PM Product Sales Checklist

This checklist is designed for:

• Product Managers (especially those with revenue or GTM responsibilities).
• Sales Leaders auditing their team’s readiness.
• Founders or GTM leaders scaling a product.
• PM job candidates preparing for interviews (e.g., 'How would you work with sales?').

It’s also useful for rev ops, marketing, and customer success teams involved in messaging or enablement.

This checklist evaluates preparation—the foundation for a sales playbook. A playbook typically includes:

• Specific scripts, demo flows, or objection responses.
• Detailed competitor comparisons.
• Pricing and packaging guidelines.

This toolassesses whether those assets exist and are effective. For example, it checks if objection handling is documented but doesn’t prescribe the exact response.

Audit at these key moments:

• Pre-launch: During GTM planning (6-8 weeks before launch).
• Quarterly: Align with QBRs to review sales performance (ESTIMATE: 80% of revenue teams conduct QBRs per Salesforce).
• Post-mortems: After major deals are won/lost to identify gaps.
• Hiring spikes: When onboarding new sales reps (ESTIMATE: 30-40% of PMs collaborate on onboarding per Glassdoor).

For job candidates, use it to prep for interviews (e.g., 'Walk me through how you enable sales').

Not every checklist item is mandatory—prioritize based on:

• Stage: Early-stage products may focus on positioning/messaging over enablement.
• ICP: Self-serve products (e.g., SaaS) may need less sales training than enterprise deals.
• Resources: Start with 5-10 high-impact items (e.g., unique value prop, battle cards).

Use the 'ESTIMATE' notes to gauge what’s typical in your industry. For example, if 40-50% of lost deals stem from poor messaging (Gartner), that’s a clear priority.

Track these KPIs to evaluate impact:

• Win/loss rate: Improvements of 10-20% are common with better enablement (source: Clari).
• Sales cycle length: Better positioning can reduce cycles by 15-25%.
• Deal size: Use cases tailored to ICP may increase ACV by 10-15%.
• Ramp time: Sales rep time-to-competency can drop by 30% with training (Corporate Visions).
• Qualitative feedback: Sales team confidence scores or customer interview themes.

Example: If your win rate improves from 30% to 40% after refining messaging, that’s a ~33% lift.

Absolutely. Use it to:

• Structure answers: E.g., 'How do you work with sales?' → Walk through the Sales Enablement section.
• Prepare for case studies: 'If sales struggles to articulate the value prop, how would you fix it?' → Leverage the Product Positioning section.
• Demonstrate cross-functional skills: Highlight items like 'objection handling' or 'competitor comparison' in behavioral questions ('Tell me about a time you aligned with sales').
• Ask sharp questions: E.g., 'How does your sales team track win/loss reasons?' (ties to Performance Tracking item 1).

Example: 'In my last role, I worked with sales to create battle cards (see checklist item sales-enablement-1), which improved our win rate by 12% over 2 quarters.'

For early-stage or technical products:

• Focus on positioning: Clarify the core problem and ideal audience, even if the solution evolves.
• Simplify messaging: Avoid jargon; use analogies or metaphors (e.g., 'This is like [familiar product] but for [ICP]').
• Enable beta testers: Create lightweight enablement for design partners or pilot customers (e.g., FAQ doc, demo script).
• Track validation: Instead of win rates, measure customer interviews or pilot adoption.

Example: A technical PM might prioritize:
- Item unique-value-prop (positioning)
- Item talking-points (messaging for different personas)
- Item market-gap-analysis (validation)

This checklist complements Agile/Lean by:

• Reducing waste: Validate sales readiness early (e.g., messaging, enablement) to avoid late-stage pivots.
• Continuous feedback: Use items like feedback-loop to gather sales/customer input for sprints.
• MVPs for sales: Create minimum viable enablement (e.g., 1-pager, demo script) before scaling.
• Experimentation: Test positioning/messaging (e.g., A/B demos) and iterate based on win/loss data.

Pair this with Lean’s 'build-measure-learn' loop. For example:
1. Build: Create a 1-page battle card (item battle-cards).
2. Measure: Track usage in sales calls (item sales-metrics-tracked).
3. Learn: Refine based on objections (item objection-handling).