John Eitel (Canva): Bottom-Up + Top-Down

John built the global sales team at Canva, which allowed the company to expand further into the enterprise. He walks us through everything a PLG founder needs to know about adding a top-down motion to a bottom-up, product-led foundation. When should PLG companies do this? Why is it necessary? What is the strategy? And how do you do it IRL? 

Key Takeaways:

• [4:35] Repeatability in enterprise customers and understanding where these deals stall out
• [8:01] Stall points in enterprise spending and getting purchase approval
• [10:30] Embracing a top-down motion for PLG companies
• [14:17] Combining bottom-up and top-down to scale business using customer success stories
• [17:24] Communicating to executives the story of what software adoption saves
• [20:24] A broader context and story of how the platform improves customer lives
• [22:47] How the data component can make or break sales efforts
• [27:40] Where is adoption happening and using data to determine who gets involved
• [30:10] How to get the entire company working with sales

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John Eitel, Former Global Vice President of Sales & Success at Canva

Canva

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