SLG (Sales-Led Growth): the motion where a human sales team drives the buy through outbound prospecting, demos, multi-stakeholder evaluations, and negotiated contracts.
Salesforce launched in 1999 with the slogan "the end of software" but ran a textbook SLG playbook: territory-mapped account executives, sales development reps, annual contracts, and a sales academy that became the template for SaaS hiring. By 2024 Salesforce employed over 70,000 people, the majority in sales-adjacent roles, and was the largest pure-play SaaS company in the world.
