In 2026,
what do you see now is making the job of the sales easier?
Is it like more data?
Is it more content?
Is it more AI generated pipeline?
What do you think?
We brought in this new VP from Oracle,
by the way.
He stood up and just said this,
like,
why do we exist?
He said,
we exist to make sales easier.
Literally,
as soon as I heard it,
I was like,
I like this guy and I like this mantra.
Some people still resist.
because they're too proud to admit that they're helped to embrace the fact that we're here to help someone else if we only had three people in the company there'd be a ceo one developer and one salesperson there'd be zero market i'm here to help you but i am a professional i've studied this stuff for 30 years so how about you don't tell me the answer you tell me your symptoms and
i'll tell you your disease you mentioned that the
Marketing has to make sales easier.
And a lot of CMOs,
they don't really think about that.
So this is a principle that you borrowed at Ingress.
You were mentioning Ingress.
But in 2026,
what do you see now is making the job of the sales easier?
Is it like more data?
Because now we've got so much data and with the AI,
it's easier to read.
Is it more content?
Is it more
AI generated pipeline?
What do you think?
So there's a lot there.
And it's,
so first I'm going to do the basics of the principle and we may have to drill back onto more specific questions.
But
I was in a meeting decades ago as a PMM,
as a product marketing manager.
We brought in this new VP from Oracle,
by the way,
Chris Greendale,
charismatic guy.
And he stood up and just said this,
like,
why do we exist?
He said,
we exist to make sales easier.
And literally as soon as I heard it,
I was like,
I like this guy and I like this mantra.
Because especially at the time,
there's a little bit of,
if you look at consumer products marketing,
the marketers,
the PMMs are the brand managers and they're the bosses.
And sales are soldiers that they deploy,
right?
And a lot of tech marketers deep down wish for that power.
So there's this kind of confusion and tension.
Is sales the customer or sales are pawns on the chessboard,
right?
And we're moving them around.
And an enterprise software company,
at least given how much money they make.
and given how much the department costs and how much power they have,
it's a really bad idea to treat them as pawns.
Like you will not last.
Go sell yogurt or candy bars,
right,
if you want sales to be your pawns.
So the other way of looking at this was a couple of years later,
I worked at a company where one of the head of sales came in one day with T-shirts that said code,
sell,
or get out of the way,
which
I thought was fantastic.
Because it's like,
hey,
there's two people who make money for this company,
the people who write the product and the people who sell the product and everybody else's help.
And even CEOs help in that definition,
right?
Unless it's on a sales call.
So
I love that mentality.
And I later did a blog post on it called Enterprise Software as a Two-Engine Plane,
right?
There's two edges of the flight that drive the plane,
be it code-ready developers and quote-unquote carrying salespeople.
So that's always been my philosophy.
But I think...
The first thing I'd say about the philosophy is it's kind of egoless,
which is like,
yeah,
we're help.
I've been,
we're help and we're proud of it.
And we're here to help you,
which means we need to help you.
We need to ask if we're helping.
We need to measure if we're helping,
right?
So,
and I just think there's a psychological part of this that's really important that some people still resist because they're too proud to admit that they're help.
So step one of embracing that mantra is to embrace the fact that we're here to help someone else.
If we only had three people in the company,
there'd be a CEO,
one developer,
and one salesperson.
There'd be zero market.
So that's the background of that.
And by the way,
that mantra,
from the second I heard it,
I mean,
it took me from PMM to CMO of a billion-dollar company.
And it works.
I'll be a big testimonial for that mantra.
And I think it still works today.
Now,
I think your question,
come back to your question,
but I think it was like,
what does it mean today?
Like,
how do we make sales easier today?
Yeah,
I think.
Yeah,
exactly.
You know
I'm just going to take a funnel view on this,
but you know,
you can make sales easier by putting more stuff in at the top of the funnel and put it in with higher quality and the CFO will like you.
And that's important these days,
if you can do it with higher efficiency and most marketers are very focused on top of funnel,
arguably too much.
And I actually might even say they're one level down.
They're focused on kind of what would be called demand capture and marketing circles.
