No-BS B2B Go-to-Market: What Anastasia Albert Really Thinks About GTM, AI and the German Mittelstand

In the latest episode of "To Customer Value and Beyond", I hosted Anastasia Albert – founder of B2B Practitioners and someone who knows GTM not from a textbook, but from hands-on execution at Central, Project A Ventures and Trade Republic. What immediately fascinated me about her: she used to be a competitive rhythmic gymnast. You can tell. She doesn't beat around the bush.

Here are the key takeaways from our conversation that stuck with me most.

The US Playbook Doesn't Just Work in Europe

Many US companies come to Europe and make the exact same mistake: they take their GTM story, translate it into German and wonder why nothing happens. In the US, you often sell a grand vision top-down to the CMO. In the German Mittelstand, nobody buys like that.

German companies are consensus-driven, risk-averse and demand concrete proof – ideally local customer stories from businesses they know or could know. And then there is the works council: promoting AI efficiency gains triggers alarm bells almost automatically. Fear of job cuts is real and usually completely ignored in the GTM process.

Anastasia's response is her 3C Framework – Customer, Competition, Company – to identify these exact gaps before you start building.

GTM Without Instructions: The Lego Problem

The visual Anastasia uses here hits the mark: most companies that come to her already have Lego bricks – but no instruction manual, and the final picture is unclear. Some pieces are missing, others were assembled incorrectly and new bricks are bought before understanding what is already there.

That is why the diagnostics at B2B Practitioners start in the CRM and the funnel: Why are deals being lost? Why do customers churn after onboarding? Only once that is clear do you start building.

That sounds obvious. It isn't – most companies skip this exact step.

Revenue Architecture: Why Silos Are Not Accidental

In most companies, Sales, Marketing, Customer Success and Product work past each other. That isn't laziness, it's structure. If the CRM is viewed purely as a sales tool – without product usage data, without CS insights – nobody knows what is really happening on the other side of the pipeline.

Anastasia solves this with joint workshops where all stakeholders map out the buying process together. The result: Marketing knows what works in Sales. CS knows what was promised before closing. The Product team finally hears the right customer requests.

It isn't rocket science – but it takes someone to create that room.

AI in GTM: Powerful, but Dangerous Without Context

AI can create real leverage in GTM today – cleaning outdated CRM data, tailoring outbound campaigns to specific signals and massively speeding up research. Anastasia is no skeptic here.

However, she raises a crucial warning: without a clear ICP definition, solid positioning and a strategic framework, AI won't scale your Go-to-Market – it will scale chaos.

She sees three key developments for the coming years:

• Buyers are increasingly researching directly via LLMs like Claude and visit the website purely for validation. Traditional comparison portals are losing relevance. The consequence: if you aren't visible in AI search, you simply don't exist for many buyers.

• Brand building is making a comeback. After years of pure performance marketing, trust and brand awareness are becoming decisive again – simply because the tool landscape has become so cluttered.

• Creator-led growth on LinkedIn is gaining traction because buyers trust traditional content marketing and paid ads less and less. Subject matter experts with genuine perspectives are far more credible than any brand campaign.

What GTM Leaders Must Learn Now

Anastasia's answer to the most important future skills was clear: the ability to orchestrate AI agents – and, above all, to strategically evaluate their output. Don't blindly accept everything that comes out. Thinking remains a leadership job.

Catch the full episode now on "To Customer Value and Beyond" – and you can find Anastasia on LinkedIn.