Can AI replace sales tasks?

That is the question we asked ourselves at Winning by Design, and in partnership with 1mind Technologies, we set out to train and deploy the first-ever WbD-certified AI sales rep.

For us, the hurdle was low: outperform the Contact Us form on the website. In the first 2 days, Jack had 285 conversations at just over 4 minutes each. That’s 19 hours of conversation. Eighteen percent of those conversations yielded an email address. We are still coaching Jack, and he will get better. Here’s what he knows for sure:

• SPICED. Jack is trained to uncover:

  • Situation: Basic facts about you, your company, your team, your motion, etc.

  • Pain: What’s not going so well for you?

  • Impact: What would happen if you could solve those issues? (emotional impact + rational impact)

  • Critical Event: By when do you need this solved? What happens if it doesn’t get solved?

  • Decision: What’s the process for making a decision?

• Revenue Architecture—the theories that underpin recurring revenue

• Winning by Design products / offerings

• His job: His job is to qualify interest, then either:

  • a) close for a “consumable” sale (book, course)

  • b) close for a meeting with an MD to speak about something more strategic

Try it for yourself!

Click on the image below, and start a conversation with Jack. Let me know what you think!

XOXO,

-db

PART ONE:  HOW TO PICK A GTM METHODOLOGY

So you want to optimize your go-to-market?

Perhaps you feel your sales team could be more efficient?

Maybe you believe sales needs to be trained in this methodology or that?

Perhaps you had great success with a methodology in the past, and you know if you could get a methodology installed in your current company, it would up everyone’s game and improve results.

If you’ve had positive experiences in the past running a sales methodology, you are likely to lean toward that methodology again, but you’re also aware of the old adage:

  “The best methodology is the one that gets adopted.”

So does it really matter which methodology you choose?  As long as it’s being followed / tracked / measured, right?

Yes and no.

Yes - It’s important that your sales organization all operates from the same playbook.  And in that sense, any methodology is better than no methodology.

But No – which methodology really does matter.  It depends what you are trying to accomplish.

And a methodology is just part of the answer.  If what you are looking for is consistency and effectiveness across the entire revenue organization, what you need is not a sales methodology, but a GTM methodology.  And if you want all those activities to sync to a backbone of consistent metrics, and a holistic growth model that contemplates demand generation and acquisition and activation and retention and growth loops–what you really need is a Revenue Operating Model.

Go-To-Market (GTM) Methodology vs. Revenue Operating Model

Beyond $10M in Annual Recurring Revenue, a revenue organization operates as a factory. The Go To Market (GTM) team consists of Product, Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success, who work together to produce revenue. 

In physical manufacturing, Kaizen, Six Sigma, and Lean Manufacturing are methodologies designed to increase the quantity and quality of production, while reducing cost.  

In our GTM factory we want to increase revenue, improve customer outcomes, and decrease costs.

The objectives are the same, so where is the Kaizen for GTM?   

• A Methodology defines how a GTM team member behaves:  contextual awareness, skills, process

• An Operating Model defines the parameters of the system within which these GTM team members work.

The Revenue Operating Model lays out the processes and mathematical principles that underpin the quantity, quality and cost of revenue production.

The Revenue Operating Model is tuned to the needs of the market:

• How do your customers prefer to buy?  

• How can you organize to serve them?  

• What processes are best employed to maximize revenue and impact while minimizing cost?  

Part of defining your Revenue Operating Model is picking your GTM motion(s).  This is highly specific and dependent on the needs of your specific market:

• An outbound GTM model would be the exact wrong choice for a low-price, self-service product

• A product-led-growth GTM model would be perfectly wrong for complex, bespoke solutions

• Etc.

And whatever model you choose, it needs to be defined and executed as a set of consistent processes, relying on common language, a measurement structure that allows you to monitor what is within tolerance, and a system for addressing issues that arise.

The process-driven organization does not assign blame or credit to individual humans.  If something goes right, it is (hopefully) due to successful execution of process.  If something fails, either the process is wrong, or it was poorly executed.  

A GTM Methodology, combined with a Revenue Operating model, provide the framework for establishing a process culture and an architected revenue machine.

Figure 1. A comprehensive Revenue Operating Model goes beyond skills training to define your data model, processes, tools, enablement, and perhaps even organization and compensation design.

How to Pick the Right GTM Methodology for Your Business

You’re convinced you need a GTM Methodology, and you want to ensure you choose one suited to your business.

