Most companies cap out on growth because they ask one single GTM motion to do everything: PLG vs. SLG, high-touch vs. no-touch, AI vs. human. The problem is: While PLG is great at getting people in, it’s weak at building institutional trust when stakes rise. And though SLG is great at creating conviction in high-stakes moments, it’s weak at scaling without cost exploding. Meanwhile, AI is great at low-cost scale, whereas human-led is great at building high trust needed for high-value deals. 

Each one has a limitation. When you pick a side, you naturally hit a limit that comes with it. Why? Because buyers don’t behave that way.

Think of yourself as the buyer: your journey is likely a winding road through a mix of touch points with a brand, and each interaction builds trust differently.

In a similar vein, GTM is not one single motion taken to its limit but rather, a portfolio of motions, each with different strengths, limits, and cost and trust profiles. 

Low-cost touchpoints drive scale, while high-value motions maximize value; together, they compound. You assemble several of them together to fully maximize reach, trust, value, and ROI. 

At ClickUp, blending GTM motions increased LTV 11X, proving the power of this portfolio. Today, I’m going to show you how to do this, starting with two important mindset shifts:

Simply put, you’re focusing on the wrong thing: PLG folks measure cost efficiency, while SLG folks measure deal size. Both are valid. But neither is the full picture. 

The real constraint in B2B is trust, specifically how quickly it forms with each customer touchpoint. 

In a survey of 3,600+ B2B decision-makers, McKinsey found that buyers use an even mix of in-person, remote, and self-serve channels at every stage of their journey, from research to evaluation, purchase to renewal.

Rather than picking one channel, they move across all of them. And each channel builds trust differently: A community recommendation builds peer trust that no sales call can replicate. A free trial builds confidence in the product before any human gets involved. An enterprise relationship needs both, plus institutional credibility, before a contract gets signed.

This is your opportunity to go beyond Product or Sales, to capture the real drivers of growth.

Most companies over-invest in sales headcount and under-invest in community, brand, and AI-assisted interaction. The reason: Too many companies put too much emphasis on last-touch attribution. (Read my last Topline piece for more on the antidote to attribution pitfalls.)

B2B buyers use an average of 27 different touchpoints on their journey, but last-touch attribution credits only the last step — the sale — and calls it done. And yet, the AE who closes the deal is often able to do so only because of one of many possible moves: the community already built peer trust; a free trial already reduced perceived risk; a partner already added credibility; brand campaigns already created familiarity months earlier; and so on.

Companies fund what they can measure. Under last-touch attribution, Sales gets headcount and everything else gets cut. The result: Distribution over-rotates toward the last mile and starves the infrastructure that made the last mile possible.

Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson knew this. He put a billboard on Highway 101 that read “Ask Your Developer.” You can’t attribute a pipeline number to a billboard. But Lawson knew that when a developer recommends Twilio in a meeting and an exec says, “I’ve heard of them,” that’s the billboard working. It’s why the AE can close.

Consider these six distinct customer touches — each has a different cost, a different scale ceiling, and a different trust profile. 

Each alone is deficient in some aspect — no single touch wins on all dimensions — but when you mix and sequence them correctly for the right customer, at the right moment, and the right level of stakes, they enable you to drive scale and expand LTV.

Marginal cost: ~$0  |  Scale: Infinite  |  ROI: Low  |  Best for: Low-stakes, standardized transactions  |  E.g., In-app onboarding, product tours, help centers, email flows

The product is built to do the work, with no human or AI involvement.

Proof: 81% of customers prefer self-service before ever contacting support. 

Marginal cost: 50% lower  |  Scale: Very high  |  ROI: Medium  |  Best for: Medium stakes, personalized feel at scale  |  E.g., Chatbots, personalized outreach, call copilots, video avatars

The most underused GTM motion right now: AI can deliver the feeling of 1:1 attention at near-zero marginal cost. 

Proof: LiveChatAI cites that 70% of customer support queries can be resolved without human intervention.

Marginal cost: Near-zero (once built)  |  Scale: High  |  ROI: Medium  |  Best for: Peer trust, product adoption, organic expansion  |  E.g., Power users, verified consultants, forums, hubs, social groups

Peer trust often outlasts vendor trust. It exists before any sales conversation and survives most of them. And, if you cut community because it’s “hard to attribute,” you weaken your long-term trust engine.

