For product marketers, there are multiple narratives on how PMMs relate to revenue. Should our focus be on driving revenue from launches, or should it be on lead generation?
The three misfits of We’re Not Marketers sit down and break down why PMMs should drive revenue through lead generation or support other revenue initiatives altogether. In this episode, we’re talking about:
Let us know if you resonate with this episode, and tell us what you think!
EP#5: Driving Revenue: Why PMMs should move away from leads
[00:00:00]
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:Yoyo, welcome to, we Are Not Marketers To kick it off, this is Zach, AKA SalesWater Boy
Track 1: I am EricHolland, the Franken marketer, doing just about everything under the marketingstack You can think of
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:Um, sales deck intern. I'm just doing sales deck until I die.
Track 1: slingingthose hot decks on a Wednesday. Let's go.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:Exactly.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:And to show, to show the audience how much we care and how, and how fast we acton feedback. This is the introduction that you all have asked for coming at youlive. So y'all, what are we talking about today?
Track 1: Well, I gotsomething on my mind, if you don't mind. Um, and
Track 1: I think Iwanna [00:01:00] frame this off as a questionlike we're, we're starting to do here and that's, you know, we've been aroundfor a little bit, right? We're, we've, um, no, not new kids on the blockanymore.
Track 1: The questionI wanna ask based on some things I've been seeing in the market is when theconversation of driving revenue comes up and when product marketing is, isinserted into that conversation, where do you think most of that is being askedout of us, the launching products that actually drive value or go find moreleads?
Track 1: I'minterested in hearing both of y'all's take on that right now.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:That's a, that's a really good question. Um, I know before the conversation, wewere talking about this earlier, and I'm gonna share it from the frame ofreference when it was like the short sin I was at, like, you know, a series astartup where the context of it is no one really know. You're either the firstor second marketing hire [00:02:00] and inaddition to their, their product marketing role, you may be doing a little bitof everything else. So there's two parts to that. One is that, okay, your roleas a product marketer is to influence that revenue by delivering like impactfullaunches to the right audience at the right time. And then there's the secondaspect where your, your CEO or executive leadership within like a startup willsay, Hey, like, we need more leads. Like my question for you all is like, how,like, how do you set that expectation of like, Hey, this is what.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:You brought me on to do, or do you stretch yourself beyond your day-to-Day,given the nature of a startup, knowing that you're gonna be doing a little bitof everything.
Track 1: Well, Zach,I'm not letting you get out of that with asking me another question quite yet.I need you to
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:I, man, I'm, I just want, I want to throw it back at you 'cause I don't knowthe answer.
Track 1: well, well,I'm just saying, what, what are you feeling? What are you seeing? Right? Like,that's what I wanna know. When you, [00:03:00]and you know, when you're talking to other leaders, whether sales, PMM, even,you know.
Track 1: Executiveleadership, what are you hearing? Right? Do you hear, Hey, I wanna launch thisreally awesome product and make sure the market knows everything about it, andI'm willing to push away people who aren't worth our time and effort on thislaunch.
Track 1: Or do youjust want me to fill the lead funnel up as much as you can?
