Episode 76: Abhishek Srivastava - Why Internal Enablement Is the Hardest Part of GTM

Abhishek Srivastava: So internal enablement is the bridge between a great product and market success. I remember. So there is this African proverb, when spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion. So all the small initiatives in your GTM plans are the strands or threads that can tie up the success you are aiming for.

Luis Liu: You are listening to this is Product Marketing brought to you by Product Marketing Hive, a product marketing community that gives back. I'm your host Luis Liu, Product Marketing Hub and this podcast is supported by Product Marketing Edge, a technology product marketing consulting firm. In this episode, Abhishek Siri Varstava, Product marketing manager at Simpla shares his thoughts on why internal enablement is the hardest part of go to market. Let's dive into it right now. Hi Abhishek. Uh, welcome to the show.

Abhishek Srivastava: Thanks Luis, thanks for having me here.

Luis Liu: Tell us a bit about yourself and your product marketing journey.

Abhishek Srivastava: Sure. Hello everyone, my name is Abhishek, I'm based out of India. I have 10 years of marketing and 8 years of B2B SaaS product marketing experience across different uh, company stages and markets. I started my journey in product marketing from SaaS Labs. Uh, they have a product Just call. It's a cloud telephony solution where I was also the founding marketer. Then I worked as a senior product marketing manager at Builder AI, uh then lead product marketing at Trademo and now I'm in simplr. So simplr is an AI powered employee experience platform that designed to make the workday feel productive and less scattered. It serves as a dynamic knowledge hub where employees consume relevant content and take immediate actions on all tasks, uh, all within a single integrated feed.

Luis Liu: You are currently a uh, senior product marketing manager at simpla. Can you tell us a little bit about your current role and your responsibilities?

Abhishek Srivastava: Sure. So right now my core job is making sure that when we take a product to market, every team that touches the customer is telling the same story with the same conviction in practice. I own the GTM site for the core Internet products of simplr. This covers uh, research, collecting feedback from the early adopters customers. Uh, this includes everything from user experience to messaging to pain points, Building, positioning and messaging enablement for the internal teams and customers, public launch plan and marketing activities, internal and external collaterals creation where I do get the help from the marketing team and the design team and then there's this big cross functional role of coordinating with different teams on launch activities. So uh, if I have to give a summary. So gtm, uh, like GTM is like one big responsibility A PMM have to take care of and in simpler it's about product launches but it's also more than product launches because we also work on the new segments Persona, uh, updates on pricing and packaging and how we sell into the different markets.

Luis Liu: Before we go deeper I want to clarify terminology. Go to market can mean very different things to different people. When you say go to market, what do you mean? On the flip side, what do you think go to market is not okay,

Abhishek Srivastava: so I'll take the question too. But so gtm uh, I believe GTM is the full cycle of bringing customers voice back into the product and then taking the product to market while getting every function beat the revenue functions be ah it customer experience marketing product on the same page. So I think the best way to look at GTM is from the CEO lens. The GTM is a strategic process, not an event and it's definitely not a initiative from a single function or department. Um, I'll give a few examples of when you need to build a GTM strategy. So you need a GTM strategy when you're entering a new market that can be a new region. When you're targeting a new customer segment it can either be when you're pivoting from your sales motion from sales led to product led even if you're uh, moving up market from SMB to mid market or enterprise. Or it can be a piece where you are even restructuring your pricing packaging and definitely there is product launch. So in short any, anytime there is a change in the way you reach or sell or there's a change in audience or you want to retain customers, you need to build a proper GTM motion to be successful. The second part, not now like what GTM is not. So, so you're right. So GTM is not a launch execution checklist. Uh, is definitely not a single function responsibility and it is not just a tactical play for the market launch. Uh, it should never be a last minute checklist where you are just getting your blog post live or some social media post or sending an email to sales. Now these are part of GTM checklist but it is not just limited to that.

Luis Liu: With that definition in mind, what does the full go to market process look like to you for from research to post launch.