All methodologies typically include:

• Common language (diagnostic framework, customer impact) 

• Coaching framework (knowledge, skills, certification)

• Ability to codify into CRM (real-time-coaching, turn-by-turn directions)

But beyond that, the details of the methodology matter.  Questions to ask yourself include:

1. Does this methodology make it easy for customers to buy from you?

2. Is this methodology relevant for all Go-To-Market teams (marketing, sales, customer success)?

3. Is this methodology customer centric: focused on achieving customer impact, rather than merely qualifying deals?

4. Is this methodology flexible enough to incorporate things already working well within your organization?

5. Is this methodology easy to measure within the systems you already have?  Can it be integrated into your tech stack beyond CRM (e.g. sales engagement, CS management, and conversational intelligence?)

6. Can you continue to evolve and build on this methodology independently without incurring ongoing licensing fees?

7. What is the methodology activation plan for executives, frontline managers, and individual contributors (see next section)?

8. What enablement materials are available to provide reps turn-by-turn directions on how to implement the required process and skills?

“We’re creating a Revenue Architecture and a consistent, common language throughout the entire customer journey. I foresee a day when the BDR organization shapes the experience from the beginning, and that same experience runs all the way to a CS consult, transforming what we're doing in terms of CS operations.”

-Julien Cerutti, Meltwater

Leadership Alignment

Sometimes we mistakenly believe that whoever holds the budget for implementing a methodology also holds the responsibility for ensuring success.  That’s a logical conclusion, but it assumes too much of one leader.  One leader cannot succeed in a GTM transformation without alignment across the entire organization.

Yes you need budget, but even more than that, you need alignment.  Let’s say the budget lives with Enablement.  Does that mean Enablement can run this project independently and ensure success?  

No.  

What if the budget lives with Revenue Operations?  

Also no.  

What if your company has one of these fancy new titles like, “Director of Revenue Enablement, Strategy and Operations,” and what if all revenue support functions report there?  

Still no.

At a recent gathering of the Winning by Design Customer Advisory Board, the consensus opinion was clear:  

Leadership alignment is required both when choosing a GTM methodology and especially when implementing.  The group specifically called out alignment across 3 levels of leadership:

1. Executive Leadership (C-level)

2. Sales Leadership (VP-level)

3. Front-line management

Involve enough of your leadership in the methodology selection to send the signal that this is non-optional.

“I feel like we underestimate executives in this.  Your executives are who make it ‘promotable work.’  They say, ‘this is our way.’  They make it a matter of company pride to follow global standards.”

-Ashton Williams, Slack

PART TWO:  HOW TO ENSURE YOUR METHODOLOGY STICKS

Higher adoption leads to better results.

But higher adoption is a function of the activation plan.  So what is your activation plan?

If you plan to simply roll out your new methodology in waves of training across your organization–accompanied by certification–it likely does not matter what methodology you choose.

Why?

Because it won’t stick.

The best reps will pay attention, remember what they were taught, and make permanent adjustments to their approach that incorporate the parts of the new methodology that resonate.

Middle-of-the-pack reps will forget soon.

And your lowest performers want to get the checkmark of having participated, so they can go back to what they were doing.

In order to truly stick and deliver lasting, predictable results, your GTM transformation program needs to incorporate the following components: 

Design

1. Leadership Alignment

“If you don't have the senior leaders who actually go through the training and are willing to inspect using the language of that methodology, it will fail every time.”

-Chuck Marcouiller, Freightwaves

An investment in a GTM Methodology is expensive.  Investing in a GTM Operating Model even more so.  

And the most expensive investment you make is not measured in money–it’s measured in time and attention.

One thing is sure:  if you roll out a new methodology across your teams, they will invest hundreds or thousands of hours in classrooms, workshops, and roleplays.  

Now the question is whether that will make any difference?  

One way to ensure failure is to not have alignment and support from leadership.

If a rep walks out of training where they learned X and into a review with their manager where she hears Y, what do you think she will do?  Y.  Every time.

Our Customer Advisory Board feels that Leadership Alignment is so critically important, they are willing to stop a project until alignment can be secured.

“We did a go-to-market analysis that included a lot of input from reps and teams and front-line managers.  But as we began to define the process, we took it out of committee and put the onus on the senior sales leadership team.  Through this process they became accountable, and now they're bought into what we're rolling out, which to me is really key.”

-Stacey Justice, HashiCorp

2. Impact Metrics & Leading Indicators

If we are to see results from the roll out of a GTM methodology, leaders must align on goals. 

Ideally we would pick an initial metric to focus on. For example, the goal of the initial methodology roll-out could be to increase rep productivity by increasing the close rate or by decreasing the discount rate. 

Note: It doesn’t matter as much which metric you pick as long as you focus on one or two at most per team. If you’re trying to master tennis, you cannot improve your serve, forehand, backhand, and smash - or your swing, grip, and stance all at the same time. Aim small, miss small. 