Track 1: Doesn'tmatter, you know, who's coming in the pipe. We want more leads versus we'lltake less leads. At the sacrifice of launching a really awesome product tomarket that everyone wants to buy.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:It is a lot of, let's boil the ocean. And, um, I, that's what I hear in thoseconversations.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:It's like I do care about the audience, but I don't want to niche down ornarrow down because I don't wanna leave someone out. Um, let's say that you area financial services, , organization.[00:04:00]
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:You develop a product for accountants and it's like, okay, let's focus onaccountants. Oh, no, but how about CFOs or, and it, and like how we talk a lotabout like scope creep for features. I think that same mentality comes when wewe're talking to like executive leaders. When they're thinking about theiraudience size, it's like, let's not, let's add this person, this person, thisperson. And the more like personas you add. The message tends to get a bitmessier. Um, gab, I'm curious what you, what you think about that.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:Yeah, I think that's a, that's a good point that you're, you're bringing, butultimately I think all business owners should read Crossing the Chasm. Becausethat way they will have like a good foundation on how to go to market and willunderstand that it's one point of entry. And I think in the book they are likeusing, uh, an analogy with, the breach of Normandy, like , , the location inFrance during, uh, the second world war and the worst thing that find yourbeachhead, find exactly the point of [00:05:00]entry That you're going to find to ultimately having a big enough impact, warwise, anyway. I'm not, I'm not here to talk about history, not my strong point,but I think that crossing the chasm is a good segue of understanding whatshould matter and then this will kind of guide what should the priority be. Butbased on my experience, based on product marketing and just marketing leadersin general. Um, I think the consensus is, is really clear. It should be ofdriving revenue. It can take multiple firms, like ultimately you help choosingthe decision, but I think that at the core, product marketing should beresponsible for, for revenue. So yeah, that's my take.
Track 1: Well, Idefinitely, uh, resonate with your thoughts there, gab, and what I think, youknow, what I see is the opposite, right? Because of the misunderstanding [00:06:00] of product marketing and its function, I'mseeing more of the go get me more leads. As to opposed to go help me close moredeals, right? Help me get more revenue.
Track 1: And whatI've noticed as a problem, and it's actually kind of twofold, right? I'vealready said it the first, you know, few seconds ago, product marketingcontinue to, continues to be misunderstood. So I think the default for foundersand other leadership roles. Is we need more leads because more leads will giveus more at bats and more at bats means we'll hit more balls.
Track 1: Um, but Ilike to use this analogy is I'd rather be getting tossed 10 75 mile an hour,you know, diners than 199 mile an hour fastballs, right? Give me the slow pitchstuff that I know I can hit, I know I can close. Um, so I think there's amisconception there. And then the second [00:07:00]part. Um, you know, to be honest with you is I think the role of productmarketing contradicts the role of going to get leads, right?
Track 1: Like we kindof talked about it there. We need to be able to niche down and I think as wetalk to more and more of our guests, Anthony, and, um, you know, Jason, I thinkboth touched on this last week, but. You have to be able to niche down, right?And that really contradicts what I think like a sales leader would want, forexample.
Track 1: He's like,go get everyone you possibly can. We'll talk to 'em, we'll sift through 'em,we'll figure it out and we'll, we'll close. And sometimes, you know, they'reclosing the wrong people. So I think by nature of the problem. Is twofold,right? There's that lack of understanding, lack of alignment. And then, youknow, secondly, it's like, come on.
Track 1: I think ourrole is the opposite of chasing leads.
Track 1: Um, so [00:08:00] wanted to bridge that in terms of, um, youknow, setting the problem, right? We're not just here to to bitch, we're hereto solve. So, um, in terms of,
Track 1: you know.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:I'm, I'm just so stuck on niche or niche, man. I don't know. I guess I, I thinkI've been saying it wrong for all these years. Niche or niche.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:I say niche,
Track 1: Gab. Gab.You're not niche.
Track 1: no aigu overthat
Track 1: But yeah, Ithink, you know, rolling into, you know, how do we solve this? You know, I've,I've come across this on a few occasions, um, and it's typically a differenttopic, so I wanted to maybe bridge this into a few subsections.
Track 1: And talkabout, I think, pm m's. One of our favorite ones is when you first come in, oreven if you've been there for a while and they say, you know, go write thisslide deck, or go update the uh, copy on the website.
Track 1: the firstquestion I like to always ask is, [00:09:00]well, what's our positioning on this? Right.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:the target audience? Like who? Who we trying to focus on?
Track 1: Oh, boom.Right? There's another one who's our persona, right? All of these things, um,have to come before we ever go, start writing any copy. And so what I've foundreally useful in explaining this, um, especially in my, my recent, um, job whenI came on, it was basically explaining that copy is like building a house andfurnishing it.