In this case, your customers become your distribution engine.

Proof: Atlassian saw a 33.7% increase in visits after implementing their community program, and built a strong motion with 19M+ community visitors, 270K+ posts.

Marginal cost: Medium  |  Scale: Medium  |  ROI: Medium–High  |  Best for: Medium stakes, standardized questions  |  E.g., webinars, office hours, group demos

One expert. Hundreds of customers. Real human energy.

Proof: HubSpot reached ~280K+ customers via INBOUND conference, webinars, certifications, content.

Marginal cost: Low-Medium (commission-based)  |  Scale: Low–Medium  |  ROI: Medium–High  |  Best for: Trust-led markets, ecosystem expansion, enterprise

Proof: Partner deals close 46% faster, win 53% more often, and carry 40% higher ACV.

Marginal cost: Very High ($400–$600/hour, fully loaded)  |  Scale: Very Low  |  ROI: Very High  |  Best for: High-stakes, complex, deeply personalized  |  E.g., AE, CSM, and/or Executive Sponsor

The 1:1 touch is irreplaceable. It’s what closes 7-figure enterprise deals. What saves churning whales. What builds decade-long relationships.

Thus, move with caution: Reserve 1:1 for where it actually matters. Don’t automate it and don’t over-deploy it.

Proof: At ClickUp, we see 11X ROI lift when we move from Touch #1: Digital Self-Serve to Touch #6 Human 1:1 Sales motion.

Note: Generally, the idea is that you start cheap, escalate up the cost/value ladder as you see a behavior signal — budget conversation, usage spike, engagement falling. Along the way, the stakes will determine where to escalate to, and the behavior will determine when.

The fundamental goals of GTM are simple, and haven’t changed: Serve every customer well, at a cost that works, using the right combination of touches for where they are in their journey. It’s how you get there that needs some updates. 

Here are four key steps on the path to a blended GTM portfolio: 

The instinct when pipeline is soft is to add more touchpoints, more sequences, more follow-ups, more check-ins. But this usually makes things worse.

Based on internal A/B testing at ClickUp: More touches aren’t always more productive. Sometimes we can get an increase in conversion (a proxy for customer trust) by removing a step in our flow. 

An AE calling an account that isn’t ready to expand doesn’t just waste time; it trains the customer to screen your next call. A misplaced, expensive touch weakens confidence. 

Four moments where an expensive touch moves the outcome in your favor:

Yes, AI lowers the cost of serving any customer. But more importantly, it changes the economics of who you can profitably serve, thus reshaping your entire ICP profile and TAM.

On the one hand, AI opens up entirely new TAM segments. For example, before AI, serving a low-ACV customer with quality interaction was often a losing proposition. A rep at $150K fully-loaded (managing 50 accounts) needed $3K+ in ACV to break-even. So, companies drew a line and excluded customers below it.

In contrast, AI removes that floor: A well-deployed AI can handle discovery, qualification, and support for a $50/month customer as effectively as for a $5K/month customer, at marginal cost. It opens up customer segments that were previously uneconomical to serve well.

What’s more, AI opens expansion into new cohorts. The compounding matters. A $500 ACV customer today can be $50K ACV in three years, with a relationship already built. That was Stripe’s bet: get the startups, grow with them.

HubSpot represents the clearest working example of a full portfolio in motion. They don’t just sell AI GTM tools; their GTM runs all six channels simultaneously:

The result: $883M → $2.63B in revenue in 4 years (2020–2024), while still maintaining 21% YoY growth. 

For a different view, let’s look to ClickUp:

The goal is simple. Serve every customer well, at a cost that works, using the right combination of touchpoints for where they are in their journey. 

And remember: the companies that close the gap between GTM motions — by running GTM like a portfolio rather than worrying about SLG vs. PLG — are the ones that will scale quality revenue in this new world.

About the author: As COO at ClickUp, Gaurav Agarwal leads all Growth, Revenue, and Retention functions. He’s scaled businesses across SaaS, e-commerce, fintech, and consumer healthcare, and has advised and invested in 25+ AI, fintech, and consumer tech startups. His extensive experience in growth strategy and operational leadership has contributed to ClickUp’s rapid expansion and innovative market approach, effectively growing revenue while also reducing customer acquisition costs.

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