An open GTM req is a buying signal hiding in plain sight
When a company posts for a Head of Sales or VP of Marketing, it has publicly admitted a revenue gap — and given itself a quarter before anyone fills it. That's a window.
Signal-based selling has a simple premise: reach an account when something just changed, not when a list says you should. A new executive hire is one of the strongest of those signals. But there's an even earlier one most teams ignore — the open requisition for that hire.
What an open req actually tells you
A company posting for a Head of Sales, VP of Marketing, BD lead, or RevOps has said three things out loud at once: leadership knows the function is under-built, budget has been allocated to fix it, and there will be nobody in the seat for a quarter or more.
It is, in effect, a public admission of a gap — with a budget attached. Few buying signals are that honest.
The window is wider than the hire
The gap doesn't close the day someone is hired. A new leader still ramps — and a new SDR takes three to four months to reach full quota. So the pipeline problem the req was meant to solve persists well past the start date.
That whole stretch — from posting, through the search, into the new leader's ramp — is a window where an outside system can produce pipeline immediately.
How to play it
Reach the founder or executive who owns the open role, framed around the gap they're hiring to close. Offer to bridge it: produce pipeline while the seat is empty, and hand the eventual hire a working motion instead of a blank CRM.
Done well, you don't compete with the hire — you de-risk it. The new leader inherits momentum on day one, and the company doesn't lose a quarter waiting for it.
