Product Led Growth Strategy

Product Led Growth has been catching steam and for great reasons. When you simplify why it has become such a hot topic recently, we think it is because the process meets the buyer where they are in the journey and puts them in full control

We will take a look at what most current sales processes look like and how Product Led Growth can eliminate friction in specific areas. We practice what we preach here at Bratti+Co – “Inspect what you expect”, right?

Standard Sales Process

Today, most sales processes follow this flow:

Step 1 – Buyer’s Intent & Intro Sales Call

• Prospect visits the website.
• Prospect fills out a form to receive a product demonstration.
• Sales rep reaches out to the prospect to schedule an intro call for the next day.
• Sales rep conducts intro call, prospect is qualified, and notes are taken. A follow-up meeting is scheduled to introduce the prospect to an account manager.

Step 2 – Account Manager Outreach & Product Demo Scoping

• Account manager calls and asks similar questions as those that were recorded during the intro sales call, wasting the prospect’s time and causing an initial friction point. Afterwards, a product demo can occur with a sales engineer.

Step 3 – Product Demo

• Prospect receives demonstration by the sales engineer and account manager.

Product Led Growth Sales Process

Step 1 – Buyer’s Intent & Product Trial 

• Prospect visits the website.
• The prospect fills out a form to receive a free trial of the product.
• Email is sent with a verification code, and the trial has begun.
• Product tutorials and interactive videos enable the buyer to gain first-hand experience with the product.

These two scenarios clearly define the different paths of hand-raising prospects. If your competitors are using a product-led strategy, they’ve already engaged with the prospective buyer who is starting to feel comfortable with their platform. This gives your competitors a significant head start on building trust and familiarity with how to use their product before you even introduce your product’s UI and functionality. These days in between, which might include a weekend, multiple cancelations and rescheduling, etc., are a lifetime of difference for an individual who is in the market and wants to move quickly.

Today’s Buyers

Thanks to the internet and how easily information is shared and disseminated, prospective buyers are more informed and farther along in the process than ever before. The sales process needs to be expedited for hand-raisers. With this in mind, here are a few tips on how to help prospects move through the sales process as quickly as they would like.

Sales Tools

With the ability to calendar meetings from a form fill page, one of the major tasks of a sales rep has become automated. Tools such as Calendly, Chili Piper, or your CRM (e.g. Hubspot, Salesforce) have the ability to provide all details needed to schedule appointments with individuals. This bypasses a friction-causing event that connects your most valuable leads with a sales rep as quickly as possible. 

Path Forward

Automation saves time and generates numerous benefits. For instance, upsells can now be induced by the customer when they’re ready. By continuing to offer free trials of different products over time, the customer is given ownership of their sales process and can move at their own pace, all while becoming more entrenched in your functionality and workflows. 

Additionally, sales reps who previously were chasing down inbound leads can be redistributed to focus on outbound development, customer success, or any other roles within the company.