Track 1: Right. Likeyou can't just go paint the walls and slap in a couch when you don't even havethe concrete foundation up, right? Or down. And then to me, that's, that's thepositioning. And then that next step is where you actually put up the walls andhave some type of a structure. That's your messaging piece.
Track 1: But peoplealways skip that too, right? And they think, oh, messaging copy. Same thing. .And I think once you educate 'em in that way and break it down, like I can'teven get to the copy [00:10:00] until we, we,have to get this positioning down. I've seen that be, um, you know, a really .I think easy similarly for people to, to, um, grasp onto.
Track 1: And there'splenty of people I think, using that, um, that similarly, I know I got it fromthe Olivin and Winter course, so props out to them for your B2B messagingcourse. Anyone on the
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:It'll be in the show, by
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:the way.
Track 1: uh,definitely take a, uh, look at that. But, um, so in terms of that portion ofit, so do you guys have any, you know, comments, things you feel stronglyabout?
Track 1: When you getapproached and say, Hey, go write this messaging, or, you know, go write thiscopy, but you don't have the positioning or maybe even the messaging set instone yet.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:I think, I think one question that goes ignored, Ignored, and it's no fault ofour owns because like when we hear messaging, when we hear the terms messaging,positioning, copy, we are so familiar with what that means [00:11:00] is that sometimes leadership may have adifferent vision or different perception of what that word means.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:An example for me is that when I was working in an organization, they'll alwayssay, Hey Zach, we need some messaging for this. Webinar, or we need somemessaging for this email template.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:And they were trying to say copy, but it, everything that was the written wordwas messaging. And um, I think that's one, that's one, one gap.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:It's like align with your, like your leadership as like, Hey, when we say theword messaging, what do you want? And that applies to both like positioning.Copy itself. But that's one challenge I've seen and I think one fire questionis like when you hear them say that, just get their take on it to help youalign with them better.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:99% of startup I spoke to this year are using [00:12:00]messaging for every written copy, and I'm always cringing out. And it's alwayskind of a balance of, if you're an agency, do you want to take that time toeducate them versus like internally where it's, it's not necessarily easier,but you have Better control of the scope of every time that they're sayinglike, Hey, look at that messaging.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:You're like, Hey, messaging is more like the, the, umbrella over everything.All of the copy we're going to be writing instead of all written copy,basically. I think it's, it's something that ultimately we need to just Keepbeing at, at the bat that you're seeing it, Eric, we need to just keep going.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:We need to have like those guardrails of educating a little bit more about theterms that we're using and setting up ways for us of making sure that peoplecan take a look at it. I was in a situation and kind of enterprise companywhere [00:13:00] you are kicking off projectsand you have the messaging, you have the positioning, but I'm pretty sure thatthe marketing team. Or CSS or product that are on that kickoff are not looking,or sometimes not even aware of those documents. So they're looking at, okay,but what's the copy going to be? How do I inspire myself to ultimately docreative work? I think this is a challenge that, you know, I was at the timetrying to, to, to surpass like, it's okay.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:How can I educate them and not looking at someone who's all teary and noexecution.
Track 1: Um, I'm, I'mliking where we're, we're starting this conversation off quite a bit and you,you mentioned there about kind of educating people, right? That's gonna be atheme that we constantly are gonna see coming up. Right? And we get it, weunderstand it and we gotta be able to share that knowledge effectively.[00:14:00]
Track 1: Um,
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:Yeah.
Track 1: kind of alittle tangent that I just thought about here as we were speaking. I don't knowwhat it is, but in my head when we were saying messaging and copy and peoplethinking they're the same. When I take the ING off of messaging and when I justsay message, what's the message you want me to say?
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:Yes.
Track 1: I don't knowwhy.
