‘Is Chris Rock reading from a prompter? Is that even possible?’, I asked myself, watching him prowl on stage at San Francisco’s Chase Center.

We’re in December 2022. I had splurged on tickets to go see Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock. Two of the greatest to ever do standup in a show together meant for a special night. Rock took the stage first, and from my seats 4 rows out, I could see bullet points on the prompter. His notes. Although, I couldn’t quite make out what they said. This was symptomatic of Rock’s approach. Methodical. Regimented. And a total departure from how Chappelle did things (the prompter had nothing on it when Dave finally came out).

Chris Rock is known for his rigorous work ethic. When he’s working on a new special, he spends hours upon hours in local clubs in New York and Los Angeles working out his material. He’s usually taking notes as to how his jokes are being received by the audience. At times, he might even have someone else in the room, jotting down observations. As a second pair of eyes as to what’s happening. The jokes that receive a lot of laughter get to stay in the set. Those that fall flat get nixed or completely reworked.

Out of an initial hour-long set at a comedy club, Rock might only walk away with a few minutes for his special. Those will lead his next club outing. Other parts either just get cut or reworked in a major way. Brand new material will get tested against a live audience. Only after months of work and repetition does he walk away with an hour-long Netflix special that is airtight.

Go-to-market works in much the same way. You’ve got to throw material at your market, see how it reacts, and then make changes based on the feedback you’re getting. Out of your initial set of 17 go-to-market experiments, only two might make the cut and deserve being scaled up.

One of the biggest mistakes I see startup operators make is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Meaning, they’ll castigate away a campaign that hasn’t been completely successful, for example. “This campaign just didn’t perform”, they’ll declare. “Let’s toss it out.” And while the campaign as constituted deserves to be disposed of. What’s not true is that you can’t salvage parts of it that might be useful to us later on. I’ll usually tell my clients to pay close attention to the details. “Be a scavenger on any campaign that hasn’t been successful. Is there meat left on the bone that we can collect for later?” By asking this question, I’m trying to get my clients to think in greys. Not binary outcomes. In most cases, there are things we can take from campaigns, experiments or initiatives that have initially been deemed unsuccessful. Even if we didn’t get any interested replies, for example, were our subject lines successful in generating a high number of opens? If so, can we grab those for future campaigns? Are our connect requests on LinkedIn generating a bunch of accepts? Is our accompanying note worth taking with us? Those are questions we should be asking. And the answers we come up with are actions we should take. The data and feedback we’ve gotten from the market prompts us to act. To move the ball forward.

“God, I wish I knew why…” is another reaction I’ll get from clients as unsuccessful GTM experiments come in. That’s where the work begins as a go-to-market person. “Why do we think this didn’t perform?”, I’ll ask, prompting them to think more deeply. With experience, you’re able to come to some hypotheses. Inferences, as to why the campaign didn’t quite live up to its promise. “What could we have done better? What variables do we want to change going forward?” That’s usually where the fog starts to clear.

“I’m pushing you to think about this deeply, because that’s where the rubber meets the road. Here’s what I’m seeing from the data on this 4-step automated email campaign. Our open rate is very healthy at 57%, in aggregate. Which indicates that our emails are getting delivered and that our subject lines are effective. But here’s where we can do much better. Our reply rate landed at 2%, which sits at a third of our 6% target. And none of the replies we got were ‘interested’. We’ll most likely need to look not only at how our email body was constructed but also at what CTA/Offer we’ve put together. Are there other things we can use to lure our prospects to take an initial call with us?”

This is the kind of thinking I’m looking to instill in my clients over time. Attaining this level of sophistication in go-to-market takes months. Even with my help. But the most important quality above this thinking and rigor is the willingness to expose oneself to the market. Chris Rock possesses that quality in spades. He’s willing to get out there with his microphone and bomb repeatedly, if necessary. The best go-to-market folks are equally willing to try things and expose themselves to failure. Because, we may believe we know that works. What jokes will resonate with our audience. That we know what’s funny. That our aesthetic will guide us in making a stellar comedy special. And yet, until it’s tested against the market, that’s all fantasy. It only becomes reality when we get belly laughs from the audience.