Does your GTM strategy actually exist? Or you just execute tactics and calling it strategy?

I've asked a lot of founders to walk me through their GTM strategy. Very often, what I get back is a recap of the last 90 days: channels tried, campaigns run, outreach sent. That's not a strategy. That's a retrospective.

A real GTM strategy is a causal model. If we reach this type of customer, in this context, with this message, they buy for this reason. It's a hypothesis about cause and effect, not a list of things you did.

The problem with running activity without a causal model is that you can't actually learn from it. Something works, so you do more of it. Something doesn't, so you swap it out. But you never know why. You don't get smarter, you just get busier.

AI tools are making this worse right now. Teams can execute faster than ever: more sequences, more content, more touchpoints. If you didn't have a causal model before, you're now just accelerating in a direction you haven't validated. Velocity without a hypothesis isn't momentum. It's noise at scale.

I don't think most founders are being sloppy. The line between strategy and activity is genuinely blurry when you're moving fast and things are sort of working. But "sort of working" is a dangerous place to build from.

How do you distinguish between your GTM strategy and your GTM activity? Is there a test you use?