Pretend you are the demand gen lead so attribution gaps, channel waste, and lead quality theater fail before a growth package absorbs them.
Optimistic demand packages optimize for "pipeline will fill." The demand gen lead seat does the opposite. It asks which channel invents MQLs the sales floor will not work, which campaign dual-counts the same form fill as new pipeline, which "required" scoring rule is already optional in practice, and which spend still lacks a named kill threshold. A neat funnel chart is not evidence that next quarter's meetings will clear.
Mandate the seat
Name a real job: underwrite a channel mix without inventing conversion speed, clear a campaign claim that finance can reconcile under load, or defend a scoring change without dual-counted SQLs. Give constraints: the evidence standard for attribution windows, the channels you will refuse to leave unowned, and the pipeline claims you will not teach when SDR capacity is not ready. Without constraints the seat becomes cartoonish. With constraints it produces questions you might actually hear in a growth review, a board prep, or a fight over who owns regional paid search.
Prompt example: "Demand gen lead: list the top reasons to delay this growth package, the channel with the weakest owner, the pipeline claim that worries you most, and the ten diligence questions you would send after review. Stay inside a realistic mandate."
Outputs worth keeping
- Top reasons to challenge, delay, or rewrite this demand package.
- The attribution or MQL claim that looks strongest and is least evidenced.
- The channel, cohort, or region that would break first under a spend spike.
- What would make you accept residual pipeline risk in writing.
- The ten hardest follow-up questions after the meeting.
Run that brief in Pingpong against the real media plan, scoring rules, CRM definitions, and open risk list. Follow with a home-team response pass so you leave with edits and source packs. When the decision is a public spend increase, run this seat after finance and sales attacks so it can use earlier objections as ammunition.
When the plan leans on a single paid channel, a single content hero, or a single "outbound will cover the gap" promise, force the seat to price concentration risk in writing. Ask what happens if the hero creative fails, if CRM still hosts retired stage names, or if SDRs refuse a lead source that marketing still celebrates. Pair with pretend you are the CMO, pretend you are the head of sales, pretend you are the RevOps lead, war-game a growth experiment, and the war-game decisions hub. See how to run a Pingpong.
If the package coincides with a pricing or packaging change, ask the demand gen lead seat to map every claim that still assumes last quarter's talk tracks. Landing pages, nurture sequences, and partner co-marketing count. A media plan that looks clean in a slide while the site still teaches retired SKUs will fail on the first field call.