We call these targeted outcomes you are trying to improve “Impact Metrics.” Some good examples of GTM Impact Metrics would be:

• Improve discount rate

• Improve qualification by raising conversion rate from MQL to SQL (CR3) 

Impact Metrics are targeted enough to isolate and measure, but with sales cycles being what they are, improvements in Impact Metrics may not be visible for weeks or months.  What improvements can we see sooner?  

Leading Indicators correlate with Impact Metrics, but they are easier and faster to measure and improve. 

Ideally we want to see Leading Indicators improve from day-to-day and week-to-week.  At a minimum within 90 days we should see improvements in Leading Indicators, which–if we chose them correctly–will directly correlate with Impact Metrics.

Figure 2. Leading Indicators can provide signal well ahead of end-result Impact Metrics

Whether you adopt standard definitions provided by Winning by Design or create your own, step one is to choose the metrics you want to impact, define them, and write down the definitions.

3. Baselining

Now that you have defined your Impact Metrics and Leading Indicators, it’s time to baseline.

Baselining is best done on a trailing 90-day basis, team by team.

For volume metrics you will want to normalize output on a per-rep-period basis to account for growing or shrinking teams and for fewer or more effective work days in any given period.

For rate-based metrics (%), no such normalization is required–as long as the definition remains consistent, you can compare across periods within the same motion, regardless of fluctuations in team composition.

Activate

4. Speed Team

As soon as practical,  it pays huge dividends to name a pilot team (we call it a Speed Team) to be the first to adopt the Methodology and post results.

A Speed Team is one manager and 6-10 reps, all running a single motion in a single segment.  

The Speed Team will admittedly be stepping out in front of the rest of the teams–perhaps even before processes (Playbooks) are fully designed.  

This is not a problem.

Why?  Because we choose a Speed Team based on the robustness of the manager and the team members.  The ideal Speed Team is not afraid of new things, and their challenge is threefold:

• Iron out any kinks–find ways to improve and perfect the application of the methodology to your specific market and customers

• Show what good looks like–post metrics that exceed baseline and set a bar for the rest of the company

• Establish themselves as experts–become a resource for the rest of the team who comes after

5. “Pull” Marketing

Early results from a Speed Team are always good.  Always.

Really?  

Yes.  Because a) we chose the right team with the right manager, b) we challenged them, and c) we gave them excellent resources to adopt and apply the Methodology.

As good metrics begin accumulating, we publicize the experience and results of the Speed Team to other teams awaiting the Methodology.  Speed Team members become a sounding board and coaching resource for teams who subsequently onboard to the new methodology.  And whereas the baseline is the “thing to beat,” the fact that the Speed Team is already beating the baseline becomes all the more motivating for subsequent teams.

This is called “Pull” marketing as opposed to traditional “Push” rollouts, because in this environment, teams look forward to receiving the goodness their predecessors already got.

6. Phased Rollout:  Impact Sprints

At this point we have:

• Leadership Alignment

• Metrics Definitions

• Baseline performance

• Speed Team results (what good looks like)

• Teams waiting to adopt

With all that in place, what could possibly go wrong?

You’d be surprised.

Don’t blow this.

“An amateur practices until they get it right;

a professional practices until they can’t get it wrong.”

If you’ve executed well to this point, you have anxious / eager reps, front-line managers, and leadership all calling out to speed things up.

“What’s stopping us from just rolling out the whole methodology?  We have it designed, right?  Just train the crew and let the managers handle the reinforcement.”

That’s the right idea, but no.  Managers do need to handle the reinforcement (more on that in the next section).  But the question is–how much can reasonably be understood, practiced, inspected, improved, and measured at once?

Answer:  you know the answer.

Humans are humans, and we learn how we learn.  Kandji handled this problem by breaking down their transformation into chunks.

“We broke our Playbook into monthly chunks that we use for ongoing enablement for existing reps.

“We train fundamental skills on Thursdays and do rolling certifications.  Managers are informed who opts in, the skills are reinforced by sales management in a ‘Study Hall’ on Fridays, and then reinforced in their team meetings on Tuesdays.”

-Sonja Damerval, Kandji

At Clari they felt instinctively that although they need a complete methodology, they want to deliver these skills to their reps in digestible pieces:

“There are specific things we want to enhance  from a skill standpoint. We want to focus on discovery. We want to focus on negotiating. We want to bring more value into all of our deals. And we really appreciated that we could diagnose specific pain points for ourselves and bring in someone to help address those things.”

-Sarah Houlihan, Clari

Freightwaves has been taking one Impact Metric at a time, starting with the worst-performing parts of their selling process, based on rep conversion data compared with industry standards:

Figure 3. Leading Indicators can provide signal well ahead of results-focused Impact Metrics

Across example after example of successful transformations, we have seen the pattern of designing big, rolling out small.  Establish the Operating Model, train 2 skills at a time.

