When most businesses think of contracts, they focus on the legal protections and obligations these documents enforce.
However, drafting, what I will call a 'Go-To-Market (GTM)' contract, involves far more than just legal paperwork - it involves strategic, product and commercial advice. It plays a crucial role in shaping the business’s market strategy, clarifying roles, and driving long-term growth.
As such when people engage me to draft a contract or set of policies, what we actually do is go under the hood and look at their GTM strategies and overall business.
In this first part of our two-part series, we’ll explore the strategic advantages that come with having well-rounded advice from a commercial and pragmatic business minded lawyer drafting a GTM contract and how it can improve your business’s performance and scalability.
This is the process I follow when helping clients and, as such, when I help a client with drafting a contract or set of policies, it goes beyond the drafting, it also includes a raft of other consultative and commercial approaches that together make your business better.
What do I mean by a GTM Contract?
A Go-To-Market (GTM) contract refers to any formal agreement that outlines how a product or service will be launched, distributed, marketed, or sold. This can take several forms depending on the specifics of the business and industry.
For example, it could be a distribution agreement that sets the terms between a manufacturer and a distributor for selling products in a new market. It could also be a licensing agreement that allows a third party to use or sell your product under specified conditions.
Other types of GTM contracts might include partnership or affiliate agreements, JV agreements, or service agreements that define the roles, responsibilities, and revenue-sharing arrangements between partners, ensuring that everyone involved is aligned on how the product or business will enter the market.
Essentially, a GTM contract serves as a blueprint for how a product will move from development to commercialisation, setting clear expectations and minimising risks along the way.
The options for how and where you do business is now endless - having an advisor with a creative and commercial mindset means that you will find the best model while at the same time pinning down the foundations of your business.
Clarifying Your Commercial Strategy
One of the most significant yet under-appreciated benefits of engaging in this process of being advised on your GTM contract is that it forces businesses to clarify their market strategy. When you sit down to draft the terms of your GTM contract, you are essentially deep-diving into defining key aspects of how your product or service will reach customers.
This includes:
Market entry approaches: Will you launch in a specific geographic region first? What vehicle or structure do you need to reach the customers?
Sales channels: Are you selling directly to customers or using third-party distributors?
Pricing models: What are your base prices, and what discount structures will you offer for high-volume sales or early adopters?
Product: What are your key product deliverables? Is your product needing to be tweaked as a result of the above?
Compliance: Drafting a commercial agreement also brings up other compliance issues such as having in place proper security and data systems and thinking about supportive documentation such as cyber security and bribery policies.
Having these elements clearly outlined in the GTM contract means that you have a well-structured plan for your market entry, which ensures consistency across your business operations and gives you a clear roadmap to follow.
Defining Roles and Responsibilities Clearly
In the chaos of launching a product or entering a new market, there is always the risk of responsibilities becoming blurred. Who is responsible for what? How will marketing, sales, product development, and customer support work together?
A GTM contract clarifies the roles of every stakeholder involved in the market entry, be they internal teams, external partners, or vendors. When these responsibilities are spelled out in a legally binding document, everyone involved knows exactly what’s expected of them, reducing the likelihood of misunderstandings or operational bottlenecks.
Additionally, this clarity makes it easier to hold all parties accountable for their contributions to the GTM strategy, ensuring smoother execution and stronger results.
Establishing Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to Improve Customer Experience
For many businesses, Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are critical components of a GTM contract. These agreements specify the performance expectations for service delivery, product quality, and support. For example, if you're launching a SaaS product, the SLA might guarantee 99.9% uptime or specify response times for customer support inquiries.
While the SLA protects the business from disputes, it also sets the foundation for an exceptional customer experience. Customers know exactly what they can expect, and partners are required to meet these standards. By committing to these expectations in your GTM contract, you build trust with both your partners and customers.
This, in turn, helps ensure that the customer experience meets or exceeds expectations, leading to higher customer retention and a stronger market position.
Refining Pricing Strategy and Financial Forecasting
Pricing strategy is often one of the most difficult aspects of a business to finalise, especially for new products or services. A GTM contract gives you the opportunity to lock down pricing models, minimums, renewal period, and discounts for different market segments or distribution partners.
Moreover, once you have these pricing terms clearly defined in the contract, you can more accurately project revenues and understand how much you can invest in customer acquisition, marketing, or further product development. This clarity helps not only in immediate budgeting but also in building more reliable long-term financial forecasts, and crucially in establishing strong sustainable revenue streams and healthy margins, which is critical when seeking investment or preparing for growth.
Ensuring Product Readiness and Identifying Areas for Improvement
A GTM contract often requires businesses to review their product readiness before launch. Are all key features ready? Does the product meet the market's expectations, or does it need refinement? These questions naturally arise during contract discussions with partners or distributors, helping you identify any gaps or weaknesses in your offering.
For example, if a key partner requests certain functionality in the contract, you may realise that the product needs additional development before going to market. Or perhaps you need to revise the UI after decided how the user or customer is allowed to use your product. Identifying these areas of improvement early in the contract phase can prevent costly delays, technological or market failure and also a good advisor will be able to guide you to places that may have been neglected or not addressed during your development phase.
Conclusion
To summarise, this is some of what I do when I help a client - and i am uniquely positioned to do this because I have been there! I have created different types of businesses in almost every type of model from e-commerce to consulting to software and physical products. This enables me to mine my vault of experience and knowledge to help make your business better.
So far we have covered how going through the. process of putting together a GTM contract can go far beyond simply outlining terms and obligations. It forces clarity around your market strategy, refines your pricing, and defines key roles and responsibilities—all of which contribute to a stronger, more scalable business.
In Part 2, we’ll dive deeper into additional benefits, such as risk mitigation, compliance, and how a well-crafted GTM contract can build investor confidence and long-term partnerships.
Stay tuned!
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