How I Pick the Lead B2B Go-To-Market Motion With EPIC, Then Size and Anchor It

Most teams I meet chose their motion by copying a company they admire, and that company usually sells a smaller deal on a shorter cycle. In 24+ years of B2B marketing and 37+ client engagements, I have seen more pipeline lost to running the wrong motion well than to running the right motion poorly.

At Seclore, where I was Director of Product Marketing from July 2016 to October 2017, we closed Rs 2.35 Cr TCV in 6 months through account-based marketing, with 225+ sales meetings across our target accounts, and revenue grew 165%. At Happay, where I was VP Marketing from November 2019 to January 2022, ARR grew 161%, enterprise deal size rose 178%, and 65 to 72% of pipeline was marketing-sourced. A deal size that rises like that is the kind of change that should make a team score its motion again, because deal size is one of the inputs that moves the EPIC scores, as the example below shows.

The second mistake comes after the motion is right: the team points it at every segment at once. My rule of thumb, not the tool's: an account-based team on a 150-day cycle can work a few dozen accounts properly at a time. The roadmap's own example figures, a list of 50 narrowed to 20 pilot accounts, sit in that range, which is why the first segment matters as much as the motion.

The motion comes first because it decides what a good segment looks like. Ecosystem and ABM needs named accounts you can reach role by role; Product-Led Growth needs many buyers who can start without a salesperson.

The buying group comes next because an account-based motion is run at roles, not at companies. Then ICP Intelligence sizes each segment with its own ICP match rate, which matters when I expect the roles you need in more banks than retailers.

IMPACT goes last, because its ranking is only as good as the segment list and the counts you give it. By then you have both. The order is in the table alongside.

Step 1. Score the four motions, then score them again with the full inputs

Input to the EPIC audit: Branchwire's challenge in its own words ("Deals close only after a costly outage at the buyer, and procurement compares us line by line with the national operators"), telecom, Series B. That first run came back marked preliminary, with Ecosystem and ABM at 7 and the other three at 5 or 6, and this note: "Your scores are evenly distributed. This usually means no motion has pulled ahead yet."

I ran it again with the optional inputs: ACV $240,000, a 150-day cycle, NRR 112%, 1,200 addressable accounts (the banks and retail chains sized in step 4), deals mostly from outbound, India, current channels outbound and events, and no self-serve. The scores moved as in the table alongside, and the tool named Ecosystem and ABM as the lead motion with this reason: "Series B starting point 7; ACV above 50,000 US dollars (E +2); Deal cycle above 90 days (E +2); India B2B (E +1); held at 10, the top of the scale."

How to read it: never act on a preliminary run; deal size and cycle separated the motions, and the first run had neither. Ecosystem and ABM added up to 12 before it was held at 10, so its lead is wider than 10 against 7 suggests. NRR, the account count, the current channels and self-serve fired no rule at these values, so they moved no score.

The second place is a tie. Inbound and Outbound and Community-Led both score 7, and the tool names Community-Led as secondary. My own working rule, not the tool's: break a tie with the motion that already brings your pipeline. Branchwire's deals come from outbound, so outbound supports the account-based motion in year one, and a small roundtable for bank network heads is the community bet.

Keep the sector notes from this run: who decides, the objections, starting with "Price per site is higher than the national operator", and the proof that lands: "Uptime and repair time across the pilot sites, compared with the incumbent's record for the same sites."

Step 2. Turn the lead motion into a 90-day plan

Input to the roadmap tool: motion E, 90 days, business model connectivity. It returned three steps for each of days 1 to 30, 31 to 60 and 61 to 90, with the account counts marked as example figures.

How to read it: the roadmap takes only the motion, the plan length and the business model, so any company leading with Ecosystem and ABM gets the same plan. Treat it as the checklist. My translation for Branchwire is in the right-hand column of the table alongside; it is my reading, not tool output.

Name partner types before day 1. For banks I would start with managed security providers, because the CISO reviews the security overlay, and the integrators who run branch IT.

Step 3. Map who decides in a buyer with 50 or more branches

Input to the buying group tool in ICP Intelligence: champion Head of Network Infrastructure; known stakeholders CIO, CISO, Head of Procurement and Head of Branch Operations; $240,000 a year; 50 or more branches; business model connectivity.

What came back: the roles in the table alongside, procurement as a reviewer, a role I had not named ("Network Manager (user)"), and the technical evaluator "not named in your stakeholders".

How to read it: the line-by-line comparison with the national operators is answered in the economic buyer row: "Compare the total cost per site, including outages, repair time and the IT team's time spent managing links." Build that comparison before procurement asks for a rate card, because a rate card is the one comparison Branchwire loses.