Having studied these patterns of success, Winning by Design has developed a system of phased rollout based on what we call an “Impact Sprint.”

An Impact Sprint is a focused effort on one or two skills with associated Impact Metrics and Leading Indicators.  It involves teaching, demonstrating, practicing, role-playing, and ongoing measurement and coaching.  

Work on 2 skills; practice / perfect; watch the metrics improve

1. Work on the next 2 skills; practice / perfect; watch the metrics improve

2. Etc.

Operate

7. Ongoing Measurement (Impact Office)

For a new methodology to create lasting change, ongoing measurement of the Impact Metrics and Leading Indicators is required.

Ideally, each manager knows her team’s metrics, manages to them, and coaches to them–leveraging the system she inherited.

But the effort is not only about measurement and reporting–it is also about triaging things that surface as “out of tolerance.”  Much like the manufacturing system of Six Sigma, this effort is a way to spot what is not working as expected, and aim attention and effort there, to bring the revenue factory back up to full potential.

“Understanding both the adoption of a GTM Methodology and its impact on the business is critical. One way to achieve this is to instrument and measure the “completeness” of SPICED fields in your CRM. By correlating these metrics with both win rate and deal size, you can gain valuable insights on the correlation of methodology adoption and business impact.”

-Ian Westbrook, DocuSign

• Talkwalker has implemented SPICED in Salesforce, in all internal and external case studies, throughout Gong using trackers, and in all internal win announcements.

• Freightwaves measures lift each time they focus on an Impact Metric.  As these metrics improve, they measure the resulting compound impact on growth

• HashiCorp maintains a Productivity Council for revenue, where all improvements in Impact Metrics are reported. In terms of Leading Indicators, HashiCorp is also working with Gong on a SPICED integration that will not only score calls based on the methodology, but also insert evidence of SPICED into Salesforce.

Ongoing measurement requires metrics to be codified in systems and summarized on an ongoing basis.  We call this approach an Impact Office, and our recommended minimum frequency for executives to engage with the Impact Metrics is quarterly.

8. Culture of Coaching

The key to any change program is front-line managers.

The managers must believe.

They must know the Methodology  better than the reps.

They must be willing to dive into deal reviews, process inspection, and skills assessment, using the language and structure of the Methodology.

“Our focus has been entirely on our frontline managers. The objective is to operationalize and make sure this effort is really sticky”

-Gail Behun, JuniperSquare

Managers must be able to inspect, coach, and inspire–all the while reinforcing the chosen Methodology and metrics. They must be able to diagnose issues by assessing an individual’s Results, determining whether the rep is lacking in Effort, Knowledge, or Skill, and then have the coaching tools to work with the rep to improve.  

Reps don’t need managers.  They need coaches.  

“Most of our reps have been trained and understand all the bits and pieces. But now they need coaching.  We are now focusing all our efforts on leadership alignment to establish a coaching culture.”

-Jill Guardia, Thought Industries

9. Operationalized Enablement

Not every rep will remember and implement the elements of your new GTM Methodology (shocker!)  In fact, most will forget the majority of the training once it is over.

Coaching is one solution, but it is not fool-proof.

So how does this become more fool proof?  Operationalization.

“Creating an ecosystem where the GTM Methodology is fully and accurately represented in all aspects of the sellers ecosystem is key. For example, ensuring all relevant Enablement content, sales tech-stack experiences and performance management reports align to the core principles of the GTM Methodology helps ensure/reinforce adoption. By taking meaningful steps in this area, all sellers, managers, enablers and operators are effectively "living / breathing" the methodology in what they see, hear and leverage on a daily basis.”

-Ian Westbrook, DocuSign

Some options for operationalization follow:

• Standardization:  As mentioned above, DocuSign and Talkwalker have both implemented SPICED as a standard set of fields in Salesforce, allowing for a consistent way of inspecting and measuring rep compliance with the methodology and overall deal health

• Automation:  Many technology companies have incorporated SPICED and the Winning by Design Bowtie into their platforms in such a way that it is “automatic” to follow the methodology with this enabled

  • Winn.ai prompts reps during discovery calls with suggested SPICED questions, then listens to the call, automatically picks out SPICED language, and populates the language into configured Salesforce fields on the opportunity

  • Gong has released a beta version of “trackers,” configured to SPICED, whereby it can listen for and log indicators of SPICED into Salesforce automatically

  • Catalyst has implemented the Bowtie into its standard system for managing customer engagement post initial sale

  • BenchSights has standardized on the Bowtie as its data model for benchmarking GTM motions across the industry

• Mandate:  Some companies mandate the completion of SPICED fields for an opportunity to progress through the funnel:

  • Slack has standardized all deal reviews to include aspects of the SPICED methodology. This makes deals inspectable and measurable consistently across teams.

