B2B marketing
The Go-to-Market Blindspots Diagnostic
A CMO’s Guide to Identifying the Hidden Forces Undermining Growth
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Seven hidden GTM blindspots drain massive amounts of annual revenue while masquerading as execution problems
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Marketing leaders inherit these blindspots but are uniquely positioned to surface them through customer research
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Third-party interviews achieve significantly higher candor rates than internal feedback, revealing market reality
Executive Summary
Most B2B marketing teams aren’t failing. They’re operating with incomplete, and sometimes misleading, signals about the markets they’re expected to drive.
When growth stalls, pipeline bloats, or win rates slip, the reflex response is almost always the same: fix the messaging, adjust the ICP, generate better leads. These actions feel logical. They’re also frequently downstream of deeper go-to-market blindspots that marketing didn’t create, but is expected to correct.
Research shows companies lose 10% of annual revenue to GTM blindspots. If you’re running a $50 million business, that’s $5 million walking out the door – not to competitors with better products, but to fundamental disconnects between internal assumptions and market reality.
This diagnostic helps CMOs and Heads of Marketing recognize those blindspots early, before they calcify into revenue problems blamed on execution.
It’s not a checklist for tactics. It’s a structured way to connect:
Blindspots → Symptoms → Revenue Impact
Used properly, this diagnostic helps marketing leaders:
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- Separate true execution issues from upstream market disconnects
- Diagnose why “doing more” no longer produces better results
- Give CEOs and CROs a clearer explanation for stalled growth
- Identify where customer insight, not optimization, is the missing input
If parts of this feel uncomfortably familiar, that’s the point.
Blindspots only become dangerous when they go unnamed.
How to Use This Diagnostic
This is a reference-grade diagnostic, not a linear article. Most leaders will recognize themselves in multiple sections.
You can use it in three ways:
Start with the Symptom You See
(bloated pipeline, for example) and trace backward to likely blindspots
Start with a Suspected Blindspot
(early adopter bias, for example) and examine the downstream symptoms and revenue impact
Use it as a Shared Language Tool
with CEO, CRO, or Product leadership to align on what’s really happening
Throughout the document, each section follows the same structure:
- The Blindspot: the underlying gap in market understanding
- Common Symptoms: how it typically shows up operationally
- Revenue Impact: what it costs when left unaddressed
- Why Marketing Gets Pulled In: the pressure CMOs feel
- Thirdside Reality Check: data and insights from our customer research
This is intentional. Marketing often becomes the messenger for problems it didn’t originate, but is uniquely positioned to surface.
The Core Framework: Blindspot → Symptom → Revenue Impact
Go-to-market failure rarely announces itself directly.
Instead, it follows a predictable chain:
- A blindspot forms when assumptions about buyers, value, or urgency go untested
- Symptoms emerge inside sales, marketing, and product operations
- Revenue impact accumulates quietly, then suddenly
Most organizations try to treat symptoms. This diagnostic is about naming blindspots before they metastasize.
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The Blindspot |
Primary Symptom |
Thirdside Reality Check |
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1. ICP Drift |
High volume; Low conversion |
<30% overlap between company ICP and successful customers. |
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2. Internal Messaging |
“Interchangeable” website |
Third-party interviews see 73% higher candor than internal feedback. |
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3. Early Adopter Bias |
Growth stalls after initial wins |
Early adopters are only 16% of buyers but drive 80% of feedback. |
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4. Activity vs. Intent |
Bloated, “long-maybe” pipeline |
68% of stalled deals analyzed never had budget or authority |
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5. Feature Assumptions |
Competitors winning with “less” |
Customers use only 47% of available features on average. |
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6. Expansion Gaps |
Renewal-only engagement |
82% of customers were unaware of capabilities they actually needed. |
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7. Internal Echo Chambers |
Loss reason: “Price” |
<20% alignment between CRM loss reasons and buyer reality. |
Blindspot 1:
ICP Drift Disguised as Market Expansion
The Blindspot
Your ideal customer profile has quietly widened without being revalidated.
What started as deliberate focus slowly expands through adjacent use cases, industries, or personas that look similar on paper but behave very differently in reality.
