For much of the SaaS Era, the go-to-market dream was The Salesforce Model. This story harkens back to the early days of Salesforce’s growth, when an enterprise sales rep would roll into a CIO’s office and say, “Did you know we already have 25 paying customers in your organization? Wouldn’t you like an enterprise license and save some money?” Boom. Roll the pen. The deal was done.

This bottom-up sales approach has been  known more recently as Product-Led Growth, exemplified by brands like Slack and Zoom, among others. The attraction is understandable: Pour all of your resources into a killer product and with no need to invest in or build out a sales and marketing function.

However, for most enterprise brands, that PLG dream was never really attainable.  In today’s environment, it’s even less likely to work as enterprise IT buyers slow down their sales cycle and cast more side-eye at self-procurement.

Whether you want to lead with product or take a more conventional approach to enterprise sales, the question you need to ask yourself is, “What is my defining moment?” What are you doing differently from your competitors that makes you different and memorable?  Hint: A killer demo and a slick pitch deck ain’t enough. Instead, what are you doing to break the script of what your buyer is expecting to pay attention to and instead create a story that shines a bright and evocative light on what you are actually delivering? If you don’t know how to answer that question or are falling back on “best practices,” it might be worth reconsidering your approach.

What else is going on this week?