Maintaining Sales Consistency

In 2 years, we cut Aligned’s sales cycle from 75 to 22 days, while moving up market and increasing ACV 44%. The key? Our team meets EVERY WEEK to optimize our sales playbook. Here’s our end-to-end workflow: 1. Playbooks get old within a few months—Build a regular update cadence How buyers evaluate you and make decisions constantly changes as your product, market, competitors, and economy change. Discussing these changes weekly forces us to adapt. We figure out if we need new enablement assets, training, or if our workflows need a refresh. 2. Most playbooks are “Set & Forget”—Build a system to monitor & analyze At Aligned, we use Deal Rooms to run our playbook. We analyze our best and worst-performing rooms weekly based on buyer engagement. This helps us understand what aspects of our process are effective and identify gaps. For example, an AE might create a new tab to run competitor comparisons or a business case framework that drives more exec engagement. 3. Most wait too long—Quickly turn gaps into sales or buyer enablement assets Most teams lack a routine to find OR fix gaps. Also, most teams put too much weight on sales enablement assets like scripts or training materials. Last week, Kevin "KD" Dorsey told me he sees deal rooms as an excuse for constantly creating buyer enablement assets like ROI calculators and guides. He said, “Investing in buyers must become a habit, or you’re not going to get far”. I couldn’t agree more. 4. Most skills stop at training—Embed every new skill into a dedicated template I’m a 4x sales leader. One thing I was NEVER able to do right is to get the team to consistently follow the playbook. At Aligned, we’ve tackled this by updating all customer-facing workflows in our deal room template (e.g. How we run MAPs, POCs, Business Cases...). We then use the internal-only view to templatize resources like discovery and demo frameworks. Centralizing it in one place makes it easier for the team to follow our processes. 5. Over-standardization is as bad as winging it—Encourage breaking your process A sales leader’s dream of having the ‘perfect’ process executed by their team can also be their worst nightmare. Yes, you want AEs to see what good looks like and follow what works. But do it too often, and you end up killing intuition and creativity. THE essence of what makes complex selling work is knowing how to dance. That's why our biggest updates to our template come from our team on the front line, not top-down. TAKEAWAY: There’s no quick fix for improving Deal Velocity metrics. Simply increasing price 15% won’t magically solve ACV. There are multiple potential root causes to identify. And multiple ways you can address them. But what you truly need… Is a structured way to enhance your process. Monitor, Analyze, Iterate, and Scale. That’s what has worked best for us. You have to be strategic about it. EDIT: People asked—Aligned is the Deal Room we use. It's 100% free to try https://lnkd.in/dwX_Zizk

When I find myself at odds with Sales, it's often because we seem to be working toward different goals: Product builds long-term value, while Sales needs to close deals right now. How to fix this? The traditional advice of "just align goals" or "Sales should sell what Product already built"… ...has not worked for me. No wonder, really. Just put yourself into the sale's shoes. 👉 If they don't sell, you don't get to keep your users and... job 👉 They will not follow the product goals, their manager doesn't care 👉 They need to make the sales, sometimes with "whatever it takes" push 👉 Very often they are closer to users and best understand what they need You need to be in alignment and support one another. Here’s what has worked for me: 1) Regular comms I proactively share roadmaps and priorities with Sales so they understand why we’re building what we’re building. The weekly or biweekly catch-up also helps me understand what would help them sell and what the leads are asking for. A shiny product won't be appreciated if no one uses it. 2) Speak their language. Instead of saying “This feature doesn’t fit our vision,” I explain it in terms of revenue impact, customer retention, and chances to get someone to extend the contract. things Sales actually cares about. Of course, you can't say to everything being asked for. But if there are conflicting priorities, coordinate with mutual managers to determine the high-level best choice. You are working together for the success of the product, not against one another! 3) Make them part of the process. I don’t just collect feedback from Sales; I involve them in discovery calls, workshops, brainstorms, beta programs, and prioritization discussions. When they feel heard, they’re more likely to back the Product’s decisions. Hopefully, this will lead to fewer misunderstandings. 4) Voice structural issues If your manager wants you to focus on long-term vision and sales are told to sell, sell, sell, NOW, then the company is like a giant with two heads. Make sure that this situation is transparent to everyone. If no one speaks up, nothing will change. This process works because it shifts the dynamic from conflict to collaboration. Sales stops seeing Product as a blocker, and Product gets invaluable insights from the front lines. Win-win. As Steve Jobs said: “Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people.” Are you a team with your sales department? Sound off in the comments! #productmanagement #productmanager #sales P.S. To become a Product Manager who can create products that sell, be sure to check out my courses on www. drbartpm. com :) P.S. Also, if you want to take your product global with great, manual translations, check out my patron, Alconost :)

