AMA: Freshworks Senior Director - Global Demand Generation, Abhishek GP on Stakeholder Management

Strategies usually get defined bi-annually or annually and most of us don't have complete influence and control on what gets defined. So allow me to stray a bit and take this opportunity to share some 'tactics' that have worked for me.  1. Do you use common vocabulary? You will be surprised how many salespeople in your organization don't understand the difference between an 'acquired contact' and a 'marketing qualified lead'. Many times, this could be attributed to a combination of a lack of com ...Read More

My role evolved as the organization grew from $100 mil ARR to ~4X the size today. In earlier days, our GTM motion was primarily PLG. I was measured on Qualified Traffic as a leading KPI, and Trial volume and Sales CVR% as the lag KPIs. Today, we have a twin GTM engine - PLG & Direct Sales model. My role and success parameters have evolved accordingly. I'm measured on Marketing sourced and influenced pipeline. The leading metrics are Trial volume and # of accounts displaying category intent a ...Read More

100%. A rule of thumb that has been helpful for me is that your organization's primary Go-to-market motion defines the primary and secondary stakeholders that you interact with. For each stakeholder, it's essential to define a commonly agreed-upon success criterion/criteria that make both teams successful. Most of your discussions with the stakeholder would hover around this chosen set of criteria.  a) In a Product-led Growth model, Product Management is one of the two primary stakeholders (the ...Read More

I am fortunate to be a part of a journey where both the span and the scope of what a Demand generation team does have evolved over time. In my experience, the role of what a Demand gen team does will and should change as the organization matures. In the early days, in most orgs, Demand gen manages all things that touch a buyer - SEO, Website, Performance marketing, and Content marketing. As the org evolves, the role gets elevated in a few areas but leaner in others. For example, the concept of I ...Read More