Track 1: To me, in myhead, even as a product marketer, that sounds so much more clear to me. What'sthe message you want me to convey? Not what's the
Track 1: messaging.Right. And I, I think, um. I don't know, maybe I just caught on something therethat we need to educate all of PMM to stop saying messaging and just say,what's the message?
Track 1: Right?
Track 1: That's,that's where I think a lot of us get hung up. So, um.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:it's,
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:it's something that, , it, it is something that, that Anthony Pierri, uh,talked to me about the first time I spoke with him actually. And he said that [00:15:00] in product marketing, just by default. Wehave really super vague definitions like, so. Exactly. I think, Eric, as you'resaying, , I don't know if we need to change messaging with message, but as, asyou, I feel like message is a lot more clear than messaging it can encompass alot of things, but
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:Yeah,
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:I mean, if, if we need to have like the definition of the day on this podcast,that that could be fun like what actually is messaging, you know.
Track 1: Yeah. And
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:I think we need to have that definition day.
Track 1: yeah, Imean, we could pick apart, I'm sure as, as you just highlighted, we could pickapart a bunch of things that ironically we, we as product marketing, as afunction have not done a good job in explaining and making clear, I mean, evenour job title, right? Product marketing, terrible, terrible name, like just
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:I think we just assume that everybody's gonna know because product marketing'sjust the best profession in the world, and we just assume that
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:everyone
Track 1: that is,
Track 1: that istrue. You should, [00:16:00] everyone shouldwant to be a product marketer. But whether you've got what it takes
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:Product marketing, product marketing over professional sports
Track 1: one's, one'ssafer in most cases. Um, so we talked about.
Track 1: you know, Ithink one of, one of most pmms favorite topics, right? Positioning versus copy.Um, but something that I, I think also gets brought up a lot is like, Hey, godo this thing, right?
Track 1: Go do sometactical thing, but without actually applying that research.
Track 1: So I want toget your guys'
Track 1: thoughts,opinions, any suggestions you have for our audience of how you'd address thatconversation with someone in the organization when they say, Hey, I need you todo this thing, but. You are thinking in your head, we, where's the research?Right. So, uh, interested to hear your guys' take on that.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:you have an example of of what thing? Like let's say you're my boss and you'reasking me to do one specific task. Can you tell [00:17:00]me the task? Just for the sake of this example,
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:I would, I, I think like, let's say like create a new battle card on, uh, acompetitor that was mentioned on a, on a sales call.
Track 1: Yeah. OrYeah, someone dropped a competitor in Slack, right. Or, uh, I'll give youanother example if you wanna chew on this one. Um, just writing an email,right? Or picking a channel to deliver a piece of content to, right? , go writethis post for some channel. So I'll let you kind of pick, pick and choosethere, but wanted to give you a few examples.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:Write. Write a, write a new LinkedIn post about this product feature that,
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:Um, just by default and, you know, the more, the more we're, we're becomingolder, I feel like the more time is valuable. I'm always trying to ask what'sthe broader goal for this?
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:Because product marketers, just by default, [00:18:00]we have huge checklists. We're always trying to prioritize. So I'm like a if,if I need to do a battlecard what's the ultimate goal? Is it to. Take moremarket share from this company, and then what's the overall strategy behind it?So I'm always kind of trying to ask, but why am I looking to do that?
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:And then I want to take a look at does it fall under my purview and is itsomething that will take me a short time to make a high impact?
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:And I'm trying to ultimately categorize those tasks of. Like high impact, lowtime to actually craft or, or create.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:Yeah.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:then I can kind of take my decision of I'm too swamped. I don't have time tospend on this.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:Here's some ways that I can help you along the way later on. Or, I'm ready todo that. Do you have a deadline? How many stakeholders do I need to [00:19:00] work with this? And what are you seeingthe end results be like?
