PLG and Sales: When and How to Layer Motions with Liz Christo

Joey Brodsky
Sep 14
3 min read

The GTM Kickback! #48 – Liz Christo

Released: March 29, 2022

Product-Led Growth (PLG) has become one of the hottest topics in SaaS. But is it right for every company? And when does sales need to step in?

On this episode of The GTM Kickback!, I sat down with Liz Christo, Partner at Stage 2 Capital, longtime sales leader, and GTM consultant to dozens of high-growth SaaS companies. Liz shared her perspective on the evolution of SaaS go-to-market models, how PLG really works, and when companies should layer in direct sales.

From Field Sales to PLG: A Short History

Liz traced how SaaS GTM models have evolved:

Field Sales (Oracle, IBM, PTC). Enterprise reps on the road, selling face-to-face.
Inside Sales (Salesforce, NetSuite). Tele- and inside sales teams driving scale at lower cost.
Inbound Marketing. Content and demand gen supplementing outbound motions.
Product-Led Growth. Self-service adoption where the product itself drives expansion.

Each stage followed the same logic: de-leverage the sales process, reduce manual effort, and scale more efficiently. PLG is the latest—and in some cases, most powerful—extension of that trend.

What Makes PLG Attractive

Companies love PLG for two reasons:

Growth can accelerate at scale. With viral loops (Calendly, Slack, Atlassian), each new user exposes the product to others. At scale, adoption snowballs.
Data and iteration. A high-velocity self-serve funnel generates product and usage data that companies can analyze to improve features and buying journeys.

As Liz put it: “In an enterprise sales model, growth slows as you scale. With PLG, growth can actually accelerate.”

Why PLG Isn’t for Everyone

Despite the buzz, PLG doesn’t fit every company. Products that are complex, high-risk, or mission-critical (think ERP or cybersecurity) often need hands-on sales and implementation.

Liz pointed out that many enterprise software companies can’t simply bolt on PLG later. If it’s part of your model, you usually need to design for it from day one—through packaging, pricing, and UX.

That said, even traditional enterprise players can adopt PLG principles—using product data to drive expansion, upsell, and renewal motions within existing accounts.

When to Layer in Sales

Here’s where sales becomes essential:

Enterprise requirements. Security, compliance, procurement, and MSAs.
Financial consolidation. Finance teams want visibility and discounts once spend hits scale.
Team-level adoption. Individual users expose departments and entire companies.

Sales doesn’t replace PLG—it complements it. The most successful GTM orgs look for signals of readiness (usage thresholds, multiple accounts in one company, team invites) and engage proactively.

In this model, sales isn’t pushing product; it’s helping buyers solve problems they’ve already surfaced through usage.

Building the Right GTM Org

So who leads in a PLG + sales hybrid?

Customer Support. Often the first “team” in a PLG company—reactive help.
Customer Success. Shifts support into proactive enablement and expansion.
Sales. Solution-oriented reps who know how to leverage product data, not “hard close.”

The best sales hires in this environment are consultative, data-driven, and able to tie product usage to business outcomes.

Outbound in a PLG World

Outbound isn’t dead—it just looks different. In PLG-driven companies, outbound tends to focus on:

Identifying heavy usage clusters across accounts.
Engaging companies with multiple active users but no enterprise agreement.
Educating buyers in complex or innovative categories where value isn’t obvious.

Outbound still matters—but it should feel like sales assist, not cold outreach.

Key Takeaways

PLG is the next step in SaaS evolution. It de-leverages sales by letting the product drive adoption.
Not all products fit. Complex, secure, or high-stakes solutions often require traditional sales.
Sales still matters. PLG gets you in the door; sales helps you scale across departments and enterprises.
Watch the signals. Usage, team invites, and spend consolidation are your triggers.
Hybrid wins. The best companies blend PLG and sales for a seamless buyer journey.

Final Thought

PLG isn’t a silver bullet—it’s a motion. The companies that win are those that blend product-driven adoption with sales-led expansion, meeting buyers where they are.

As Liz Christo reminded us: “It’s not about sales vs. PLG. It’s about understanding your buyer’s journey and helping them along it.”