Traditional sales discovery focuses on the formal procurement process. In a product-led growth model, understanding 'how they buy' means first analyzing how customers are using the product before any purchase. This pre-purchase engagement is the new starting point for the entire sales motion.
The traditional sales motion requires securing an economic buyer's commitment before a lengthy proof of concept. At Datadog, because startup users were already actively using the product, the entire validation and commitment discussion could be compressed into a single, efficient call with a technical leader like the CTO.
In a product-led growth model, initial sales outreach should be purely supportive. As user signals indicate deeper engagement, like moving into a testing phase, the conversation must shift to commercial topics like SLAs and managed hosting, aligning with the user's need to move to production.