Influence your sales team like a Zoom PMM

0:02Hi friends, welcome to Product Marketing Adventures, the only show that takes you beyond theory and into the real execution of product marketing. My name is Elle Grossenbacher, your trusted guide and host of this show. In each episode, I bring in expert product marketers to co-host two segments of this show. First, a case study example of their work, followed by a messaging critique for companies we admire. So if you're a PMM looking for practical guidance and inspiration, you're in the right place. Are you ready? Let's go.

0:41As product marketers, we pride ourselves on being customer obsessed. We are tuned in to their needs, their pain points, and what it takes to win their trust. Well, there's another audience that we cannot afford to overlook. If you want your product to win in the market, then you have to win over the people who are taking it to the market. Today, we're talking about one of the most important and unfortunately often underappreciated audiences that product marketing serves, the sales team. I'm so excited to bring you a product marketing leader who didn't stop at handing off an enablement deck. She truly influenced the sales team.

1:20It is my pleasure to have Sharon Markowitz on the show. You guys, Sharon is one of those rare product marketers who brings together deep business acumen, a sharp eye for customer insight, and a heart for people. She's led product and partner marketing at world-class brands like Atlassian, LinkedIn, Intuit, and most recently, Zoom, where she built go-to-market strategies that not only drove business growth, but unlocked real value for customers. And adding to the brag sheet, She's been named a top 100 product marketing mentor by Sharebird. She's a sought after career coach and the founder of Your Career Wings, where she coaches marketers on areas like upskilling and job searching.

2:03And she serves as a great sounding board on those issues that matter most. At the core of it all, Sharon believes that if you truly understand the customer, then everything else falls into place. Now that really resonates with me. Sharon, I'm so excited to have you here. Welcome to the show.

2:19Sharon Markowitz:Happy to be here. And thank you all for such a gracious introduction. Of course. Okay, so let's get our listeners grounded. Most people know Zoom for its video meetings, but what does Zoom offer today? Zoom's gone a long way. It's not just meetings anymore. It's a full platform. You have Zoom phone, contact center, team chat, and over 2 ,000 apps in the Zoom app marketplace. So I actually led the go-to-market strategy for the Zoom app marketplace. So that means building programs that actually help customers, but doing more inside Zoom, whether it's a small business or an enterprise. One of the programs I'll share today used an account-based approach to remove blockers for high-intent customers.

3:03Sharon Markowitz:And, you know, it pushed me to partner with Field in unexpected ways. Got it. This is a perfect example of when a company transitions beyond its inception in that growth stage. It sounds like Zoom grew a lot. 2 ,000 apps is a lot. I know there are companies out there with even more, I'm sure, but for a video conferencing platform, it feels like a lot. So that is the kind of evolution I think that creates a lot of new challenges and opportunities for product marketers, especially when it comes to working with the field. So let's get into that. For the first segment of our show, let's dive into a case study about influencing the sales team.

3:45So now, Sharon, take us back to when you realized you needed to engage with the field in a whole new way. What was going on with Zoom at that time? Well, Zoom was expanding quickly beyond just meetings.

3:59Sharon Markowitz:And oftentimes the native functionality just didn't keep pace with what the customers needed. So like as an example, Zoom Phone. Zoom Phone was growing, but key functionality like fact support was missing. Okay. So that makes me feel or think of industries like healthcare. What do you think? That's right. And I actually have an interesting example in terms of healthcare that'll kind of bring it home to the listeners. Literally last week, I was seeing a new doctor. I had my records that I think consisted of like 100 pages or something ready to email them. However, you know, the office manager couldn't accept it unless it was faxed.

4:38Sharon Markowitz:Wow. Yeah. Fax is still a thing. And it is actually really important in highly regulated industries because it's just one of the most secure and compliant ways to transmit sensitive documents. So for many organizations, switching to Zoom phone just wasn't a compelling option. And I think what's interesting in all this is that it wasn't for the business a demand gen issue. It was actually a blocker to conversion for high intent pipeline. And the opportunity existed in multiple use cases, which is why partnerships are so important. Got it. Okay. So the real issue was that Zoom had outgrown its initial inception and these new challenges arose in the market.

5:25And when you realized that it wasn't a complete solution and that you had these focus segments like healthcare that needed more. So what did you do? What was the task at hand?

5:35Sharon Markowitz:You know, I could see this wasn't just a missing feature. So I developed a scalable go-to-market strategy. Starts with making sure I had the right partner that meets customer needs and then ultimately supporting the field and sales to close the deals. What was interesting, though, at this time at the company, it was all about AI. So I had to be thoughtful, like, how am I going to get some of that mind share from the sales team? So with that said, I had already had a large stakeholder team that I was leading and I had to think differently. So there's a plot twist coming. I stepped outside the product marketing swim lane.

6:17Okay, wait, before you tell us about the plot twist, let me catch up for a minute. So Zoom was quickly expanding beyond meetings. You found these critical gaps like facts were missing and blocking these big deals in key industries. So your task at hand was unblocking that revenue without waiting on the roadmap. That sounds like working with a sales team. So tell us more about the plot twist now and how you stepped outside the PMM swim lane.