Abhishek Srivastava: So if we start from the very beginning. So the phase one is discovery and strategy. The second phase is enablement and preparation. The third phase is launch and iteration. When I say the phase one is discovery and strategy I mean there are activities like research, customer interviews, analyst calls, competitive analysis, uh, defining your ICP segments, building, positioning and messaging. And this is where the narrative gets built with the voice of customer and also from the team's input. So this phase uh, can also include decisions about pricing and packaging, sales motion and more. Now pricing and packaging can be traitive at the very first phase uh because later uh, if you have some early adopters, if you are getting feedback from your customer advisory board. So definitely the pricing and packaging is going to be updated. But yeah mostly I've seen in phase one, uh, during discovery and strategies when uh pricing and packaging, at least the fundamentals are put into place. Uh phase two, the enablement and preparation. So this is the one phase where I think uh some days PMMs are not that active but yeah, so if you're enabling sales, uh, CS marketing and sometimes customers in your cab or early adopter program, uh, you need, you need to put your full efforts and this comes into the phase two. You have to build collaterals, training decks, battle cards and also the alignment on the launch plans. So you need to have the regular cadence with the squad that you have for the gtm. If not for the squad, you do need to connect with all the stakeholders who are uh, part of the GTM motion. Then phase three is launch and iteration. I believe like every PMM knows it does not just end at the public launch. Like if you put out the social media post, you put out the blog, there's the webinar, there is uh, the emails to the customers, to the prospects. I'm not sure there can be n number of things that you can do around the launch. But the GTM motion goes beyond the launch, it goes also into iteration. So you have to monitor goals, you have to collect feedback. Uh, there is this one good practice that I run a 30, 60, 90 day cadence to see if I need to adjust messaging, uh, or there needs to be change in the enablement strategy. This is the continuous feedback loop, uh, that we have to build around the GTM motion and we have to constantly iterate based on what the market tells us. We should not just treat the launch day as the final.

Luis Liu: You've worked on different go to market initiatives. What are the common misunderstandings you've seen product marketers have about the full go to market process?

Abhishek Srivastava: The first one we have already discussed like treating GTM as a launch checklist. So I think that's a sad part if someone is treating GTM as a launch checklist. Second, a lot of PMMs under research phase. So initially when you are in the research phase you uh, are listening to the customer conversations, you are uh having these conversations with the analyst if possible. If not you are also having conversations with the stakeholders, with the people in the field. So you need to spend enough time with the customers with their conversation without jumping straight to the messaging. So then these conversation with both the power and the average users define what will stick in your messaging. And if you skip that your messaging is just based on assumptions then people think GTM is a PMM only responsibility. So that's wrong. It's not. PMM is an orchestrator, uh where they are bringing everyone on a table and making them aware of the expectations from the other stakeholders. And to get their feedback the entire company need to move in the same direction. And PMM can be the orchestrator but it's not PMM only responsibility. So that's a misconception. I some days see uh, with the fellow PMMs I think there's also this one crucial part like ignoring the invisible work. So that is what I believe. We are going to talk a lot in detail about the enablement but uh PMMs, uh if they are keeping the focus only on the external facing deliverables and neglecting the internal operating uh systems and the enablement uh materials. So the internal infrastructure is what determines whether the external launch translates into revenue or it will be just improvement in some vanity metrics. Uh one more I can remember is people confuse informing teams with enabling them. So sending a just a slack message like hey we have launched something very innovative. Uh is informing enabling means those teams can confidently talk about the product, handle objections and position it correctly the way you and the business has agreed on.

Luis Liu: Yeah, I love your insights. You also mentioned earlier some teams treat launch as the finish line. And do you think that's a mistake? Tell us a little bit more about the post launch activities.

