The goal of product-led growth is to deliver value as quickly as possible, in contrast to sales-led growth, which aims to establish relationships between the prospect and the salesperson in order to steer the dialogue in the appropriate path.
The first thing you need to consider is how to convince them that this product is worthwhile purchasing before picking which one to choose. Then, with all the facts they require, you will provide them a clear view of the business consequence they may anticipate.
Let's use SpaceX as an illustration. When people first visit your website, you don't want to send them on a trip to Mars. You need to persuade them that this is something you can rely on. How will you carry that out? By assuring them that you have the technology, that it is secure to use, that you have conducted your testing, and that you have sent people to Mars, you will give them all the information they require.
In a typical sales-led growth scenario, a salesman is assigned to handle both the lead distribution and the sales. Speaking with them, learning what they need, and doing whatever it takes to help them see the value of the product will eventually result in five-figure deals, which will help you expand your sales beyond SMB. The issue with this is that it has a price. Wherever the client interacts with your product, the quality of those touchpoints is practically impossible to regulate, making scaling difficult.
Product-Led growth can help in this situation.
Your prospects can begin using your product without the help of others (scalability is solved)
The PLG can create a flywheel where the product handles the majority of sales, marketing, and customer success, resulting in lower customer acquisition costs and shorter sales cycles. You build your product so well that you are able to improve the quality of the touchpoints with your product and provide a better and consistent customer experience. (Cost problem solved)
Let's use SpaceX as an illustration. When people first visit your website, you don't want to send them on a trip to Mars. You need to persuade them that this is something you can rely on. How will you carry that out? By assuring them that you have the technology, that it is secure to use, that you have conducted your testing, and that you have sent people to Mars, you will give them all the information they require.
People will start to trust your company this way.
The same holds true in our situation, and you may hire a salesman to handle the entire process for you or provide freemium/free trial versions of your product that take care of everything instead.
Alternately, you can combine the two, allowing a user to sign up and use your product for free but fail to reach the milestones. Now you add a human to deal with that and alter the flow, which is what we refer to as the marriage of sales-led and product-led.
I don't believe it to be an either-or situation from a business perspective. Always in the middle is where it is. However, determining what is ideal for you depends on your customers, and in order to do so, you must have metrics and track them continuously until they make sense to you.