Common Symptoms
- Lead volume increases while conversion rates decline
- Messaging becomes broader and less specific
- Sales reports “good conversations” that never close
- Campaign performance varies wildly by segment
Revenue Impact
- Lower win rates and longer sales cycles
- Increased CAC due to wasted spend on non-buyers
- Forecast volatility that erodes executive confidence
Why Marketing Gets Pulled In
CMOs are tasked with “clarifying value” without access to unfiltered buyer language. Without direct insight, teams default to safer, broader claims.
Thirdside Reality Check
In multiple engagements, buyers could articulate their pain clearly, just not in the vendor’s words. Messaging improved only when marketing adopted buyer language verbatim. Third-party interviews achieve 73% higher candor rates compared to internal customer conversations, revealing the language customers actually use to describe problems and solutions. When we asked healthcare buyers about “workflow optimization,” they talked about “not staying late every night to fix scheduling disasters.”
Blindspot 2:
Messaging Built on Internal Logic, Not Buyer Language
The Blindspot
Your messaging reflects how the company thinks about its product, not how buyers think about their problem.
This happens when positioning evolves through internal workshops, competitive decks, and feature releases rather than customer narrative.
Common Symptoms
- Website language sounds interchangeable with competitors
- Prospects say they “like” the message but can’t repeat it
- Sales demos require heavy explanation to land value
Revenue Impact
- Lower inbound quality
- Increased sales effort per deal
- Pricing pressure driven by unclear differentiation
Why Marketing Gets Pulled In
CMOs are tasked with “clarifying value” without access to unfiltered buyer language. Without direct insight, teams default to safer, broader claims
Thirdside Reality Check
In multiple engagements, buyers could articulate their pain clearly, just not in the vendor’s words. Messaging improved only when marketing adopted buyer language verbatim. Third-party interviews achieve 73% higher candor rates compared to internal customer conversations, revealing the language customers actually use to describe problems and solutions. When we asked healthcare buyers about “workflow optimization,” they talked about “not staying late every night to fix scheduling disasters.”
Blindspot 3:
Early Adopter Success Masking Mainstream Resistance
The Blindspot
Initial traction with early adopters creates false confidence that product-market fit has been achieved.
Early adopters tolerate complexity, gaps, and ambiguity that mainstream buyers won’t.
Common Symptoms
- Growth stalls after initial customer wins
- Sales cycles lengthen outside the first cohort
- Product roadmap reflects edge-case sophistication
Revenue Impact
- Plateaued growth despite increased spend
- High cost of sale for marginal deals
- Roadmap investments that don’t unlock scale
Why Marketing Gets Pulled In
Marketing is asked to “educate the market” when the real issue is that the market doesn’t want to be educated. It wants problems solved simply.
Thirdside Reality Check
Our research repeatedly shows early adopters skew product and messaging decisions in ways that quietly exclude the majority of buyers. Only 16% of B2B buyers are early adopters, yet they often drive 80% of product feedback. When we interview mainstream buyers, they consistently cite complexity and implementation concerns that early adopters never mentioned. A recent client discovered their early adopters were all former engineers who enjoyed technical complexity, while mainstream prospects needed “plug-and-play simplicity.”
Blindspot 4:
Sales Activity Mistaken
for Buyer Intent
The Blindspot
Pipeline volume is treated as proof of demand.
In reality, activity often reflects curiosity, not intent.
Common Symptoms
- Bloated pipelines dominated by long-maybe deals
- Forecast accuracy consistently off by 30% or more
- Sales cycles extending well beyond norms
Revenue Impact
- Wasted sales capacity
- Inaccurate forecasting that undermines credibility
- Leadership decisions based on false signals
Why Marketing Gets Pulled In
Marketing is asked to “improve lead quality” even when qualification criteria themselves are misaligned with how buyers decide.
Thirdside Reality Check
In our no-decision research, we often find deals were never real opportunities. They were exploratory conversations mistaken for pipeline. 68% of stalled deals we analyze never had budget, timeline, or authority aligned – they were research projects, not buying processes. One client’s “hot prospect” told us: “We’re just trying to understand what’s possible. We won’t have budget for anything until next fiscal year, but didn’t want to tell them that.”