Abhishek Srivastava: Sure thing. So this connects directly to what makes GTM different from a product launch. A uh launch has a date. A GTM motion has a continuous feedback loop. Uh post launch is where that loop runs. Firstly I uh think it's definitely getting customer feedback fast and bring it back to the product. And there is a bonus. So these feedback can also become your testimonial pipeline. Uh if someone is seeing value in the first few weeks I think that's a conversation you do want to capture and push into your marketing comms and marketing materials. Then uh, uh for the post launch I think you need to monitor your goals. What you have said before launch, uh 30, 60, 90 day goals uh are something uh that that can be like a clear checkpoint. So at 30 days you should observe are we seeing adoption internally, uh, and also adoption from the customers. At 60 days are we seeing the expected pipeline or revenue impact? Now there is definitely the sales cycle, there is definitely uh, the sales metrics also into play. But at 60 days if uh, if your product allows to see if there has been an impact on the pipeline or revenue, uh, noting these down, sharing it back to the stakeholders, that will be like big bonanza I would say. At 90 days I think you also need to do a quick check uh, on your strategy because what happens like if you launch something big or if you uh, uh make some big changes in your pricing and packaging, the market is also observing so your competitors are also observing. So in case in like, in like a quarter time you see there are changes in the market, like competitors have also changed their positioning or they're also targeting that specific segment. So you need to uh, iterate and you need to improve your positioning or your messaging. You also need to do like enablement sessions. Again so at 90 days you also need to do a thorough check of your strategy. Like whatever has worked till now, is it still working or you need to make some changes. Third, I think uh, enablement, you need to check if your enablement has landed. So, so our sales reps using the messaging, uh, our cst, positioning the feature correctly, uh, if not, if not, I think you need to put a refresher and then as I said like uh, you need to keep a check on the market. Competitive monitoring is very important. So post launch, uh, you don't need to do this right away after the launch, but after 60 days, 90 days, you do need to check on your competitors because it's not just you who is keeping a check on the competitors, it's also the competitors who are keeping a check on you. So after your launch you uh, need to track how the market reacts, uh, and if you need to update your battle cards and positioning if needed.

Luis Liu: When we say internal enablement, most people immediately think sales enablement, but in reality it can involve multiple teams. Um, how do you define internal enablement in your go to market process?

Abhishek Srivastava: So sales is definitely the loudest task uh for the internal enablement, but uh, it's important uh, and you have to check like about making sure that uh, every team, uh, that touches the customer, uh, be it the CS support, account managers, professional service folks, uh, uh, solution consulting and even the marketing teams who are running campaigns, uh, you need to check if they can confidently speak about the product with accuracy and the right level of depth. You need to do internal enablement for all these functions and not just for sales. This is the part of the invisible GTM work uh that I mentioned before. The customer, they never sees your internal enablement sessions but they do feel the result when a uh, sales rep can articulate the value clearly can give a solid differentiator and and even when a CSM can introduce a new feature and all the value propositions uh to the customers during a check in uh like we all have been uh purchasing solutions, we all have some tools, some tech stack in place. So there is this clear differentiator between a CSM who just do uh a normal cadence check like hey if everything is working well versus a CSM who continuously uh updates us with the new innovation, new updates. And you will see like there are high chances that you will stick with the second kind of CSM and with their solution. And also there are chances that you can go on an upgrade compared to the first CSM because if you are not getting any update on the product it completely becomes your job to look for like what's new in, in your tech stack. And and I do feel like uh there's very less time for PMMs to do a check on the tech stack. They have got um, and not just for PMS but even for other functions like they don't have the time to do a check on their tech stack. So uh, I do feel like enablement not just for the sales team but also for the cs. It's very important. I'll share some interesting thought. So the enablement even extends to customer. So let's say if you have a customer advisory board or if you are launching something big and you want to have some early adopters, some beta users, so the enablement even extend to them and then the enablement also extend to the power users because uh we all have been seeing this. Now uh, Clay, like for example Clay you can see uh, Clay has a lot of power influence uh users. They also have influencers working on, working for them. But then there are organic power users who are acting as advocates. So how they're getting those information about the new launches that's happening only because of a very solid enablement strategy in place. Uh, uh, I think sales, anyone who is in the revenue function, customer uh experience function and it will be great if your enablement even runs for the customer, for the power users, for the customer advisory board and for the early adopters.

Luis Liu: You have worked in companies of different sizes and maturity stages. How does internal enablement differ for product marketers in early stage startup versus a more mature organization.

