This article is based on Matt’s brilliant talk at the Product Marketing Summit in Denver. PMA members can watch the talk in its full glory here!
I have some bad news for you: you’re a salesperson. Yup, even if you have “product marketing” in your job title, you’re a salesperson in your work.
Now, there’s no need to have an identity crisis. I’m not asking you to pick up a quota or change your comp model. What I’m here to talk about is how you can use a salesperson’s lens to build better relationships with your sales team, create a more effective go-to-market strategy, and ultimately win together.
Before we get into that, let me introduce myself. I’m Matt Heng and I’m a native Nebraskan. I’m also a former Oscar Mayer Wienermobile pilot, so if you want to learn what it’s like to have to smile and wave eight hours a day every day for an entire year of your life, come find me. Today, I’m the Head of Product Marketing at Omnipresent, a global employment solutions solutions provider.
Throughout my career, I’ve worked for a lot of different companies, and looking back over my résumé, it’s clear that I am a glutton for punishment when it comes to working with sales teams. I’ve worked in annual SaaS, I’ve worked in monthly SaaS, I’ve worked in consumption-based models, I’ve worked with SMB sales teams, and I’ve worked with eight-figure enterprise sales teams.
So, I like to think that I know a thing or two about what it takes to get a sales team on board with you as a product marketer, and I want to talk you through that today.
We’ll dive into how product marketing is from Mars and sales is from Venus, we’ll get into how to approach product marketing from a sales point of view, and then we’ll look at some options for how you can bring this to life within your organization.
Let’s do this!