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:So I'm just trying to, you know, stop asking more information, trying to linkit to a broader goal, and then being able to kind of create a metrics by myselfof seeing will this have an impact and I'm hoping it won't make me like pauseeverything else that I'm doing right now.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:Yeah, like Gab. When I heard, when I, first thing I heard that really resonatedwith me is like, what is the broader goal and. Um, reflecting on likeconversations I had with Jason and specifically like productive PMM, like thehub he's built out is the first question. What I'd ask in that situation islike, hey, like let's take a look at the company OKRs.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:Like what are the company OKRs and specifically like from your experience, whatcompany OKR are we aligning this? Ask to, because like for every product [00:20:00] marketer, or for most, when you build outyour own personal OKRs, you are aligning it to the company like OKRs. So ifthere're, if there's a project being asked of you, you want to make sure thatwhat you are gonna deliver. Moves that needle towards the North Star goal thatyou set for yourself that aligns to your organization. The second thing, gab,like you, Gabby, you're on Fireman is like the, the timeline. It is like, whenare we looking to have this, like when are we looking to have this deliveredby? It's like that was like my favorite question when I was in sales is thatwhat is our timeline that will decide whether this is a project that you needto move on. Like as soon as possible. Or if this is something like, hey, likelet's check back in at this time, or let's, and it helps you to better prioritizewhat else is on your plate. Because overall, like product marketers, I thinkmany of us there are feeling the pain. It's that [00:21:00]like we have a lot on our plate and it's not enough people to go around. Sobeing effective at asking what are the OKRs, what is that timeline is gonnahelp you like. Like identify where to put this on your list of priorities.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:Love it. Love the way you're putting it. And last thing I would just add onthis topic is if you are a younger PMM, and when you're asking, when's thedeadline and you're getting told like ultimately today or end of day, I wouldsay that the best thing you can say is asking why. Why is it today? Like, willsomething be different tomorrow? um, because that's why you're able to startshowing the fact that it's okay if it's not done by 4:00 PM or 5:00 PM andultimately it can be done until the end of the week. So if your boss, founders,whoever else is telling you today or end of day, [00:22:00]you know, just, just say, well, I mean, why today specifically. So, you know,ultimately you can, uh, have a. more fun by being less rushy and trying todeliver something really quickly without having time to strategize around it.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:I think that's not Canadian. You gab. Because I would say, I would say it just,just can't work. You want this by end of the day, depending on what, if it's a,if it's something I could do in five minutes, more than happy to do it. But ifyou're asking me to build a battle card by the end of day from scratch. ThatTalentline just can't work.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:Yeah. No, I, I mean, I mean, it depends on the context for sure, but
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:you asking why? I'm gonna tell you no.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:yeah, yeah. If you, if you cannot unr an email like for end of day, I mean,you, you have some serious productivity issues, but but I, I, I would say thatit's all about, it's all about the context and ultimately
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:it's just that .If it can be done [00:23:00]today, but you have more pressing initiatives that you need to, to do now, takethe rest of the week to to work on it basically.
Track 1: Yeah. And Iwanna throw one more point in here for the young viewers. Like you said, gab,right? Your advice was to get a very specific why with them, and there is avery good chance that they may not want to give it to you. Right? They, forwhatever reason, we won't go into that right now, but they may feel like theydon't have to give you that reason, but I can assure you that when you writethat new messaging or you build that new slide deck or do this or that.
Track 1: The samequestion is going to be asked of you. So don't be, um, skittish to push backand really affirm that. Why before you go out of your way and reprioritizethings to go do that ask. Um, it will feel uncomfortable. Believe me,
Track 1: I've cavedprobably more times [00:24:00] than I've pushedback, but know that again, it's, it's a respect level that they're gonna ask ofyou.
Track 1: So you canalso ask it
Track 1: of.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:Yeah. This that reminds me of, oh, I, go ahead.
