Sell your story, and your product sells itself
(Or why we all got Product-Led Growth wrong)
I recently read a great piece of research from the team at Flowla. It outlined the ever-growing gap between buyers and sellers in the B2B space.
You can grab a copy here.
Here are three eye-opening takeaways that stood out to me:
Only 27.3% of buyers cited product features as being a deal-breaker.
Over a quarter of buyers say they’re confronted with too much info or too little.
One of the biggest reasons sellers cited as losing a deal was the lack of a champion.
It’s safe to say that buyers aren’t getting what they want. And so sellers aren’t getting what they want either. It’s a bit of a shit-show.
And today I want to propose a theory as to what’s gone wrong.
And offer a solution.
Let’s go.
Where did this gap come from?
Over the past ten years or so, a certain approach has grown in popularity and stature. It’s called Product-Led Growth (PLG). You might’ve heard of it.
The basic gist, if you haven’t, is that you let your product do the talking when it comes to sales. Give away free trials, or build a freemium product, or have a free tier. In other words, get people using the product, bombard them with value, and then they’ll turn into paying customers.
Now, I think this is a powerful strategy. And for most B2B SaaS products can be insanely effective.
My beef isn’t with PLG as an underlying approach. My beef is with the misinterpreting of it.
And I believe that misinterpretation sits at the heart of the growing divide between buyers and sellers.
The PLG trap
Most advice out there when it comes to marketing your product sounds a little like this:
Position it around a target ICP.
Create messaging that explains what the product does (features and capabilities).
Go to market with campaigns that reinforce what the product does.
Profit.
Notice something interesting?
It’s all about marketing the product. All about the features and capabilities and use cases and all that jazz.
In fact, there’s a growing movement of messaging strategists and copywriters who have decided the only thing a B2B SaaS website should do is lay out the facts.
You can see how an ecosystem of startups brought up on PLG end up focusing purely on marketing their product. After all, that’s what product-led means, right?
But here’s the thing.
PLG basically means that the startup with the best product should win. And back when it was coined, that was much more possible. You could go to market with a one-of-a-kind product. And PLG was perfect.
Until it wasn’t.
Because now competition is higher than ever. Each year the number of B2B SaaS products grows. Especially with AI.
And that means that simply building the best product isn’t enough anymore. Because everyone has great products. Not to mention the fact it’s entirely subjective.
So if your GTM plan was something like the one above, then I’m sorry but you’re going to be fighting for scraps. There are dozens of products, all like yours, fighting for the same attention, the same buyers, the same budgets. If you want to win, you have to simply shout louder, be cheaper, and work harder.
This is what I call the PLG Trap. It’s the false belief that simply having the best product means you’ll win. It’s the false belief that all you need to do is sell your product.
But there’s a way you can escape the PLG Trap. A way to become category leaders. And I call it…
Introducing Narrative-Led Growth
Slack, Drift, Hubspot.
What do those names have in common? Well, other than being some of the biggest names in B2B SaaS over the last decade, they’re also companies that escaped the PLG Trap. Probably without even realising it.
How?
Because they sold their story. And then their product sold itself.
Slack didn’t go to market selling an instant messaging platform. They went to market selling the idea that workplace comms needed a revamp. First the story, then the product.
Drift didn’t go to market selling a chatbot widget. They went to market selling the concept of conversational marketing. First the story, then the product.
Hubspot didn’t go to market selling an all-in-one marketing suite. They went to market selling the entire industry of inbound. First the story, then the product.
And this is Narrative-Led Growth (NLG) in a nutshell.
NLG focuses on one core principle. So core, in fact, that it’s the title of this post.
Sell your story, and your product sells itself.
But why does that work?
Well, if you go out pitching your product you’re going to be met with resistance. Because people don’t like being sold to. Especially when they have multiple startups all with the same boring messaging about features and functionality. Yawn.
But people like ideas. They like stories. They like opinions. And so if you go out selling those things, then people are more open and receptive to them. And if they find themselves agreeing with what you’re saying, then they trust you. They see you as a category leader.
And if they see you as a category leader? Then they’ll come to you when they need the product. All you really have to do is remind them the product exists. They’re already bought into your brand.
So the new way of marketing your product looks a little like this:
Create a unique narrative and category POV.
Use your narrative and POV to educate the market.
Build an audience of dedicated advocates.
Profit.
In fact, the new way of marketing your product is to barely market your product at all.
How I can help
Look, this might be a lot to take in. It’s a fundamental shift in how you see marketing and sales for your product. It’s not just about changing how you go to market. It’s about changing what you’re marketing in the first place. Moving from product to narrative.
I want as many of you as possible to grasp how powerful this can be. So here’s my offer…
Let’s have a chat.
Just a half-hour call where you can ask me anything you want to know about NLG. I can explain the core idea, how I’d go about doing it, and even specific advice for your startup.
And I’ll do this for free to say thanks for being with me on this journey.
Speak soon.
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