From ‘meh’ to must-have: How PMMs can turn enablement into adoption

A product marketing leader from security products manufacturer Dora Macaba shares her journey of transforming sales enablement within her organization. After becoming the first product marketing manager and AVP in North America, she discovered that traditional approaches weren’t working when two veteran salespeople retired and were replaced by Gen Z hires with no industry experience. The speaker emphasizes that product marketers must shift their mindset from content creators to true partners with sales teams, building trust through field engagement and co-creation. She advocates for spending at least three days per month in the field with sales teams and customers to understand real selling situations and gather intelligence. The presentation covers strategies for working with multigenerational sales teams, from Gen X veterans to Gen Z newcomers, requiring different learning approaches and content formats. Key tactics include conducting win-loss interviews with customers, creating bite-sized video content, implementing role-play training, and celebrating wins at all levels. The speaker stresses that adoption, not volume of content, should be the goal, and recommends starting with sales champions while not spending excessive time on resistant team members. Throughout her journey, she learned that sales enablement success requires genuine partnership, continuous engagement, and adapting content delivery methods to meet different generational learning preferences.

Tasha Birdwell, AVP, Product Marketing, dormakaba