(S2, E4) Training to be relevant in product marketing

[00:00:00] We are podcasts forproduct markets and B2B SaaS who feel misunderstood of what they do. Fromsomeone who truly gets what you do. Basically help you feel less like a misfitto being unignorable in your role.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Everyone, welcome to another spicy conversation of we're not marketers beforewe kick it off with our episode topic for today, the voice, this is ZachRoberts here, the sales water boy. Can I pass it over here to gab here to kickit off? By the way, Gab and I are both in the same town, but Differentlocations.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:So we're going to give you the same, that five gap, take it away.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:So jealous.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:Yes. Zach is in Quebec city as well. We jammed together a few days ago. GabBourgeois, sales deck intern, still doing sales deck until I die. I'll pass themic over to Eric.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:Yeah. Eric Holland, Frank, a marketer, new dad, and full of FOMO that my boysare in the same area code some bullshit.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:That's, that's the benefit of we're not marketers. We give unpaid pat [00:01:00] leave to our family leave to our fellowcolleagues.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:Yes. Very generous of our HR team to

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:hook me up with the Pat leave

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:and, and the club, club lights. So shout out to we're not markers. HR team.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Informally known as The council of spouses,

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:If they say it's too spicy, it's not spicy enough, but Hey, let's kick it offfor the topic right here. We're really excited to talk about is training tostay relevant, be relevant in product marketing. Like you heard in someprevious episodes, about 90 percent of PMMs don't have formal training and the10 percent that .

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Take training like everyone else. How can you, how can you stand out whenyou're doing the same thing as everyone, as everyone too? So we really justwant to kick it off here and even piggyback off of what Yilin said earlier. Anearlier episode is that in a tighter job market, you got to focus more on yourdifferentiated career [00:02:00] story.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:So I'm just curious for you all, to kick off the question, like what's like theunique superpower for. Each of you. It's just for us in the conversation that,that makes that it's a clear standout what we do because I feel like it showsup in our conversations and the work we're doing. But I'm just curious likewhat you guys think about that.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:I don't know if you can coach this or not, but I think my superpower Is wantingto pick a fight. And the reason that that is important in my opinion is whenyou talk about positioning in particular, being different, having a spiky pointof view I just keep getting reminded how I feel like people don't remember thatlesson. And I think being very opinionated myself has led me to be able to pickthat fight when I'm doing the positioning work. So it always sounds likesomething different and something that most likely the competitor is too afraidto copy.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:[00:03:00] So what I'm hearing is basicallywhen you're an outsider, you have nothing to lose. You can come up with thosespices, Caliente point of view, right?

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:I don't know. I think it's a outsider or not. I think it's just in my nature,like to just look at the most

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:Zig when they drag,

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:angles, right. And try to find the best one and then that also leads intothings like the content we create the planning, like the launch planning we dostuff like that, I think being able to just have a really strong opinion and,and look for those avenues that you might be considered spicy, right.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:Is the easiest word to go with.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Easier to be an outsider when you're left off of the meetings though.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:Yeah. Which is becoming my favorite thing, by the way, to our listeners. I'vebeen partaking in a no meeting Wednesday, so it's been going pretty well. Andthe only [00:04:00] meeting I really lookforward to is the weird on marketers recordings. So there you go. Fun tip.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:Just cancel all your meetings, decline all of them. Every Wednesday, you'll getshit done.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:I would say just in terms of like superpower, I, what I discovered over thepast few, few weeks is I'm more an enabler than anything else. So I just becomemore good towards when someone is telling me this is how I'm seeing things.This is what I'm trying to do. Basically, I'm just asking question and tryingto help them navigate what should be the best outcome based on what theyalready have in their mind. That can basically craft something as a project, astrategy, whatever the assets would be. And I think it's, it's a very kind ofgood skills for this podcast, because then when we, we have guests that havelike bright ideas or they're talking about something, ultimately, if we're ableto point them in the right direction in terms of how can we make everythingthey're seeing [00:05:00] relevant for ouraudience. I just think that we're able to connect a bit more insights towardsepisode for our listeners, basically.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:So what I'm hearing is Gab's an enabler and I'm an antagonizer. Zach, what areyou?

