If you’re running or supporting an enterprise sales team, you know how much noise there is around B2B go-to-market (GTM) software. Everyone promises to “accelerate pipeline” or “unlock new revenue.” Most tools don’t live up to the hype, and your reps get stuck juggling a dozen tabs, none of which talk to each other.
This guide is for operators, sales leaders, and anyone who actually has to make GTM software work in the real world. We’re breaking down what actually moves the needle, with a deep dive on Profound and how it stacks up against the competition. No bingo buzzwords. Just the facts.
What Is B2B GTM Software and Why Should You Care?
First off, “GTM software” is just a catch-all for tools that help you find, engage, and close customers. For enterprise sales, that usually means:
- Account targeting: Figuring out who to go after.
- Engagement orchestration: Timing and tracking outreach across channels (email, phone, LinkedIn, etc.).
- Pipeline visibility: Actually seeing what’s working.
- Data enrichment: Filling in the blanks on leads and accounts.
The tools promise to automate the grunt work and surface the right next steps. In theory, they help you sell more with less guesswork. In practice, most teams end up with a Frankenstein stack that’s expensive, confusing, and barely adopted.
Who should care:
Enterprise sales teams with complex deals, multi-threaded buying groups, long sales cycles, and the need to show clear ROI on big software purchases.
Meet Profound: What Does It Actually Do?
Profound positions itself as an all-in-one GTM operating system for enterprise sales teams. The pitch: one platform to plan, execute, and measure your entire outbound and ABM (account-based marketing) motion.
Core Features
- Account Planning: Map org charts, track stakeholder engagement, and set custom playbooks per account.
- Engagement Tracking: Log calls, emails, meetings, and LinkedIn touches in one place.
- Deal Intelligence: Real-time alerts on deal risks, competitor involvement, and next best actions.
- Integrations: Connects with Salesforce, Outreach, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and most major sales tools.
- Collaboration: Shared notes, tasks, and win/loss analysis for team selling.
What’s Good
- Single source of truth: Instead of bouncing between five tools, you get one dashboard (assuming your reps use it).
- Customizable playbooks: Especially helpful for complex, multi-step sales cycles.
- Solid integrations: The Salesforce sync works better than most. LinkedIn integration is handy, but don’t expect magic.
- Deal health visibility: The “deal risk” alerts are useful if you have enough data flowing in.
What’s Not So Good
- Learning curve: There’s a lot going on. New reps will need real training—not just a quick demo.
- UI can feel busy: Power users will love the detail, but some folks will get lost in the tabs.
- Pricey: This isn’t for SMBs. If you’re not managing 10+ reps or big-ticket deals, it’s probably overkill.
- Data quality is everything: Garbage in, garbage out. If your Salesforce hygiene is bad, Profound won’t fix it.
What to Ignore
- AI hype: Profound talks up its “AI-driven” insights. In reality, it’s mostly surfacing patterns from your existing data. Useful, but don’t expect it to close deals for you.
- “Seamless” onboarding: No such thing in enterprise sales tech. Budget time for a real rollout.
Profound vs. the Competition
Let’s get specific. Here’s how Profound stacks up against three of the most common alternatives: Clari, Outreach, and People.ai.
1. Profound vs. Clari
Clari is the 800-pound gorilla for pipeline management and forecasting. It’s loved by revenue operations teams and most CROs.
- Where Clari wins: Best-in-class forecasting, board-ready dashboards, and pipeline inspection.
- Where Profound wins: Deeper account mapping and planning, more focus on actual sales rep execution.
- Who should use which:
- If your #1 priority is revenue predictability for the C-suite, Clari.
- If you want boots-on-the-ground tools for reps and frontline managers, Profound.
Pro tip: Some big orgs actually use both — Profound for execution, Clari for reporting.
2. Profound vs. Outreach
Outreach started as a sales engagement tool (think: sequenced emails, call tasks) and has broadened into a GTM platform.
- Where Outreach wins: Best for outbound “activity machine” teams—high-volume, multi-channel, lots of automation.
- Where Profound wins: Better for strategic, multi-threaded enterprise deals where you need to map orgs and plan each account carefully.
- Who should use which:
- If you run a high-velocity team with lots of SDRs, stick with Outreach.
- If you care more about deep account planning and collaboration, go Profound.
Pro tip: Outreach is the king of automated cadence, but it’s easy for reps to “spray and pray” and create noise.
3. Profound vs. People.ai
People.ai is all about activity capture and analytics. It’s great at pulling in signals from calendar, email, and CRM to show who’s actually talking to whom.
- Where People.ai wins: Automatic activity logging, pipeline analytics, relationship mapping.
- Where Profound wins: More hands-on account planning, playbooks, and collaborative workflows.
- Who should use which:
- If you’re drowning in manual data entry, People.ai helps automate.
- If you want to drive consistent, strategic account execution, Profound is the pick.
Pro tip: If your reps won’t log activity, People.ai is the fastest way to improve CRM data overnight.
What to Look For (and What to Avoid) When Choosing GTM Software
Here’s the honest checklist based on what actually matters in the field:
Must-Haves
- Real CRM integration: If it can’t push/pull data from Salesforce (or whatever you use), skip it.
- Adoption by reps: Fancy dashboards are useless if nobody logs in. Demo it with your team, not just your ops lead.
- Custom workflows: You should be able to tweak playbooks, stages, and fields to match your process.
- Actual support: Ask about onboarding, admin training, and support SLAs. It matters.
Nice-to-Haves
- Good reporting: Not just for leadership, but for reps. Can they see what’s working?
- Collaboration features: Notes, tasks, and shared timelines cut down on Slack/Email ping-pong.
- Mobile access: If your team lives in their inbox, a solid mobile app helps.
Ignore the Hype
- “AI-powered everything”: Most of it is just automated alerts or dashboards. Useful, but not revolutionary.
- One-click setup: These tools touch your CRM. There’s no such thing.
- Shiny UX over substance: Pretty charts are nice, but if it doesn’t fit your workflow, it’s shelfware.
Making It Work: Practical Tips for Rolling Out GTM Software
Here’s what seasoned teams do that others don’t:
- Start simple. Don’t try to automate every edge case. Pick one core workflow (e.g., account planning) and get it humming.
- Get buy-in from reps. Your ops team can’t force adoption. Find a few sales champions and have them drive the rollout.
- Integrate with what you have. Don’t rip out your CRM or sales engagement platform on day one. Let the new tool fill a gap.
- Train (and retrain). Book real training time, not just a kickoff call. Revisit after 30/60/90 days.
- Measure and iterate. Track usage and outcomes. If it’s not saving time or closing more deals, fix or ditch it.
Pro tip: The best GTM stack is the one your team actually uses. Fewer tools, better adoption, more wins.
The Bottom Line
There’s no perfect GTM platform. Profound gets a lot right for enterprise teams that want deep account planning and collaboration, but it’s not magic. Most of the value comes from how you implement the tool—not the tool itself.
Don’t get distracted by AI buzzwords or pretty dashboards. Keep your process simple, get your team on board, and iterate as you go. The rest is just noise.