If you are in a Product Management role, here's one of my best tips: partner with your Sales Leaders. Yesterday, I presented our AI Foundation Models strategy to 10k+ sellers and partners at our Americas Sales Kickoff for Q3 in Washington, DC. I enjoyed sharing the stage with one of my favorite colleagues, Madison Gooch, the VP of Sales in the Americas for watsonx. We've come a long way working together, more than six years building products and serving all kinds of customers: from small startups to some of the largest and most complex organizations. Your sales team interacts with customers daily. As a product leader, you must: 1. Build trust with your sales team. 2. Get invited to key customer meetings by the sales team. 3. Become the sales team's best partner. 4. Encourage the sales team to provide honest feedback about the product. 5. Use their feedback to improve the product. 6. Allow the sales team to keep you grounded and focus on value rather than just features. 7. Let the sales team help craft the product messaging. 8. Ask the sales team to recommend a pricing strategy. 9. If you have multiple products in your portfolio, get the sales team's advice on how to package them effectively. 10. Regularly communicate with the sales team to stay aligned on goals and strategies. If you want to build a rocketship product, you need: - Product Market Fit - Some Virality and network effect; in my case, I am obsessed with capturing this new wave of developers adopting AI technology - and most importantly, you need sellers selling your product and make your numbers! Thanks to everyone who joined us in DC and online yesterday and for the candid messages after the session!

If you looked at last week’s performance and thought, “Wow, we were down…” dig deeper. It wasn’t just you. Amazon Prime Day shifted buyer behaviour across the board. Many brands felt the impact, lower traffic, slower conversions, and customers holding off for bigger deals elsewhere. Amazon is only growing its share of wallet and burying your head in the sand won’t fix it. So what can you do? 1. Re-evaluate your channel mix You don’t have to sell on Amazon (or maybe you should?) but you do need a strategy for how to compete with it. That might mean exploring marketplaces, refining your owned channels, or even testing Amazon as a top-of-funnel discovery tool (many brands use it for visibility, not margin). 2. Get proactive around retail events Map out key retail moments like Prime Day, Black Friday, and EOFY now. Run your own promos early, lean into loyalty campaigns, or promote “non-discount” value (bundles, GWP, exclusives) to avoid being drowned out. What about free express shipping? 3. Focus on lifetime value A one-week dip isn’t the problem, failing to build long-term customer relationships is. Invest in post-purchase journeys, community engagement, and email/SMS retention flows that outlive Amazon’s flash sales. 4. Strengthen your brand moat Amazon sells products. You sell a brand experience. Use it. Whether it’s through storytelling, content, or service, your brand equity should be doing the heavy lifting, especially when price isn’t your edge. 5. Don’t panic — plan Performance blips are part of the game. But if they keep catching you off guard, it’s time to shift from reactive to resilient. Understand the macro forces at play, and build a commercial calendar that supports consistency, not chaos.

