“We built a brilliant product, but no one bought it.”
A familiar refrain in cybersecurity startups.
Vendors are masters of the acronym; DNS, IAM, EDR, DDR — but often fail to agree internally on who their buyer is, what problem they solve, or how to tell that story.
This isn’t a minor oversight. Misaligned GTM efforts can halve conversion rates and stretch sales cycles.
When product, marketing and sales speak past each other, what should be a coordinated growth engine becomes a drag on velocity and morale.
The Alignment Imperative
Buyers aim to reduce the number of security vendors they use. Instead of trying five new tools, they’re asking how one can replace three. Budget constraints, alarm fatigue – call it whatever you like.
That means vendor differentiation must be surgically precise. It’s not enough to say “AI-powered” or “zero trust.” Teams must clearly explain why a feature matters, who benefits, and how it fits into broader risk and compliance goals. And they must all say it the same way.
Yet most vendors still split these roles into silos:
- Product focuses on features and fixes.
- Marketing creates content without technical input.
- Sales pitches their own PPT or whatever worked last quarter.
This has a name. Former Morgan Stanley security chief Rachel Wilson calls it the “go-to-market trust gap”.
The Power of a Translator: Product Marketing Managers
Product Marketing Managers (PMMs) are often the missing piece. When they report into neither product nor sales—but align with both—they become cultural translators.
PMMs help teams:
- Define and update buyer personas with real-world data.
- Translate feature updates into business outcomes.
- Equip sales with narratives that resonate.
How to Align Without Hiring Dozens
Even without a PMM, you can align your teams with four steps:
- Run joint persona workshops: Use sales calls, support logs and threat data to build realistic profiles. Ditch the “CISO persona” for insights like “regional IT leader under budget pressure.”
- Agree on a single narrative: Every feature release should include a briefing on the pain it solves, who feels it and what metric it affects.
- Map the whole funnel: Create a shared dashboard from leads to renewals, highlighting where drop-offs occur and why.
- Post-mortem the big ones: After major wins or losses, break down what worked—and where assumptions failed.
But who’s going to do all these right?
From Silos to Signals
Clarity beats cleverness. Aligning your teams around a shared story—one that buyers understand, trust and act on.
If your GTM teams haven’t shared a room (virtual or otherwise) this month, it’s time to ask: what would change if they did?
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