As a Product Manager, you've toiled and sweated countless hours to identify the optimal product-market fit, drove a dozen teams to execute on your vision, and refined your product for a delightful experience. You and your marketing team have spared no effort in an extravagant launch that has caught everyone's attention and imagination. However, that's only half the story. In another year, you will also be required to demonstrate solid product adoption and meet revenue forecasts. What can you do as a Product Manager to ensure that you get the sales backing to achieve your product adoption and revenue targets? Where can Product Management uniquely play a role in ensuring rapid product adoption? What are some key things to keep in mind as you go about driving product adoption as a Product Manager? Phenomenal product managers excel not only at building awesome products, but also can execute on product adoption and growing revenue. These slides hope to uncover some aspects of outbound product management and get you to be that phenomenal product manager.

1. Product Managers guide to building a
Go-to-Market Strategy
Vaibhav Katkade
Product Management, Cisco
@VaibhavKatkade

2. Product FCS
Go-To-Market

4. Accelerate
Adoption
Maximize
Value Capture
Capture
Adjacencies
GTM
Typical objectives of GTM initiatives

5. Product - Market
Fit
● Market Assessment
● Value Proposition
● Product Readiness
● Positioning & Messaging
● Value Chain & Pricing
● Offers & Incentives
Channel
● Proof-of-Value
● Adoption & Customer Success
● Metrics
Execution
The GTM Cycle

6. Market Assessment &
Value Propositions
Product
Readiness
Early
Adopter
Feedback
Analyst Reports
Interviews / Surveys
● Target Customers
● Stakeholders
● Subject Matter Experts
Conjoint & Cohort Analysis
Product - Market Fit

7. Channel
Your Product End customerChannels
Direct
Sales
Partners -
Technology
Partners -
Services
Distribution Retail eCommerce

8. Product
Value
Proposition
Journey Map the Channel
Product
Positioning
Technical
Resources
Quoting &
Fulfillment
Deployment
& Services
Monetization
Think “Product → Market → Channel” Fit!
Strategy

9. Channel Offers and Incentives
Offers Incentives
➔ Bundles
➔ Discounts / Promotions
➔ Rebates & Credits
➔ Exclusive arrangements
◆ Product/Services seeding
◆ Training
➔ Sales Compensation
◆ Quota Planning
◆ Accelerators
◆ Spiffs
➔ Partners
◆ MBOs

10. Channel Offers and Incentives
KEY QUESTIONS TO ASK?
Sensitivity
Will Offers and Incentives drive incremental demand?
Profitability
Is the incremental demand large enough to drive incremental profitability?

11. Sample Break Even Calculations
Original GTM With Offers & Incentives
End Customer
Price
Cost of
Goods/
Cost of
Revenue
Contribution
Margin
Contribution Margin = $100
New End
Customer Price
Cost of
Goods/
Cost of
Revenue
New
Contribution
Margin
Discount
Channel
Incentive
New Contribution Margin = $50
Break Even Rate =
Contribution Margin
New Contribution Margin
X Original # Units

12. Execution - Few Tips on Pre-Sales Enablement
➔ Messaging - Product Value Prop
◆ Keep it Stupid Simple
◆ Use Persona based Storytelling, Analogies, Events & Examples
● Frame from audience reference point
◆ SCIPAB Framework
(Situation → Complication → Implication → Position → Action → Benefits)
➔ Technical Resources
◆ Is it pre-sales or post-sales?
◆ Pre-sales: Solution Briefs / Demos / Sandboxes / Trials / Case Studies /
ROI Calculators / Industry & Analyst Reports

13. Sales & Partners
Finance &
Operations
Product Marketing &
Technical Marketing
Engineering
Customer Success
& Services
Execution - It takes a village!

14. 14
Product
● Target Release
● Early Field Trials
● Dogfooding
● Migration &
Compatibility
● Telemetry
● Feature Documentation
● Release notes
● New Product
Introduction training
(internal)
Delivery
● Positioning guide (internal)
● Packaging
● Pricing
● Customer Promos/Offers
● Channel Incentives
● Ordering tools & Orderability
updates
○ Website
○ Ordering guide
Messaging
● Launch Brief
● Solution Brief
● Customer case study/quotes
● Video testimonials
● Press Release
● Exec Announcements
● Blogs
● Influencer Briefs
● Social Media
Enablement/
Adoption
● Channel Enablement
- On-demand Trainings
- Live Trainings
- Specialist Trainings
● Demo capabilities
● Sales Playbooks
● Deployment Guides
● Customer Success
engagement
● Opportunity heatmaps
● Deployment tracking
Launch Plan

15. Execution - Key Metrics
New Leads
Qualified
Pipeline
Volume
Bookings
● Direct
● Influence
Existing
Customers
Estimated
Lifetime Value
Cost
= ROI
Absolute
Relative
● Y/Y or Q/Q Growth or Ramp (# Customers / Bookings)
● Utilization / Engagement
● Avg Deal Size
● Cross-Sell & Upsell
● Competitive Wins & Case Studies

16. 1. Obtain stakeholder buy-in early on
2. Plan ahead with the end in mind
3. Messaging - KISS
4. Know the channel - value chain & incentives
5. Validate & Refine Product-Market-Channel fit early on
Secrets of success

17. Thank You!

18. CREDITS
Special thanks to all the people who made and
released these awesome resources for free:
╺ Presentation template by SlidesCarnival
╺ Photographs by Unsplash
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