Bit odd innit? 👀 Pablo Ylarri 🎯 just dropped a great piece on this on the Product Marketing Alliance Pablo leads PMM for LATAM out of Buenos Aires, working across 14 countries in three languages. Pablo lives this problem daily so I trust his pov on this! The problem: Fragmentation pulls you apart Markets demand localization. Sales reps on the ground know their prospects better than anyone. They want messaging that feels local, tailored, and relevant. and... Leadership demands consistency. Product positioning, brand promise, and strategic narratives must be unified, or the company risks confusing customers, analysts, and investors. As a PMM, you sit in the middle of that tension. And in fast growing orgs, fragmentation can happen quickly: AKA... - Regional decks multiply - Translations lose nuance - Sales collateral drifts from the agreed narrative - Teams spend more time debating "what we say" than actually selling So, how do you solve this big challenge? Pablo says start here: 1) Single source of truth One core messaging framework. One transparent process for updates. No silent edits floating in Slack threads and old presentations. Sales can localize, but they start from the same base. 2) Align across languages, not markets Translation isn't mechanical, it's strategic. English emphasizes directness. Spanish requires precision in formality. Brazilian Portuguese favors conversational tone. Treat each translation as adaptation, not copy. 3) Build partnership with Sales Regional reps will improvise if materials don't reflect their reality. Involve them early in message testing. Establish regional champions. Celebrate when local input improves global narrative. 4) Flexibility within a framework Define non negotiables: core value prop, strategic narrative, differentiators. Give regions room to adapt delivery: local examples, nearby case studies, tone adjustments. 5) Communicate relentlessly with PMM peers Weekly syncs. Shared document reviews. Quick check-ins to avoid duplication. Silence creates inconsistency. Two PMMs can accidentally create two PMM philosophies. 6) Codify lessons into playbooks Every time you solve a fragmentation issue, document how to prevent it next time. Messaging frameworks. Enablement guidelines. Localization rules. Playbooks scale trust. P.S. What else would you add PMMs? Make sure you give Pablo a follow btw!

If #PrimeDay is critical to defend your market share, you've effectively lost control of your business to #Amazon. 🚩👇 That’s because events like Prime Day don't create new demand. They concentrate it. And if more than 30% of your annual net sales come from deal events, you’ve trained your customers to wait for discounts before buying. In CPG categories, that's particularly damaging. You effectively allow shoppers to stock up on your products until the next time they go on deal. "𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝗳 𝘄𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁, 𝘄𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀." ❌ No, you don’t. 👉 You lose share if events are the only time you're competitive. There's a meaningful difference between the two. A weaker Prime Day with a much stronger baseline is commercially superior to a huge deal spike and a weak rest of the year. Your P&L doesn't lie. Right now, most vendors are overfunding peak events to offset an underperforming growth trajectory. Which means they concentrate demand at a time when Amazon’s vendor margins are the highest. It doesn't have to be this way. If you want to protect your bottom line, you need to: 𝟭. 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀. If more than 30% of your annual revenue comes from deal events, you need to rethink your promotional strategy. 𝟮. 𝗥𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗰𝗼-𝗼𝗽 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗼 𝗯𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀-𝗼𝗻 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆. Sponsored Products, Subscribe & Save, and NPDs with an Everyday Low Price (EDLP) cost structure build durable demand. 𝟯. 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝟭𝟬𝟬% 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁. If your Net PPM performs at 40%+, insist that Amazon co-funds price discounts. Many vendors have significant category leverage but rarely push hard enough to have Amazon co-fund their deal events. So No: The goal isn't to opt out of Prime Day. The goal is to stop growing your dependency on deal events. ♻️ Repost to share, and 💭 Comment your thoughts below. #amazonvendor #amazonstrategy

From my new Harvard Business Review article, here’s how to create the second of four pillars that innovative organizations need – capability to forge strategic partnerships: You don’t have to contain yourself to your team or the organization when it comes to innovation. Great innovations can come from collaborations with suppliers, customers, universities, startups, or companies using relevant technology in a totally different way. For example, the jeans company Levi Strauss has been collaborating with Google to figure out what “smart” clothing might accomplish for users like truckers. But doing so needs focused and dedicated work. That means you need to find people within the team to do the long-term work of building those relationships, having speculative conversations, and hunting for partner capabilities which may not be immediately apparent. You don’t want to be Yahoo, which declined to engage with an ambitious early-stage company boasting a different business model: Google. What to do instead? Put specialists in strategic technology partnerships on the lookout. Have them work in collaboration with core business teams who can use these partnerships to make innovation happen. For example, many pharma companies have these types of partnership offices near MIT, and it’s an approach that can be replicated by a broad range of industries. Johnson & Johnson’s university collaborations not only facilitate investments and research partnerships, but through JLabs they also provide lab space and support services for promising start-ups without requiring an equity stake. This can give Johnson & Johnson an inside track with the start-up when the timing is ripe. The fruits of the program have been substantial — as of 2023, 840 incubations of companies in this network had yielded more than 290 deals or partnerships with J&J. (Have you used other methods to forge strategic partnerships? Please add them in the comments!)

