From Turf Wars to Teamwork: How to Create Rules of Engagement for Your GTM Team

3 rules for creating Rules of Engagement for your GTM team

DEAR STAGE 2: Our GTM team has tripled in size to almost 20 people over the last 9 months and I’m noticing more frequent conflict between teams. The kinds of questions that are landing on my desk right now: Who should get credit when… BDRs drove attendance to a marketing event OR when an AE was prospecting an account and a different contact came inbound? Territories are shifting as we add new hires, what pipeline/leads should move vs stay with the existing rep? I’m dealing with these as they come in, but I’m shocked by how much time I’m spending on this at the moment. Any advice? ~DEAR XYZ

DEAR XYZ: It’s officially time to build a Rule of Engagement (ROE) for your go-to-market team!

When I first read this question, I immediately thought of Hayes Davis, the co-founder and CEO of Gradient Works, an experienced RevOps leader. 

Turns out Hayes shares my views on the purpose of an ROE – “The goal with ROE is clear rules with a clear rationale, clearly communicated. You need to be able to explain what you’re doing and the business rationale for why you’re doing it” – and we wanted to share some guiding principles to keep in mind as you get started. 

With that here are our 3 Rules for writing your own Rules of Engagement: 

Rule #1: Don’t Confuse Your Customer. 

Too often Rules of Engagement are written with internal processes and priorities at the forefront. Given the ROE defines how leads are assigned, customers are managed, and who gets credit on deals, it’s important to start with the customer to make sure it feels seamless for them. 

Hayes recommends, “prioritize the interest of the business and the interest of the customer, followed by the interest of the reps.” This certainly resonates with my experience. Back in my NetSuite days we occasionally ran into conflict between our direct sales team and partner channel. In order to resolve these conflicts we actually called the prospect and asked them who they wanted to work with. We weren’t going to bid against ourselves and compete with our partners, instead we would lay out the benefits of each option and then let the customer decide.

Here’s another example of how this works in practice that Hayes shared from his own ROE at Gradient Works. “when they were deciding how long a new business rep should get credit for working a newly closed customer account, we chose 6 months based on the justification of the real impact on the work that AE did when closing the new logo and how long that work influences the account. If a new logo upgrades within a couple months of signing up, then the AE likely influenced that decision and deserves to be comped on it. But if the customer upgrades after their third QBR and months of in-depth conversations with their CSM, that’s probably not due to the original AE’s work.”

Rule #2: Start Simple and Reserve the Right to Make Changes

Document the big-picture things that matter and don’t get lost exploring every single fringe case. ROE can get out of hand when you try to anticipate every single possible situation. Make sure your intent is clear, outline the broad strokes and share examples to bring it to life. 

Hayes jokes “If I were going in front of the Supreme Court, I would want a rep who feels they’ve been wronged by ROE as my lawyer. You’ll never find someone more tenacious and argumentative.” 

With that in mind, simple and clear is the best route. hen, name a person orteam responsible for enforcing the ROE, because there are scenarios that will crop up that you haven’t thought of. It might be difficult to communicate a decision, but the decision itself shouldn’t be hard to make because you set clear rules (and the intent of those rules) upfront.

Rule #3: The Best Time to Resolve an ROE Conflict is Before it Ever Happens

Sales Leadership, RevOps, Marketing and Enablement all need to be in lock step when rolling out ROE. Hayes advises, “Create systems that make it difficult to break the rules in the first place because you definitely don’t want your system to cause any errors. For example, if you’ve said reps are only going to get comped on deals with companies with an HQ in a particular region, then do everything you can to be sure you’re not assigning a child of an account in their region to a rep in a different region.” It’s a bad experience for the customer if you have to reassign an account and it’s painful internally when you get to compensation. 

Zoom out and ensure you are enabling your teams on the processes that drive identification and resolution early. This could be as simple as always checking the CRM for duplicates before reaching out to a new lead, or making sure everyone understands the new process for partners to register leads. 

We hope this helps as you get started on your own ROE. If you’re looking to get started, the team at Gradient Works already released an incredible Rules of Engagement Toolkit including a template to get you started.

Thanks again to Hayes Davis, CEO of Gradient Works for these expert insights. Gradient Works participated in the 2022 cohort for the Stage 2 Capital Catalyst program, an 11-week go-to-market accelerator program to help founders with tactical, hands-on GTM guidance. Stage 2 is currently accepting applications for the 2024 cohort. If you're interested in joining or know a founder who might be, visit our website to apply and read more about the program.