The following is a shoptalk story. I wouldn’t take any of it too seriously, hope you like it!
Once upon a time in B2B,
sales were the tried and true way of closing deals. The department qualified, transferred, demoed, and closed. It was a beautiful thing.
Leads were worked through countless outbound calls, emails, and creative LinkedIn messages. Meanwhile, marketing was qualifying leads through content downloads, pricing page visits, and demographic information. Neverending arguments between the departments took place.
Gongs were hit, footballs were tossed, SQL's were celebrated, and pipelines were filled.
What a time to be in B2B.
But then one day, everything changed…
A waterfall of posts started filling LinkedIn. Case studies were shared behind Slack and Dropbox. It turns out, companies that monetized free products were quickly moving upmarket. Shopify, Zoom, Canva, and others followed suit.
This flood of case studies made it's way to the top of the gondola ride, and B2B companies took notice:
Many executives were attending Dreamforce that weekend. After closing LinkedIn, they walked over to Starbucks to get their daily venti dark roast. Conversations ensued:
"How the f*@ck could this happen? You can’t go from free to an enterprise-level deal?!!"
"I know! Why should I give a shit about the end-user?!!"
“Ugh, we need to look into this. Can’t believe we’re going to miss Oprah’s keynote”
Executives chugged their venti coffee, ordered another venti, and sprinted away from their booth at Dreamforce that day. Upon arriving at the hotel, they opened their laptop and start clicking
How Dropbox used a product-led growth strategy to hit $10B in only 10 years
Self-serve first: the overlooked but essential paradigm underlying great software companies
What is Product Led Growth? How to Build a Software Company in the End-User Era
and more….and more…. and more…
They then started following:
and more….and more… and more
Back at their Dreamforce booths, account executives starting looking at each other with concern.
"You think we need to do anything about this?"
"No, no, no….. a user will never self serve into the type of deals were closing"
“Ya, you’re right. K cool… let’s get back to pumping our chests.
Sales reps were unsurprisingly against this wave of change. They got louder about their ARPA, dials per day, demos per day, and logos they were bringing in:
Meanwhile, leadership was at a full week offsite deciding what to do with an emerging self serve opportunity. A change was coming.
One year later…
Growth teams started spinning up left, right, and center. Product organizations focused on products selling themselves….with no humans involved.
And just like that, self-serve was officially introduced into B2B. Sales reacted appropriately:
Back in sales, the hatred towards self-serve was alive and well. Fast sales cycles at lower selling points were no longer in their hands. They worked harder on bigger deals that took longer to close, and targets weren't shrinking. Triple orders of venti dark roasts took place.
But then something happened...
Boards started coming down on ARPA and the cost to provide these glorified free products. LTV:CAC ratios just weren't what they used to be.
As the pendulum swung, executives looked to strike a balance.
Soon after, sales were given product qualified leads from free and low paying tiers. Sales would then find the right buyers, bundle prospects together, and demo enterprise products.
Suddenly, and almost instantly...sales fell in love.
Account executives started ordering tall medium roasts as the pressure to create leads out of thin air started to vanish.
"These leads aren't cold….they didn't just attend a webinar…this is kind of amazing"
“I know! 20 people at the company I’m demoing tomorrow are already using the product!"
Coffee flowed across the office and awkward high fives were given.
The B2B world was forever changed..