The ultimate guide to product-led sales | Elena Verna

Elena Verna is a leading growth expert with over 15 years of experience in tech. She was SVP of Growth at SurveyMonkey and interim CMO at Miro, where she built high-performing teams that drove significant growth. She recently served as interim Head of Growth at Amplitude and currently advises and is a board member for early-stage startups. In today’s podcast, we discuss:
• What product-led sales is
• How product-led sales differs from product-led growth
• Unpacking common acronyms: PQAs, PQs, PQLs, and MQLs
• When and how to consider investing in PLS
• Metrics for identifying qualified accounts
• The team, data, and tooling required for implementing PLS
• Common pitfalls to avoid when adding PLS
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Find the full transcript at: www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ult...
Where to find Elena Verna:
• LinkedIn: / elenaverna
• Twitter: / elenaverna
• Newsletter: elenaverna.substack.com/
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: / lennysan
• LinkedIn: / lennyrachitsky
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Elena’s background and what she’s doing now
(07:13) Product-led sales (PLS) vs. product-led growth (PLG)
(12:47) How sales solutions can be applied to enterprise-level problems
(15:06) Defining enterprise-level problems
(17:51) How product-led companies start with PLS
(20:30) When to add sales
(22:36) Two ways to get to PLS
(24:27) Why every sales-led-growth company needs to add PLG
(26:50) Two ways you can own revenue
(28:37) PQAs, PQs, PQLs, and MQLs
(37:17) How to get started adding PLS
(42:01) Metrics to identify PQAs
(47:00) Why sales should be carefully applied
(49:07) Systems, infrastructure, and tooling
(50:59) The people and resources required for PLS
(53:42) Why you should have a clear ROI for every new hire
(55:05) Why product needs to be accountable for monetization with PLS
(59:57) Revenue-based goals product teams should have
(1:06:28) Common pitfalls startups run into when implementing PLS
(1:09:15) Benchmarks and the amount of time needed for implementing enterprise solutions
(1:12:04) Using onboarding to profile users
(1:13:08) Will AI be the next sales movement?
Referenced:
• Elena’s previous episode on Lenny’s Podcast: www.lennyspodcast.com/elena-v...
• Miro: miro.com/
• Figma: www.figma.com/
• Elena’s PLS funnel diagram: www.linkedin.com/posts/elenav...
• Elena’s memes: www.elenaverna.com/memes
• Mixpanel Signal reports: mixpanel.com/blog/mixpanel-si...
• Amplitude Compass chart: help.amplitude.com/hc/en-us/a...
• Looker: www.looker.com/
• Tableau: www.tableau.com/
• Salesforce: www.salesforce.com/
• HubSpot: www.hubspot.com/
• Marketo: nation.marketo.com/
• Waitlist for PLG course on Reforge: www.reforge.com/programs/prod...
Production and marketing by penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [e-mail].

[@kira6550]

wow i know nothing about sales coming from a tech background but Elena make it so simple to understand the mechanisms

[@lukecresante]

This is next level... Taking so long to get through because of all the valuable note taking moments

[@SpencerTally]

Love this. Watching for the 3rd time. Her substance is also great!

[@AndiSzilagyi]

Elena's answers are so well organized & structured. So much good info in every word😊

[@farrukhbhatti8246]

Very insightful, loved the conversation. Lenny your Qs are pertinent and flow goes very well. Elena's answers are so specific and all encompassing - awesome.

[@devikottary3937]

Lenny!!! Elena is so so good! Only love to this episode. ❤️. Elena has broken down the concept of PLG vs. PLS so effortlessly. 20 mins into this episode and already started to harvest GOLD. Long live product thinkers and leaders like Elena and Lenny. Recently, I had been to one of the product meetups and the CPO of Propel Ventures, Melbourne. When asked about PLG, the response was PLG is a BS and wouldn't work in B2B space. I am going to share this link for people to enlighten themselves and keep their BS aside.

[@LiranTal]

Very much enjoyed this episode. Great work Lenny and Elena to run down through PLS, PLG and related domain knowledge.

[@greggallo9906]

Elena is always awesome and good fun. Thank you to you both.

[@khushilunkad2592]

Thank you! We have great organic demand and want to layer a PLS motion, and I didn't know where to even start from. I took lots of notes and already have lots of creative ideas on how we can approach this swiftly. I'll pitch to the team and report back! I also didn't know that Reforge's PLG course would include Product-Led Sales as well. Nice!

[@alan3478]

Amazing content.

[@fobarros79]

Class in podcast format

[@tothetop-omaid]

Love your background!

[@koyamani]

Lenny, you are smart enaugh, so make the ads in different sections or at the end.

[@Slavik1996whitetige]

Love it 💘

[@user-nc8gw4oi2w]

Love your background😍😍😍

[@lawrencelevinson]

🔥🔥🔥

[@AndiSzilagyi]

Number 7, good to know😊

[@samanthamarin7829]

OoOoHhh I like this one😍😍🌹

[@MichaelBabich]

With all due respect, 7 minutes of advertising before the video even starts is too much. I tried to watch this channel's videos more than 3 times and could never get past the first 5 minutes-Lenny force-feeds advertising to a viewer with a shovel. Life is too short to waste so much time. At least move it to the end of a video-if your video is good, people will watch it to the end. If not, then it's not worth gifting you with so much time of a viewer's life and attention. I recommend learning from Lex Fridman and the way he treats ads in his long videos.

[@LennysPodcast]

I appreciate the feedback! Just so I understand, there's only ~2 minutes of ads at the top, what do you mean when you say 7 minutes? And what is it the Lex does that you like better? He spends a long time on ads after he introduces the guest (like I do).

[@MichaelBabich]

​@@LennysPodcast You are right. I checked the exact timing. The ads are 2:30 min long. It's the main content that starts at 7 min. So, I apologize for the 7 min. remark. Though it doesn't change the main idea that everything before the main content took 7 minutes. When this part is mixed with ads it makes an impression that the whole thing is a filler and ads since a viewer isn't hooked yet-so a viewer has to keep motivation for the whole 7 minutes to get to the main part. Probably, when in your videos viewers have to watch a whole product or even a couple of products demos for minutes before anything that resembles content starts it kills any motivation to watch further. Maybe it would be better to move the ads 5-7 min into the episode to give a little more room for content to make the audience hooked and interested. (Even in movies they lately move the title shot more and more into a movie. Sometimes even 10-15 minutes into a movie). This would also disconnect the ads from casual chat and introductions, making them more integrated with content. When an intro is cut from the main content by ads the intro feels like a filler, not a part of content. Also, the intro with just the podcast logo image also makes an impression that it's a filler and not content. Probably, it'd be better to have a video of the host introducing a guest and not a static image. About Lex. He doesn't read ads. His videos feel like the main content from the 1st second. I just checked a couple of his videos. His introductions are very short (under 1 minute) for an average guest and a bit longer for popular and "heavy" guests with lots of things to talk about (3-4 minutes that feel like content since there is a video of him making the intro). At the end of an intro, he just says "Please, check our sponsors in the description below"-that's the whole shtick with ads. Nothing else.

[@LennysPodcast]

@@MichaelBabich I appreciate all of the thoughtful feedback 🙏

[@GiantsOnTheHorizon]

@@MichaelBabichLex has a different model and can attract more people due to more general content. This allows him to make less on his advertising. I just checked for myself and, in case this helps for next time, I did this neat tapping thing with my right thumb on my phone to forward past the ads. That took 10 seconds. By the way, due to the niche nature of the content and ads I often find value in them. For instance, I’m planning to use Persona which I didn’t know about before.

[@carloslfu]

AI-led sales