6:41Sharon Markowitz:Definitely. So I needed attention from the field. So I ended up introducing a sales incentive program, something not typically led by product marketing. But, you know, it just made sense because of what the business needed. Funded it from the marketing budget based on conversations I had with the sales team. Quite simply, reps were asking for company swag. And I built a program around that. But it had to have clear intent that this was about making sure I engage the sales team, but also move deals forward for both Zoom phone and the ISV partner. Okay, so great. I need to click deeper on something that you said.

7:19I think your actual words were in conversations with sales. So that's so important for product marketers. Tell us more about those conversations and why they were important.

7:29Sharon Markowitz:I mean, sales is on the front lines with customers. So if you are going to reach your customer, a relationship with sales is a no-brainer. In this case, I tapped a few colleagues for some quick feedback. Those, you know, informal, honest conversations are what sparked the idea. They weren't asking for more marketing decks. They were asking for something simple that made them feel connected to the brand and gave them a reason to re-engage accounts. Now, once that was set from a strategic perspective, it was really about rolling out the program. So I had to shift to execution mode. I joined sales calls, whether it was North America, Europe, or Asia, and it wasn't about kind of making more work.

8:15Sharon Markowitz:It was just making sure I was plugged in to the existing go-to-market motions to support the team. I also set up a Zoom team chat channel with the partner. So if sales had questions, they had direct access to the subject matter expert to help close those deals. Okay. So the tips that you shared just now are so helpful. You joined sales calls and you talked to sales leaders and you created the chat with sales. I think all of that is really helpful for a product marketer who's trying to get closer to sales. You basically embedded yourself into the sales team and then you took the incentive that you built and added it as part of your entire go-to-market strategy.

9:02I feel like most PMMs would have stopped at the enablement materials, but you created this comprehensive approach. So I'm eager to hear about the results. Tell us more.

9:13Sharon Markowitz:Absolutely. We ended up seeing over 60 % sales participation in just one quarter. And, you know, after I started getting some messages from sales about how excited they were about their Zoom swag, I basically said, hey, would you mind promoting it, you know, to your colleagues? get them engaged, be a part of the incentive program, start to close those deals. And the cool thing about that is it builds mindshare, not from a marketer. It's from a peer. Yep. Someone that they trust. So you basically use this organic feedback as social proof to get the other salespeople interested in the incentive itself.

9:51Very smart.

9:52Sharon Markowitz:And ultimately, you know, the overall go-to-market program ended up driving millions and net new customer account value. And at the end of the day, it accelerated stall deals and allows the customer to say yes. So I think, you know, the one takeaway I would love the teams in product marketing to have their listing today is just, it's okay to step outside your swelling, especially when it's going to impact the customer and the business supports it. Yep, I could not agree more. Okay, so at the end of the day, how does a PMM know if we need to put together a sales incentive program or not? Fair question.

10:34Sharon Markowitz:I would say that that's probably more of a tactic than it is a solution. So it's not really the starting point. Ah, okay, good point. All right, so let me back up and summarize then so we can get to the starting point. So Zoom expanded beyond meetings and you had to unblock that revenue. Then you basically did that by stepping outside your role as a PMM and truly influenced sales by embedding yourself with the team, joining calls worldwide, creating the chat channel and everything, ultimately driving millions for the business. Love it. So I have so many questions about this, but let's start with putting together a guide for PMMs.

11:10If I were trying to influence the sales team in my org today, what are the steps that I would need to take? What is step one?

11:19Sharon Markowitz:Step one is honestly to listen to your customers and your internal teams. Think about, you know, what are those gaps or opportunities that may not be fully reflected in the current priorities? Got it. Okay, so you said listen to your customers and teams. What does that look like? And then I guess like looking at that in comparison with maybe what the current priorities are for the company, like tell us more about what it looks like to identify that disconnect and like what metrics I should be looking at. Good questions. You know, it starts with listening, both like what are the customers saying?

11:52Sharon Markowitz:What does the data show? So on the qualitative side, it might be sales calls, support feedback, or reoccurring themes and customer interviews. And then I'd say on the data side, it's taking a look at those win-loss reports, asking questions like, hey, are high intent deals stalling? Because it's something we're not offering. And I think that if demand is there, but conversion is not happening, there's probably something to look a bit further into. Oh, got it. Okay, those are really helpful examples to look for. So once I identify that gap, what are the ways to influence a sales team? Or I guess what I'm asking is, how did you determine how to influence the team?

12:38I'm guessing that it had something to do with learning their needs and, you know, when you embedded yourself in that team.

12:44Sharon Markowitz:You know, there's a lot of ways to influence sales. I mean, it could be messaging. It could be a customer state case study. But I think ultimately, you just have to have a real conversation with your sales team, your internal customers. Yep. Now that I think about it, I've had actually very similar experience to yours, where when I built a sales program in the past, actually at Twilio, I interviewed salespeople to understand where their pains were and what kind of training and assets that they needed. And that hugely contributed to a sales program that I created. So it sounds like at Zoom, you obviously had a number of stakeholders.

