From Lead Volume to Deal Value | GTT Communications Case Study

When the CEO and board at GTT Communications, a $3 billion network and security company, decided to shift upmarket, the demand gen engine didn’t get the memo. It kept generating leads for the wrong services, burning budget on deals that no longer fit the strategy.

As VP of Demand Generation, I led a complete overhaul using my PRIME framework. By redefining the ideal customer and implementing a tiered account-based marketing approach, the average new deal size grew from $360K to $1.3M ARR, a 3.6x improvement, within the same team size.

The challenge

GTT had made a clear strategic decision: sunset lower-margin services and focus on higher-value enterprise solutions. The problem was that the demand gen function hadn’t pivoted with it.

The marketing engine was:

• Attracting prospects primarily interested in soon-to-be-discontinued services
• Consuming budget on leads that didn’t align with the new strategic direction
• Keeping sales teams busy with deals that didn’t support growth targets

The result was wasted resources, frustrated sales teams, and marketing ROI that couldn’t justify the spend. The longer it continued, the greater the risk of customer churn and compounding financial losses.

When I stepped in, I immediately recognized this as a fundamental misalignment across multiple dimensions: who we targeted, how the revenue engine was built, and which metrics we optimized for.

The approach

I applied the full PRIME framework to realign every layer of the demand gen function.

P: Potential Mapping

I started by mapping the misalignment and the opportunity inside it. The engine was tuned for soon-to-be-discontinued services, so the fastest path to higher-value pipeline was redefining who we targeted, not working harder at the existing motion. To get that right, I established ongoing partnerships with Product and executive leadership to align on what constituted our high-value services and who should buy them, the foundation everything else built on.

R: Roadmap & Strategy

I redefined the ideal customer around the new high-value services, then implemented predictive analytics to score accounts and contacts on fit and potential value, segmenting them into practical tiers:

• 1:Many: broader targeting with scalable approaches
• 1:Few: focused attention on promising segments
• 1:1: tailored engagement with the highest-potential accounts

This tiered ABM structure became the backbone of the new revenue engine, and it drove a messaging overhaul designed to resonate with the right audience and differentiate GTT in a crowded market.

I: Implementation Planning

I developed a clear plan for allocating marketing budget across account tiers and channels, matching investment levels to potential returns so the channel mix fit the specific needs of each target segment rather than being spread evenly across everything. To execute quickly without losing control, I planned an external agency engagement to translate the tiered strategy into concrete campaign plans.

M: Migration & Execution

I hired and managed the agency to put the tiered campaigns into market, maintaining strategic control while accelerating execution. In parallel, I shifted the KPI framework away from lead volume toward quality metrics: pipeline influence, average deal size, and marketing-attributed revenue. That meant educating stakeholders on why the old metrics were misleading and standing up new reporting dashboards to track real progress.

E: Enablement & Adoption

I maintained continuous alignment with sales leadership throughout, making sure they understood and bought into the strategic shift. This included developing new enablement materials focused on enterprise value selling and establishing continuous feedback loops on lead quality, so the marketing function stayed calibrated to what sales actually needed. I also assembled a specialized team that used AI tools to define new Ideal Customer Profiles and develop messaging frameworks for each ICP tier, ensuring communications hit the mark without adding headcount.

The results

The transformation delivered measurable impact across every dimension of the engagement:

Deal size tripled. Average new deal size jumped from $360K ARR to $1.3M ARR, a 3.6x improvement, directly supporting the strategic shift upmarket.

SQL quality increased substantially. The number of sales-qualified leads aligned with high-value services rose significantly, validating the repositioned ICP and messaging.

Channel efficiency improved. The tiered channel strategy allowed spend reductions in some areas while increasing investment in others, producing better overall performance from the marketing mix.

Sales team satisfaction improved. Sales leadership provided direct positive feedback, acknowledging they were receiving “much better and more valuable” deals, a direct result of tighter sales alignment.

AI-powered efficiency. By using AI and automation throughout, the entire transformation was executed with the same team size despite the increased complexity of the approach.

Why this matters

Volume-based marketing metrics can mask strategic misalignment that quietly undermines your growth goals. A high lead count means nothing if those leads don’t fit the deals you actually want to win.

If your demand generation engine is optimized for the wrong targets, realignment requires work at every layer: the ICP, the messaging, the channels, the metrics, and the sales handoff. That’s the PRIME framework, and it’s what turned GTT’s demand gen function from a volume machine into a strategic growth driver.