How to Generate Product Qualified Leads, with Bridget Gleason and Mitch Morando [Episode 562]

Bridget Gleason is VP of Sales for Logz.io and my regular partner on Front Line Fridays.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Bridget is joined on this episode by special return guest

Mitch Morando, CEO, and Founder of Whalr, the exclusive sponsor of Front Line Fridays. Whalr focuses on Product Qualified Leads and watches product usage for sales cues.

A SaaS company with a freemium product can use Whalr to analyze the SaaS usage, and the firmographic data to determine PQLs to engage in a sales outreach.

Bridget shares her experience with product use data. Mitch learned the PQL technique from game developers using player telemetry to build immersive games. He started applying the principles to his sales teams years ago.

The ICP is a developer of freemium products for engineers and their sales team aimed at the enterprise.

Mitch recommends best practices for sales engineers approaching engineers, and sales reps approaching management. These conversations happen by email, GitHub posts, and SMS chat.

Bridget says Logz.io uses use text and private Slack channels. Some sales reps use the title customer success engineer for engineers and learn the technical jargon. It’s a different conversation than with the VP of Engineering.

What music is on Mitch’s playlist? Only one thing: Pearl Jam. Mitch speaks of how well they treat their fan club members at concerts.

Mitch’s favorite sales book is Influence, by Robert Cialdini. Mitch has every new salesperson read this book. His favorite non-sales book is Boyd, by Robert Coram, about the fighter pilot, theoretician, and strategist who introduced OODA loops.

Mitch asks for Andy’s and Bridgets favorite books. Andy’s is anything by Shakespeare and Harold Bloom’s book about Shakespeare. Bridget loves Les Miserables, and StartUp Nation, about Israel.

Andy’s recommended business book is Triggers, by Marshall Goldsmith on behavior change. Bridget recommends Winner’s Dream, by Bill McDermott a memoir of his success journey in business.

Mitch’s words to live by: “We come from a time where you were expected to make your own way. We didn’t wait around for people to do something for us.” — Unknown. Mitch is focused on improving his skills in qualifying and closing.

Mitch asks about “the July lull.” Bridget says to have a plan for a lull. Andy spent years selling to Europe. You have to pierce the veil. He did a lot of business in August in Europe — maybe not in France! Mitch always had good sales in the lull.