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The Forward Deployed GTM Problem
Every B2B company I talk to has the same issue. They’ve spent years buying GTM tools. They haven’t spent any time architecting how those tools work together.
The result is sprawl. Overlapping systems. Data flowing in directions nobody mapped. A rev ops team that spends more time maintaining the stack than actually using it to drive growth.
And the uncomfortable truth: adding another tool won’t fix this. Neither will ripping everything out and starting over. The problem isn’t the tools. The problem is that nobody’s thinking about the system.
How We Got Here
The GTM tool stack evolved in waves.
First came the platforms. HubSpot, Marketo, Salesforce, Pardot. The promise was consolidation - one system to run your marketing and sales ops. Companies bought in, built their processes around these platforms, and for a while it worked well enough.
Then came the point solutions. The platforms couldn’t do everything, so a new generation of tools emerged to fill the gaps. Enrichment tools like ZoomInfo and Clearbit. Intent data from Bombora and 6sense. Conversational intelligence from Gong and Chorus. Outbound sequencing from Outreach and Salesloft. Each one solved a real problem. Each one “integrated” with your existing stack.
Now we’re in the AI GTM wave. Tools like Clay, Pocus, Deepline, Common Room. They promise to connect your data sources, score leads dynamically, surface intent signals, automate next-best-actions for reps. The capabilities are genuinely impressive.
But each wave added tools without adding coherence. The stack got bigger. The architecture didn’t get better. And the people responsible for making it all work - your rev ops and marketing ops teams - got stretched thinner.
The Sprawl Problem
Here’s what the sprawl actually looks like inside companies.
You have a CRM that’s supposed to be the source of truth, except half the fields are outdated, and sales uploads lists directly without going through any enrichment or routing. You have a MAP running lifecycle automation, but the lifecycle stages don’t match what’s in the CRM, so reporting tells different stories depending on which system you pull from.
You have an enrichment tool, maybe two. One fires on form fill, one runs on a schedule. Sometimes they overwrite each other. Nobody’s documented which one wins.
You have intent data coming in from a third-party provider, but it’s not wired into scoring, so it sits in a dashboard nobody checks. You have a conversational intelligence tool recording every sales call, but the insights don’t flow back into the CRM in any structured way.
Everything is technically connected. Nothing is actually architected.
The rev ops team knows where the bodies are buried. They’ve built workarounds on top of workarounds. They can tell you why that one workflow is turned off and why you can’t delete that custom field without breaking three other things.
But they’re spending all their time on maintenance. Keeping the stack from falling over. Fixing sync errors. Manually cleaning data. Answering questions about why the numbers don’t match.
They’re not doing strategy. They’re doing triage.
Why Vendors Can’t Fix This
Every GTM vendor will tell you their tool is essential. And they’re not lying - most of these tools are genuinely useful. The problem is incentives.
Vendors are paid to sell their piece of the stack. They’re not paid to ask whether you actually need it. They’re definitely not paid to tell you that your real problem is the three other tools you bought that overlap with theirs.
So you get content about why intent data is critical. Why enrichment is a must-have. Why conversational intelligence will transform your sales team. All of it’s true in isolation. None of it helps you think about the whole system.
“Integrates with everything” has become a checkbox feature. But integration isn’t architecture. Just because data can flow from one tool to another doesn’t mean it should. Doesn’t mean anyone’s thought through what happens downstream. Doesn’t mean the process exists to act on it.
I’ve seen stacks where the same lead gets enriched by three different tools, scored by two different models, and ends up in a queue nobody checks. Everything was integrated. Nothing was designed.
The vendors can’t solve this. It’s not their job. Their job is to make their tool work. Your job is to make the system work. And most companies don’t have anyone who owns that.
The Missing Layer
In software engineering, there’s a concept called the forward deployed engineer. These are technical people who sit at the intersection of the product and the customer. They don’t just implement - they understand the customer’s business deeply enough to make architecture decisions on their behalf. They translate between what the product can do and what the customer actually needs.
GTM needs the same thing.
Not a HubSpot admin. Not a Salesforce consultant running a standard playbook. Not a vendor’s customer success team trying to drive adoption of their specific tool.
What’s missing is someone who can look at the whole system and make decisions across it. Which tools do you actually need? What’s redundant? How should data flow between systems? What process runs on top? What should you measure and what’s just noise?
These aren’t admin questions. They’re strategic questions. But they fall through the cracks because everyone owns their piece and nobody owns the system.
The CRM admin owns Salesforce. The marketing ops person owns HubSpot. The sales ops person owns the sequencing tool. Maybe someone’s figured out Clay. But who owns the architecture that connects all of it?
Usually nobody. And that’s why the stack doesn’t work.
What Forward Deployed GTM Looks Like
Forward deployed GTM starts with understanding the business, not the tools.
Before touching any configuration, you need to understand how the company actually sells. What’s the ICP? What does the buyer journey look like? How does a lead become an opportunity? What does the handoff between marketing and sales look like in practice, not in theory?
Most implementations skip this step. They start with best practices and templates. They configure the tool based on how other companies use it, not based on how this company works. That’s why reps don’t trust the system six months later - because it doesn’t match their reality.
Forward-deployed GTM means being tool-agnostic. The question isn’t “how do we configure HubSpot?” The question is “what do you actually need, and what’s the simplest stack that gets you there?” Sometimes that means consolidating. Sometimes it means ripping out tools that looked good in the demo but don’t fit the motion. Sometimes it means building a process and documentation before touching any software at all.
It also means staying close enough to iterate. The initial architecture is never perfect. Scoring models drift. New tools get added. The sales process evolves. Someone needs to be watching whether the system still matches reality - and adjusting when it doesn’t.
This isn’t a one-time project. It’s an ongoing relationship with someone who understands your business well enough to make decisions on your behalf.
How We Think About This at 42 Agency
This is the model we’ve built our RevOps practice around.
We start with discovery, not implementation. Before we touch HubSpot or Salesforce, we run workshops to understand your ICP, your customer journey, your actual sales process. We align on what the lifecycle stages should mean, how leads should be scored, what attribution model makes sense for your business. The output is a blueprint, not a statement of work for configuration.
We’re tool-agnostic. We work primarily in HubSpot and Salesforce, but we also work with Clay, Common Room, Pocus, and whatever else is in your stack. If a tool isn’t earning its place, we’ll tell you. If you need something you don’t have, we’ll recommend it. We’re not trying to sell you more software. We’re trying to make your system work.
We build a process, not just a configuration. Documentation, data governance, routing rules, enrichment logic, reporting definitions - this is the stuff that makes tools actually usable. It’s also the stuff that gets skipped when you’re rushing to launch.
And we stay close. Our retainer model exists because this work isn’t one-and-done. Stacks drift. Requirements change. New tools get added. Someone needs to own the ongoing architecture, not just the initial build.
The companies we work with don’t think of us as their HubSpot consultants. They think of us as the team that makes their GTM infrastructure work.
The Shift
The framing most companies use for this work is reactive. Fix our broken attribution. Clean up our HubSpot. Get our CRM in order.
Those are symptoms. The underlying problem is that nobody’s architecting the system.
The shift is from “fix my tools” to “architect my GTM infrastructure.” From treating rev ops as maintenance to treating it as a strategy. From buying tools and hoping they work to designing a system that actually fits how you sell.
The tools are powerful. The vendors are building real capabilities. The AI GTM wave is going to add even more. But none of it matters if you don’t have someone thinking about the whole system.
That’s the layer that’s missing. That’s what forward-deployed GTM means.
 | A guest post by
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