to my friend, Tom.”
(Tag yourself, I’m Tom.)
We’ve all done it, and every time, we reach that same wrong conclusion. The real problem is that Tom didn't know what they were hiring for, and the hire didn't have a system to execute against.
A GTM hire is meant to be an executor. The better the inputs you give them, the better the outputs you get. Good in, good out. It really is that simple.
The Six-Month Execution Checklist
Month 1: Foundation
Before a single outreach message goes out, this foundation needs to exist:
Define the brutally honest problem. What specific pain does the product solve, and for who? (actually, I think it should technically be whom but I skipped that class so saying it would feel really performative)
Map the ICP in precise detail: industry, company size, revenue range, tech stack, job title of the buyer, budget authority, and buying urgency signals.
Create anti-personas. Who should you never sell to? Who churns? Who takes six months to onboard and then leaves anyway? Being specific about who is NOT a fit saves enormous time downstream.
Set up CRM with proper fields, stages, and automations from day one. Retrofitting a CRM is painful. Do it right the first time.
Compile at minimum three case studies, even scrappy ones. Two sentences of 'here's who we helped and what happened' is better than nothing.
Month 2: Market Intelligence
Now you build understanding of the landscape before spending a dollar on outreach:
Use Sales Navigator or Apollo to map your total addressable market. How many companies fit your ICP? How many contacts at those companies matter?
Export, verify, segment, and load prospects into the CRM to understand what you're working with.
Identify 20 industry influencers. These are shortcuts to market. Their audiences are your audience.
Research 10 direct competitors: what's their messaging, where are they winning, where are they weak?
Identify 10 complementary products; tools your buyers already use that don't compete with you. These are partnership plays.
Implement website tracking. You need to know who's visiting before you start driving traffic.
💡 LinkedIn Hack of the Week:
Messages sent on Tuesday 10am-12pm in the prospect's timezone have highest response rates. Avoid Monday (inbox overload) and Friday afternoon.
Month 3: Outbound Infrastructure
This is where most companies start. It should be month three, not month one.
List your top buying signals. What behaviors indicate someone is ready for outreach right now? Job changes, funding announcements, new hires in relevant roles, company expansion into new markets.
Build a follow-up system for ghosted and delayed prospects; a signal-triggered re-engagement flow.
Set up a system to qualify, score, and route leads. Not every lead should get the same treatment or the same person's time.
Develop materials to convert responses into meetings. Scripts, objection handlers, case study one-pagers.
Months 4–6: Growth Systems
If the foundation is solid, months four through six are where results start to compound:
Build founder-led LinkedIn and Twitter presence. This cannot be fully outsourced and it is one of the highest-leverage things a founder can do. The GTM hire can help write posts, surface ideas, and repurpose content, but the voice has to be real.
Test messaging systematically. Run campaigns, analyze what performs, kill what doesn't, double down on what does.
Implement ads (Meta, Google, newsletters) only after organic messaging has been validated. Ads amplify what's already working. They don't fix what isn't.
Measure CAC, LTV, and NRR by customer segment. Not all customers are created equal. You need to know which segments are actually worth acquiring.
Build a referral and partner program. Your best customers should be generating leads for you. Make it easy and make it worth their while.
🎁 Gift from Zayd:
The B2B Growth and Sales Creator Handbook
The Mistake Founders Make With This List
They Tom handed the list to the hire and walked away.
The checklist only works if the founder is actively involved in the first 90 days.
Tom has to be the one to make the decisions that unblock the work.
What's the ICP? You have to answer that, not the GTM hire. What are the top three case studies?
You have to tell the story, they can help shape it.
A GTM hire is an amplifier, not a replacement. If you're expecting them to figure out the fundamentals while you focus on product, you're going to be disappointed every time.
The founders I've seen do this well show up to the first 60 days like they're still the head of sales. Then they gradually hand off. That transition is what actually works.
Get the foundation right. Then hire.
Sincerely,
Tom Zayd
How can we work together 🏔️
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