Over the last 20 years, we've built two $100M+ companies and made hundreds of mistakes along the way. Everything we do runs on our GTM Operating System frameworks. We even wrote a book called MOVE — which became a WSJ best-selling book on go-to-market, quoted by Geoffrey Moore (author of the iconic Crossing the Chasm).

Our mission: help 100,000 businesses run on GTM OS to build profitable companies. We're at about 3,000 now so we have a long way to go.

We also run the GTMarketplace — connecting CEOs with 100+ certified fractional CMOs, CROs, and ops leaders all over the world who know the GTM Operating System.

With that intro, let's get moving!

Let's dig in.

I co-founded Terminus and helped build the entire ABM category.

We wrote the books on it. Account-Based Marketing For Dummies and ABM Is B2B both became bestsellers, and thousands of companies transformed how they sold to mid-market and enterprise.

I started the FlipMyFunnel movement. A thousand podcast episodes, events across the US and the world, over 100,000 marketers. We literally flipped the traditional funnel upside down and said stop generating leads, start targeting accounts. Because less than 1% of leads were turning into customers, and we knew everyone could do better than that.

On the back of it, we built Terminus to a $100M+ exit. We proved the model worked.

Then I stepped away. Moved on to build GTM Partners, built on the idea of GTM Operating System, wrote MOVE - which is now the only WSJ bestselling book on go-to-market.

And I stopped talking about ABM, because I thought the category had grown up. Twenty or thirty agencies implementing it across hundreds of thousands of companies. Competitors building $100M+ businesses. New job titles everywhere, from ABM director to VP of ABM to CMO of account-based marketing.

Job well done, I thought. We're good.

I was wrong.

Recently I saw research showing that 78% of ABM programs are still failing.

78%.

After a decade of tools, conferences, certifications, and billions of dollars in software, more than three out of four programs still aren't working. That was not easy news for me to see.

So I'm coming back. This is my first ABM video in five years. I talked to hundreds of people, dug into the research, and figured out what happened, what's working, and where this goes in the world of AI.

Let's start with the data, because it tells a very clear story.

80% of B2B organizations now run ABM programs. That's up massively from when we started Terminus in 2014. ABM has gone mainstream.

But here's the problem:

So we have 80% adoption and a 25% success rate. Widespread adoption, widespread failure. That's not funny. That's sad, and there has to be a better way.

Here's what's interesting. The programs that work aren't just squeaking by. They're winning big:

Same strategy. Completely different execution. So what separates the 22% who are crushing it from the 78% barely scraping by?

Five shifts. Let’s take a deep dive on each of these mega shifts.

This is the biggest one, and the one most companies still miss.

We started the ABM movement to land new logos. Target them, engage them, convert them. That's not where the winners are anymore.

91% of high-performing ABM programs now prioritize growing existing accounts, not new logos. 63% rank existing account growth as their number one objective.

Why? Your best ABM targets aren't new customers. They're the customers you already have. They know you, they trust you, they're already bought in. Shorter sales cycles, higher contract value, better win rates.

This ties directly to what I've been teaching for five years: net revenue retention. Companies at 110-120% NRR grow way faster than companies chasing new logos, because they grow through expansion.

Stop running ABM only for new logos. Run it for your existing accounts. Target other departments, other business units. Expand your footprint. Retention and expansion beat acquisition every single time.

When we started ABM in 2014, it was transactional. Here's a list of accounts, go do something with it.

Here's what most companies still do: once a year, build a target list based on firmographics like company size, industry, and revenue. Load it into an ABM platform. Run campaigns against it for 12 months.

That's not ABM in 2026. That's advertising with a fancy name.

The winners run signal-based ABM. A signal is a real-time indicator that an account is ready to engage. Remember, 95% of the people you're talking to won't buy right now. It's the battle for the 5% who are ready.

Signals look like:

Companies using real-time signals report 28% more marketing-generated revenue. But 56% of opportunities handed to sales still fail to close. Why? The signals were stale. The timing was off. Sales called three months later, after the buying window closed.