Blindspot 5:
Feature Value Assumptions Left Unchallenged
The Blindspot
The organization assumes that what it builds is inherently valuable.
Buyer priorities shift faster than roadmaps.
Common Symptoms
- Renewal conversations focused on unbuilt features
- Customers using the product differently than intended
- Competitors winning with simpler offerings
Revenue Impact
- Churn driven by expectation gaps
- Pricing pressure despite feature depth
- Expansion stalls due to unclear value perception
Why Marketing Gets Pulled In
Marketing is expected to “tell a better story” about features customers don’t value.
Thirdside Reality Check
Across churn interviews, we frequently uncover a mismatch between what customers pay for and what vendors emphasize. On average, customers actively use only 47% of available features in enterprise software, yet roadmaps continue building for power users rather than mainstream adoption patterns. One SaaS company spent 18 months building advanced analytics features while customers churned because they couldn’t easily export basic reports.
Blindspot 6:
Expansion Assumed to be a Sales or CS Problem
The Blindspot
Lack of expansion is blamed on account management execution rather than value clarity.
Common Symptoms
- Flat ACV over time
- Customers unaware of additional capabilities
- Renewal-only engagement patterns
Revenue Impact
- Missed growth inside existing accounts
- Over-reliance on new logo acquisition
- Increased churn risk due to under-realized value
Why Marketing Gets Pulled In
Marketing is asked to “drive expansion campaigns” without insight into why customers don’t perceive additional value
Thirdside Reality Check
Expansion research consistently reveals awareness and relevance gaps, not resistance. 82% of customers we interview for expansion analysis were unaware of capabilities they actually needed. The issue isn’t account management – it’s value communication and timing. A recent client discovered their customers didn’t know about automation features that could save 10 hours weekly because they were buried in a “Pro” menu customers never explored.
Blindspot 7:
Internal Feedback Replacing Market Truth
The Blindspot
Teams rely on internal narratives, CRM fields, and surveys as substitutes for conversation.
Common Symptoms
- CRM loss reasons dominated by “price” or “competition”
- Net Promoter Scores that conflict with churn reality
- Strong opinions unsupported by buyer evidence
Revenue Impact
- Repeated strategic misfires
- Misallocated investment
- Slow response to market change
Why Marketing Gets Pulled In
Marketing becomes the translator of conflicting internal signals without an external anchor.
Thirdside Reality Check
We consistently find less than 20% alignment between seller-reported loss reasons and buyer-reported reality. When prospects tell your rep “budget constraints,” they’re often saying “this doesn’t solve our urgent problem.” Internal feedback gets filtered through relationship preservation and political courtesy. A prospect who told the sales rep “we’re going with a cheaper option” told us: “They seemed nice, but we couldn’t figure out how this would actually help us do our jobs better.”
What This Means for the CMO
Most CMOs inherit blindspots they didn’t create.
But marketing sits at the intersection of buyer language, revenue pressure, and internal storytelling. That position is uncomfortable. It’s also powerful.
The most effective marketing leaders don’t try to optimize around blindspots. They surface them.
Why marketing is uniquely positioned to lead this:
- You’re closest to buyer language and market signals
- You’re measured on pipeline quality and conversion metrics
- You have budget and resources for customer research
- You can translate buyer insights into actionable strategy
The uncomfortable truth: If these blindspots exist in your organization, marketing will eventually get blamed for the revenue impact. Better to surface them proactively than explain them reactively.
What Actually Works: The Research-Driven Approach
Here’s what doesn’t work: more automation, better battle cards, sales training, or internal messaging workshops. These approaches assume your current market understanding is basically correct and the problem is execution.
That assumption is usually wrong.
The solution requires a fundamental shift in how you gather customer insights.
