Welcome to the GTM Launchpad newsletter! Each week I will share a sales play to help you grow your business, level up your sales game and succeed in the trenches

Hope your Presidents Day is slow

Or quiet

Or at least not filled with Slack notifications

Most teams treat holidays like pauses

Operators treat them like checkpoints

Not to do more but to see clearly

Last week we talked about where pipeline quietly dies

Ownership without follow-through

This week is the next layer:

What are you actually inspecting?

Because here’s the truth
Follow through doesn’t break loudly

It leaks….quietly

and if no one’s looking at the right things…

It compounds

This past week was one of the strongest and most focused weeks I’ve had in three years

Not because I worked more
but because I inspected better

With Orion
With TJ
With Rob

Inside HubSpot
Inside ZoomInfo
Inside proposals
Inside revenue math

Here’s what I’m actually looking at:

Everyone loves hot leads right?

But pipeline is built in the middle lets be real

Are we nurturing?
Are we re-touching?
Are we moving threads forward?

Or just reacting to inbound and hand-raisers?

If mid-intent isn’t owned…revenue gets lumpy

One quick gut check I use with founders:

Pull up 5 active deals

Right now

Ask:

• Where does this actually live?
• Is the next step visible or assumed?
• If this rep went on vacation tomorrow….would momentum stall?

If you need Slack threads and memory to answer…

That’s not a system

That’s fragility

This one is simple and brutal

If a meeting happens…

Who owns the follow-up?

If they don’t reply…

Who nudges?

If they say “circle back in Q2”…

Is that tracked? or hoped?

Hope doesn’t scale

Ownership does

With TJ this week we literally reverse-engineered revenue targets

Not “let’s grow”

But:

How many deals?
At what ACV?
At what close rate?
From how many SQLs?
From how many meetings?
From how many conversations?

When you reverse it properly…

Suddenly activity has direction

Without that?

It’s motion. Not momentum

New founder build

$2M company

Lost $500K last year trying to scale too early

Hired reps
Outsourced
No real transfer of knowledge

What broke?

Not talent

Not effort

ICP fuzzy
Workflow leaky
CRM sloppy
Founder still in the middle

Nothing catastrophic. Just friction everywhere and friction kills velocity.. every time!

That’s what inspection surfaces

Not drama

Design flaws

It’s inspection

It’s looking at your system and asking:

Where does this break when I step away?

Last week I hit BQE

Best quarter ever….and it’s mid-February

Not because I added more

Because I removed chaos

I’m locked in 9 to 5
Focused
Systemized
Clear on what matters
Ignoring what doesn’t

Strong and focused beats busy and scattered

Every time 💪

Now one area to inspect is Linkedin for most of you. If LinkedIn is part of your GTM motion…

and you’re not inspecting it…You’re blind!

Most teams treat LinkedIn DMs like this:

“Yeah we followed up”
“I think that convo moved”
“Pretty sure we nudged them”

Pretty sure doesn’t scale

This is why I use Kondo daily

Not because it sends more DMs but because it forces clarity

One inbox
Clear labels
Follow-ups scheduled
Voice notes from desktop
Leader visibility without micromanaging

When I inspect a motion and LinkedIn is involved…

This is the difference between:

“I think we’re on top of it”

and

“Here’s exactly where every thread stands”

If LinkedIn is part of your pipeline…and you care about follow-through…

Try it

👉 https://app.trykondo.com/referral/TSU9HA

(First month free. No reason not to test it)

Spent last Saturday as yall know mapping the next 4 Sunset Social events with Morgan Ingram and Brianna Doe

First one is officially locked:

📅 March 19th
🕕 6 pm MST
📍 Phoenix

If you’re in AZ and in GTM…

Save it

Pre-register here 👇

Real rooms
Real operators
No fluff

See you there!

We interviewed our girls this week

That one hit

Real talk about:

Bella’s second comp was this Saturday and here’s what’s interesting…

They don’t improvise on competition day

They run the routine

They trust the reps

Outbound is the same

You don’t “feel it out”

You execute what you practiced

If you want something lighter but real, give it a listen 👇

Now I want you to do this tomorrow morning

Open your CRM

Pick 10 active outbound opportunities

For each one answer:

If any answer is fuzzy…

That’s your leak.

Fix that before adding more outreach

January sets intention y’all

Saturday our girls lost first place by one count

Not because they weren’t talented
Not because they didn’t prepare

Because one tiny detail slipped

They recovered
They finished strong
But the scoreboard still told the truth

Inspection works the same way

Early February exposes cracks
Mid-February is where operators tighten the system

I’m in one of the most aligned seasons of my life right now

Not louder
Not busier

Clearer

and if you’re reading this I know you care about the same thing.

See you next Monday

and if you run this inspection sprint and find something interesting…
hit reply and tell me what broke 🤙

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

- Tom Slocum ✌️

If your outbound motion feels busy but fragile

That’s what I fix

I work with founders and sales leaders who want repeatable pipeline

not hero driven outbound

At The SD Lab we help teams install outbound systems that:

Here’s where I’m most helpful:

Outbound System Builds (4-12 weeks)
For B2B teams (series A-B, 5-20+ reps) that need structure, clarity and execution.

What this looks like:

👉 Best for: founders stepping back, stalled pipeline, messy outbound motions

Targeted Workshops & Power Hours
When you don’t need a full build, just a sharp reset

👉 Best for: fast enablement, team resets, new hire ramp

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

👉 Join here » - free & paid options available

If you’re wondering, “Does this apply to us?”
It probably does

Book a 20 min clarity chat
no pitch, just alignment 👇