  • Thought Industries has also standardized all deal reviews using the SPICED methodology, making inspection and measurement easy.

• Just-in-time Enablement:  The concept of just-in-time help / enablement is becoming more popular

  • Rattle has deployed in-app guidance between their CRM and Slack. This surfaces the right resources at the right time, depending on what data has or hasn’t changed within their CRM.  For instance, if a $six-figure deal enters the proposal stage, the rep is presented with a video on “Trade vs. Negotiation” to remind them of the skill that is relevant

These approaches bring the contents of the methodology right to the point of decision / action, so reps are not required to a) remember or b) look up the relevant skills as they are needed as they work with their customers.

We believe operationalization will become more and more popular as Methodologies become more and more embedded into how GTM teams operate.

SUMMARY

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”

-Lewis Carroll

In today’s environment of sustainable growth, it is important to architect your growth by design.

Each piece of the revenue factory produces important inputs for the next piece, and marginal gains across the entire process can compound to produce impressive–even transformational–results.

Not all methodologies are as ambitious as to take on the problem of growth.

Not all methodologies are built to fit within a Revenue Operating Model.

Rolling out a holistic GTM Methodology (or Operating Model) is ambitious, but remember:

3. Training on “any” methodology will get you consistency and certified personnel, but it may not get you results.

2. Hit-and-run training will produce impact that is momentary at best.

1. And choosing a sales methodology (vs. a full GTM Methodology) may improve the Sales portion of the revenue machine, but it may create disconnect with the Customer Success portion.

Collectively, we believe in the Revenue Architecture approach to transformation.  We believe a Revenue Operating Model, a defined set of processes, an agreed-upon set of metrics, ongoing measurement and tuning, and a culture of coaching are a responsible way of approaching a transformation.

Conversely, we believe hit-and-run approaches to training get you checks-in-the-boxes, but no lasting change.

It is our experience this can be done.  Growth can be architected and managed according to that architecture.

Go, fight, win!

-Dave, Dominique, and the entire Winning by Design Advisory Board 

• VP Enterprise: “Developing relationships with the largest companies in the world takes time, but that time is worthwhile—believe me, once we land XYZ customer, they will pay the bills for a long time.”

• VP Mid Market: “It’s all about velocity. If my team can qualify in or qualify out quickly, we will convert pipeline. Deals may be smaller, but they will add up.”

• Chief Customer Officer: “Please don’t bring me any more deals with small customers—they require just as much time and effort, but they retain worse.”

• VP Growth: “Self-service customers cost us nothing. They onboard themselves, guide themselves to success, and monetize on their own. Free leads to paid, and some paid customers can become large over time.”

• FP&A: “I don’t care which GTM we use, as long as it hits my hurdle of a one-year CAC Payback.”

What is working, and what is not? Why did we add that 2nd GTM motion? Should we continue, or shut it down? How long before we begin to see the benefits? What about adding another GTM now? Would it be the right time to add a sales-led motion to our product-led motion? Or to add a product-led motion to our sales-led motion?

Multi-GTM Theory

There is a simple and clear way to think about multi-GTM management for a single product. The basic theory is this: Optimize GTMs one at a time.

The metric for measuring GTM Fit is unit economics. My favorite unit economics measurement is CAC Payback. If I can get a GTM motion to reliably deliver CAC Payback that hits my threshold (<12 months is a good rule of thumb), I may have GTM Fit. If “reliably” means the GTM process looks the same every time, and the outputs are consistent, given the inputs, I’ve done it. How long does it take to tune a GTM to get to that point? 1-3 years, depending on the specific GTM.

Once I have one GTM defined, tested, and optimized, I can think about adding a 2nd. Typically I don’t want to rush this—otherwise I’ll be adding chaos on top of chaos. A rule of thumb here is $10M in ARR. If I can get a single GTM to carry me to at least $10M in ARR (maybe more), and if I feel good about the stability of that GTM, such that if I turn my attention to the next GTM, the first one won’t fall apart… if all that is true, then maybe I can start working on a 2nd GTM.

The Revenue Formula Podcast

Toni Hohlbein and Mikkel Plaen are executives at Growblocks in Denmark, and they host a Podcast called, “The Revenue Formula.” I recently guested on their podcast, where we discussed the issues related to running a multi-GTM motion: when, how, why, whether…

We use stories from our own companies and companies we’ve consulted with to illustrate the patterns of success and the pitfalls and common mistakes.

The full episode can be found here:

• Apple Podcast

• Spotify

• YouTube

I hope you enjoy the episode, and I hope you will consider subscribing to The Revenue Formula!