Abhishek Srivastava: The difference is massive. So, so if I look at my latest GTM tracker for a top tier GTM motion I can remember there are at least like 80 to 90 rows of initiatives. Although these are not just for product marketing, uh also for other functions. Uh but in a mature organization each function has sub functions with different needs. So for example sales alone can have bdr, sdr, a solution consultants, sales engineers. So now each of those roles need a different depth and angle. A BDR might need to know enough to just to spark interest and to qualify a prospect and a needs deep product knowledge, uh even competitive positioning and objection handling. Uh a solution consultant on the other hand needs technical depth to run demos and proof of concept. You can see just within the sales team there are different functions who need different level of enablement. Uh uh if I extend this further, if we look at the CS on the customer success side CSMs need to drive adoption uh and upsell account managers on the other hand they focus on renewables and expansion and then we have tech support. They need troubleshooting knowledge. So you can't just give one deck to all of them and call it done. So in the mature organization you cannot just create a one pager or just one deck and share with any and everyone in the revenue function uh and in the customer experience side and just expect that the internal enablement is done. Uh also in mature organization you deal with more types of GTA motion. So you might be running enablement for a new product launch or for a geographic extension or a pricing change and all of this can be happening in the same quarter. So you need to have a proper plan like where you are going to put uh efforts, uh you need to tier them so you can understand where to put what efforts and then there will be a different enablement approach for each motion. Uh and there comes the biggest challenge like in a mature organization. So what's happening? Like a lot of uh lot of things are changing changing like in the same quarter like there can be launches, there can be uh a new market where the sales team want to run their motion. So uh you have to make sure that whatever plan you put into place it is not overwhelming. And I believe that's one of the biggest challenge that a PMM in a mature organization need to solve. On the other hand like let's if we talk about the early stage startup uh so uh I remember long back when I was in SAS labs just fall and uh I think I was the employee number 12 and uh we were in the early days. Now SAS Labs is doing really well but long back when I was in the founding team so enablement was just me sitting with the sales team walking them to the value props differentiators, just handing them one pager or a few slides and then I was available on Slack if they have questions along with the engineers and PM and that was all. So uh, in early startup you're often like one person or a very small team uh juggling with multiple work stream so you don't have the luxury of creating role specific enablement M material uh and that's fine. Uh I think what matter is defining your strategy based on the stage you are at, the team size you have, the industry you are in and the customers you are serving. Uh and I do uh believe you can do good even if you're not having different tracks for the different functions. Uh now we have all the chat, GPTs and the clothes of the world so so it's definitely helpful but you need to prioritize on where you need to put the efforts uh because it will be a big mistake if you try to run a mature organization enablement playbook at a startup. Uh and similarly if you try to run a scrappy startup approach in a mature organization. That will also be a very big

Luis Liu: mistake if someone listening is a solo product marketer at a uh early stage startup. What's the minimum viable internal enablement they should do for every launch?

Abhishek Srivastava: For the minimum minimum viable internal enablement I believe there can be four things. First should be a cheat sheet. It's non negotiable. Uh you need to have a cheat sheet that should have key messages, target Persona, top three objection or four five objections with responses and a one liner that a sales rep can use in their email in their calls. Uh and just need to be a one page. It can be like a front and back but you need to have one cheat sheet and this is non negotiable a demo. Now if you don't have the bandwidth or the product manager don't have the bandwidth to conduct a proper demo, uh you can have like a short 5 minute recorded demo or even an interactive demo using tool like Nava takes story lane. Uh I think that will also be helpful because the goal is very simple. The goal is if a rep can watch it once and understand what the product does, who it's for and why it matters. Uh I think you are enabling them enough uh to go in a call confidently. Then you need to have a one pager for the customers because uh I'M not sure about others but it's definitely me who goes on a call with a vendor and at the end of the call if I get to know about certain functionality, uh, which is of interest to me, I do ask them do you have a one pager or do you have an article or something that I can refer to later? So having a one pager for customers, I believe that's also a minimum viable internal enablement collateral and not a collateral but, but you should also have like a feedback channel. So let's say uh, for any of the GTM motion you are running, be it a product launch, be it a new market, be it a new segment or Persona, whatever you are going to uh, target. Uh, so once you initiate the GTM motion there will be feedback from the people in the field. So having a Slack channel or like whatever uh, comms platform you use. So having a channel where uh, sales reps, CS folks can share their feedbacks or field notes, uh, or whatever gaps they are hearing from the customers, I think that will be great because this can also act like an early warning system for your launch or for your GTM motion. So let's say if three reps ask the same question in the first week, this shows that your enablement hasn't covered that. So, so you need to cover that. So having a channel, uh, I think that that's really helpful. It should not, it should not be an email channel that I can definitely recommend. It should be something on the comm side. Now it can be a Slack, it can be teams, I'm not sure. Like whatever comms platform uh you are

Luis Liu: using, how do you measure whether your internal enablement is working?