Track 1: You're good.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:off. Yeah, it Remi what you said, what you both said. It reminds me of a storyI had when it was my first year in product marketing. I was, it was on a, itwas on a team call related to our product launch. I was gonna be out the doorin the next few weeks and the product manager like put me on the spot and waslike, Hey Zach, we've got these, we got these salespeople asking, uh, andcustomers asking about this product like Where's the one pager? And prior tomind you, prior to the conversation, I, we communicated a plan. We had thelaunch plan laid out and we said, Hey, the one pager is gonna come out in thenext two weeks. It's gonna come out towards end of month. It's gonna be timedwith the release of the product. [00:25:00] Theproblem was, is that she was asking for this one pager ahead of schedule. Herreasoning being, Hey, customers, salespeople are asking for it. Going back likeEric, like you brought up a really good point is that , like, prior to beinglike a product market, I was in sales and being like, okay, well why are yougonna give a one pager and there's no product? Um, that was the question Iasked in the back of my head.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:But what I said instead is that, Hey, I'm excited that they want to see thisone pager, but. Like what changes have been made in the product timeline for usto move this forward? Because
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:if I was a prospect customer and you're like, you wanna see this product andsomeone gives you a one pager, what, what you gonna do with a one pager?
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:If you want? If you're like, Hey, I'm ready to buy right now.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:No one's buying a
Track 1: gonna [00:26:00] a.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:I'm gonna take out one pager, sell it, and we're going after Salesforce baby.But I'm, we know we're, we're gonna peel off a new product line. Take these onepagers. They're gonna be part of our revenue generating, like of, of revenuegen. Go to market. We're in there. But going back to the point is that, likeyou said, you like Eric and Gap, is that like you as a product worker, is thatit's okay to say no? As long as you can point to a plan that's been written onpaper and if you do say no, like have a conversation, I'm like, Hey, likethat's an opportunity to like discuss. I'm like, Hey, what needs to change?What timelines need to change? What priorities need to change for us to meetthis new ask? Like I know it's not a definitive no, it's just an opportunity tosay, Hey, [00:27:00] our expectations are notaligned. Let's take a moment to get aligned. And I think that's what's beenvery, very effective for me in the past and even my day-to-Day.
Track 1: Well, I wastrying to get my husky, but she ran before I could grab her. I, and, and withthat comment, I think too, not just no, what I've, what I've learned in thelast two years is saying yes, but Right. So if you haven't learned the art ofyes, but there's a gajillion ways for you guys to go out and out and view that.
Track 1: But I thinkthat's
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:I've learned that at improv, yes, and, but I probably, that's not
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:effective for what not affect what we're talking about here.
Track 1: Well, and Iwanted to tie it back to kind of the, you know, the research side of things,right? When you're asked to go do something and you're just like, come on,what, what actual thought has gone into this? Um, I wanna give two examples forour listeners. Hopefully they can, they can chew on and, and use, um, [00:28:00] you know, young pmms in particular.
Track 1: But when Ifirst came in to procurement, right, we had a sales leader and, and it was veryevident he wanted some sales assets, like a sales deck. I, I can't even tellyou how many times I was asked for, and the conversation similarly to thepositioning and, and copy conversation. Was, we don't even have buyer personasdefined, right?
Track 1: I come inand I'm, I'm like, who are the people who are willing to pay for this product?Who are the decision makers? Who are just the users who essentially have to beforced to use it and they don't really have any decision making? Right? Couldnot even get that question answered to a 10th degree. So it was reallyimportant to articulate that, , the user.
Track 1: Is not thesame as the CEO. Right. And it was really easy for me to articulate that.Right? Like you, Mr. VP of Sales, what do you care about more than anythingright now? Right. And he's like, closing deals. [00:29:00]And I'll be like, exactly right. And what do I care about right now? And he islike, not closing deals.
Track 1: And I'mlike, exactly. We are two different personas working for the same organizationand we might actually want to use the same product here in the future. Let'ssay gong for example, right. It's a great one. We have totally different needsfor gong, right? And, and we need to be able to communicate that effectively.
