The rise of Product-Led Growth (PLG) over the last decade has been undeniable. Companies like Slack, Zoom, and Figma have scaled rapidly with a bottom-up motion, reducing customer acquisition costs and driving viral adoption. 

But as PLG companies grow, they inevitably face a challenge: how to land and expand within larger, more complex enterprise deals. This is where product-led sales (PLS) comes into play.

Product-led sales allow companies to scale efficiently while still capturing high-value enterprise opportunities. The reality? Even the most successful PLG companies still need sales teams. The best go-to-market (GTM) strategy isn’t choosing between PLG and sales—it’s combining both into a hybrid motion known as Product-Led Sales.

What is Product-Led Growth (PLG)?

PLG is one of the most impactful GTM strategies in SaaS, with 66% of Forbes Cloud 100 companies adopting it in 2022—up from 35% in 2017. But what exactly does it mean?

Product-Led Growth is a strategy that leverages the product itself as the primary driver of acquisition, retention, and expansion.

It emerged as a response to shifting buyer preferences—modern customers want to try before they buy. That’s why PLG companies rely on freemium models or free trials, allowing users to experience the product’s value before making a purchase. By prioritizing self-serve adoption, PLG companies improve retention and reduce friction, making it an ideal model for SaaS.

Key Benefits of PLG

1. Lower Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) – Growth isn’t tied to sales headcount, reducing cost per acquisition.

2. Scalable Growth – Self-serve models enable viral expansion without heavy sales intervention.

3. Customer-Centric Approach – PLG focuses on delivering immediate value, reducing friction, and aligning with user needs.

Where Does Sales Fit in a Product-Led World?

PLG thrives on self-service adoption, but enterprise deals often require human intervention. Sales-led motions traditionally rely on outbound efforts, which are slow, expensive, and require heavy manpower. PLG, on the other hand, provides scale but often lacks the structure to close larger deals.

Instead of choosing one approach, fast-growing companies like Slack and Zapier combine the best of both worlds: a product-led motion to drive initial adoption and a sales motion to capitalize on enterprise expansion. This hybrid approach is known as Product-Led Sales (PLS).

What is Product-Led Sales (PLS)?

Product-led sales uses product usage data to drive revenue. Rather than relying on traditional marketing-led inbound strategies, PLS teams focus on existing users who have already engaged with the product.

Two Common PLS Scenarios:

1. PLG-native companies layering in sales to go after larger deals.

2. Sales-led companies introducing self-serve motions to capture smaller accounts.

How PLS Differs from Traditional Sales:

• Instead of chasing leads who download an eBook, sales teams prioritize high-intent users already engaging with the product.

• Rather than focusing only on acquisition, PLS optimizes for the entire customer lifecycle, including activation and retention.

• Sales teams act as consultants, guiding users to unlock more value instead of pushing hard sales.

How Product-Led Sales Teams Operate

1. Sales Uses Product Data to Identify High-Intent Users

Understanding buyer intent is nothing new, but in PLS, intent is determined by product usage signals. Sales teams look at:

• Frequency and depth of product usage

• Which features users engage with

• Team-wide adoption within an account

2. Sales Prioritizes Customer Success Over Hard Selling

PLS teams act as trusted advisors, ensuring users get the most value out of the product—regardless of their pricing tier. This consultative approach builds trust and accelerates conversions.

3. Sales Meets Prospects Where They Are—Inside the Product

The biggest mistake in PLS? Forcing users to engage through traditional channels (cold calls, emails) instead of where they already spend time—the product itself. Successful PLS teams embed sales engagement inside the product experience.

How to Enable Product-Led Sales

For PLS to work, sales and product teams must be aligned. If sales teams don’t have the right data, they end up either prematurely reaching out to users or missing high-intent buyers altogether. To set your team up for success, focus on three key components:

1. Give Sales Teams Access to Product Usage Data

Sales needs real-time visibility into how users interact with the product. Without this, they can’t prioritize or personalize outreach effectively.

2. Identify When Users Are Sales-Ready

Rather than contacting users too early (or too late), sales should engage users when they show clear buying signals—such as reaching usage limits or inviting teammates.

3. Engage Users Inside the Product

Instead of relying solely on email and phone calls, meet users where they already are: inside the product. This reduces friction and accelerates conversions.

The Problem: Sales Teams Are Stuck with a Sales-Led Tech Stack

Despite the shift toward PLS, most sales teams still rely on outdated, sales-led tools that don’t integrate product usage data effectively. This creates two major issues:

1. Sales Can’t Identify Product-Qualified Leads

While companies have product data, it’s often siloed in CDPs, BI tools, or analytics platforms—none of which are built for sales teams. CRMs and prospecting tools, on the other hand, lack product usage insights. This leaves sales teams blind to high-value opportunities within their existing user base.

2. Sales Doesn’t Leverage In-App Engagement

Even when sales teams have access to product usage data, they still rely on saturated outbound channels like email and cold calling. Meanwhile, the product itself remains an untapped engagement channel.

How Ripe Enables Product-Led Sales

At Ripe, we believe that revenue isn’t just about better segmentation—it’s about more qualified, human conversations. Sales teams should spend less time chasing unqualified leads and more time engaging with users who already love the product.

That’s why we built Ripe: to help sales teams identify sales-ready leads and engage them directly inside the product.

We’re currently partnering with leading product-led SaaS companies to help them operationalize PLS and maximize revenue potential.