The Bottom Line on PQLs

Blake: When talking about PLG data and analytics, the conversation often immediately goes to PQLs, or product qualified leads. What is your view of PQLs relative to the overall PLG data and analytics equation?

Jesus: I think PQL's maturity, or the way it is maturing, really similar to the MQL. There is... one of my biggest learnings in doing product qualified leads is it comes down to the definition. The hardest part was trying to get the definition right. What was the right moment? It was just a sign- up, but it has some inaudible, or it was a account already into really high usage with the right firmographic. I think finding the place where there's that perfect trigger for Sales to jump in with some product information and add value, that was the biggest thing inaudible, defining that, and it takes back- and- forth, and it takes a lot of investigation internally, talking to users, talking to your salespeople, talking to success, talking to the supports team, to understand when is the time for both new business, so a new account comes in and when is the right moment that we define, and also expansion, because you want to have both. What is the definition of that? It takes time. That's been my biggest learning and my big takeaway. Spending the right time to define firmographic, especially product behavior and user behavior that tells you that this account has the aha moment, and then also have adopted the value.

Blake: Right.

Jesus: Defining those.

Blake: Awesome. What are the limitations of PQLs?

Jesus: Part of that, the limitation of PQLs will be if you define the PQL incorrectly and put Sales too early in front of the right account, and you might have a negative effect on it. A classic example might be, I have a sign- up that looks like they're doing something small and I immediately jump into," Hey, let's just call what you're going to do," when the user haven't even figured it out how your tool solution add value to them. If you don't get it right, you can have a negative effect, both brand wise, both into the user and probably both on wasting time from your sales team.