Your Sales Engineer just spent 40 hours building a custom proof of concept. The technical evaluation went perfectly. Product performed flawlessly.
You lost the deal. Competitor won on positioning, not product capabilities.
The SE team blames pricing. Sales blames product gaps. Nobody talks to PMM until the post-mortem, when it's too late.
This happens when Product Marketing and Sales Engineering operate as separate functions instead of strategic partners.
Here's how to build PMM-SE collaboration that wins technical deals.
The Natural Partnership: What PMM and SE Should Own Together
PMM's strength: Market positioning, competitive intelligence, buyer messaging, launch strategy
SE's strength: Technical credibility, product depth, customer technical requirements, implementation expertise
The overlap: Both teams need to prove technical differentiation to technical buyers.
The gap: PMM creates positioning without technical validation. SE demos product without strategic narrative.
What happens when they collaborate:
Scenario: Enterprise security evaluation
- PMM provides competitive positioning: "Here's how we differentiate on zero-trust architecture"
- SE validates and demonstrates: "Here's zero-trust in action with your data model"
- Together they create: Technical proof point that reinforces strategic message
Snowflake's model: PMM and SE co-create "technical differentiation workshops" for major deals. PMM sets strategic narrative, SE demonstrates technical proof. Win rate 30% higher when both participate.
The Technical Battlecard: PMM + SE Collaboration
Bad battlecard: PMM writes feature comparison without SE input. Technically inaccurate or impossible to demo.
Good battlecard: PMM and SE co-create technical positioning with proof points.
Battlecard Structure:
Section 1: Strategic Positioning (PMM Lead)
- Market category and our unique approach
- Why customers choose us over competitor
- Buyer personas and purchase criteria
- Trap-setting questions for discovery
Section 2: Technical Differentiation (SE Lead)
- Architecture differences that matter
- Performance benchmarks (real, not marketing)
- Security/compliance advantages
- Integration capabilities competitors lack
Section 3: Demo Trap-Setting (Joint Ownership)
- Questions to ask before demo that favor our strengths
- Demo scenarios that highlight differentiation
- Technical challenges competitors can't solve
- Proof of concept criteria that advantage us
Databricks' technical battlecards: PMM writes positioning, SE adds "demo playbook" showing exactly how to prove each claim. Reps know what to say AND how to show it.
The collaboration process:
Week 1: PMM researches competitor positioning and customer win/loss interviews Week 2: SE evaluates competitor product hands-on, identifies technical gaps Week 3: Joint workshop to merge strategic positioning with technical proof Week 4: Test battlecard with SE team, refine based on demo feedback
The Demo Strategy: Storytelling Meets Technical Proof
The dysfunction: PMM creates demo storyline. SE ignores it and does feature tour.
The collaboration: Demo narrative designed together.
Demo Architecture:
Act 1: The Business Problem (PMM Provides)
- Customer's specific business challenge
- Cost of current approach
- Why status quo is untenable
- Strategic implications for their business
Example from Amplitude: "Your product team ships features but can't measure adoption. Last quarter you built 8 new features. How many actually drove retention? You don't know."
Act 2: The Technical Solution (SE Demonstrates)
- Show product solving specific problem
- Walk through workflow with customer data
- Highlight technical differentiation
- Prove performance and reliability
Example from Amplitude: SE shows: Real-time event tracking, cohort analysis, impact measurement - all with prospect's user data from POC.
Act 3: The Outcome (Joint Delivery)
- What customer achieves with solution
- Comparison to alternative approaches
- Implementation timeline and success criteria
- Next steps and ROI projection
Confluent's demo collaboration: PMM writes demo script with business narrative. SE annotates with technical details and timing. Both review before customer calls.
The pre-demo briefing:
15 minutes before customer demo:
- PMM shares: Customer research, competitive situation, key stakeholders
- SE shares: Technical requirements discovered, custom demo elements prepared
- Joint decision: Which demo flow and technical depth for this audience
The Proof of Concept Partnership: From Technical Exercise to Sales Tool
The problem: SE builds brilliant POC. Customer loves it. Deal still stalls.
The missing piece: POC success criteria wasn't tied to business outcomes.
The PMM role in POCs:
Phase 1: POC Scoping (Before SE Starts Building)
PMM helps SE define success criteria that advantage your solution:
Don't evaluate on: Generic requirements any vendor can meet Do evaluate on: Differentiated capabilities where you excel
Example from Elastic:
- Bad POC criteria: "Index 1 million documents"
- Good POC criteria: "Search 1 billion documents with <100ms latency while maintaining relevance scoring"
The second criterion favors Elastic's architecture.
PMM's contribution: Identify evaluation criteria from win/loss analysis where you win consistently.
Phase 2: Stakeholder Mapping (During POC)
PMM identifies who needs to see what:
- Technical users: Performance and functionality
- Security team: Compliance and architecture
- Executives: Business outcomes and ROI
- Procurement: Total cost of ownership
SE customizes POC artifacts for each stakeholder.
