When I first considered partnering with Jared Fuller, Isaac Morehouse, and the team at nearbound.com, I knew it would be more than just a collaboration. Over the last 20 years, the landscape of B2B marketing, sales, and customer engagement has undergone monumental changes. The digitization of everything—learning, buying, marketing, selling, servicing, events, remote work, and communication—has reshaped expectations. Buyers and employees are now at the forefront, demanding better, more personalized experiences. If a buyer dislikes your approach, they will go elsewhere.
Gone are the days when GTM was synonymous with Sales and Marketing. Today's sophisticated buyers demand a more evolved and integrated approach to planning and executing GTM strategies that involves every team that touches the customer or revenue. To meet these elevated expectations, businesses must evolve past traditional metrics. MQLs and SQLs are no longer sufficient; instead, teams focus on ARR, GRR, and NRR, which require alignment across Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, and Product.
At GTM Partners, we believe that a unified GTM framework is the key to navigating this complex landscape. Our goal with the Go-to-Market Operating System is to bring together all GTM functions—Marketing, Sales, Success, Service, RevOps, Enablement, and Product—under a cohesive strategic process, allowing B2B companies to execute more strategically, outmaneuver competitors, and drive customer lifetime value to new heights.
Reveal shares our vision and also brings a unique perspective. Their concept of "nearbound" is another view of our six GTM motions: Inbound, Outbound, Partner-Led, Product-Led, Event-Led, and Community-Led Growth. Nearbound is not confined to the partnerships department; it is an integrated strategy that involves every department and every GTM motion, aligning them to surround the customer with value.
As AppBind CEO Sunir Shah aptly puts it, “The only reason partnerships should exist is because customers want them.” Nearbound recognizes that customer behavior has evolved, and GTM strategies must adapt to this reality. Outbound targets customers, inbound attracts them, and nearbound surrounds them with trust at every stage of their journey.
Nearbound is a way to think about leveraging the power of partnerships and relationships to provide a seamless, trust-based customer experience. This strategy transforms linear funnels into multifaceted flywheels, using existing customers as sources of new leads and partners as hubs for intelligence, influence, and introductions. By embedding partnership ecosystems and nearbound thinking into their DNA, companies can surround customers with credible influencers rather than relying on outdated sales pitches.
Two books underscore how our visions complement each other. I wrote a book with my GTM Partners co-founder Bryan Brown, called
MOVE: The 4-Question Go-to-Market Framework, which has been instrumental in guiding companies through the complexities of GTM strategies. Recognized as a WSJ and USA Today bestseller, MOVE offers a practical path that aligns all stakeholders to a unified vision, helping companies navigate from problem-market fit to product-market fit to platform-market fit. It has been widely adopted by CEOs, PE firms, and C-suites, cementing its place as a transformation book for leadership teams.
As comprehensive as MOVE is, it couldn't cover everything in depth. That's where Jared Fuller's new book, Nearbound and the Rise of the Who Economy, comes in. This book builds upon the foundational principles laid out in MOVE, focusing on the crucial role of partnerships in GTM strategy. Fuller’s work emphasizes nearbound, or surrounding customers with the voices and influence of their trusted service providers, a concept that is becoming increasingly essential as we move deeper into “The Decade of the Ecosystem.”
MOVE and Nearbound and the Rise of the Who Economy provide an excellent foundation for companies who want to understand the role of Nearbound in their modern GTM strategies.
This is the future of go-to-market, and we are excited to be at the forefront of this transformation. Stay tuned for an upcoming announcement!