Over your career, what best practices can you share with working with the sales team?

It takes time to build relationships and here are some tips I’ve found to be helpful in my career when partnering with sales, from being open to feedback and delivering quick wins to celebrating team achievements and being a constant learner. This goes beyond the need to have shared goals and an understanding of roles and responsibilities.

Be Open to Feedback

When I first start working with a team, I conduct a listening tour to understand what's working well and where improvements can be made. I maintain this feedback loop through ongoing engagement with key stakeholders, using their feedback to strengthen relationships and optimize team deliverables.

Deliver Quick Wins 

Collaboration with sales is about showcasing the immediate value of marketing efforts.  This doesn't always require extensive effort—simply identifying and executing key initiatives that support sales priorities can build credibility early on.

Celebrate Team Achievements

It’s important to celebrate achievements with the team and recognize those who exceed expectations. Remember, budgets are not required to say thank you and recognize someone and it makes a huge impact. Perhaps this one should be first on the list!

Always Be Learning

Continuous learning is essential for growth. For instance, I recently completed the MEDDIC  sales methodology training, widely used in enterprise settings. Find what you are passionate about and deepen your expertise.

Who am I speaking with? How often?

I have a regular connect with the Sales Director for audiences my team is accountable for where we speak about high level performance to strategy, gaps to target, escalations, themes we need to address etc. I also have a regular group connect with a collection of cross-functional revenue leaders for a more holistic conversation - sales leadership, enablement, merchant success, finance etc. These conversations happen on a bi-weekly basis and act as a mini-governing body for segment success.

Regular communication and a strong relationship with sales is VERY important - true across my entire career. This is how you jump on opportunities sooner, fix problems faster, and level up the HOW on a regular drumbeat.

What are sales teams looking for?

Sales teams are looking for: a view of what product is shipping, marketing campaign calendar, campaign performance, TLDR on what is influencing inbound volume, updates on enablement and training, and a place where they can voice wins/concerns.

How do we keep things productive?

We keep a clear agenda of the things we want to cover. We make sure we get extra time to do deep dives if we need to on specific topics. We ensure the right folks are in the room to have a productive conversation. We try and base our discussions on data/real world examples. We set expectations up front on what we are able to deliver and by when.

Often times I find the most vocal sales reps are actually not the best ones to provide you with feedback, and often end up distracting you. I like to form relationships with the most successful sales reps, and the leaders. Those are the ones you can learn from to help the more vocal ones (that are sometimes struggling the most).

I also find being close with the sales engineering/solution engineering teams crucial. Most of the time the sales teams are mainly the door openers. They are great at relationships, keeping the accounts engaged and happy, but when digging into the core understanding and usability of the product, your sales engineers are often the ones that have those conversations about how the product works and can help your customers. If you can get a better understanding of what works for them, you can create more relevant messages for the rest of team.

Finally, I would focus my time on meeting with the sales leads/leaders. It can often get very loud from all the requests that sales teams have, and hard to filter what's really important. Effective sales leads/leaders can help you break this down, otherwise you'll end up running from one request to another and it becomes hard to prioritize what's really important. Your sales leads can really help you prioritize key initiatives that truly require PMM help, this could be based on the strategic customer size, how the deals are moving, insights into which team members really sell well and those that don't. The biggest issue is when the sales team starts using PMM as a service center and a crutch to them selling. PMMs are there to help, but we can't be beside every sales rep and building unique messages for them.

Throughout my career, working closely with sales teams has been key to driving successful product launches and building stronger customer relationships. Here are a few best practices I’ve found effective:

1. Open Communication: Establish regular, open dialogues with the sales team. Ask them directly what messaging has resonated with clients and what hasn’t. Sales teams are on the front lines, so they (should) offer invaluable insights into how the product is perceived in real time. This helps you refine positioning based on actual client feedback, rather than just assumptions. I would ask for anecdotes and numbers both.

2. Leverage Sales Metrics: Ask sales to share key metrics they use to track client engagement—such as how many clients are reading your materials, watching demos, how long they are spending on these resources, and their frequency of engagement. Understanding these metrics helps you gauge whether the current approach is working and where adjustments are needed.

3. Quantify the Impact: Always ask the sales team to quantify the impact of marketing collateral you are helping them with. For instance, how has recent messaging or product updates improved customer engagement, and can they measure this in terms of deal velocity or conversion rates? This gives a clear understanding of what's moving the needle and where you need to double down or pivot.

4. Collaborate on Solutions: Approach problem-solving as a team. If there are issues with customer messaging or product features not aligning with client needs, work together to iterate and improve. This shared ownership fosters trust and alignment, which boosts overall performance.