A Point of View on the State of GTM in 2025: Why Precision, ICP Discipline, and RevOps Are the Keys to Unlocking Sustainable Revenue Growth

From: Matt Slonaker
Founder, CEO, and Chief Revenue Officer, M. Allen LLC
October 8, 2025

Dear Fellow CROs and CEOs,

As the Founder and CEO of M. Allen LLC, a revenue growth advisory firm dedicated to empowering B2B companies to scale efficiently and predictably, I’ve spent over two decades navigating the highs and lows of go-to-market (GTM) strategies. From managing multimillion-dollar revenue streams to authoring insights on revenue optimization, my mission has always been to help leaders like you cut through the noise and focus on what truly drives long-term success. Today, I’m writing to share a detailed point of view inspired by Fullcast’s 2025 H1 Benchmarks Report on the State of GTM—a timely analysis released just this month that resonates deeply with the challenges and opportunities I’m seeing across the B2B landscape.

This report, based on 440,000 opportunities valued at $43 billion and insights from 118 CROs, paints a stark picture of our industry in the first half of 2025. Quotas have been lowered by 13.3%, yet 76.6% of sellers are still missing them. Growth is anemic at just 5.2%, sales efficiency has dropped 12.7%, and there’s a staggering 10.8x velocity delta between top performers and the average. These aren’t just numbers; they’re symptoms of deeper execution gaps that no amount of quota tweaking can fix alone. As someone who’s advised dozens of organizations on revenue transformation, I see this as a wake-up call: It’s time to shift from volume-chasing to precision-driven GTM, with Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) discipline and empowered Revenue Operations (RevOps) at the core.

Let me break this down, drawing on the report’s key findings, actionable insights for fueling new logo growth, leadership steps you can take as a CRO, and best practices for elevating RevOps. My goal is to equip you with a roadmap to not just survive this environment but thrive in it—turning first deals into compounding revenue engines.

The Harsh Realities Exposed in the 2025 Benchmarks

The report’s executive summary, penned by Fullcast’s MD of Insights Guy Rubin and CEO Ryan Westwood, underscores a paradox: Even with reduced quotas, sellers are struggling because the issue isn’t goal-setting—it’s execution. Our analysis reveals slow growth and slipping efficiency, compounded by falling win rates (-8.3%) and lengthening sales cycles (+6.9%), despite modest gains in average deal value (+1.8%). Efficiency, calculated as (average deal value × win rate) / sales cycle, is the clearest indicator of whether your GTM team is creating real, scalable impact.

Top performers aren’t outworking everyone; they’re outsmarting them. The 10.8x sales velocity delta highlights how elite teams move the right deals through the funnel with speed and precision, while others chase volume and waste resources. CRO survey data confirms the root cause: Inconsistent ICP discipline. 63% of CROs have little to no confidence in their ICP definitions, 56% base them on gut feel or past experience, and 64% review them only annually (or less). This leads to pipelines where high-ICP accounts make up just 23% of opportunities—a recipe for inefficiency, rising customer acquisition costs (CAC), and stagnant growth.

Ryan Westwood’s foreword hits home: RevOps has evolved from a back-office function to the strategic driver of growth, yet it’s often under-resourced and misunderstood. As we reimagine RevOps as the helm of your GTM engine, aligning strategy, process, and technology becomes non-negotiable for efficient, sustainable expansion.

Ten Key Points to Fuel New Logo Growth

Based on the report’s data, here are the ten critical takeaways I’ve distilled for prioritizing new logo acquisitions in this precision-first era. These aren’t theoretical—they’re grounded in the $43B pipeline analyzed and can transform how your teams operate:

1. Prioritize ICP-Fit Accounts for Efficiency: Logo acquisitions are 8x more efficient when targeting ICP-fit accounts, leading to faster deals, larger contracts, and longer customer retention. Shift from volume to precision to close the velocity gap.
2. Precision Over Pipeline Volume: Chasing more pipeline leads to waste; engineer it around high-fit accounts where efficiency drives growth. High-ICP accounts comprise only 23% of pipelines today—aim to flip that imbalance.
3. ICP-Fit Drives Long-Term Value: High ICP-fit accounts deliver 5.1x higher lifetime value (LTV) than low-fit ones, turning new logos into renewable, expanding revenue streams rather than one-offs.
4. Reduce Churn and Boost Expansion: Strong ICP-fit clients are 2x less likely to churn and 4x more likely to expand, making ICP discipline essential for sustainable growth beyond the initial deal.
5. Keep ICP Alive and Data-Driven: Treat ICP as a living system, updated quarterly with market signals—not annually based on gut feel. This combats the 63% lack of CRO confidence and avoids wasted cycles.
6. Qualify Rigorously to Win More: Well-qualified deals win 6.3x more often; use qualification to turn pipeline from a vanity metric into a performance driver, disqualifying low-fit opportunities early.
7. Accelerate Closes with Strong Qualification: Highly qualified deals close 21.6% faster (71 days vs. 91 days average) and are 1.9x less likely to slip beyond 90 days, enabling predictable new logo wins.
8. Adopt Written Qualification Processes: Only 36% of deals pass discovery with documented MEDDPICC elements; full adoption prevents stalls and improves conversion for high-fit logos.
9. Disqualify Early for Maximum Impact: Top performers disqualify rigorously from discovery (34% more than average), achieving 75% win rates vs. 22% average, minimizing slippage and focusing on viable new logos.
10. Leverage RevOps for Strategic Alignment: Empower RevOps to tighten ICP discipline and pipeline quality, addressing execution gaps in a low-efficiency environment to fuel scalable new logo growth.