Phase 3: POC Narrative (Final Presentation)
SE presents: Technical results and performance metrics PMM provides: Business context tying technical proof to strategic value
Joint delivery: "Your POC showed 10x faster query performance. Here's what that means: Your data science team can run 100 experiments per week instead of 10. This accelerates time-to-insight by 90 days per quarter."
MongoDB's POC playbook: SE and PMM co-present POC results. SE shows technical wins. PMM translates to business impact. Executive buyers hear both.
The Competitive Displacement Strategy: Technical Wins Against Incumbents
The challenge: Displacing incumbent requires proving technical superiority plus business case for migration.
The SE role: Prove product is technically better The PMM role: Build narrative for why "better" matters enough to switch
Displacement Playbook:
Step 1: Identify Technical Pain Points with Current Vendor
SE discovers through technical evaluation:
- Performance bottlenecks
- Missing capabilities
- Expensive workarounds
- Technical debt accumulation
PMM translates to business impact:
- Cost of workarounds
- Revenue lost to slow performance
- Risk of scaling limitations
Step 2: Build Migration Case
SE provides: Technical migration plan, timeline, risk mitigation PMM provides: Business case showing ROI of migration vs. staying
Twilio's displacement: SE shows how to migrate from legacy telecom provider in phases. PMM calculates cost savings and faster time-to-market. Together they derisk the switch.
Step 3: Competitive Trap Questions
PMM creates questions that expose competitor weakness: "How does [Incumbent] handle real-time data synchronization across regions?"
SE prepares demo showing your advantage: "Here's how we handle it - sub-100ms replication globally. Let me show you with your actual data volume."
The Product Feedback Loop: SE Insights Feeding PMM Strategy
The missed opportunity: SEs hear technical objections daily. PMM rarely gets this intel.
The collaboration: Systematic feedback sharing.
Weekly SE → PMM Sync (30 minutes):
SEs share:
- Most common technical objections this week
- Features prospects ask for that we lack
- Competitor technical claims in deals
- POC evaluation criteria trends
- Integration requests by segment
PMM acts on:
- Updates battlecards with new objection responses
- Briefs product on feature gap patterns
- Researches competitor claims for accuracy
- Creates enablement for common objections
HashiCorp's process: SEs log deal technical notes in shared Notion. PMM reviews weekly, identifies patterns, creates enablement content. SE team gets updated resources monthly.
The quarterly technical competitive review:
SEs present: Competitive technical capabilities observed in POCs and evaluations PMM presents: Competitive positioning and market trends Product joins: Roadmap discussion based on technical gaps
Output: Updated technical battlecards, product prioritization input, competitive response plans.
The Technical Launch Collaboration: New Products Need SE + PMM Alignment
The launch failure pattern:
PMM launches new technical product with limited SE input. Positioning doesn't match technical reality. SEs create their own messaging.
The launch success pattern:
8 weeks before launch: Joint Planning
- PMM shares: Market positioning, target ICP, competitive angle
- SE reviews: Technical accuracy, demo feasibility, differentiation proof points
- Together decide: Launch messaging that's marketable AND technically defensible
4 weeks before: Demo Development
- SE builds: Reference demo environment
- PMM writes: Demo narrative and talk track
- Joint testing: Full demo rehearsal with feedback
2 weeks before: SE Enablement
- PMM delivers: Positioning training and competitive landscape
- SE team practices: Demo execution and technical Q&A
- Certification: SE team validates they can demonstrate differentiation
Launch week: Joint Customer Engagement
- PMM handles: Strategic messaging, analyst briefings, content
- SE handles: Technical webinars, community demos, POC readiness
- Together: Customer launch calls blending strategy and technical proof
Datadog's technical launches: PMM and SE co-present launch webinars. PMM sets context, SE demonstrates capabilities, both handle Q&A. 3x higher webinar → trial conversion.
Common PMM-SE Collaboration Failures
Failure 1: PMM creates positioning SE can't demonstrate
Fix: SE reviews all technical claims before external launch. If SE can't demo it, don't claim it.
Failure 2: SE creates custom demos PMM never sees
Fix: Demo library shared between teams. SE innovations become PMM best practices.
Failure 3: No regular sync between teams
Fix: Weekly 30-minute PMM-SE sync. Share insights, align on messaging, coordinate on deals.
Failure 4: Competitive intelligence stays siloed
Fix: Shared competitive repository. SE adds technical findings, PMM adds positioning intel.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Technical Selling
You can't win technical deals with positioning alone. You can't win technical deals with product superiority alone. You win when strategic positioning and technical proof reinforce each other.
What doesn't work:
- PMM positioning without technical validation
- SE demos without strategic narrative
- Separate battlecards for PMM and SE teams
- No feedback loop from technical evaluations to positioning
What works:
- Co-created technical battlecards
- Joint demo narrative development
- PMM involvement in POC scoping
- SE insights feeding competitive intelligence
- Coordinated technical product launches
The best PMM-SE partnerships treat technical differentiation as joint ownership. If your SEs are creating their own positioning or your PMM can't explain technical advantages, you're losing winnable deals.
Stop operating in silos. Start winning technical deals together.