Track 1: So for the,for the viewers out there, you know, if you're talking to leadership, hopefullyyou are in a different role than them. That's why you're there. And you canarticulate them that, hey, you know, you might want something. And it's atotally different want than I want, even though it might be the same exactproduct that we're going after.
Track 1: Um. Then thenext part is like the competitive piece, which is really near and dear to myheart. And I know we'll, we'll talk later with like Andy McCotter, bne, um, andClara Smith in particular. But I find it very important that you take that timeto figure out like, [00:30:00] okay, you wantme to go do this ask, right?
Track 1: Let's lookat the actual landscape and say to ourselves a couple things. Is this astrength of ours? Like, do we already crush this? Do we have a really goodsocial following or are we trying to keep up with someone like Lavender, forexample, who just crushes it and everyone loves their content? That might notbe the best use of our time to go try to match them, right?
Track 1: And it, itmay be a feature, it may be a, you know, a, uh, a marketing tactic they'reusing. It may be a PLG strategy, whatever around pricing. But I think that'sreally important. Take a look. Where are your strengths? And then .Additionally, where do they kinda slip up? Right? And make sure that, that'sbeing brought up into the conversation.
Track 1: And the waythat I've, I've deflected this a few times, is to be like, you know, think ofa, think of a boxer, think of a basketball player, right? If I am Alan [00:31:00] Iversson and Shaq standing in my way, I'mgonna tell you right now, I'm not trying to jump 76 or 86 inches over to theguy, right? And, and cram one on him.
Track 1: I'm gonnacross him up, break his ankles, and drop a layup in. And I think thatconversation needs to be had. And that, that's two examples of how I've beenable to say, look guys, we haven't done the research yet, and once we do it,here's what we should probably be able to figure out from it. Um, you know,easy, easy similes that get people to relate a really complex topic.
Track 1: And, and,and bring them down to earth and say, yeah, you know what, you're right. Let's,let's pause on this, this specific ask and let you go do the proper researchyou need to, and make sure that this deliverable comes out as best as it can.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:Amazing advice. Love it.
Track 1: Well, good.'cause that's why I asked. And the last thing I really wanna bring up, and thiskind of comes back to my original question, [00:32:00]is.
Track 1: How do youconvince everyone in your organization that we should be building products thatpeople want to buy, that when we launch this, we've got people already lined upto pay us for, versus building a product and then taking all of our resourcesto figure out how are we gonna get people to buy this thing?
Track 1: Have
Track 1: Situationswhere you've had to have that conversation and say, look. This is how we needto run product launches and develop products.
Track 1: Do you haveany advice for our users or any, any, you know, examples that we could share?
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:I think it's something that both of you guys have said before, um, along withlike , when we had Jason on last week, is that that conversation should beginwith your product counterpart When you are thinking about. Through productroadmap when the, when you're looking at the annual plan. But, but let's saythat you are not there for that conversation.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:You join [00:33:00] at a later part of theyear. You are new. Um, I think it's like that's the first, like one of thefirst meetings to have on the books. It's like, hey, like what does the roadmaplook like? What are we prioritizing? What's changed? What's like, what changeshave we seen so far either from just like customer interactions, from feedbackwe're getting, from customers from , cases that are coming from the customersuccess team that may influence how we have the list prioritized. Well, I thinkat the end of the day. Um, before we talk to the entire organization is to havethat sit down with the product counterpart and figure out like what is theirpriority and what they wanna launch next.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:Yep. I would, I would agree with that. And I think that. For a major part. Whenthat's happening, there's already a roadmap. They already know what, what theywant to do and it's like, Hey guys, here's this mix match weird stuff. [00:34:00] Can of worm, do something with it. Come onpmms. Go to market with it. When positioning, as we know, should be done at theideation phase, so then everything else is more of a. I don't want to use toomuch slang, but I would say it's more of a top down approach and bottom up. Andwe're just able to go to market more effectively than, here's our kind of weirdfranking product, and you need to do something with it, and you need toposition it correctly and you need to do that. Um, if you're able to do theresearch to look at the competition and then to identify gaps in the roadmap. Ithink it's a better way, and then you can say, okay, so can we take a stepback? Can we remove the releases and ideas of the next quarters and just focuson tweaking that product to fit the positioning on and the strategy around themarket [00:35:00] we want to bring. And thenwe'll be able to focus on the direction we want to take because like the sameis happening in growth as well.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:You're trying to. Like make things work, but it's not seamless because there'snot necessarily a need for that product. People are not necessarily aware of iteither problem aware or they just don't know about your solution. So yeah,pretty much it.