Like you didn't actually generate the demand.
You just found the guy who was out shopping.
And that's very important,
right?
Like demand capture,
like that's what goes pipeline.
But demand generation is also super important on top of that.
You may know
Alice DeCoursey from Cognizant.
She did a ton of really good content marketing about demand gen versus demand capture.
I got her on the pod,
actually.
Oh,
okay.
Awesome.
I'm a friend and a fan.
And she's,
everything you want to know about that,
go ask Alice.
But to me,
there's those two layers where people typically associate marketing often with the capture layer.
And then if they're a little sophisticated,
they do it on the generation layer.
But look,
being a product marketer by background,
there's a lot of value you can add lower in the funnel,
right?
Not only with better messaging,
but better competitive messaging,
better tactics,
better understanding the competitor's tactics.
If we're in a deal,
we know they're going to go to the end users with a demo to put you to use,
so we should counter by going to IT with a security message.
That's not a product-oriented message.
That's a tactic-oriented sales play.
But marketing can help with that by working closely with enablement.
So I'm kind of a full funnel marketer.
Like,
if it's anywhere in the funnel,
we can help.
So
I always view it as a doctor.
Tell me your problem.
I got this medical bag full of drugs.
Medicine,
I should say.
Tell me your problem and I'll pull out the right medicine.
But let me make that decision.
And let me also assess,
because salespeople aren't great.
Like most salespeople,
we say,
what's wrong?
They're going,
nobody heard of us.
All right.
It's like,
okay,
I understand you feel that way.
But let's get some data on funnel conversions.
We can do market research on the funnel to try and figure out where the problem really is.
So while I do listen to sales,
I listen with a critical ear.
And I will just tell you,
eight out of 10 salespeople will say,
the marketing problem is no one's heard of us.
If I could just get more at-bats,
using the American baseball metaphor,
if I could just get more at-bats,
I'd get more runs.
And that's always true,
right?
But is that the most efficient way to get more runs?
Maybe we need to preserve,
you know,
increase your on-base percentage or your steal percentage.
Like,
there's a lot of other levers we have there.
And this is back to the,
sometimes I call it tough love,
sometimes I call it doctor-patient relationship,
which is,
I'm here to help you,
but I am a professional.
I've studied this stuff for 30 years.
So how about you don't tell me the answer.
You tell me your symptoms and I'll tell you your disease.
Yeah.
You know,
it's interesting that you're saying there is a lot of ego also on this topic.
And you see,
I see it a lot with my job because,
you know,
I run a service company.
So we do service for other companies.
And I see a lot of agencies and agency owners,
for example,
they dream of having you
like a SaaS business or something like that,
because it's,
I don't know,
it looks sexier and because,
you know,
they,
they do service.
And so it's like,
yeah,
but I don't like to,
you know,
be at the service of others on my side.
I feel it's pretty noble,
you know,
it's,
it's really,
I mean,
there is no,
yeah,
I love doing this.
I don't feel that by saying marketing has to make
the life of the sales easier.
It's actually a bad job.
You know,
it's actually great.
Yeah,
totally.
If you embrace it,
and some people don't.
I don't get it because it came very naturally to me,
but I've definitely met people who think sales are the pawns.
And
I know a consumer,
they are the pawns because I have friends who work in CPG marketing.
So I understand where some of that comes from.
Like in business school,
if you went to a CPG-oriented business school,
you're going to get shaped with the wrong notion of what sales is for enterprise software.
But I totally agree with you.
There's nothing better than being helped.
And when you embrace it,
you do better at it.
Because you say,
how can I help?
Yeah,
exactly.
And then you get stupid ideas.
Then you're like,
okay,
wait a minute.
I'm also a professional.
So how can I help?
And let's hear your challenges.
And I'm going to that's why I go from because anybody could just say,
hi,
how can I make your life easier?
Right?
A marketing professional is going to apply whatever,
20 years or whatever of experience and learning to answering that.
Yeah,
I agree.
Do it
Just do it
DO IT
Don't let dreams be dreams.
Yesterday,
you said tomorrow.
So just do it
Make your dreams come true
Just do it