XOXO,

-db

What does that mean?

It means the product does work to contribute to the GTM motion itself. The product is its own means of distribution, or at least contributes thereto.

Think about all the software products you experience in your life. Who sold them to you? Who taught you how to use them? Who helped you when you got stuck?

• Netflix

• Slack

• Uber

• Zoom

• Instagram

• LinkedIn

• Calendly

Chances are, you may have difficulty thinking of any software you regularly use that was “sold” to you by a sales team and “implemented” by a PS team. That is a model that is destined for the history books.

No—in the future, software will sell itself. Software will activate itself. Software will make itself useful. It will educate us on how to use it, how to achieve Impact with it, and how to pay for it.

Even B2B software?

Even complicated software?

Even highly inter-connected or configurable software?

Yes… even those.

The Self-service Happy Path

Imagine a world where the product sells and activates itself.

Imagine your mom could use it—at least for the first steps of the onboarding process.

Imagine it is difficult to not succeed with the initial tasks associated with setting up an account and accomplishing a first objective.

We all know this software—we’ve used it. We also know software not built this way. It’s frustrating to use, and we find ourselves looking for 3rd-party tutorials or videos or guides to help us cut through the clutter and get to the promised Impact.

Now imagine your company has the “good” kind of software—the kind that makes itself easy to understand and use. Software that doesn’t confuse users with a plethora of features up front, but rather guides them to a First Impact in a way that feels fool-proof. Imagine that is the software your company sells. Let’s call this the “self-service happy path.”

The self-service happy path is essential for all PLGTM. Why? Because humans are smart. We have self respect. We don’t want to do menial tasks.

• Salespeople don’t want to chase signatures and manage transactions

• Customers don’t want to sit through classes or read manuals

• CS people don’t want to train on buttons and features

…and the product can do all this and more!

So why would we ask people (our people or the customers) to do menial tasks that the product could do? The only explanation is that we haven’t had time to build “ease-of-use” into our product yet, and that is a terrible reason.

If we don’t take time to focus on ease-of-use… if we can’t “afford” to spend product and engineering resources on the self-service happy path... if there are other things more pressing than getting this right, what are the competing priorities?

Often the development priorities that compete with ease-of-use are more features, and this just exacerbates the problem. Will more features make it easier for your mom to succeed? It may be something a power-user wants, but at the expense of all other users’ (and especially new users’) sanity?

Get the Product to Carry Water

In PLGTM, the product carries GTM water. It does the “work” of GTM, and the self-service happy path is a big part of this.

What is GTM?

GTM includes all functions that help your customer proceed from Discovery to First Impact to ultimate Expansion.

Typical GTM functions include: Marketing, Sales, CS and Account Management.

But why couldn’t the product do some of this work? Why couldn’t the product help with marketing, sales, CS and account management?

It could!

And it should!

This is what we mean by the product carrying water. We need to insist that the product be central to as many of these functions as possible. The product must carry water. Humans have short attention spans. They don’t want to do menial tasks. If we lose our customers’ or employees’ attention, we will be in a world of hurt.

We must ask the product to carry water in the GTM process.

Imagine a world where your marketing team just has to get a customer to the product, and then it can demo itself.

Imagine a world where your salespeople work with customers on how to better achieve Impact with the product—not talking about how they might achieve Impact in the future, but how to expand the Impact they already have.

Imagine a world where your CS people aren’t doing onboarding calls or training sessions, but rather master classes and strategy sessions.

Imagine a world where your account managers are helping champions discover additional use cases where the capabilities of your product could create significantly more Impact for your customers.

This is Prodcut-led GTM.

Product-led GTM

In Product-led GTM, the product does the menial, repetitive, and automate-able work in the GTM process.

Demoing, trial account provisioning, transaction processing, intake interviews, configuration, initial project guidance… all this can be done by the product.

• The product can do it more reliably

• The product can do it less expensively

• The product can make itself beloved…

If it is easy to use. If you have dedicated product and engineering resources. If there is a self-service happy path.

And now, when your people engage with the customer’s people, it’s anything but boring.

The conversation revolves less around transactions and functionality and more around strategy and Impact.

Now our teams are pushing beyond the basics and working on higher-order problems: how to attack certain use cases or business problems, not how to use a certain feature.

This is product-led GTM, and it all starts with a self-service happy path.

If the product can carry the water of making itself easy to discover, use, purchase, and expand… then our people can operate at a higher level.

If you don’t have a self-service happy path, you are behind.

Ask yourself if the features your product team is working on are more important in the grand scheme than having a product that is easy to use.

Yes, you may have promised new features to this customer or that. And yes, their loyalty may hang in the balance. But is that your business—making and keeping feature development promises one customer at a time?

