While Product Marketing & Sales Enablement Slept | by Tony Compton

I once was on the solo-end of a virtual, panel, live video interview for a product marketing opportunity. One question I was asked pertained to helping sales with an urgent opportunity.

Specifically…

• It’s Friday at 5:00pm.
• Sales is presented with a new, urgent, Monday Morning opportunity.
• Sales asks for last minute help to prepare. Content, presentation, etc.
• What would I do?

I said I would help.

They really wanted to know if I had the ability to say “NO” to sales.

I didn’t get the job, for whatever reason. But I wouldn’t have been a good fit. And I would’ve outworked and out-hustled the collective sales and marketing output of that panel.

Sales, first. Revenue, first. Revenue solves a lot of problems.

No matter, AI has made that product marketing panel’s approach (and by extension, that company’s approach) to sales-enablement-avoidance obsolete.

Grok-2 is (currently) free to all X users

I noticed that Grok-2 has been made available to all on X. And in the business interest of how product marketing and sales enablement teams and their tech should be as responsive and competitive as possible to serve urgent business development pursuits, I asked Elon Musk’s AI tool about what it could do to help sales teams with custom content for urgent business opportunities — and how fast it would take.

Save a few formatting adjustments, here’s how Grok responded:

– Start of Grok’s response –

Grok, as an AI tool, can provide sales teams with customized content for urgent opportunities relatively quickly, depending on several factors:

Content Complexity:

• Simple Customizations: For basic adjustments like changing names, dates, or minor tweaks to existing templates, Grok can deliver content in minutes. This includes personalizing emails, social media posts, or simple marketing materials.

Depth of Customization:

• Advanced Customization: If the content requires more in-depth personalization, like creating entirely new content pieces, integrating specific data, or tailoring messages to a highly specific audience, the process might take longer. However, with its capabilities to analyze trends and audience preferences, Grok can produce these within a few hours to a day, assuming it has the necessary data and content guidelines.

Pre-existing Templates and Data:

• If there are pre-existing templates or if Grok has access to a rich database of content or customer insights, it can significantly speed up the process. The tool can quickly modify existing content to fit the new opportunity’s needs.

Integration with Other Systems:

• Grok’s integration with CRM systems, content management systems, or marketing automation tools can streamline the process of both creating and distributing the content, potentially reducing the time from ideation to deployment.

Human Oversight:

• While Grok can automate much of the content creation, human oversight might be necessary for quality assurance, especially for high-stakes or very specific B2B scenarios. This oversight might add time but ensures the content meets strategic goals.

Here’s a rough estimate of how fast Grok might deliver:

• Instant to 15 Minutes: For minor adjustments to existing content or templates.
• 15 Minutes to 1 Hour: For creating new, straightforward content pieces based on existing data.
• 1 to 4 Hours: For more complex content that requires deep personalization but uses existing frameworks or data.
• 4 to 24 Hours: For entirely new content, detailed reports, or when extensive analysis or integration across multiple data sources is necessary.

These timelines assume Grok has access to all needed information and that there’s minimal human intervention required beyond final approval. For truly urgent opportunities, particularly in B2B tech where quick, tailored responses can make a significant difference, Grok can be an invaluable tool in speeding up content delivery. However, the exact speed would be influenced by the specifics of each case.

– End of Grok’s response –

The Product Marketing team with its Sales Enablement approach that checks out at 5:00pm on Friday and has traditionally told Sales “NO” is now comprehensively obsolete. They’re the ones with whom I’ve interviewed more than a few times; they’re likely ones who have been OOO since before Thanksgiving — and will be until the first week of January.

While the competitive business world continues to turn.

Meanwhile, the Sales team just went from receiving a generic, emailed marketing and sales enablement “NO” with a ‘“Sorry, maybe next time!” mentality to an Immediate-to-One-Day response to requests for delivered, customized content needed for urgent pursuits.

Sure, human work and human oversight will still need to be done within sales and marketing for corporate content production. Foundations must be created; Processes need to be established; Orchestration is essential.

Somebody (for now) will need to press those buttons.

But instead of lackluster to non-existent content production and support, sales-oriented human work in marketing and sales enablement can be redeployed to powering exceptional sales-driven performance in team readiness. Personal communication skills in multichannel public speaking, storytelling, and sales presentations has now taken center stage. Those initiatives encompass audio, video, voice, product demos, webinars, podcasts… The expert ability to speak to sales and marketing content across and in any and all channels of market interaction has become the priority.

But you’ll need new, experienced marketers and sales enablers for any of that to take place and provide competitive advantages.

You can assess your current PPT-first, 9-to-5 marketing and enablement content creators when they return from the holidays during the first week of January.

And while they’re waiting to be replaced by Grok, and/or other AI tools, your current marketing and enablement teams can go back to sleep.

The Do Not Disturb sign hangs from their auto-OOO email replies.

Meanwhile, your Sales team can actually get some urgent help to close this quarter — and to start the New Year.

Tony Compton holds two degrees from Loyola University Chicago: a 1987 B.A. in Communication and a 1995 MBA. He has held a number of marketing and business leadership positions over the past 35 years.