We plan to bring eChai across 100 cities in India. The next eChai Startup Demo Day is on 29 August in Bengaluru and Pune. The next after that is on 26 September, all in person. 11 cities confirmed, 336 founders registered. Any city that reaches 20 interested founders is on too. See your city
Breaking into GTM

I run a services or agency business, not a product. Does GTM mean anything different for me?

It means the same thing, get the right people to know you exist and choose you, but the levers are different. In services your product is trust, so the thing that moves the needle is being known for one specific problem for one specific kind of client rather than being available for anything. Most agencies stay stuck because their pitch is a list of capabilities, and a capability list gives a buyer nothing to remember or refer. Package at least one offer as a fixed scope with a fixed price so a prospect can say yes without a two week proposal cycle, and so your work stops being priced by the hour. Referrals will always be your biggest channel, but referrals only travel if the person referring you can say in one sentence what you do and who for.

Go deeper

3 resources, 3 link-checked.

📋 Template
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

This is the actual five step recipe for turning open ended consulting into one fixed offer you can sell repeatedly: research through cold outreach, a sales page, beta clients, follow up, testimonials. If you have been writing custom proposals for every lead, this is the shortest path out of that loop.

Productized Service Creation Process

From jonathanstark.com by Jonathan Stark 10 min read

  • A five-step loop: market research cold email, sales page, beta invite, beta follow-up, testimonial.
  • Each step is a concrete template you copy, ending in 'wash, rinse, repeat' as the offer sharpens.
Open jonathanstark.com
📖 Book
✓ Link checked Paid Intermediate

Morgan's whole subject is the exact fear that keeps agency founders generalist: that narrowing will shrink the pipeline. He argues the opposite case with a step by step method for picking and testing a niche, which is the single highest leverage GTM decision a services business makes.

The Positioning Manual for Technical Firms

From Philip Morgan Consulting by Philip Morgan Book, about 130 pages

Open goodreads.com
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

One page, one fill in the blank sentence: I am a DISCIPLINE who helps TARGET MARKET with EXPENSIVE PROBLEM, unlike competitors I have UNIQUE DIFFERENCE. That sentence is the whole referral engine for a services business, because it is the thing a happy client repeats to someone else.

Crystalizing Your Specialization

From jonathanstark.com by Jonathan Stark 6 min read

  • Positioning is about how you market the offering, not how you define or deliver it.
  • Template: I'm a DISCIPLINE who helps TARGET MARKET with EXPENSIVE PROBLEM, unlike competitors, UNIQUE DIFFERENCE.
  • If the full statement feels awkward, start with just 'I help TARGET MARKET with EXPENSIVE PROBLEM'.
  • Niching down is what makes spontaneous referrals and word of mouth start happening.
Open jonathanstark.com

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The same ground, at another level

How what gtm actually is reads from a different seat.

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