- GTMBA
- Posts
- Lipstick On A Pig - ZoomInfo Taking The GTM Ticker
Lipstick On A Pig - ZoomInfo Taking The GTM Ticker
ZoomInfo changing it's NASDAQ ticker to GTM is like Dominos Pizza changing theirs to KETO
Chris Balestras
May 20, 2025
ChatGPT’s image generator is freaking awesome
Shorter post here today, but a rant I had to get off my chest.
We’re seeing more and more people throw the term “GTM” around as the trendy monicker of the sales profession.
Some think it’s pretentious, some (like myself) see it as a much-needed intellectual rebranding.
With it being easier than ever to ship and iterate on product, UI taste & GTM will be the two most important components to actually growing a product. It’s more than selling, it’s marketing, sales, success, support, pricing/packaging, etc.
Founders we work with at my firm, VibeScaling, tell Cailen and I this - but also I’m seeing this with published data:
We wrote about the GTM name change, pioneered by Stripe (I think), in December - check it out more here.
However, we wrote this article about the name change around how we see people using this term for the rebranding. Wanting to be looked at as more than just commission-hungry sales reps, and more as consultants who do more than push product.
Last week, we saw a company look to do this on the company level: ZoomInfo.
Candidly, I can’t think of a company less suited to help lead this revolution. Actually, one: Oracle - but outside of that, it would be ZoomInfo as the anti-GTM (as it relates to the rebrand).
When I think of ZoomInfo, I think of a strong product in the 2010s, but it very much reflects the ways of the old guard that is Jurassic SaaS, as Jason Lemkin calls it.
Old school selling. Pushy sales reps. 47% hit rate on correct emails. Annual, expensive contracts.
Many tweets like this calling out ZoomInfo’s data coverage & accuracy
Quite a few Reddit posts talking about their shoddy sales practices
If there is any company that should be leading this charge, it’s Clay - Clay is THE tool that is replacing ZoomInfo at every one of my clients and is the centerpiece for any modern GTM motion.
In fact, if I see someone using ZoomInfo, I get excited because I instantly know I can save them a ton by swapping out their SaaS costs.
A biased source for sure, but one user asked Clay how they differ from ZoomInfo for data enrichment, and this is what they said:
“We often double or triple data coverage rates at a 1/5th or less of the cost of Zoominfo. A recent enterprise client, seeking to enrich inbound leads with basic company/contact info, had 30% coverage rates with Zoominfo at about ~25 cents per enrichment. They increased their coverage rates to 80% while cutting costs to less than ~1 cent per enrichment with Clay.
The reason why we have better data coverage is simple: we have multiple providers and waterfall them.”
Anecdotally, I’ve felt this to be the case, and it’s why I’ve moved off the tool.
I agree with the GTM Fund’s newsletter this week, saying “this move is a bet and a signal that go-to-market isn’t just a function, it’s the system every company needs to win.”
Right horse to bet on, wrong jockey to be cracking the whip here in ZoomInfo.
Rant over.
Death to GTM; long live GTM.
Chris
Reply