What a GTM consultant actually builds
A GTM consultant connects four things that most B2B companies run separately: messaging, lead generation, sales execution, and revenue technology. IGTMS calls these the Core Four. A company can have sharp messaging and a broken sales process, or a full pipeline and no system to close it. The consultant's job is to fix the connections, not one piece in isolation.
In practice, the work produces seven things the company owns when the engagement ends:
- A validated ideal customer profile (ICP) with firmographic and psychographic filters, buying triggers, and disqualifiers
- A messaging framework: positioning, value propositions, proof points, and objection responses
- An outbound sequence library, by persona and funnel stage, for email and phone
- A sales process map with stage definitions, exit criteria, and talk tracks
- A configured CRM with pipeline stages, deal properties, and reporting dashboards
- A team trained to run every component without outside help
- A full GTM playbook that documents every decision, framework, and process in one place
The order matters. ICP comes first because every other component is downstream of it. Messaging follows ICP. Outbound follows messaging. The sales process and CRM are built to match what the outbound motion produces. Most in-house builds get this sequence wrong, which is why the parts do not connect.
What a GTM consultant is not
Not a lead generation agency. An agency runs outbound for you. The pipeline stops the month the retainer stops. A GTM consultant builds the motion your own team runs, and the system stays after they leave.
Not a VP of Sales. A VP of Sales is hired to scale a motion that already exists. A GTM consultant builds the motion. Hiring the VP before the system exists costs 12 to 18 months and $250,000 to $400,000 in salary, benefits, and equity, and the VP spends year one cleaning up instead of scaling.
Not a fractional CRO, strictly. A fractional CRO manages the revenue function part-time and owns the number. A GTM consultant builds the system that function runs on. Some firms, including IGTMS, do both: build the system, then stay embedded about 10 hours a week through execution until the team runs it alone.
Not a strategy presentation. If the deliverable is a deck that describes a system, you paid for advice. The deliverable should be operational: a configured CRM, a loaded sequence library, a sales process the team is already using.
When a B2B company needs one
IGTMS works with founder-led B2B companies that are growing and have not yet broken through $50M in revenue. The signal that a GTM consultant is the right next step is usually one of these:
- New business depends on the founder showing up to close
- The best leads come from personal referrals, not a repeatable channel
- Win rate is below 20% and nobody can say why
- Outbound reply rate is below 2%
- The sales cycle runs past 90 days and stalls at the same stage
- Fewer than half of discovery calls convert to a next step
- Reps were hired but pipeline did not grow
- Multiple tactics have been tried (ads, an SDR, a content vendor) without a connecting system
If two or more are true, the company is not missing tactics. It is missing infrastructure. Each metric points to a specific part of the system: low win rate is a messaging or ICP problem, low reply rate is a messaging problem, a long stalling cycle is a decision-maker access problem, and low discovery conversion is an ICP problem.
What it costs and how long it takes
The IGTMS engagement is a fixed $70,000 for 120 days: $25,000 upfront, then $15,000 at the start of each following month. Fixed fee, not hourly, because hourly billing rewards time instead of outcomes.
The 120 days run in four phases. Discovery (Days 1 to 14) audits the current state and documents ICP hypotheses. Build (Days 15 to 45) produces the ICP, messaging, sequences, sales process, and CRM. Run (Days 46 to 90) puts the team on live outbound with weekly pipeline reviews and call coaching. Hand Off (Days 91 to 120) documents everything and transfers ownership. Outbound goes live around Day 55 to 60. First qualified conversations typically show up around Day 70 to 80.
Two comparisons put the number in context. Building the same infrastructure in-house typically takes 18 to 24 months. A VP of Sales hired to build it costs $250,000 to $400,000 a year plus equity, takes 3 to 6 months to recruit, and needs a further 6 months to ramp. A mis-hire at that level costs $400,000 to $600,000 once severance, recruiter fees, and stalled pipeline are counted.
Leadership time across the engagement is typically 30 to 40 hours. Phase 1 is the heaviest at 6 to 8 hours over two weeks.
What the work looks like in practice
Temple IT, a managed IT services provider, went two full years without a single new client despite spending more than $750,000 on marketing vendors, a CRO, and a Head of Sales. There was no CRM, no ICP, and no pipeline. IGTMS repositioned the firm as an Integrated Technology Partner, rebuilt the messaging and sales deck, and embedded a fractional CRO at 10 hours a week. Fifteen new clients closed in the first six months, adding more than $1M in new annual recurring revenue on a $70,000 engagement.
True North ITG, a managed services and Desktop-as-a-Service provider in ambulatory healthcare, grew qualified pipeline from $2.2M to more than $10M in four months. Same team, same effort. The change was a tighter ICP, messaging rebuilt around an industry point of view, a sales motion calibrated for multi-year cycles, and HubSpot set up as the system of record.
Kerlin Walsh Law, an Illinois estate planning firm, had been flat at roughly $2M a year for a decade while spending $400,000 a year on marketing with no attribution. Four months into the engagement, the firm posted its best month in history: $260,000, more than 30% above the previous record.
None of these came from a bigger budget or more headcount. They came from a system that connected the company to the right buyer in the right language.
When IGTMS is not the right fit
A GTM consultant cannot sell a product the market does not want. IGTMS is the wrong choice when:
- The company is pre-revenue or pre-product-market fit. The work needed is product validation, not a revenue system. You should have closed at least a few customers and have some form of sales tracking, even a spreadsheet.
- The problem is the product, not the go-to-market. If existing customers churn or do not refer, fix that first.
- You want leads delivered to you. IGTMS builds and coaches the motion. It does not run outbound on your behalf or hand you a contact list. A lead generation agency does that.
- The motion is already repeatable and a team of ten or more needs daily management. That company needs a VP of Sales, not a build.
- You are at or past $30M ARR with a revenue team of 15 or more. That org needs a full-time CRO who shows up every day, not a 120-day engagement.
- You want a permanent outside operator. The engagement ends at Day 120 by design. A firm that wants to renew indefinitely is building dependency, not capability.
Not sure if you need a consultant, a leader, or an agency?
Book a 30-minute discovery call. Mark will tell you which one, and in what order.