Selling the Vision, Building the Reality

Lessons from Both Sides of the Enterprise B2B Sales-Product Divide

May 05, 2024

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If you've worked in product at an enterprise B2B software company, you've likely encountered this familiar scenario: the sales team sells a feature set you don't have yet, throwing your carefully crafted product roadmap out the window. While the company lands a new customer and the sales team celebrates, folks on the product and engineering side are left feeling frustrated.

As a longtime product person and now co-founder of an enterprise software startup, I've been on both sides of this dance. To the product team, it can feel like sales is selfishly ignoring strategy and steamrolling over the user-centric work they've poured their hearts into. To the sales team, it can feel like Product is being stubborn and standing in the way of their hard-earned commission.

If you haven't worked in enterprise B2B, the sales-first go-to-market approach might come as a surprise. It feels counterintuitive to most product people to sell then build. But it's no better or worse than other sales processes. It's just fine-tuned for building a specific kind of business.

After years in the trenches, I've gained perspective that has reframed this potentially uncomfortable shift. The key is to get familiar with the differences between common B2C, B2B, and Enterprise B2B go-to-market approaches:

B2C

Example GTM approach: Understand users → Build product → Sell product

In B2C, the focus is on understanding the needs of a large market segment and building a product that appeals to as many users within that segment as possible. Marketing plays a crucial role in driving awareness and acquisition, often through a mix of paid advertising, content marketing, and other growth tactics.

The product largely needs to stand on its own. Customers discover it through a marketing channel, make a decision based on the current feature set, and can easily churn if the product doesn't meet their expectations.

The sales process is typically self-serve, with users signing up and paying for the product directly through the website or app. Customer retention is driven primarily by the product's ability to consistently deliver value and a great user experience, rather than through personal relationships, customization, or legal contracts. Radically changing the product roadmap for an individual user isn't in question because you're working at the aggregate level.

B2B Professional Tools

Example GTM approach: Understand users → Build product → Sell to individuals and small teams → Expand to higher-ticket customers (enterprise)

Many software products aimed at helping professionals do their jobs more efficiently begin like a B2C product, selling a relatively low-ticket offer to many users. The initial focus is to create a tool that becomes an indispensable part of users' workflows, driving strong adoption and loyalty.

As these tools gain traction and prove their value, they often expand their feature set and begin targeting larger teams and organizations. They move upmarket to enterprise.

The sales process at this stage becomes more complex, often requiring dedicated sales teams to navigate longer sales cycles and more stakeholders. However, the strong foundation of individual and small team adoption can provide powerful social proof and advocacy within larger organizations.

Enterprise B2B

Example GTM approach: Understand customer needs → Sell vision → Refine product

In Enterprise B2B, the focus is on understanding the unique needs of each potential customer and tailoring the product and sales process to meet those needs. The sales cycle is typically long, involving multiple stakeholders and decision-makers.

Signing a new customer in this context is more like adding a business partner than it is like acquiring new users. The product needs to communicate the vision, but doesn't need to be turnkey for the customer's unique environment from day one.

Closing a deal often requires demonstrating not just the current capabilities of the product, but also the potential for the product to evolve to meet the customer's specific requirements. This can involve custom development, integrations with existing enterprise systems, and service level agreements (SLAs).

Post-sale, the relationship with the customer remains crucial, with a focus on ensuring successful implementation, driving adoption, and aligning the product roadmap with the customer's evolving needs.

The Power of the Enterprise B2B Approach

Even though the B2C flow might be more common, the enterprise flow is just as powerful for building valuable software.

Counterintuitively, this "sell then build" approach that's common to Enterprise B2B can provide clear directions that help you deliver a better customer experience. It's especially useful for early-stage enterprise startups. By holding off on speculative features, you can focus your limited resources on improving what you know your current customers need today. Expensive design and engineering hours are best spent on confirmed needs rather than guesses about the future.

Avoiding Pitfalls

Of course, this sales-product dance can go awry. You might over-customize for one big customer to the detriment of your overall product vision. Or, sales might give away features that help close a deal but don't strengthen the product strategically.

For example, let's say a potential customer requests a feature that would require significant engineering resources to build and maintain. Before agreeing to include it in the contract, the sales team should work with product to assess whether the feature aligns with the overall product vision and roadmap.

Will it add value for other customers? Is the potential revenue from this customer worth the development and maintenance costs? If the answer is no, it may be better to find an alternative solution or even walk away from the deal.

Keys to Success: Collaboration and Communication

The key to preserving a good balance is proactive communication between product and sales to align on the near-term roadmap and set smart boundaries.

A good salesperson understands that the product team's time is precious. They should advocate for the customer while also protecting the company's strategic interests. Meanwhile, a good product person (PM, designer, or engineer) understands that business strategy involves trade-offs and that smart partnerships can make an outsized impact on the company’s success.

When this dance is choreographed well, you can meet the specific needs of prospective customers while still advancing your long-term product vision. By treating customers as partners and collaborating closely across the organization, you can build a stronger product, a healthier business, and happier customers.

What strategies have you found effective for navigating the sales-product dance in your organization? Reply to this email or leave a comment on Substack to let me know — I'd love to learn from your experiences.

Until next time,

Patrick