The tool placed the Head of Branch Operations as the day-to-day user and gave that role the same price-per-site objection as the CIO, with general user questions such as "What would make you actually use a new tool?". In a network sale the daily user is the network manager the tool added. Read the branch operations head as the person who feels the outage, and ask the tool's question for that role: "What does an outage cost a branch in a day: lost sales, idle staff, or something else?" Every account-based message should carry that number.

Hand-off to step 4: the map tells you what to count. A segment's ICP match rate is the share of its companies with a named Head of Network Infrastructure, or an equivalent who owns uptime per site. Check that by hand for a sample of 100 banks and 100 retail chains before you trust any sizing.

Step 4. Size each segment the motion could aim at

Input to the sizing tool, run once per segment: 400 Indian banks and NBFCs with 50 or more branches at a 40% ICP match, and 800 Indian retail chains with 50 or more branches at 25%, both at $240,000 and a 2% Year 1 share.

Why the match rates differ: the tool's sector note says to "count only companies where the roles above exist and the problem is measured (uptime per site and mean time to repair)". The 40% and 25% are my assumptions for this example, not findings: I guessed that more banks than retailers have a named network head who tracks uptime per branch. The hand check from step 3 replaces both.

How to read it: the number to defend is the customer count, about 3 banks or about 4 retail chains in year one. The tool shows "~1 deals/month" for both, but that is rounded up: three deals a year is one every four months, so plan for about one close a quarter. With a 150-day cycle, a year-one deal must be open by about month seven, so the pipeline ($2.3M or $2.9M at the example 1 in 3 win rate) has to exist in the first half.

Step 5. Choose the beachhead with IMPACT, and know when to overrule it

Input to the anchor market tool: three segments (banks and NBFCs, retail chains, diagnostic and clinic chains); current customers "Two private banks with 120 and 300 branches, and one fashion retail chain with 80 stores", all signed after an outage; the pain "When the branch link goes down, tellers and billing counters stop, and we wait days for the national operator to send someone"; $240,000; counts 400, 800 and 300; 30% ICP match; 2% share.

What came back: retail chains first with 17 of 25, banks 16, diagnostic chains 13. Pain and Reference come from shared words, Budget from counts times deal size, and the other two sit at "the middle score 3 for every segment".

How to read it: retail led on Budget (5 against 3), which is market value, 800 companies against 400, not a measure of who can pay. It led on Reference (5 against 4) although two of the three customers are banks, because "retail", "chains" and "stores" are three shared words and "banks" and "branches" are two. Banks led on Pain (3 against 1), because only "branches" appears in the pain. The tool says so: "The match is by words, so ask three buyers in Retail chains with 50 or more stores which problem they raise first before you commit."

When I reran it in branch words, more changed than the names. The segments became "Private banks with 50 or more branches", "Retail chains with 50 or more branches" and "Diagnostic chains with 50 or more branches"; the customers became "one retail chain with 80 branches"; the pain became "the branch stops serving customers". Narrowing "Banks and NBFCs" to "Private banks" also changed the segment, though I kept its count at 400. Retail still came first with 19, private banks 17, diagnostic chains 16. Between the top two, Pain and Reference were level ("private" also matched for banks; diagnostic chains scored 4 on Reference), and Budget alone made the gap.

My call, which overrules the tool: banks first. Two of the three reference customers are banks, which you can check in your own CRM, and in both runs retail's lead over banks rested on Budget, which counts companies, not who can pay. The match rates from step 4 cannot decide it, because they are my assumptions. The hand check can: at a 2% share, three year-one deals need about 150 qualifying banks, so at least about 38 of 100 sampled banks must have a named network head who tracks uptime per branch. For retail, four deals need 200 of 800, so about 25 of 100 sampled retail chains.

The tool's bank questions set the second test: "how long the security, vendor risk and compliance review takes" against the 150-day cycle, and who signs $240,000 ("ask whether that holds here or whether a committee approves it"). If the sample passes, three bank network heads raise outages unprompted and the review fits the cycle, banks are the beachhead. If not, retail goes first. Keep the per-segment sizing from step 4: IMPACT applies one ICP rate to every segment, so its retail figures (SOM $1.15M, "about 4.8 customers") differ.

1. Run the EPIC audit with every optional input from last year's closed deals, and read the rule behind each score.
2. If two motions tie, break the tie with the motion that already brings your pipeline.
3. Translate each roadmap line into your own segment, partner types and account count.
4. Hand-check 100 accounts per segment for the champion role, then size each segment with its own match rate.
5. Rank the segments in IMPACT, then book three buyer conversations in each of the top two.

1. Acting on a preliminary score. Without deal size and cycle, the motions look evenly matched.
2. Reading the number without the rule. The reason line shows what moved the score.
3. Running the roadmap as written. It is the same for every company with the same lead motion; the specifics are yours to add.
4. Using one ICP rate for every segment. Banks and retailers do not have the same share of companies with the roles and the measured problem.
5. Accepting a beachhead without reading why it won. Check whether the top score came from your customers and pain or from a larger company count.

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