Or is your business serving the market with easy-to-use software that can reliably deliver Impact?

It’s an important question. An existential question.

What are your competitors doing?

Who will get to the promised land first?

Here’s sending you positive vibes and wishing you all the courage and resolve to win! Head up and eyes forward. This is why we got into this. It’s fun!

-db

A: If it helps her hit quota.

Every month, quarter and year is another quota period for a CRO. Each new quota period requires a plan to hit quota, and CROs have their own methods for sketching out “Path A” and “Path B” and “Path C” to make sure they can bring it home.

For CROs lucky enough to have a flywheel business, a large percentage of their quota may be safely “bankable” without much thought. This flywheel may be a large recurring revenue base and/or a PLG engine that brings in new business without manual intervention. As long as the flywheel machinery continues to produce, the CRO can reliably focus on the remaining portion of quota that is not “automatic.”

Let’s consider an example. Say a CRO owns a quarterly quota of $10M, of which $8M is renewals and $2M is new business. Let’s further assume that $6M of the $8M in renewals are fairly certain, and the other $2M is at risk.

Okay… now our CRO must think about:

• How do I secure $2M of at-risk renewals?

• How do I secure $2M of new business, from a mix of expanding existing customers and landing new ones?

Which parts of this are product led? That was determined a long time ago, when the company’s revenue architecture was established.

• Are the $6M in “certain” renewals automatic, self-service renewals, or do we still need to process those manually?

  —> Depends on whether the Product / Growth team built in self-service renewals.

• Are the $2M in “at-risk” renewals at-risk because of signal we see coming from the product?

  —> Depends on whether the Product / Growth team built usage / health signals

• Will any of the $2M of new business needed be surfaced via product usage? In other words, is free product usage creating pipeline?

  —> Depends on whether the Product / Growth team built in free-to-paid options

But all of that was set in motion many quarters ago, when product teams built those capabilities into the product. There is nothing the CRO can or should do about it now—she has to focus on delivering the quarter.

Product-led GTM is a CEO Decision

Being a CRO is stressful. Would a CRO like portions of their job to be handled by the product, so they can focus only on the exceptions? Of course they would! Do all CROs have this luxury? Of course they don’t! But this isn’t because of anything they did or did not do. Building product-led motions into a revenue architecture is a strategic decision that generally lives with the CEO.

Why does this have to be a CEO decision? Why can’t the product team operate independently and build in those product-led functions? Here’s why: building product-led motions into your GTM, whether it be product-led marketing, product-led sales, product-led renewals, or product-led expansion, requires coordination and cooperation across revenue and product functions.

Building product-led motions into your GTM requires coordination and cooperation across revenue and product functions.

Since revenue and product functions intersect only at the CEO level, by default it becomes a CEO’s decision whether and when to sponsor such a cross-functional effort.

Consider the company that was built without product-led GTM who now wants to add it. How was the current GTM established? Through trial, error and refinement.

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Companies typically work on go-to-market fit for 1-2 years, even after establishing product-market fit. Why? Because the first thing you try doesn’t work perfectly, the second thing you try may be slightly better but not economic, the third thing you try may be economic, but doesn’t scale, etc. After a year or two of experimentation you may have a GTM that works. An example formula could be: content marketing to drive inbound interest, a call-to-action for a free consultation, an initial conversation that qualifies the prospect as an opportunity, a hand-off to sales, and then a close process.

Let’s say you now want to add a version of this that starts with self service (PLG). Where will the leads come from? How will you know which leads to send down the self-service route vs. the inbound lead qualification route? How will you handle monetization? What converts better—a free trial or a reverse trial? When should salespeople engage (if at all)?

You are now launching a whole new set of experiments that involves marketing, sales, product and engineering. You have to build and test various user experiences and activation / monetization strategies until you hit on the combination that works and that complements your current GTM. You will likely also have to make changes to the core product to make it easier to use out of the gates. It takes another 2-3 years to iterate on all these changes and identify and tune a PLG strategy, and such a joint effort requires sponsorship by the CEO.

CRO Advice

My CRO friends don’t need this advice, but here it is anyway: Don’t worry about PLGTM unless and until your CEO is sponsoring it. Since you don’t control the resources required to pull this off, and since it would take 2-3 years to get it done, you can’t afford to take your eye off the ball of hitting your quarterly and annual number.

The next time you have the luxury of choosing which company to work for, you may want to evaluate whether the company already has legitimate PLGTM motions in place that could help you sleep better at night by automating portions of the GTM. These tend to be difficult jobs to get, but they also tend to be high-growth, low-braindamage opportunities. I highly recommend looking for a next position with bonafide PLGTM in place. It’s likely to be a place where a modern CRO can thrive.

CEO Advice

PLGTM is the future—start now.