Most organizations can’t get unfiltered market truth because:
- Customers filter feedback to preserve relationships
- Internal teams have confirmation bias toward existing strategies
- CRM data reflects seller interpretation, not buyer reality
- Surveys capture sentiment, not decision-making drivers
The Four-Pillar Research Framework:
Lost Deals
Real reasons they said no (not the polite version they gave your rep)
Churned Customers
What actually went wrong vs. what they told your CSM
Stalled Prospects
What’s really holding them back – it’s almost never what you think
Successful Customers
Value they actually received vs. what you think you delivered
How Thirdside Helps
Each pillar of this framework maps directly to a focused Thirdside research program designed to surface GTM blindspots fast.
- Lost Deals → Win-Loss Interviews
We run structured third-party win-loss interviews with recent evaluators to uncover the candid, unfiltered reasons you lost — including where ICP, messaging, and perceived value actually broke down. - Churned Customers → Churn Prevention & Postmortems
We interview churned and pre-renewal customers to separate feature complaints from underlying value gaps, implementation friction, and misaligned expectations, giving you a clear view of preventable revenue loss. - Stalled Prospects → No-Decision Analysis
We speak with stalled or “no decision” prospects to diagnose what truly blocked movement — internal politics, competing priorities, risk perception, or unclear ROI — so you can stop over-counting non-opportunities in the pipeline. - Voice of the Customer → Value Validation Studies
We interview your most successful customers to document the real outcomes they achieved, the language they use to describe value, and the patterns that should reshape your ICP, messaging, and expansion strategy.
Together, these four programs give your go-to-market team a coherent, evidence-based GTM blindspot map instead of disconnected anecdotes, so you can re-align strategy, roadmap, and pipeline targets with how the market actually buys.
answers
FAQ’s
Find answers to common questions about GTM blindspots
What are GTM blindspots?
GTM blindspots are hidden gaps in market understanding that cause revenue leaks. They form when assumptions about buyers, value propositions, or market urgency go untested, leading to disconnects between internal strategy and market reality.
How much revenue do GTM blindspots typically cost?
Research shows companies lose an average of 10% of annual revenue to GTM blindspots. This manifests as wasted marketing spend, higher customer acquisition costs, longer sales cycles, and pipeline bloat with deals that never close.
Why can't internal teams identify these blindspots?
Internal teams face several barriers: customers filter feedback to preserve relationships, confirmation bias toward existing strategies, CRM data that reflects seller interpretation rather than buyer reality, and surveys that capture sentiment rather than decision-making drivers.
What makes third-party customer research more effective?
Third-party research achieves 73% higher candor rates because customers tell neutral interviewers what they’d never tell vendors directly. There’s no relationship to preserve, no fear of sales follow-up, and no need for political courtesy.
Which blindspot is most common in B2B companies?
ICP drift is extremely common. We consistently find less than 30% overlap between how companies define their ideal customer profile and how their actual successful customers define themselves. This happens gradually as companies expand into adjacent markets without revalidating assumptions.
How should CMOs address GTM blindspots?
CMOs should shift from optimizing around blindspots to surfacing them through systematic customer research. This means moving beyond internal surveys and CRM data to structured, neutral conversations with lost deals, churned customers, stalled prospects, and successful customers.
What's the difference between early adopters and mainstream buyers?
Early adopters represent only 16% of B2B buyers but often drive 80% of product feedback. They tolerate complexity, gaps, and implementation challenges that mainstream buyers won’t. Building primarily for early adopters often excludes the majority of the market.
A Final Word on Action
This diagnostic doesn’t prescribe tactics by design.
The next step isn’t more automation, content, or enablement. It’s clarity.
In organizations that regain momentum, the turning point is almost always the same: someone creates a safe, structured way to hear what buyers actually think.
If this diagnostic surfaced blindspots you recognize, the most productive next step is a conversation.
Not a pitch. Not a program.
Just an honest discussion about what you’re seeing, what feels stuck, and what might be causing it.
That conversation is where real go-to-market change begins.
About Thirdside: We specialize in third-party customer interviews and win-loss analysis for B2B companies. Our “just ask” philosophy helps eliminate customer blindspots through neutral conversations that reveal what internal teams can’t access. Since 2010, we’ve conducted over 2,000 customer interviews, helping executives bridge the gap between internal assumptions and market reality.