5 Ideas from 2025 That Changed How I Think About GTM

Plus, The Signal's top posts (skimmable)

Jan 23, 2026

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I’m excited to have Attention as one of our partners for The Signal this quarter.

Last April, I wrote a deep dive on Attention: The Army of AI Agents That Turn Your Sales Conversations into Action. Since then, they’ve continued to grow and innovate.

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Learn how their AI agents can help your sales org this year, at Attention.com. Let them know The Signal sent you!

Hey, y’all!

We’re only a few weeks into the year, and I already feel behind on everything that’s happening in tech/ai/gtm. The fomo is real. Agents are working on our behalf, yet I’m sipping a cold brew manually as I type. Maybe by the end of this year, that’ll get automated, too.

But jokes aside, in my 13 years in GTM, I’ve never seen this much change in the GTM playbook.

I re-skilled myself more in 2025 than in any year in the past decade.

AI has left the bag. And, like it or not, it ain’t going back in.

The Signal is a little corner of the internet for GTM nerds (founders and operators) to navigate this new world as we discover the new playbook—together. The plays, the roles/org chart design, and the infrastructure (tools) to run it. And there’s clearly appetite for this type of content. We grew 2.7x growth over 2025. I feel the pull of “product-market fit” every day. Thank you.

Hopefully, the graph continues on a similar trajectory in 2026. Let’s see!

Today, I’m sharing the five ideas that came up the most last year. These are the “stickiest” concepts that we explored in 2025.

Alright, let’s get into it.

“Winter escape office”, created by me (*with help from our AI overlords*)

Idea #1 → “Micro-Campaigns”

Outbound is getting harder every month. See: Outbound Email’s Rise in Volume is Unsustainable. One way to break through the noise is to be relevant and timely. Micro-campaigns are a great way to do this.

Here’s how I define “micro-campaigns”:

Small, highly-targeted lists of, say, 50-250 contacts.
These lists are generated using *very* specific filtering and/or signals (usually using AI/agents at least for certain parts).
Each list (aka “micro-campaign”) is relevant this week, but won’t be next month.

The old way of “list building” is evolving, thanks in large part to AI. You just, quite literally, couldn’t do this stuff before.

The most important component is around timing. If you don’t reach out ~right away, you’ll lose the (sales) opportunity.

Another related concept is signal-based selling (even the CPO of HubSpot is talking about it as the future of GTM).

More context (including examples) here: “Micro-Campaigns”.

Idea #2 → GTM Tech’s Race for Power and Ease of Use

This topic is important for anyone planning their team and stack for 2026.

Even if you’re building evergreen plays in Clay (“fully automated”), the power and flexibility comes at a cost—namely, ease of use (or, lack thereof). I’m not saying anything the product team at Clay doesn’t already know. And they’re improving the product (and education) fast. But for now, you need someone who has spent, I think, 50-100 hours in Clay, to really master it (maybe even a dedicated GTM Engineer).

I don’t think you have to have a GTM Engineer or Clay expert to use Clay. But, to get the most value out of it (and use it to its fullest capabilities, which is… a lot), you do need someone who knows their way around a Clay table/workflow.

At the other end of the spectrum are the incumbent data providers (and sales engagement platforms) that are the least flexible (and thus, arguably, the least powerful), but the easiest to use. These can, and should, be used by non-technical users like SDRs, AEs, SDR Managers, etc. Along with RevOps folks.

Then, in the middle is a new, emerging category of players (signal-based selling platforms)—companies like Common Room, Pocus, Sumble, Unify, UserGems, Warmly, etc. These sit somewhere in the middle on the spectrum.

The race? Who can get to the upper-right-hand of the 2x2 matrix first.

If you’re re-evaluating your GTM stack, I hope this gives you a helpful framework for deciding which product (or category) is best for your team.

(Also, check out a site I’ve been slowly working on, here: ProspectingStack.com)

More here: GTM Tech’s Race for Power *and* Ease of Use.

Idea #3 → 6 Ways to Modernize Your GTM Motion (lessons from working with 14 Seed-Series C companies)

Here are the 6 things I now suggest in every engagement, based on what we learned from 14 deployments (please steal/tweak/implement them yourself):

AI-enabled Company Tiering (“Custom ICP”)
AI-enabled Contact Sourcing + Categorization (aka Key Buyer Personas)
Signal-based sales plays (evergreen)
AI-generated (drafts of) emails
Reporting/Attribution
Data orchestration (architecting a system of intelligence)

If you want more context about any of these, read the full article here: 6 Ways to Modernize Your GTM Motion in 2026

Idea #4 → Should You Buy an AI SDR?

Another 2x2 matrix. The general premise of this visualization could also be used to answer the question of: “Should we automate this outreach or do manual outreach?”

The answer is not one or the other—it’s nuanced. But, it should be calculated and considered carefully.

Then, with confidence, execute against the plan and iterate as you get more data.

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More on the concept here: Should You Buy an AI SDR?

Idea #5 → The Rise of the GTM Engineer

The term “GTM Engineer” is a cocktail of wide-ranging ingredients: exuberance, anger, and confusion.

I have learned to lean into areas that are this polarizing. Especially when I feel strongly about the topic. Spoiler: I think the role of “GTM Engineer” is real, and here to stay. Semantics aside, I believe most GTM orgs will adopt the role in the next few years and the early adopters will gain a competitive advantage.

But even the true believers have unanswered questions. What does the role exactly entail? And what does it not include? How is it different than RevOps? Or Growth? Is it just someone who uses Clay and AI to do outbound? How should a GTM eng be compensated? Do they need to know how to code? Can I outsource this role? And much more.

I have tried to distill what I’ve learned about this emerging role in a few posts. And I plan to interview the best GTM teams in the world this year, to help share how they think about this new role (or lack thereof). So, more to come on this topic.

In the meantime, here are three posts about GTM Engineers, for anyone exploring it:

The Rise of the GTM Engineer (published Nov 2024)
How to Become a GTM Engineer (8 Resources)
When Should You Hire a GTM Engineer?

🛠️ GTM Engineer School

If you, or someone you know, is looking to become (or up-level) as a GTM Engineer, check out GTM Engineer School—I know them well, and they’re some of the best in the business. Cohort 3 starts on Feb 16th (to Apr 17th). Agenda and details here: GTM Engineer School.

And they’re giving The Signal readers 15% off with this code (while supplies last).

Still hungry for more?

Full archive here (70+ issues).

And, here are more highlights 👇

🤖 AI GTM

🛠️ GTM Engineering

🎯 Prospecting

🧰 GTM Tech

The Signal has been the place where I document what I’m learning—in public. And share what I’m seeing the best teams do (learning from the good, the bad, and everything in between) and how to navigate the quickly evolving GTM landscape.

I’m excited to continue exploring the future GTM playbook with each of you this year. Thank you for your attention and trust. I do not take it for granted.

PS: I’ll be sharing a summary+recording of each of the six sessions from the AI x GTM Summit. (Here is data on companies/roles that attended the summit, for anyone interested). Be sure you’re subscribed to receive those in your inbox.

See you next time,
Brendan 🫡

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