What's the one quality you need to succeed in Google India's Marketing Team? While technical skills and marketing knowledge are important, I've learned that adaptability is the ultimate game-changer. Here's why: The Indian market changes faster than we can imagine. What works in one state might completely fail in another. Our consumers speak different languages, follow different trends, and react differently to marketing campaigns. Let me share a perfect example of adaptability in action: Kurkure's campaign in Uttar Pradesh shows exactly what I mean. Instead of running their usual national campaign, they completely transformed their approach. They worked with local influencers who spoke the language of UP, created ads using regional humor, and even launched a special flavor inspired by local tastes. The result? Their market share and brand awareness in UP shot up significantly. Why? Because they adapted to what their audience wanted rather than sticking to a one-size-fits-all approach. This is exactly what we do at Google India - we adapt, we learn, and we change our approach based on who we're talking to. Sometimes, the best strategy is to pause, listen to your audience, and be willing to try something new. To everyone aspiring to work in marketing: Your ability to adapt might be more valuable than any other skill you bring to the table. Agree or not?

As I meet more people, especially budding tech founders, a recurring question is about leveraging partnerships as a revenue channel. One key aspect that often stands out in these discussions is identifying the right partner. The right partnership can provide up to 80% leverage in your ROI by aligning perfectly with your goals and capabilities. Consider the example of a health tech startup partnering with a large hospital chain. By integrating their cutting-edge telemedicine platform with the hospital's extensive network, the startup was able to provide virtual health services to a vast number of patients. This partnership enabled the startup to scale rapidly and gain credibility in the healthcare market, while the hospital chain could offer innovative services to their patients without developing the technology in-house. To help identify the right partner, I recommend using a simple framework like the "PARTNER" scoring model: - 'P'urpose Alignment: Do your missions and goals align? - 'A'ccess to Market: Can they help you reach new or larger markets? - 'R'esource Complementarity: Do they offer resources you lack and vice versa? - 'T'rust and Reliability: Can you trust them to deliver consistently? - 'N'etwork Synergy: Do their connections and networks benefit you? - 'E'conomic Benefit: Is the partnership financially advantageous? - 'R'eputation: Does partnering with them enhance your brand image? By scoring potential partners on these criteria, you can identify the one that offers the best strategic fit and highest potential for ROI. #B2BPartnerships #TechFounders #BusinessGrowth #StrategicAlliances image - courtesy to Freepik

Early morning (my time...) long form musings. 💵 Revenue stalls when teams stay in their lanes. Collaboration is the only way to win. Too many companies treat Product Marketing like a content factory, looking to them to crank out decks, one-pagers, and flashy campaigns - without asking a very important question -> Will this actually help sales convert? We don't want to be talking about features, or just running campaigns randomly to create buzz. Or - leave our Sales team to battle buyer objections without support. We all win when these these groups (and others) collaborate early and often, making sure we align around *outcomes* buyers are interested in. That means creating messaging that isn't about us, it's about our prospects and talks to their pain, their needs, their goals. We can't afford to leave Sales guessing how to translate features into business outcomes. We don't want our partners in Product Management frustrated because their vision gets watered down. We gotta talk, people! If we collaborate, sales enablement becomes a growth engine, not an afterthought and conversion rates increase instead of pipelines stalling. Cross-functional engagement isn’t just “nice to have.” It’s how we help our companies turn messaging into revenue. That means: Building messaging that connects outcomes to buyer pain, not specs to features. Partnering with sales before a launch to arm them with tools, stories, and training that shorten the sales cycle instead of slowing it. Making enablement a culture, not an afterthought. If Product Marketing is doing its job, sellers don’t just get collateral. They get clarity, confidence, and conversations that convert. Alignment isn’t optional. It’s revenue. #productmarketing #outcomefocus #salesenablement