Product marketing leaders must adapt their approach to the specific needs of the company, team, and GTM motion, rather than forcing a textbook definition of the role. Success requires flexibility and situational analysis.

When entering a new market, you must organizationally separate that team from the core business. The main revenue engine has a powerful "inertia of success" that will distract and pull focus from the fledgling initiative. Vanta's enterprise motion only succeeded after being organizationally separated from its main sales team.

Founders must consider their sales motion (e.g., PLG vs. enterprise sales-led) when designing the product. A product built for one motion won't sell effectively in another, potentially forcing a costly redesign. This concept extends "product-market fit" to "product-market-sales fit."

A more effective mental model than PLG vs. SLG is analyzing which activities create new demand versus which ones harvest existing demand. Both sales and product can serve either function. Creating demand is always the harder, more critical challenge for any revenue engine.

Forcing PMMs into a 'full-stack' generalist role where they cover everything from data analysis to sales storytelling leads to failure. Specializing roles based on individual strengths and passions creates a more effective and happier team.

Don't "stuff the channel" by forcing your existing sales team to sell an acquired product with a different model. At Cisco, a usage-based product was kept separate from the enterprise sales team, who were incentivized by large deals and wouldn't have prioritized it.

Instead of choosing between Product-Led Growth (PLG) and Sales-Led Growth (SLG), companies should treat them as a portfolio. Test both motions and continuously invest where you see incremental ROI, rather than treating them as mutually exclusive strategies.

Pendo's CPO advocates for a blended approach in enterprise B2B. The product must enable self-service and stand on its own (PLG), but a skilled sales team is crucial for navigating complex procurement, building business cases, and establishing trust with large, regulated customers.

A common PLG pitfall is assuming the user base will naturally springboard into enterprise deals. Often, the enterprise buyer is a different person with different problems. This oversight can cost companies years, as they have to build a second, separate sales motion from scratch.