These points echo the report’s emphasis on precision beating pipeline every time. As I’ve seen in my advisory work, teams that flip the script from activity-chasing to ICP-focused engineering see CAC drop and LTV soar.

Ten Key Actions to Lead as a CRO

As CROs, we can’t afford to be reactive. Drawing from the report’s page-by-page insights—from seller performance metrics to disciplined qualification journeys—here are ten actionable steps to implement immediately. These will help you bridge execution gaps and position your organization for outsized results:

1. Lower Quotas Strategically but Focus on Execution: Adjust targets if needed, but invest in training and processes to cut the 77% miss rate—execution, not quotas, is the real lever.
2. Emphasize Sales Efficiency Over Volume: Redirect teams to ICP-fit pursuits to reverse the 12.7% efficiency decline and capitalize on top performers’ 10.8x velocity advantage.
3. Revitalize RevOps as a Strategic Partner: Provide RevOps with clarity and resources to align strategy, processes, and tech, treating it as your GTM helm for beyond-short-term gains.
4. Tighten ICP Discipline: Redefine ICP as data-driven and review quarterly to build confidence (only 37% have it now) and dominate pipelines with high-fit accounts.
5. Prioritize Precision in Pipeline Building: Increase high-ICP share beyond 23% by engineering quality over quantity, lowering CAC and boosting efficiency.
6. Enforce Rigorous Qualification from Day One: Mandate MEDDPICC documentation in discovery to exceed 36% pass rates, accelerating 6.3x higher wins and reducing slippage.
7. Train for Disqualification and Urgency: Coach sellers to emulate top performers’ early disqualifications for 75% win rates and predictable pipelines.
8. Aim for Long-Term Value in New Logos: Select ICP-fit accounts for 5.1x LTV, 2x lower churn, and 4x expansion—view first deals as starting points.
9. Monitor and Shorten Sales Cycles: Leverage qualification to trim cycles by 21.6% and avoid 90+ day slips, countering efficiency erosion.
10. Benchmark and Iterate with Data: Analyze your data against the report’s benchmarks to validate ICP, close gaps, and drive scalable impact.

Implementing these actions requires cross-functional buy-in, but the payoff—faster closes, cleaner forecasts, and durable revenue—is immense.

RevOps Best Practices: The Foundation for Future-Proof Growth

No POV on 2025 GTM would be complete without elevating RevOps. As Westwood notes, RevOps is the engine for aligning strategy with execution. Here are ten best practices, informed by the report and my experience advising B2B leaders, to transform RevOps from tactical to transformative:

1. Align Cross-Functional Teams: Break silos between sales, marketing, and customer success for unified goals, reducing misalignments that exacerbate efficiency slips.
2. Establish Data Hygiene and Metrics: Clean data is foundational—define and review metrics like win rates and LTV to shift from gut-based ICPs to validated ones.
3. Leverage AI for Planning and Automation: Use AI tools for territory design and quota modeling; 97% of RevOps teams see ROI, enabling rapid adaptations in volatile markets.
4. Engineer Pipeline Quality Over Volume: Route leads by ICP fit to build pipelines where high-ICP accounts dominate, minimizing waste as seen in the report’s 23% benchmark.
5. Implement Rigorous Qualification Processes: Adopt MEDDPICC with documentation to qualify early, boosting win rates 6.3x and cycle speed 21.6%.
6. Integrate Technology Stack Strategically: Consolidate CRM-native tools for a single source of truth, automating forecasting and routing to combat execution gaps.
7. Treat ICP as a Living System: Update quarterly with performance data to avoid the 64% annual review trap, ensuring 5.1x LTV from high-fit accounts.
8. Forecast Capacity and Adjust Mid-Year: Model headcount with what-if scenarios and agile task forces to respond to shifts like lengthening cycles.
9. Enhance Customer Experience Post-Sale: Align RevOps with CX for expansion planning, capitalizing on 4x higher upsell rates from ICP-fits.
10. Test, Iterate, and Measure ROI: Prototype processes, track AI gains, and elevate RevOps to C-suite status for strategic input and faster iterations.

Start by benchmarking your RevOps maturity against the report’s findings. Tools like Fullcast’s Revenue Command Center can automate much of this, and resources such as “The RevOps Advantage” provide deeper blueprints.

In closing, the 2025 landscape demands we move beyond short-term fixes. As CROs and CEOs, let’s commit to precision, ICP rigor, and RevOps empowerment to turn challenges into opportunities. If you’d like to discuss how these insights apply to your team—or benchmark your performance against these metrics—reach out to me at M. Allen LLC. Together, we can build GTM engines that deliver efficient, compounding growth.

Best regards,
Matt Slonaker
Founder, CEO, and Chief Revenue Officer
M. Allen LLC