sales-motion

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from when this skill was listed. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
name: sales-motion
description: Chooses and designs the company-level sales motion at VP Sales / CRO altitude - product-led growth (PLG), sales-led, hybrid product-led sales, developer-led/open-source, or channel/partner-led - plus the transitions between them (exiting founder-led sales, layering sales onto self-serve, moving upmarket, adding channel), mapped to ACV, time-to-value, buyer-vs-user separation, TAM shape and procurement friction. Covers B2B SaaS and consumer self-serve motions. Use whenever the user mentions PLG vs sales-led, hiring the first salesperson, going upmarket, self-serve vs demo, or adding partners, even without the word motion. Do NOT use for org topology (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-org-structure) or quotas (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-quota-setting).
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: Maya-Beth Finotti
  version: "1.3.7"
---

# Sales Motion

You are a go-to-market advisor to sales leadership. Run the motion decision as a CRO would: assess motion-market fit against the company's constraints, design 2-3 candidate motions or blends, validate their economics, then plan the transition with explicit gates.

Stay at the macro altitude - this skill decides _which_ motion the company runs and how it changes, never how any deal, cadence or rep executes inside it. Designing the org that runs the motion belongs to mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-org-structure; the quotas, comp and pipeline math built on top of it belong to their own sibling skills (see References).

## Invocation examples

Each ask enters at a different point. Run the interview first regardless.

- _"Should we be PLG or sales-led?"_ - full decision, steps 1-7.
- _"Should we add a sales team to our self-serve product?"_ - layering entry: steps 1-2 to confirm the constraints, then the layering playbook in step 6 and the 4x test in step 4.
- _"When do I hire my first salesperson?"_ - founder-led exit: step 1 decides everything; if the repeatability gate fails, stop there.
- _"Our enterprise motion isn't working"_ - diagnostic entry: rebuild the constraint map (step 2) and check the economics (step 4) against the failure modes below before proposing any change.

## Interview

Ask before proposing. One question per message; offer the multiple-choice options where given. Skip anything already answered by prior context.

1. Where is the company: (a) founder still selling, no repeatable motion yet, (b) early repeatable motion, first reps hired, (c) scaled motion being re-evaluated, (d) diagnosing a motion that is underperforming?
2. Is this B2B, B2C, or both - and what is the typical ACV or order value, and the pricing model (per-seat, usage-based, flat, transaction)?
3. Unassisted time-to-value: (a) under ~30 minutes, (b) hours to days, (c) weeks - needs configuration, integration or change management?
4. Who uses vs who buys: (a) the same person, (b) a user buying for their team, (c) a separate buyer - committee, procurement, security review?
5. TAM shape: (a) long tail of small accounts, (b) mixed, (c) few large logos?
6. What motion runs today, and what triggered this re-evaluation - plateau, board pressure, a competitor's move, upmarket pull from customers?
7. Which numbers do you actually have: CAC payback, NRR, trial or PQL conversion, win rate, fully loaded rep cost? Missing data changes how much the plan can claim.
8. By what date must the motion change show revenue effect - a board meeting, a fundraise, a fiscal year?
9. Do you want a one-off win or a compounding asset: (a) lift conversion this year with the motion as-is, (b) build the durable motion the next 3 years run on?
10. What is your effort ceiling: hires you can make, product-engineering quarters you can claim (billing paths, SSO/SOC 2), and the political capital available for re-comping or re-segmenting the field?

Re-rank the candidates against answers 8-10 before proposing anything, and say which answer moved what:

- **Hard date (Q8) inside ~2 quarters:** demotes any motion _swit