Post-acquisition GTM
Rebuilding the commercial architecture of an established company entering its next stage of growth.
Common Costs identified
Positioning / offering complexity / sales enablement / marketing-to-revenue architecture
Common Costs
To be common
costs you.
We solve the problems that are costing you.
Companies accumulate assumptions, systems and ways of working that once made sense. Eventually, some stop working. Some become invisible simply because everyone has learned to live with them.
We find them.
We work alongside leadership teams to understand what’s actually getting in the way of growth, then fix what needs fixing.
01What is a common cost?
The most expensive problems are often the ones everyone has learned to accept.
Common
Your best salesperson carries the playbook in their head.
Cost
Excellence doesn’t scale.
Common
Forty products. Forty different stories.
Cost
Customers can’t understand what you actually do.
Common
Marketing measures activity. Sales measures revenue.
Cost
Nobody can explain how one creates the other.
Common
Everyone in your category sounds the same.
Cost
Price becomes the differentiator.
Common
Growth creates complexity.
Cost
Eventually, complexity starts preventing growth.
Common doesn’t mean harmless.
02Our philosophy
Diagnose before prescribing.
Businesses routinely make one of two mistakes.
Over-treatment
Everything becomes a transformation.
- A reorg.
- A rebrand.
- A new tech stack.
- A new strategy.
- Another consultant.
- Another initiative.
Sometimes the business doesn’t need surgery.
Under-treatment
- “It’s only a messaging problem.”
- “It’s just sales enablement.”
- “The website needs some work.”
- “The customer journey is a little clunky.”
Meanwhile, that supposedly small problem is constraining the entire growth engine.
You don’t undergo surgery for a sprained ankle. But don’t underestimate how much a sprained ankle can hinder you from reaching your maximum impact.
01
Diagnose accurately.
02
Treat proportionately.
03
Take small problems seriously.
We don’t begin an engagement assuming you need transformation. Sometimes something is fundamentally broken. Sometimes the fundamentals are strong and something needs TLC. Sometimes years of growth have created complexity that needs to be unwound. Sometimes the strategy works but the story doesn’t. And sometimes you really do need an overhaul.
Our job is to know the difference.
03How we work
Start with the problem.
Common Costs does not enter with a predetermined solution. We get inside the business. Depending on the problem, that might mean examining:
- 01Leadership perspective
- 02Customer conversations
- 03Commercial data
- 04Pipeline
- 05Positioning
- 06Products and offerings
- 07Sales process
- 08Marketing
- 09Customer experience
- 10Organizational structure
- 11Revenue operations
- 12Competitive dynamics
- 13Economics
We look for the disconnect between what the company believes is driving the outcome and what actually is.
What’s working?Protect it.
What’s costing you?Understand it.
What matters most?Prioritize it.
What needs to change?Fix it.
The rigor is consistent. The prescription is not.
04What that can lead to
The solution follows the diagnosis.
Depending on what we find, the work may include:
Growth + GTM
Growth strategy · Go-to-market strategy · Market prioritization · ICP + segmentation · Vertical GTM · New-market strategy
Story + Positioning
Enterprise positioning · Messaging · Value proposition · Offering architecture · Product marketing · Brand strategy · Thought leadership
Commercial Engine
Sales strategy · Sales enablement · Customer strategy · Cross-sell + retention · Revenue operations · Pipeline architecture
Marketing + Demand
Marketing strategy · Demand generation · ABM · Content strategy · Marketing-to-revenue architecture · Measurement
Organization + Operating Model
Organizational design · Role clarity · Operating systems · Commercial prioritization · Executive measurement
We sell the solution to the diagnosed problem, not items from a menu.
05When we get called
Usually, something changed.
You got acquired.
The business that got you here isn’t necessarily the business that gets you there.
Growth stalled.
Everyone is doing more. The numbers aren’t moving.
You’ve outgrown your GTM.
What worked at one stage of the company isn’t working at the next.
You have more capability than story.
The company evolved. The market’s understanding of it didn’t.
Your best people are the system.
Growth depends too heavily on individual relationships, knowledge or heroics.
Marketing and sales live in different realities.
One creates activity. The other carries a number.
You have too many things to sell.
Customers have to understand your organization before they can understand your value.
You know something isn’t working.
You just don’t know which problem to solve first.
That’s usually when we get called.
06The work
Problems we’re working on.
Enterprise positioning
Turning a fragmented portfolio of capabilities into a coherent commercial story and repeatable sales motion.
Common Costs identified
Complexity / differentiation / product architecture
07Founders
Different lenses. One business.
Chris Labrecque
Senior commercial executive with more than three decades across insurance, employee benefits, healthcare, customer strategy, sales and executive leadership. Former agency owner, insurance executive, President of a national Employee Benefits Group, Chief Customer Officer and CEO.
Commercial strategy · Sales · Customer relationships · Insurance + benefits · Revenue · Leadership · Operating businesses
Anne Hatfield
Global growth, marketing and commercial executive with 20 years across technology, media, healthcare and consumer businesses. Leadership experience across Amazon, Snap, Paytient and high-growth companies, spanning growth marketing, employer sales and revenue operations.
Growth strategy · Positioning · GTM · Product marketing · Brand · Demand generation · Sales enablement · Revenue operations
Two different ways of seeing the same problem often reveal what one lens misses.