You don’t have to start with product-led customer acquisition. That tends to be the most difficult of the product-led GTM motions. But you can and should look at product-led renewals, product-led onboarding, product-led expansion….

Sponsor your first Growth Team. Staff it with product, engineering, design, marketing and analytics.

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Give this team an outcome to focus on and watch them set to work automating and “de-laboring” one of your GTM functions, and thereby making it more efficient and more reliable. (More on PLG team structures here.)

Conclusion

PLGTM is not a CRO responsibility. The CRO has a job to do, and if PLGTM can help them, great. But they can’t drop tools to build it. That’s someone else’s job. Whose job? The CEO.

The CEO is the sponsor for the Revenue Architecture of the company, and if/when they decide product-led GTM is in order, they will need to sponsor a cross-functional team to build it.

More on how to build in future posts.

XOXO,

-db

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I hope you enjoy it! if you do, share this post with others you think might enjoy it too.

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Here are links to files you may be able to use:

• PLG Happily Ever After - PDF

• PLG Happily Ever After - Google Slides

Have a week and weekend, everyone!

XOXO,

-db

If you were able to join us at GTM 2023 in Nashville, fantastic! These are the slides we used to facilitate our conversation on Product-led GTM.

Whether you were able to attend or not, I hope these slides are helpful in understanding Product-led GTM. Maybe you can use them in internal meetings as you build alignment across your product and GTM teams.

The more we can get the product working for us and our customers—rather than the other way around—the better.

XOXO,

-db

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In December, 2023 I reached an agreement with Stanford University Press to publish a book on Product-led Go-to-Market. The manuscript was complete as of that date, so what remains is reviews, editing, graphics, layout, distribution and marketing. We expect the release to be Fall of 2024.

In the meantime, subscribe to this SubStack for the latest thinking on product-led GTM and updates on the progress of the book!

Product that Sells Itself is written for executives and managers of companies that may not have been built PLG from the ground up, but would like to explore when, whether and how product-led principles could apply to their business, including how to build product-led motions into an existing company.

The book represents thousands of hours of research, including interviews with some of the top practitioners of Product-led GTM, including leaders from Figma, Dropbox, Miro, Lucid, Calendly and Atlassian. We also spoke with executives from companies who built product-led motions into their businesses after they were already at scale ($100M or more in revenue): MongoDB, HubSpot, Unity.

We make the case for the purity of PLG as a GTM, but we also highlight PLG’s limitations. The book contextualizes PLG within the broader trend of Product-led GTM, where we rely on product to do all it can to provide leverage for GTM teams, who intervene when and where helpful for the customer to scale the Impact they are achieving with the product.

This book also includes step-by-step chapters for how to build and optimize product-led motions, and focuses on how to do this inside a company that wasn’t built that way from the ground up.

It also stretches the concept beyond software and looks at Product-led GTM in other parts of the economy.

It has been a privilege and honor to work on this book with some of the brightest people I know. I hope you will join the conversation here and continue the exploration of all things Product-led GTM.

XOXO,

-db

“Of course!”

I used it in my next meeting

“That makes a ton of sense!”

And my next, and my next, and my next….

Why does this one phrase: “Product-led GTM” evoke such ascent?

Because we are tired of the either-or. It’s not either PLG or sales. Product wants to be part of the revenue team, and sales wants to be part of the “next big thing.”

Cool, so Product-led Sales, right?

Of course, Product-led Sales is a thing. But so are Product-led Renewals and Product-led Expansion. Product is and should be involved in all aspects of GTM.

Product-Led GTM is a growth model where self-service product usage generates revenue and opportunities for human-assisted sales, renewals and expansion.

I spent the first half of my career in definitively sales-led companies. I had titles like:

• VP Alliances

• VP Marketing

• VP Product

• VP Solution Sales

At companies like:

• ProfitLogic

• Oracle

• InsideSales

When I took the title of CEO and moved to Silicon Valley, I learned in a very real way what it means to be product-led. I ran a company called Fundly and then a company called ZenPrint, both of which had full self-service GTM motions that we optimized for unit economics and growth.

Now I’m Executive Chairman of Winning by Design, the leading SaaS consulting and training company for Revenue Architecture. I also sit on the board of Forrester (NASDAQ: FORR) and invest in SaaS companies through Formative Ventures. With the benefit of these perspectives, I am convinced more than ever that we can and must do both PLG and sales-driven GTMs, and they must be connected. The bulk of our GTMs in the future will therefore be product-led, meaning the product will do the work to tee up opportunities, and where necessary, humans will provide assistance.

This SubStack is dedicated to all things Product-led GTM. Follow, comment, share, contribute!

The future belongs to the courageous. Come be courageous.

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XOXO,

-db