Abhishek Srivastava: Uh, sure. So we should first definitely start with the adoption metric. So are reps opening the battle cards? Are they attending the enablement sessions? Are they downloading the collateral? If nobody's touching those materials, um, it's either a distribution problem or a relevance problem and you need to track this within the first one or two week, you cannot go beyond this because people will simply lose interest. Like however good the message you put out some weeks later, no one is going to attend it. Uh, so you do need to uh, understand the adoption, uh, like how the adoption is in the very first few weeks. Then I believe there comes the confidence metrics. So you should run a quick survey before and after enablement. Uh, and it can be very simple, like even three questions like how confident are you in explaining this product to a prospect? Can you handle the top three objections? And if you want to go a Bit detailed. You can in the post uh enablement survey you can even put out three objections questions and check if your reps are able to answer those. So the gap between the pre and the post uh enablement uh session survey can tell you if the session has moved the needle. So so this is not a costly uh matter that's very uh you just need to put out a survey form. So I think having surveys before and after enablement uh definitely is a good way to drag the confidence matrix conversation quality uh I uh believe this is also of importance. Now it do take some time uh from a PMM's life to listen to all the sales call or to the CS calls CS check ins. But uh I think it's important you do need to understand if the reps are using the key messages are they positioning the product the way you intended, are they handling objections with the framework you have given them. So this takes some effort but uh I do believe uh you will be able to get some field notes out of those conversations and and this also helps you improve on your messaging and the positioning and the value proposition and then definitely the business impact the 1 metric leadership care about. So this I believe is a lagging indicator but you do need to keep a track of uh you need to track the win rate changes or deals that are involved with that new product. Uh if your enablement is good that you will also observe there the deal cycle length is shortening up uh there is feature adoption among the existing customers and you will also see an uptick on the upsell cost cross sell rates. Not all of these metrics are going to improve just with one uh GTM motion. But you will be able to observe a few good changes and it might take 60 to 90 days to show up uh and you have to uh inform all the stakeholders about it that it's not like okay a GTM motion is into a play uh and at the launch date uh like after one week there is like big difference in uh the win rate or something else. But yeah you do need to keep uh continuously you do need to continuously monitor uh the the metrics uh and you do need to identify first like if win rate is the uh business metric you want to track or if it should be uh the sign up rate or if it should be the deal cycle length or if it should be the adoption rate uh whatever that business metric will get impacted with the certain GTM motion. You do need to get an understanding first uh of which business metric to uh track and I do think like you don't need to do all of these. The adoption metrics, the confidence metrics, conversation quality, the business matrix, you don't need to do all of this from day one. You can definitely start from the one you feel is more relevant and then you can build from there.

Luis Liu: Great thoughts, thank you for sharing. So we're getting to the end our time here. Do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share?

Abhishek Srivastava: Uh, yep, I think so. So internal enablement is the bridge between a great product and market success. So you can have the best positioning in the world, but if your sales team can't deliver it, if your CS team can't reinforce, uh, won't matter. So you need to have like a solid enablement strategy in place to make sure, uh, whatever GTM plan you have, put, whatever GTM motion, whatever, let's say the product launch you have thought of, uh, that is successful. So you need to do a proper solid enablement. Uh, uh, I remember. So there is this African proverb, when spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion. So all the small initiatives in your GTM plants are the strands or threads that can tie up the success you are aiming for. So uh, it's very important to look throughout the picture, uh, for the gtm, uh, uh motion you have to start first with research. Uh, it is non negotiable. You need to do the market research, you need to do the competitive research and then only start with the messaging, positioning, the enablement and the launch. And please don't forget post launch, keep the feedback loop on, keep the iterative loop on. Keep on updating your uh, strategy, your enablement strategy, your positioning, messaging. Because as I said, uh, it's not just you who is watching the competitor, it's also the competitor who is watching you.

Luis Liu: Thank you for joining us today. Thank you.

Abhishek Srivastava: Thank you Louis.

Luis Liu: Thank you for tuning into this is Product Marketing brought to you by Product Marketing Hive, a product marketing community that gives back. Check out our website productmarketinghive.com to join our community to meet fellow products, product marketers and access free resources. If you enjoyed our podcast, please subscribe and give a five star rating on the platform of your choice. See you next time.