Product-Led Onboarding Call: The Ultimate Step by Step Guide

The Product Led Growth Onboarding call

I have spoken about how important “superhuman onboarding” calls are. Learn and get in front of your customers, seeing their reactions, listening to their objections, and testing your pricing and packaging. And today, I want to break down what a 30-minute call would look like:

⌚️ First 5 minutes: Intro

Objective: The Why

Customers signing up are curious why there is a freemium tier. “What is the catch?”

We want to communicate to them that we are a legitimate company. Our company’s mission is to “democratize compliance.” We are backed by OpenView Partners, who are leading investors in product-led growth motion companies.

We have helped 1000s of startups and small businesses like them to win enterprise deals using SOC 2 compliance. Reassure the customer that they’re not alone—many others have signed up for the same reasons. Ultimately, we wanted to help establish credibility and reduce skepticism about the "free" model.

Key Talking Points:

• Share your company’s vision and why you are offering the PLG motion.

• Highlight the value customers derive from your product, even at no cost.

• Communicate how you have helped companies like them, and you are the perfect guide for them.

Takeaway: Explain the mission, why we launched for free, and reassure every customer we talk to that others sign-up for the same reason

⌚️ 5 minutes: Share live examples of others who are successful using TrustCloud

Objective: Inspire confidence through real-world examples.

We shared live examples of other customers who have successfully used our platform. We created a library of successful companies hosting our solution on their websites. This gave customers a sense that it’s simple and they can do it too!

How to Execute:

• If possible, demonstrate live customer examples of your platform.

• Emphasize it only took these customers 15 minutes to set up.

• On the call, you will guide them through the setup process.

Takeaway: “Monkey see, monkey do.” By showing customer examples, we removed all the mystery of our software’s value and output.

⌚️ 15 minutes: Give Software Access, Ask to Share Screen, and Ask Discovery Questions

We give them access to the platform by sharing the sign-up link, and they are onboarded immediately. Instead of talking about the software, they can experience how our platform can work for them. We ask them to share their screen and guide them through it step by step.

Steps to Follow:

1. Guide them to log in themselves.

2. Ask sales discovery questions on their urgency and priority

3. Get them to the Aha moment, and setup point

4. Record the call, and share it with them afterwards

5. At the end, tell them to add their colleagues on the call

6. Share the link to the self-serve documentation and step-by-step roadmap after the call

Takeaway: Customers are actively learning to use our software. Immersing customers in the product reduces friction and accelerates their "aha moment."

Pro Tip: Use interactive tools like tooltips or checklists to guide them post-call, ensuring they can continue exploring independently.

⌚️ Last 5 minutes: Discuss pricing and gather feedback about their experience

Wrap up by discussing pricing tiers, explaining what each offers and how they align with different business needs. Use this time to gather feedback about their onboarding experience as well.

Double down and communicate how the PLG-motion differs from the Sales-Led motion. You provided free access. You gave them a roadmap to be successful. You have shown them the transparent pricing.

Ask how they feel about the experience. And ask if you can get a testimonial or a quote.

Also ask if they can refer your solution to others who need it. Or if there are any communities, they can give you a shoutout!

Key Talking Points:

• Highlight the value of upgrading without being overly salesy.

• Ask for feedback: “What did you think of today’s session?”

Pro Tip: If you have analytics to show they use the software within the next few weeks, reach out. They likely have an urgency. They will become a Product-Qualifed-Account.

Refining the Product-Led Growth Onboarding Calls

The first 50 times, these calls had a lot of technical issues. Some customers preferred a demo instead of an onboarding call. And we had to change the script. After the demo, they weren't impressed, or didn't really understand it. And then after that, we said it is a requirement and that is our process. And if they continue to reject, usually it's just a sign that they don't really have the urgency or the authority to continue with us.

In every call, we started to iterate and we hit the beat. We had the same jokes and aha moments in the platform we delivered for them. We anticipated all the objections and all the follow-up questions, and we had better answers and follow-up actions for them.

We also understood who was more likely to buy our software because we're doing the discovery call, and by giving them access, they lower their guard. They will say, "Hey, I'm also considering other competitors" or "This is not the right time right now" or they would push back on the pricing.

These onboarding calls were kind of like a sales discovery call and a call to get them to the Aha moment, with the dual goal of this being very powerful. About 50% of our calls led to an immediate up-sell. We had this script to get them from skepticism to champions — which propelled our 40% of sign-ups from Word of Mouth! 🗣️

Read more about the product-led growth onboarding calls:

• Your onboarding sucks

• PLG Upsell Learning Flywheel

• The golden ticket to growth 🎫 

• Launching PLG is not* going to be perfect

I write daily*** about my learning on launching and leading PLG. Feel free to subscribe.

I am Gary Yau Chan. 3x Head of Growth. Product Growth specialist. 26x hackathon winner. I write about #PLG and #BuildInPublic. Please follow me on LinkedIn, or read about what you can hire me for on my Notion page.