If you’ve been following our posts, you know we strongly advocate that leaders – whose primary responsibility is to get the company to the next level – have a Go to Market Plan (GTM) and a Mindshare Plan.

The GTM Plan is what Gartner defines as, “A plan that details how an organization can engage with customers to convince them to buy their product or service and to gain a competitive advantage.” We’ve seen many approaches to GTMs but the most effective ones are based on data and facts, and contain quantifiable metrics to identify where the business is going, prioritize what needs to get accomplished and measure whether the plan is on-track. Read more about what makes for a successful plan and the reasons why leaders don’t have a GTM.

The Mindshare Plan is different from the Marketing Plan because, unlike the broad responsibility of marketing, it is a program laser-focused on influencing the market’s thinking by establishing relevancy, believability and trust through a great story told by the entire company including marketing, sales, support, leadership and others. Successful Mindshare Plans feature bold ideas and different paradigms that challenge and potentially disrupt the status quo, and are catalysts for growing market share. Read more about how mindshare manifests and why we believe it’s worthy of being a C-Suite role.

Next level success – whether it’s launch, growth or exit – is jeopardized or, at least, more difficult if the GTM and Mindshare plans are not integrated.

Not Integrated… Business is booming at NextLev. But it competes in a mature market. The GTM Plan is to protect and grow its core market and to unlock an ancillary underserved market which is projected to be a growth market for a company that can offer the right solution and the right price. The company executes a Mindshare Plan and quickly establishes mindshare which results in customers and partners calling the sales team (instead of the other way around) to buy a solution for this longstanding market need! Despite having mindshare, NextLev doesn’t execute against the plan to develop and launch its solution for this market. Another company launches a solution for the market segment, wins mindshare and builds market share.

Integrated… NextLev recently launched into a maturing market dominated by large and longstanding incumbents. The company knows it must stand out from these competitors. Although its solutions portfolio doesn’t differentiate the company in the marketplace, it realizes it can distinguish itself by introducing new strategies for not only addressing market requirements but, also, increasing the market size. The GTM and Mindshare Plans get executed in harmony. NextLev develops and launches solutions and the sales organization consistently adopts a strategy of leading with a solution which tends to unlock larger related solution opportunities. Meanwhile, company-wide, the mindshare story is getting told in the market. Pretty soon, NextLev is viewed as an thought leader and its partners are ranking some of its offerings as the top solution (even though it’s really not). Best of all, NextLev’s market share increases.

 Can a leader be successful without a GTM Plan? Yes, but it’s risky. Armed and equipped with a GTM, that leader has a much better chance to achieve next level goals.

Can a leader be successful without a Mindshare Plan? Yes, but it’s also risky even if the reason why is not readily apparent (Beware one of the Laws of Mindshare: If you don’t work to create positive mindshare, others will be more than happy to create negative mindshare for you). Armed and equipped with a Mindshare Plan, that leader has a better chance of growing market share.

But when a leader has both a GTM and Mindshare Plan – AND THEY ARE INTEGRATED – we predict an undeniable next level inflection point.