13:25You mentioned you had this big stakeholder management for the entire go-to-market strategy. But I guess more for the incentive program in relation to sales specifically, who were the stakeholders that you connected with as you built the program?

13:39Sharon Markowitz:First, I love the example that you shared. You know, the stakeholders that I connected with are customer success managers, account executives, to ultimately share my idea and discuss what you're solving for. I mean, it's ultimately about having the real conversations, what could work, but also what's reasonable. Got it. Okay, so to recap, the steps a PMM would need to take to influence sales or specifically the sales team would be one, to identify if there's a disconnect between priorities and customer needs. And then two, talk to your sales team, understand what their needs are to unblock their success.

14:16And then what is step three? Would it be to build a program or a strategy itself, I guess?

14:23Sharon Markowitz:You're on to it. it's ultimately to build that, but build it together with the sales team. So it's not about building it in a vacuum. You know, take what you heard from sales, layer in those customer insights, design something that fits into their workflow. Doesn't have to be complicated. Quite frankly, the simpler, the better. Good point. Okay. So once you've identified that gap, you're working with sales. How do you build a program that sticks? And how do you know that, or how do you know if an incentive like giving away swag is the right lever to pull? You know, I think a program that sticks honestly is not guaranteed.

15:02Sharon Markowitz:You have to keep listening, understanding if it impacted your metrics that you were solving for, you know, and for us, the incentive part of the go-to-market effort was a test for the quarter. So with that said, swag for us was also the right lever because it was based off a customer insight that was real and powerful from the sales team. They're connecting with customers virtually or in person. They need to be energized and feel supported. Yes. How brilliant. So you use the feedback that you got from sales and then also it sounds really obvious, but most people probably don't really think about it.

15:40But to your point, salespeople are out with customers and they're on the front lines and managing those engagements and really bringing the spirit of the brand to those customer engagements. So giving them the swag to kind of just add that extra oomph, I guess you could say, sounds like it was really valuable. So yeah, it's not just the incentive itself. And what else I know about getting an incentive program funded especially out of a marketing budget, is that it is no small feat. It takes alignment with leadership and usually have to tie it to pipeline. In fact, I've only ever received approval on something like this was when I worked closely with a sales leader and we used funding through like a SPF program.

16:26It wasn't marketing. So help us understand what are your tips and ideas on how do you get buy-in for something like this?

16:35Sharon Markowitz:Totally fair. You know, it was a revenue blocker, and this was a clear way to actually be able to help sales close deals. So with that said, it is still part of changing sales behavior. So, you know, first up is, okay, there's funds in the marketing budget. And then it's, you know, connecting with marketing to make sure you have leadership approval on that, that connecting with sales leadership to make sure that they agree and they ultimately approve it. Got it. Okay. And I personally love that you used swag. Again, it just brings the spirit of the brand. And maybe it's just because I'm such a natural cheerleader.

17:10So I like branded stuff. But what was your rationale for using swag versus something like gift cards or something like that?

17:17Sharon Markowitz:Super insightful. You know, gift cards can be tricky, you know? And the reason is because there's sometimes tax implications with sales and that makes it harder to manage. Using swag, honestly, was simpler. The budget was already approved. We had access to the company store. So in a way, it was a sunk cost. It felt easy, scalable, and it reinforced the brand, as you mentioned, you know, while still giving reps something fun and meaningful to share. Yes, it like ticks every box. Love that. And true to your point, you said earlier in our conversation, you said the simpler, the better. And even like the incentive itself, like just the logistics of it, it sounds like was simple.

17:58So that's a really helpful way to think about structuring incentive programs that might use swag. Okay, so last question for you on this topic, Sharon. What advice do you have for a product marketer who is looking to influence the sales team for their product?

18:16Sharon Markowitz:It's simple. Treat them as an internal customer. Yes. Okay. You know what's really funny is I asked that question at the end of every case study for this segment of all of my episodes. And almost all of my guests say something to the effect of talk to customers or listen to your customers, which is true. We should absolutely do that. But it's so easy to forget that our sales team are our internal customers. And I really appreciate you bringing that perspective and reminding us of that. So Sharon, thank you so much for sharing this playbook with us. I know a lot of PMMs are going to walk away with some great practical insights and ideas that they can actually try.

18:58All right. So now it's time for our next segment, the messaging critique. This is where we as product marketing experts get to analyze real world messaging. But the fun part is that you, Sharon, my guests, get to pick the company that we look at. So before we get started, let me tell you the ground rules. So first, you're going to tell me the company or product that you want to look at the messaging. You're going to tell me something that you're loving about the messaging. Then you're going to tell me something that you wish the PMM would have done differently. And then lastly, you're going to tell us where you think the messaging could go next or how the PMM could iterate on it and take it further.

19:38Maybe it's a creative content idea or campaign or something of that matter. Again, this is all about learning, refining our craft, no negativity, just a thoughtful, constructive critique. So let's get into it. Tell me what product or company has caught your attention, good, bad, or somewhere in between. So have you heard of Time Left?