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Yo, I'm going to borrow what both of you all have said here. And this nextpiece is. Something you've heard before. I'm a sales trained product marketer.And I believe different from what Harvey said in our previous episode is thatB2C marketers might be an easier path to product marketing, but learning salesfirst is going to be, it's going to make you a better product marketer.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:First point being like. Eric, he said the point of being the agitator, giving anew perspective. When I'm in like internal conversations, no different. When Iwas on sales calls back in the day was knowing my audience, knowing what theycared about. And then providing information that they didn't know [00:06:00] as a new perspective.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:And I think one example of that is when we're doing positioning work, messagingwork, when you're having those internal meeting reviews, messaging reviews,it's that, Hey, I'm not here to. Tell you what you want to hear. I'm here togive you a new perspective to help us stand out. And I'm going back to thesecond point, Gab, what you said here earlier is that being that enabler isthat like one, like asking questions to promote.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Conversation. So I think again, this is another example that really shows up onour podcast. We're not asking you like a list of market research questions.Tell me what you think about product marketing. Like we are just, we're, we'rereally tailoring again, who we know our guests are, we're tailoring it to theunique position of our podcast.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:And then we're asking questions that to get more buy in. To get more of to getmore color, to get a better understanding. And I think that's, what's reallycool of what, what you both [00:07:00] said.And I think I was very fortunate to get when I was in sales prior to making apivot to product marketing.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:That's awesome. So now we identified basically our superpower that can help usnavigate that more challenging job market that you and spoke about. But I'mjust curious about the, what are, what are you guys? Opinion on training forPMMs, basically

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:I could go on this forever. I got three trains of thought, and I'm going to tryto zip through these. Because I'm not trying to hog the mic here. But a lot ofpeople don't know this. I don't have a bachelor's, I don't have a master's.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:The man's a father,

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:I'm a dad.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:Right?

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:He got fatherhood on this belt.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:which I'm quickly figuring out is the best thing to do. Learning opportunityI've probably ever had, but talking about formal training, I want to start backas early as like university stuff. Had two years worth at two differentuniversities said, I'm going to go different route.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:I [00:08:00] got my path. I'm going to, I'mgoing to get there. Right. And that what 13 years removed from my senior yearin high school. If I could tell my younger self. One thing it would be likeright there. You don't have to go spend tens of thousands of dollars and Xamount of years, essentially doing a lot of gen eds.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:And, and ultimately, if you're going to be a product marketer, you're not goingto find a lot of stuff that's really focused on product marketing. From theuniversity standpoint now move that into, the practical aspect. I've taken afew different certifications product marketing alliance.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:Shout out. Everyone knows that name. A lot of people know Cornell University.So also certified there. , that was really helpful in terms of laying a basedown but as I, compare them to some of these other things, such as the readyfor launch the B2B messaging course with winter You're learning that there'salmost a cookie cutter way of doing things.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:And then there's this way [00:09:00] ofsticking out and doing things different and carving your own process , andsystems, which I've actually found just as much as a benefit, if not more thansome of these formal certifications. And then thirdly the creepy stalker waythat I was telling you guys earlier, but there's so many awesome people. OnLinkedIn that I'm learning from most of them we have on this podcast and justtaking the time to read what they have to say. See the content that they putout check out the companies that they work for and the other stuff that they'redoing, I think has taken me from some rookie, no name, scrappy, trying tofigure out his way into, getting to run launches at a premier startup and dothe work that I really like to do.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:So that's my three takes there on [00:10:00]what the value of formal education is. What do you guys think?

