AMA: Castlight Former Director of Product Marketing, Dave Kong on Sales Enablement

I know that this is sometimes an incredible challenge. I think the challenge specifically is around balance. A balance between: What are metrics indicative of your business / GTM goals? AND What you can control? This requires leadership buy-in from multiple groups — ideally they would understand Marketing and Product Marketing (this is not always the case!) Based on Your Goals, I would then identify metrics. Some examples below: GTM / Revenue Initiatives —> Before and After Analysis (ideally ...Read More

Check out my reply here, in a previous question. Building on my previous response, I do think about this in those two phases: At launch and post-launch. At Launch At launch, you need your teams to be ready and aligned to the GTM strategy. If a rep cannot effectively pitch, demo, solution with a prospect or a customer, that will extend your sales cycle at the very least. Also, if only some reps are ready, your GTM will end up sending varied or multiple messages to your buyers and influencers in y ...Read More

Ah, this sounds like a fun prioritization exercise! If sales enablement was just kicking off, I'm assuming that generally marketing and PMM functions are relatively new as well. There's probably a lot of marketing and enablement debt that you're working through right now. I would be really disciplined about identifying initiatives that are going to meet your business goals-- and you'll hate this answer... but it's going to be different for every organization. But in general, I would assess: Read ...Read More

I'd break this question out into two separate ones: 1) How do you track internal adoption of sales enablement content? and 2) How do you track internal adoption of sales enablement? 1) How do you track internal adoption of sales enablement content? (heard quite often) If you have a tool (e.g. CMS, other platform, intranet, etc.), Most tools will have several metrics built-in or capable of being extended: Clicks / Downloads Social Feedback Comments Reports If you don't have a tool, Sales surveys ...Read More

Tie to your Pitch — ...so that your combined pitch and demo tells one cohesive story. Tell-show-tell. Tell = pitch where you describe the value of your solution. Show = demo where you demonstrate the capabilities that align to your value. Tell (again) = summarize and connect the value together between pitch and demo.  Use User Scenarios — Think of specific user scenarios that you can tell a story around. This makes it easier to follow and easier to remember. By using a set of core scenarios, you ...Read More

For requests in general, the very first thing i recommend doing is evaluating if the request is within your defined set of PMM responsibilities. If not, I would turn down the request because accepting those sets an unsustainable precedent. If it does fall within your scope, then I generally look at:  Alignment with PMM or business goal Impact Reuse-ability Effort Confidentiality  I, actually, no longer let content requestors set the requirements for content. The requirements you’ll often get typ ...Read More

Well, it’s difficult to “ensure” that anyone is going to use any set of materials. I would look at it from the point of view where PMM's job is to create messaging and materials that sales would want to use.  Understand/Build your Voice of the Customer  To build initial credibility, it’s essential to champion the voice of the customer. You need to make sure you understand the buyer as well as they do, or your credibility will never get off the ground. Understanding the voice of the customer also ...Read More

For me, I generally start with questions to determine if new content is actually needed (versus piling on to an already long list of requests). In addition, to your examples above... Evaluating If Content Is Needed What is the asset that you're requesting?  Ask yourself: Does it exist already? =D  What is the goal of the new asset?  Ask yourself: Does it exist already? =D  What part of the sales stage do you think it would benefit? / When would this be used?  What is the main message that you ha ...Read More