Product-led growth, Product-Led Sales, sales-assist…it’s hard to keep track of all the terms for SaaS companies and their products.
Just like the term product-led growth, we’re seeing Product-Led Sales get a bit buzzwordy on LinkedIn. So, we’re here to nip this in the bud and provide a real definition. PLG companies like Slack, Zoom, and Atlassian were touted as shining examples of products that “sold themselves” without the need for sales teams. But, in reality every one of those companies eventually added a sales team to accelerate their revenue growth.
We surveyed GTM leaders at B2B SaaS businesses in 2021 and found that 97% of PLG companies either had a sales team or had plans to hire a sales team. What’s more, when we ran the survey again last year we found that only 4% of companies surveyed were “pure PLG” with no plans to hire sales.
Source: Product-Led Sales Benchmark Report
But these sales teams behave differently. Their hybrid sales model is more product-centric, consultative, and data-driven - making them much more effective.
The motion doesn’t resemble a traditional sales-led approach, but it clearly doesn’t fit the definition of product-led growth either. Product-led growth is both a go-to-market and product strategy that positions the product as the primary channel for acquiring, converting, and retaining customers. The sales funnel is replaced with a self-serve motion, where users can try your product without talking to a human first.
Product-led companies use inbound tactics to capture new users via free trial and freemium models. They focus on activation and conversion through the customer journey inside the product, without relying on traditional outbound sales.
So what is this hybrid approach called Product-Led Sales and how does it differ from PLG and SLG?
Product-Led Growth A PLG company relies on the product to do the selling. Customers buy on their own through a self-serve motion.
Bottom-up approach.
Product-Led Sales A go-to-market approach that relies on existing users of the product to drive revenue, including conversion, upsell, cross-sell, and expansion.
Hybrid approach.
Sales-Led Growth In sales-led companies, sales teams are the main source of customer acquisition, conversions, retention, and expansion.
Top-down approach.
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Table of Contents
📍**[You’re here] What is Product-Led Sales?**
Identifying where you land on the product-led spectrum
How business model impacts GTM strategy (bottom-up, top-down, hybrid)