Go To Market myths which still exist in 2026

A lot of go to market tools, integrations.

Demanding prospects.  

Confusing noises. 

Fear, uncertainty around. 

Things change in alternate weeks. 

Welcome to March 2026. 

You are thinking, how to execute GTM in this environment?

We are starting with the prominent go to market myths which exist in 2026. When I speak with clients, I explain to them that I still see these myths around. After these, go to market execution and serving many prospects and customers will be a lot easier. 

Starter Myths - 

• Website; why spend time on it?

Let me explain. Even in 2026, the website is one of the first impressions which your product and company has. I suggest you add/ update the product pages. Company websites should be always up to date with customer logos, testimonials, third party associations, case studies, integrations and all that exists. 

You have a lot more than you think for prospects and prospects want to know everything. It is the go to market lubricant. 

• We stopped focusing on SEO long back. 

If you know SEO, you know that it makes you work month over month even if not week over week. It requires effort, patience and focus. However, when its compounding kicks in, it rocks. I have seen it multiple times. It is one of the better inbound channels. When time comes, you can put ads on top of it. 

In 2026, in addition to SEO, think about doing GEO and AEO. Based on the stage of the revenue, in-house SEO is always the best and yields the best. SEO is in marketing and go to market is sales, is it? Both bring in revenue so go to market. 

• Spamming LinkedIn does not work. 

I understand getting responses on LinkedIn may be challenging. In 2026, it will be more challenging. Over decades Linkedin has become much of a job board and people only like posts when you change a job. They like your post and are expecting to see if you can refer them to your new company for a job. 

I suggest you keep posting relevant content on Linkedin and watch what your prospects are saying on Linkedin; it will work in the long run. Go to market is all about making that one thing work. I have seen it happen over the years. 

• Events are expensive. 

Before saying events are expensive, let’s try to understand the business model of event organisers. In many cases, they are the ones with communities of professionals where your potential buyers or ICPs reside. These communities are built over decades and take efforts and resources to nurture and nourish. If your ICPs are coming to certain events, going to those events work if done well. 

I have experienced that serious and fast moving prospects mostly visit local events. 

• Content is saturated and we do not need it. 

Post web, mobile, chat, video, and social; there is exponential growth in the quantity of content generated. GPT tools are making the creation of content easier day by day. There is no doubt that the quantity of content has exploded and the attention span of the prospect has reduced. However, quality and focused content always works. It is an integral part of go to market. 

Prospects are always looking for more and more answers; it makes them aware of the area they are in and makes their decision making easier. Your content is their answer.

Strategic Myths - 

• We can reduce prices, give discounts and it will work. 

Have you heard about these - Quarter is ending, year is ending, pressure is mounting, had to meet quota, new sales team members are there, go to market CAC need adjustment, competitors are giving discounts, Board is asking for more, it is a new partner, it is a new geography, etc. 

Reducing prices works sometimes, discounts also similar. However, it may create downstream challenges as it becomes harder to meet customer expectations and serve them better. This may break the flywheel. 

• We do not need AI positioning. 

Consumers are starting to adopt AI in 2026. Writing emails, automating simple tasks, creating photos and videos and so on. Consumers are hearing a lot about AI around them in 2026. As consumer adoption grows, enterprises will also adopt to make them productive (as an example). Hence, the products/ platforms we sell should have AI positioning. I understand that this may take time and effort but a must in 2026. It is always worth being on the cutting edge and moving alongside the consumer wave.  AI is for both technical as well as go to market teams.  

AI in go to market and AI in product is a must in 2026. 

• Strategy is not needed and systems take time. 

If you have seen revenue and scale more than once; you understand multi-point and/ or multi-channel execution and the importance of it. I am not denying that setting up a system takes time, however it is needed. Otherwise, I have seen systems where one or two key people leaving the company cripples the entire annual quota and next year. 

Think about the other bright side of the go to market for the next 3 years; not shorter than that. 

Advanced Myths - 

• There is no AI tool which gives proper intent. 

Most of the tools expect an integration, tools are expensive, that is not an intent and so on. All these are valid and happen most of the time. Here is what I have seen - we have to read between the intents and infer information from it. That information may be valid for the deal at hand or maybe not. But we should get better at reading, knowing and applying intents from prospects public/ not so public information. 

Your demo page viewed from a prospect company (google analytics), seeing your emails more than 4 times (drip campaign tool) are also examples of intent which go to market teams can use. How we discover intent signals with the tools we have, will not change even in 2030. 

• We should automate everything. 

The role of people and SDRs in the go to market process is diminishing. We can use AI to create the list, sort the list, call people in the list and prospects will buy. I trust at least in 2026, this is not happening. Maybe products which are product-led and low price, it is possible and happening. However, enterprise buyers will need to be handholded during the sales process and after that as well. 

People will always buy from people they trust; there is no better definition of go to market. This will never change. 

• Our Lists are rotating and outdated. 

Every company has lists which every go to market team member starts with. You cold-call everyone on that list and most of them are not active and may not work. Teams may get demotivated. Filter that list by company size, geography, industry and select specific designations. Higher designations are hard to reach. If you are starting up, call everyone and speak with those who wish to speak with you; it is an amazing learning experience. As time passes, you can be selective, follow BANT or other approaches. You get the point. 

Hit every list you have; cold calling is the real go to market feedback machine. 

I hope this helps. I am seeing go to market playbooks being augmented by AI in 2026. However, the basics remain the same. 

Let me know if you have a different opinion. 

Happy GTM engineering … 

PS - about the picture. Go to market and time with friends always work.

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Swagat Irsale is Growth Advocate. He works with startups and scale ups to grow revenue and scale products which enterprises love to use.