Go To Market
What GTM Product Marketers Can Learn From Golf
Product Marketing is often described through outputs: messaging, positioning, launches, sales collateral, and enablement.
But for the GTM side of PMM specifically, I’ve found it helpful to think about the role through a different lens: improving the quality of sales conversations.
One analogy I keep returning to is golf.
The sales rep is the golfer.
They are responsible for execution — building trust, navigating objections, adapting in real time, and ultimately closing the deal.
But strong GTM Product Marketers can meaningfully improve the odds of success.
In golf, a caddie helps assess the course, understand conditions, and recommend the right club for a particular shot.
The GTM side of PMM operates similarly.
A strong PMM spends time understanding the “course”:
What objections consistently appear in deals?
What matters most to different stakeholders?
How are competitors positioning themselves?
Which proof points reduce friction and build trust?
What messaging resonates across different buyer personas?
The role is not simply to provide materials, but to improve decision quality.
That may mean equipping sales with the right narrative for a specific buyer, refining positioning based on market feedback, or helping teams understand when to lead with ROI, trust, operational efficiency, or technical differentiation.
A CFO, operator, and technical buyer may all evaluate the same product through entirely different lenses. Effective GTM PMMs help sales understand which story is most relevant, what evidence makes that story credible, and how to adapt positioning to the context of the conversation.
At its best, enablement is not just decks, trainings, or battlecards.
It is judgment.
It is pattern recognition.
It is helping sales teams enter conversations with stronger context, clearer positioning, and a more effective narrative.
Of course, PMM extends far beyond sales enablement — positioning, launches, segmentation, pricing narratives, and product feedback loops are all central to the role.
But on the GTM side, the strongest PMMs appear to share a common characteristic: they improve the quality of the shot before it is taken.
Written by Josh Popkin. Published May 26, 2026.
