How do you say 'no' to small asks for a PMM but that AEs/Sales think will win an individual deal?

Ohhhh man, I've been here! I cringe thinking back to when I would help sales reps customize individual sales decks. Never again!

I started to break free of this first by only saying 'yes' to requests that could help the ENTIRE team. For example, if there was a request for a slide that made sense to include in our comprehensive pitch deck, we'd consider it. If the ask was for a piece of collateral that would resonate with an entire persona (not just one client), we'd consider it.

The way you really get out of this cycle is by elevating your relationship with sales from the rep level to the leadership level.

• Reset the expectation with sales & enablement leaders for how PMM can effectively spend their time supporting their teams. Scaled asset creation and trainings are the best use of time. Ask that individual rep asks get funneled through management.

• Document the asks that come in, and ask yourself "how could I uplevel this ask into something that could help the ENTIRE sales team?" is it a new templated asset? a training for how to customize the assets?

• Set the expectation with reps in 1:1 conversations when they come to you that there is a new process for working with PMM. If a rep knows they need to ask for something via their manager, that alone may dampen the volume of requests. And that way, requests that DO get through management are the most important to tackle.

Make as much content and strategy knowledge as self-serve as possible. When asked to do something you can't prioritize, serve up the self-serve suggestion, suggest they create the content they need and deliver it to you for review only - and make sure you and your leaders are prepared to settle for "good-enough" sometimes.