Track 1: I love this.We got some, we got some wise words coming outta, we're not marketers today.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:I, I don't know where these words were coming from, but they came
Track 1: Well, youknow, we've got, we've got a few episodes under our belt and we were blessedwith two legends last week, so I think we're just smarter than we were. Three
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:We just, we absorbing it all like a sponge,
Track 1: Right. Um,you know, I wanted to chime in here to kind of close out this specificconversation about what do you do if you're doing more marketing than productmarketing?
Track 1: Right. Whatif you're doing more [00:36:00] lead gen thanrevenue capture? Right. And a conversation that I tend to like to have. I'veonly done it once, so I'm not gonna fluff you and try to say, I've done this atfive companies and it's worked every time. But I'm in a situation currentlywhere I'm the only marketer, right?
Track 1: There's alot asked out of me. And so there's a lot of trade-offs that need to happen,both between myself and everyone else in our organization. And one thing thatI've, you know, really tried to make it clear is this, if we don't do theproper things that product marketing would normally do. In the launch phase.
Track 1: In thedevelopment phase, right? What we are trading off is making everything harderfor our four teams who are working their asses off to do their job, right?Product. It is so hard for them to capture insights [00:37:00]from the market, right? And actually understand what everyone's saying and siftthrough who's the uh, boy who cried wolf, right?
Track 1: And justwants the feature because they want a feature. Versus if we build this, we'vegot a hundred wolves at our door, right? Instead of one boy crying for a wolf.And I think that translates very well to the rest of the groups, right? Forsales, if you're delivering a product where we haven't had time to position andcreate a messaging structure and, and like we were talking about earlier, areally nice one pager to go with it.
Track 1: Sales isgonna have a really hard time doing their job. Right. And then it passes downto customer success. So much upsell, so much cross sell, so much reducing churnis being put into that bucket right now in particular. And so we're makingtheir jobs exponentially harder because they're [00:38:00]now trying to go
Track 1: Do somethingthey're not used to doing. Right. Selling number one. So now we're giving themthe opportunity to sell a wishy-washy product at best that we haven't done agood job figuring out if it was a good market fit, if we've done all the workto, to get it to market. And lastly, like the marketing teams themselves.
Track 1: Um, I haveseen this firsthand being on a, being on a smaller team that if you do not havethat. Injection of what, who and why You have really crappy marketing material.Doesn't matter if it's email, social, uh, infographic. You just have, you justhave shit. Like, I'll just be, I'll be frank with you. Um, and so that's theconversation that I try to have.
Track 1: And again,these young marketers, this is, this is something you gotta learn is being ableto say . , if we don't inject this level of development [00:39:00] that the top, you know, the Figma of the world aredoing, we are sacrificing every single other department and being able toexceed at or excel at their job. So I'll shut up, get off my soapbox there.
Track 1: But youknow, those are some of the things I feel like . We can do as individuals andhopefully the listeners on our podcast can go and, uh, make a little bit ofchange at their organization next week.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:Be the change. The C your CEO wants to see in the org.
gab_1_12-06-2023_153235:A great way to put it.
Track 1: Yeah. Uh,the c and CEO stands for change.
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:All
zach---he-him-_1_12-06-2023_123235:right, y'all good talk.
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