When it comes to growth strategies, Lindsey Kratzer is the go-to expert for getting down to business. She’s a Fractional Growth Leader and healthcare consultant focusing on deploying go-to-market (GTM) strategies.

With a background in economics and finance, Lindsey chose to pursue her passion for health, nutrition, and wellness instead of a career in spreadsheets. She’s a specialist in refining product-market fit and developing GTM strategies for healthcare companies targeting large employers. In the past, she’s worked with Fortune 1000 employers, including Google, Genentech, Microsoft, Intel, Rocket Mortgage, and Tesla.

Keep reading to discover Lindsey’s tips to succeed with your GTM strategy and drive faster results.

What motivated you to become a fractional executive?

I am passionate about health and wellness and thrive on partnering with game-changers across the healthcare ecosystem.  My role as a fractional executive broadens my horizons through exposure to diverse healthcare business models while allowing multiple companies to leverage my expertise. I love partnering with startups and innovators dedicated to reimagining healthcare to develop impactful GTM strategies. Exposure to various healthcare business models enhances the value I bring to each client. At the same time, I value the flexibility and benefits of being my own boss!

What makes a successful go-to-market strategy? 

The key is ensuring your product solves a fundamental problem in the market. Finding your unique product-market fit is crucial in the early days. Understanding your customers and your value proposition is invaluable.

When the value proposition is complex or misaligned with the customer, it’s challenging to build a business. This is the foundation for your GTM strategy and should inform your target market, pricing strategy, marketing, and more.

How soon should I change my go-to-market strategy if I do not see the desired results?  

It takes time to see results from a GTM strategy. It’s tough to envision all variables before launching your strategy. I’ve worked on projects where it takes up to a year to see significant revenue generation from your GTM strategy.

That said, I believe in setting goals and a few KPIs to evaluate success and continuously evolve based on feedback. Testing and iterating in real-time and pivoting based on market feedback and performance data can help you refine your GTM strategy to drive faster results.

Meeting with various customers and stakeholders during the strategy and planning phase helps to ensure you are developing a GTM strategy that will resonate. For startups who struggle with limited time and resources, I recommend zeroing in on a specific customer segment and getting to know that customer deeply.

Many founders in healthcare find that the biggest challenge is the long lead times. Can they plan or account for this in their strategy? 

Absolutely. Understanding the benefits buying cycle is vital to growing with healthcare buyers. Most healthcare buyers desire to launch new solutions on January 1st. Given this timeframe, I recommend that companies begin planning now for 2025. Most buyers will explore new solutions in Q1 and Q2 for a January 1st, 2025 go-live. 

 That said, off-cycle buying decisions do happen. Another way I’ve seen companies successfully navigate this is through pilots. Many large customers are willing to pilot a solution mid-year before a broader rollout on January 1st.

If I build my go-to-market strategy early in my career, what are three essential things I should be accounting for or tracking, data-wise? 

Having clear, quantifiable goals and a plan to track KPIs to evaluate performance is essential. A few KPIs that I focus on are:

• Win-loss ratio and buyer profile to understand who is buying (or not) and why.
• Customer acquisition costs to gauge the effectiveness of your GTM strategy and marketing budget.
• Buying cycle and sales cycle length, so you can more accurately forecast revenue.

I also recommend setting up a feedback loop where you can quickly source feedback from customers and other stakeholders to inform ongoing product development.

How would you recommend founders target who their audience or client is? 

Given that many founders operate with limited resources, it’s important to focus on a specific customer segment that will be an early adopter. These customers should have a core problem that your product solves and a budget and desire to address that problem.

Understanding how your customer will purchase your product is essential, and ensuring your sales processes and materials are designed to guide the buyer through it. Buyer personas can be invaluable to understanding the customer and driving focus around your target audience.  As you gather data and feedback, evaluate your target customers and what value they derive from your product to refine your target market further.

What values do you bring to founder who work with you? 

I love working with founders across the healthcare ecosystem and learning about different business models. I specialize in GTM strategies to reach healthcare buyers and have expertise in many areas, including digital health, primary care, value-based care, and employer-sponsored healthcare. In the past, I’ve held product, growth strategy, account management, and business development roles.

 I deliver the most value for clients when I am embedded in the organization and truly collaborating with founders and their teams. I work with companies on engagements ranging from advisory roles a few hours a month to fractional leadership roles where I work on a client daily. 

Frequently, the relationship develops from a small project or advisory relationship into a longer-term fractional executive role. I also have talent resources that I can bring in for project-specific support.

 At heart, I’m a people person and problem solver. I value building relationships and love exposure to new ideas. I’m committed to driving positive change and impact in healthcare.