The GTM Launchpad is where we open the hood on B2B revenue - fixing structure, sharpening outbound and building pipeline that actually holds up

Quick question for you

Have you ever sat through a discovery call where three minutes in you realized…

“Ya… this is going to be rough”

I had one of those a few weeks ago.

I was evaluating a tool for outbound.

Booked the call
Showed up curious
Wanted to see if it could actually solve anything

Within two minutes the rep pulled up a deck 🙄

slides
feature bullets
scripted questions

and I could tell immediately…

they had no idea who they were talking to

no context
no curiosity
no real conversation

Every time I asked something outside their script you could feel the wheels wobble.

They’d pause… then steer right back to the slides.

It wasn’t discovery.

It was a product tour pretending to be discovery.

Halfway through I was bored.

By the end I just wanted the call to end.

and the crazy part?

They never followed up….

Which pretty much tells you everything about how that pipeline probably looked.

Last week we talked about deals moving stages on vibes.

Most of the time…

it starts right here 👇

A lot of discovery calls aren’t discovery.

They’re presentations in disguise.

Reps jump straight into:

Because they feel like they need to perform.
But discovery isn’t about performing.

Discovery is about diagnosing
and if the problem never gets diagnosed…

the deal moves forward on assumptions.

Which is exactly how pipelines start filling up with deals that look real…

but never close

Think about the last time you went to a doctor.

They don’t walk into the room and immediately prescribe something.

First they ask questions.

What happened?
Where does it hurt?
How long has this been going on?

They diagnose.

Only after they understand the problem do they recommend treatment.

Sales should work the same way.

The AE is the doctor
Discovery is the diagnosis

Your product is the treatment

Your job isn’t to show everything your product can do

Your job is to figure out what’s actually broken

Discovery should answer three things before a deal moves forward.

Not the surface issue
The real operational pain

What happens if this problem doesn’t get fixed?

Lost pipeline?
Missed revenue?
Manual work?

What actually happens next if they want to solve it?

If those three things aren’t clear…

You didn’t run discovery
You ran a product introduction

and product introductions rarely close deals.

Quick exercise.

Open your CRM.

Look at the last deal that moved from Discovery to Demo

Now ask yourself one question

What actually happened that moved the deal forward?

Was the problem diagnosed?
Was the impact clear?
Was the next step agreed to?

If the answer feels fuzzy…
you might have found a leak

Something I hear constantly from GTM leaders right now

“We’re experimenting with AI… but it’s still a lot of work to make it useful.”

Most AI tools promise magic.

But in reality you still end up wrestling with dashboards, reports, RevOps tickets and a dozen different data sources just to figure out what’s actually happening in your pipeline.

Your data lives everywhere

HubSpot
Stripe
Google Ads
Spreadsheets
Your warehouse

Pulling that together becomes a full-time job nobody signed up for.

That’s why Fabi.ai caught my attention

They’re building an AI analyst for GTM teams that connects your entire stack and lets you ask simple questions like:

• Which campaigns are actually driving pipeline?
• Where are deals getting stuck?
• What’s driving churn?

You ask the question
Fabi generates the charts, answers and full dashboards in minutes

No SQL
No legacy BI tools
No waiting on RevOps

You can even ask questions directly in Slack if that’s where your team lives

If you’re experimenting with AI inside your GTM motion this is worth checking out

GTM Launchpad readers get 20% off the first 3 months

Use code: GTMLAUNCHPAD

Check it out here → https://www.fabi.ai

Something I started last issue that I’m really enjoying

If something feels off in your pipeline…

bring it into the garage.

Reply and tell me:

No company names needed

Just the mechanics

I’ll break some of them down in future issues

Sometimes the leak becomes obvious once someone actually pops the hood

Quick personal update.

This past week Cheer Dads Unfiltered went a little crazy.

One of our reels crossed 25k views and 300+ shares after we had a well-known competitive cheer judge on the show.

It’s been fun building something totally outside the B2B world.

If you want to see the other side of my life beyond pipeline mechanics…

you can check it out here:

https://linktr.ee/cheerdadsunfiltered

Fair warning…
it’s a very different version of Tom 😅

I was recently nominated alongside some absolute killers in the space for the Sales Development Awards.

Pretty surreal seeing some familiar legends on that list

If you want to check it out (or cast a vote)

https://lnkd.in/gsMV44nF

I’ll also be speaking at the Atonom AI SDR Summit on April 9th. 9:00-12:00 PST

My talk - AI Won’t Fix Your Broken Outbound

We’ll be digging into why most AI SDR experiments fail and what real teams are actually doing to rebuild the pipeline.

You can register here
https://lnkd.in/gd6-naK5

Next time you’re on a discovery call…

ask yourself one question.

Am I diagnosing a problem…

or

am I presenting a product?

Because that difference is often what separates:

pipeline that looks healthy

from

pipeline that actually closes.

Curious…

What’s the worst discovery call you’ve ever sat through?

Hit reply and tell me
I read every response

Thanks for reading. See you again next week at 8 am MST!

- Tom Slocum ✌️

If your outbound motion feels busy…

…but fragile

If your CRM looks full…

…but forecasting still feels shaky

If your team works hard…

…but pipeline doesn’t feel predictable

That’s what I fix

I work with founders and sales leaders in B2B (Series A–B, 5–20+ reps) who need structure before scale

Not more activity
Not more tools
Structure

Here’s how we do it:

This is the core engagement.

A hands-on rebuild of your outbound foundation so pipeline becomes structured, measurable and owned by the team not held together by heroics.

Inside 45 days we:

Best for:

When you don’t need a full rebuild just a sharp correction

Designed for fast clarity and immediate execution lift

Our private Slack community for reps and leaders building outbound in the real world.

Free and paid tiers available

If you’re reading this thinking, “Does this apply to us?”

It probably does

Book a 20 min Pipeline Diagnostic
No pitch. Just alignment