Lean GTM in Action: Cutting the Friction, Scaling Revenue | Rutger Katz S5:E6

Written by Mike J Midgley | Sep 8, 2025 8:51:51 AM

Welcome to the Force & Friction Podcast, where we break down what really moves the needle in GTM, RevOps, AI, partnerships, and SaaS growth.

In this episode, we continue our Revenue Architecture series and we're joined by Rutger Katz, a 15-year consulting veteran and founder of Neon Triforce.

After a neuroscience start and early work in VR research, Rutger pivoted into GTM, ops, data systems, and market consulting for companies like Unilever and many others. His unique approach combines lean methodology with revenue operations to create what he calls the "lean revenue factory."

Rutger guides us through his revelation that after mastering every tool, buzzword, and framework for 15 years, the real problem wasn't the tech or the processes, it was the duct tape system holding it all together.

This insight led him to apply lean principles from Toyota's manufacturing excellence to modern GTM operations, creating a systematic approach to eliminating waste and maximizing efficiency across the entire customer journey.

We explore how lean methodology transforms GTM operations, why most digital transformations fail due to change resistance, and the practical steps for implementing continuous improvement loops that can deliver 80% efficiency gains through simple 1% monthly improvements.

Rutger Katz

Rutger is a Lean GTM Operations Consultant and the founder of NEON Triforce.

His career spans enterprise consulting, social analytics, and customer tech, culminating in a mission to remove inefficiencies in how GTM teams work.

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Watch the Episode:

Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:

1: The Lean Revenue Factory: From Toyota to GTM

Rutger opens by explaining how lean methodology, originally developed by Toyota for manufacturing efficiency, applies directly to modern GTM operations. He sees the entire customer journey as a factory line that can be optimized.

"What I see the go to market departments, you know, going from first marketing lead coming in all the way up to an expanded or retention customer as a factory line similar. So every handover moment, every deal stage is sort of like an extra machine which you can optimize, which might have a bottleneck which might, you know, get wasted in."

This factory mindset reveals waste at every handover point, from marketing to sales, sales to customer success, and throughout the customer lifecycle. By identifying these bottlenecks and applying lean principles, organizations can dramatically improve efficiency and reduce the friction that kills deals and customer satisfaction.

2: The Three Pillars: Purpose, People, and Process

Rutger breaks down lean methodology into three foundational elements that must work together to create sustainable GTM efficiency.

"Lean has the mindset of 3 things, purpose, people and process... The purpose is ensuring that everything that you create, every step that you do has value to the customer. So you don't have, you know, an obligatory demo if the customer's already interested in doing it themselves, or an obligatory sales call if the person actually just wants to know what the pricing is."

The people element is often the most overlooked but most critical component. Just as Toyota empowered every factory worker to stop the entire production line when they spotted an improvement opportunity, GTM teams need that same ownership and enablement to drive continuous improvement.

3. The Compound Power of 1% Improvements

One of Rutger's most powerful insights centers on the mathematical impact of small, consistent improvements across the entire GTM process.

"If you have a deal stage of 6 stages, say, and if you do a 1% improvement of each stage for a month, you come up with 80% improvement of your entire usage... from just doing a 1% improvement and that 1% is tiny right? 80% improvement. That's the power of compounding."

This compound effect demonstrates why organizations should focus on systematic, continuous improvement rather than seeking dramatic one-time fixes. The key is establishing improvement loops where teams regularly assess bottlenecks and implement small optimizations.

4. Change Management: The 90% Failure Rate Problem

Rutger addresses why over 90% of digital transformations fail, focusing on the resistance that accumulates when organizations try to change too many things simultaneously.

"For every change that you have, the amount of resistance increases right? If you change a process, there's some resistance. If you change a KPI, there's more resistance... Now if you didn't use the CRM and then suddenly came up with... a CRM. And then you not just did a CRM. You also did a sales methodology... And then you told your sales people... Now you've added I think at least 3 items of resistance in there."

His solution involves identifying the 10-20% who are pro-change, the 10-20% who are against change, and focusing on the 60-80% who are undecided. The key is using ambassadors and champions to organically influence the undecided majority while isolating or removing those who actively resist necessary changes.

5. The Right Side Revolution: Lean Customer Success

Rutger shares his framework for applying lean principles to customer success and retention, addressing the critical challenge of adoption and churn prevention.

"Your platform, whatever it might be, is trying to elicit a change within your customer. So again you come into Change Management again... from the sales perspective... you have to have that discussion of, hey? This is how you can leverage our platform. This is how you become successful with our platform."

His five-dimensional adoption framework starts during the sales process, ensuring customers understand not just what they're buying, but how they'll implement it, what organizational changes they'll need to make, and what success looks like. This prevents the common pattern of "sell and leave" that leads to high churn rates.

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Final Thoughts:

Rutger leaves us with a powerful perspective on why organizations continue to default to "we need more pipeline" instead of optimizing what they already have.

"There's a sickening priority. And whenever an organization says we need more money, right? We need more cash flow. The first thing they'll go for is we need more leads. If we just get more leads, more pipeline, and will everything will work out magically, not knowing that if you've got an inefficient pipeline and just toss more stuff in, you'll waste a bunch of it."

His final insight focuses on the generational challenge facing GTM organizations—the difficulty of teaching new methodologies to people who are set in growth-at-all-costs mentalities.

"The older you get the more stuck in your old ways you become... there is not that much fresh blood within the founders and scale up world where people either start in it or they come into it from a sales role elsewhere... this mentality and this change that you want to have is incredibly tricky."

The solution isn't just implementing new tools or processes—it's creating a culture of continuous improvement where small, systematic optimizations compound into transformational results. As Rutger emphasizes, the goal is to build organizations that can identify and eliminate friction automatically, creating sustainable competitive advantages through operational excellence.

The Revenue Architecture Series

Watch more episodes from the Revenue Architecture Series - get started with the founder of Winning By Design Jacco van der Kooij's interview - watch that here:

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Mike Midgley runs a portfolio career, a dynamic hands on digital entrepreneur, founder of the Scrubbing Squad, NXD, strategist, public speaker, Winning by Design certified Revenue Architect and Host at The Force & Friction Podcast.

Mike has achieved multiple exits over a 30+ year career, raised Venture Capital and franchised his businesses 68 times.

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