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AMA: Uber Former Product Marketing Lead, Nikhil Balaraman on Sales Enablement
January 5 @ 10:00AM PST
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Uber Former Product Marketing Lead, Nikhil Balaraman on Sales Enablement
Top Questions
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • January 5
* There are 2 main ways of tracking for success: Consumption Metrics and Outcome Metrics * Consumption metrics -- these metrics should be shared/co-owned amongst Enablement, PMM, and Content teams * Content views * Collateral usage * Quiz scores (used as an Ena......Read More
1163 Views
4 requests
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • January 5
* Instead of focusing on the features, start with the use case -- why are we launching this we sub-product? What problem does it solve for our key personas or existing customers? Do we have examples of users adopting this product? * Once you have an understanding for how/why people are......Read More
1384 Views
1 request
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • January 5
* There are no shortcuts to getting buy in from a sales team; and, every product marketer needs to know how their product gets to market. To get buy-in from a large sales team you need to demonstrate empathy with the sales process, and be useful in accelerating pipeline. If you’re selli......Read More
902 Views
3 requests
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • January 5
* Simply put, I think focusing on the outputs (e.g., collateral/content creation) instead of understanding the problem and building a solution for that problem. But in order to understand the problem, you have to understand how your sales team operates...you need to be on calls across t......Read More
824 Views
3 requests
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • January 5
* Generally, product marketers and sales enablement should work hand-in-hand as they are some of the most cross-functional roles in any organization. Because of their cross-functional nature, these roles need to be closely connected in order to coordinate messaging, launches, new asset ......Read More
1328 Views
5 requests
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • January 5
* By understanding how deals work from beginning to end. Get to know the SDRs. What research do they do before starting a sequence? How does a meeting get set? Sit in on first calls. Is a first call all discovery or all demo? What follow ups get sent? And so on and so forth including un......Read More
988 Views
3 requests
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • January 5
* Short answer: build the framework, but allow people to be creative. Don’t micro-manage every single email. But maybe run some audits and always be close with the SDR leaders, and get a good understanding for why they are getting rejected/hearing no. * Long answer: * PMM, and......Read More
1790 Views
1 request
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • January 5
* At a high-level the goal is likely to make sellers more productive in some sense. Probably by making them more effective or more efficient. Let’s just call this “go-to-market readiness” as this is typically a key pillar of any sales enablement team. * GTM readiness is likely the succ......Read More
1242 Views
6 requests
How do we get Sales more involved pre-launch to better the odds of our launch success?
We have a lot of stakeholders involved during our launch process. Sales is the most important, yet the least involved pre-launch.
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • January 5
* Depending on where the business is, sales should be either consulted or informed on almost every launch. Unless there is a tight liaison and voice of the sales team (ie Sales Enablement), it will primarily be consulted. In order to best understand the market, industry, personas, and s......Read More
982 Views
2 requests
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • January 5
* Having been through several of these at a few different companies, the advice I would offer is that for joint-sessions focus on the biggest impact announcements (e.g., new product demos, fireside chat with a major customer w/ Q&A, new company vision/mission, etc.), and make sure to pu......Read More
1048 Views
3 requests
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • January 5
* It's going to be hard in the early days becuase you'll have a lot to do, and the partner channel probably is non-existant until ~20m or so in ARR. If you're selling into regulated industries this might vary/be sooner, but your main focus should be on enabling your internal teams. * G......Read More
1300 Views
4 requests
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • January 5
The chasm framework makes it seem like there's just one magic gap that needs to be jumped across, and then you can just set your sales and marketing efforts to autopilot and go on an indefinite vacation. For some companies that may be true...Zoom definitely had an exogenous force push them across......Read More
1233 Views
1 request
Nikhil Balaraman
Roofstock Senior Director Product Marketing • January 5
* I actually came to PMM from an SE role/background and would highly recommend people who are in technical roles consider PMM! The best part about this transition is that you're already trained on how to be an expert on the product, and how to best address and identify customer pain poi......Read More
1271 Views
1 request
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