The winners act within days, not months. They build what I call a signal-to-action loop:

If your program doesn't have this loop, you're running your 2026 program like it's 2016. And that's why it isn't working.

This one is uncomfortable. It was for me when I read it.

I talk to CEOs who say "we're doing ABM with 500 accounts." And I tell them, no you're not. You're doing demand gen with account names attached. That makes some people really mad.

Here's what the data shows:

Small list wins. Big list dilutes. Try to run ABM on 500 accounts and you end up doing nothing at all. Budget spread too thin, personalization too generic, sales can't keep up. No matter how good your top of funnel is, the bottom leaks.

Focus on 50 accounts and you go deep. Personalize at the buying-committee level. Coordinate every channel. Align sales, marketing, and CS on every account.

At one of my roundtables, a leader told me they cut their list from 500 accounts to 47, and pipeline went up 3x. Same budget, completely different results. It wasn't the tools. It was the focus.

This is the measurement problem killing ABM.

Most companies still measure ABM like demand gen. Leads, MQLs, form fills, downloads. That's not how ABM works.

The average B2B buying committee is about 13 people. 89% of purchases involve two or more departments. So if you're celebrating one lead from an account, you're missing the 12 other people who influence the decision.

ABM was never about generating leads. It's about penetrating the accounts that matter. So the question isn't "how many leads did we get." It's:

Are we talking to procurement? Legal? The end users? Do we have an executive sponsor? If you're measuring MQLs, you're not doing ABM. Even if you're measuring MQAs, you're doing demand gen with a fancy title.

This is the one that connects everything, and it's the most valuable.

Most companies think ABM is a tool problem. Something's not working, so you go buy tools. Intent data, account-based advertising, personalization, orchestration, analytics. The average ABM program now runs nine different tools.

And none of them talk to each other. Data doesn't flow. Signals don't trigger actions. Marketing does its thing, sales waits with its own list, nobody's aligned. 43% of practitioners say Martech integration is their biggest barrier. You bought it, and now it doesn't work, because nothing works together.

The problem isn't the tools. The problem is you don't have a system.

This is exactly why I built the GTM Operating System. It's not a tool. It's a framework, just like MOVE. You don't need more tools. You need an operating system that connects strategy to execution.

The winners aren't the ones with the most tools. They're the ones with the tightest integration, where the signal triggers a play, the play triggers the content, the content triggers the sales action, and the action triggers the measurement. One connected loop.

So ask yourself: when a signal fires, what happens next? Is sales notified in real time? Does the content adapt? Does the channel change? If you can't answer that, you don't have an ABM program. You have a collection of tools that don't talk to each other, and you stay frustrated.

Everyone's asking about AI and ABM. Here's the data:

Here's the reality check. AI doesn't fix bad ABM. It multiplies it.

If your targeting is wrong, AI helps you target the wrong accounts faster. If your messaging is generic, AI produces more generic content at scale. If your signals are stale, AI helps you act on stale signals more efficiently.

AI is a multiplier. It multiplies whatever is already there. Bad ABM, bad results. Good ABM, phenomenal results.

Rapid fire. Make notes, come back to this:

I helped build this category. I take it personally.

I stepped away because I thought people got it. But 78% of programs still failing after a decade, that's billions of dollars in software, conferences, and certifications, and most companies still can't get it right.

I don't think it's complicated. I don't think it's too heavy. I think we lost focus. And to be clear, I'm not here to sell software. I don't have an ABM platform anymore. I don't have any stake in Terminus that matters.

But ABM was supposed to be the best way B2B grows. If your ABM program is complicated, that's not a tool problem. It's a go-to-market problem. It's a business problem. So simplify, focus, and execute.

If this connects for you, go to runongtmos.com/move and take the assessment. Over 3,000 companies have done it. It'll show you exactly what stage you're in, what's broken, and where you need systems to get unstuck.

If you're ready, let's get moving.

love,
sangram

p.s. 100,000+ GTM leaders read our content every day. If you want more frameworks like this, follow along at runongtmos.com — and let's get moving.