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:So, one thing I, I love, I love school. I was the dude in college where. Myteaching assistant told me one time, he was like, yo, Zach. Don't come to thesetutoring sessions because you're just pissing people off. Like you askingquestions and you already know the answers to it.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:And it was not to be a no at all. It was that I love asking questions just toget a better understanding of things. And I think this goes to my first, butI'm going to say here really quick, is that what makes, what's a unique pathfor me into product marketing is that I never went to, I can't went to schoolfor finance.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:I never imagined 10 years later that I'd be in product marketing. Really lovepicking things that interest me and that excite me. And to give you an exampleof that is that junior year of junior year of college, I didn't. I did not knowwhat I wanted to do for an internship. They were like pushing me intoinvestment [00:11:00] banking and the hours andjust how people approach it.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:I was like, Oh, this is not a vibe for me. And then my career advisor gave mebad advice being, you just got to, you just got to choose something relevant toyour career path. And I was like, I'm not listening to that. I'm going tochoose what excites me. And that's somehow led me into an internship at Google.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:The company was a nine, the It was customer support for AdWords, but it taughtme a lot about the customer experience and gave me a signal to, to sales to aswell, which eventually was the stepping stones into what we're doing heretoday. So I think in terms of training, like you said, Eric, is that.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Find things that excite you, follow people that resonate with you. Find newtopics to dive in. Another second piece of bad advice I got from a formerleader is that there are some things you're just going to have to do and youjust do it, but no matter what it is, like for me, like my least favorite partof product marketing is analyst relations.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:But that doesn't mean that I won't find a why or find a [00:12:00] clear thing I'm passionate about. It's like exercisepeople. No one likes, no one likes picking up a 300 pound deadlift bar, but youdo it because you want to work on functional skills to get you to the nextplace. So for anyone out there, is that find what interests you most.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Don't do something because you think you have to do it. And if you have to doit, make it personal to you.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:when you're saying moving to a new place, you mean you have to pick up thedeadlift bar. So you're able to move out and help your friend go in yourapartment. Right.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Exactly. So it's like when your partner, when your friend hits you up and says,yo, Hey, I'm having a, I'm having a, like a going away party and you walk in.It's actually a moving away party. And he said, yo, pick up that deadlift.You're my free labor. Oh damn, I should not say free, free labor in the contextof myself. new

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:Holy fuck.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:And that's, there's, I think we've just laid [00:13:00]on our next business opportunity and it's the, we're not marketers moving crew.What do you think about that?

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:New revenue stream, we are going to get paid for that. You

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:Exactly.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:be free labor.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:That's great because I just heard like very two different sides about you guyspoint of view on, on education slash training. And I feel like I'm, I'm obligedto explain my own point of view on this if you guys would let me.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:We ain't going to cut you off.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:Yeah, basically, I'm going to to be very brief, but I used to struggle a lot ofthat school more in mathematics. And the reason why, because I just didn't wantto do the lessons, basically, I didn't want for me, didn't make sense to solveproblems that I was a hundred percent disinterested in. So I used to struggle alot and I stopped struggling once I just started [00:14:00]just being obsessed and just redoing the exercise over and over again.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:This is how I understood the models, the, the, all of the, the lesson, the, thewhole education curriculum, basically. And this made me realize while I wasdoing my, my session, which is between high school and uni that I absolutelyneeded to have a uni diploma to work in marketing. This is what everyone wastelling me.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:Everyone was telling me, well, you need to do that. And I never consideredmyself being smart enough to go to uni because of those of those difficultieswith mathematics. And basically what happened is. I, I was halfway into uni,but I wasn't fully admitted because I needed to do a math test to get into,into admin, into marketing. And I failed the math test of I think for by 2%. SoI had to have. A specific course added to my curriculum to say that I was fully[00:15:00] accepted into into my BBA inmarketing. So basically I taught that this, those mathematics right after highschool, right after CEGEP would not be following me, but it was like the solething that made me work my ass off to get my diploma. And then I realized thatit was worthless. Like it was good to, if someone was asking me about it, butit never really happened. So I realized that even if I was a bachelor, I stillneeded to have an edge on that huge market. So shout out HubSpot certification.That was the first thing I did.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:I saw it. I said, okay, I just need to do everything and I'll be a marketingmaster. But those, those certification, those training never really helped me.They helped me get a basic understanding, but then I realized everything isabout how do you apply it, basically.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:So that was a long story short, basically.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Dude, that's funny. You say that because I took, I took calculus three for fun [00:16:00] and. It taints my GPA. Like when I wasgraduating, they said you only need 120 credits. I had 150 credits when Igraduated a lower GPA, if I didn't take those courses, but it goes back to whatwe said earlier is that don't do things just to be perfect, do things becauseyou give a shit about it

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:You're

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:like my girlfriend. She's so bright. She's a, she really loves school. She hadthe highest freaking GPA you can. And I'm like, Oh yeah, it took me five timesto pass math or something like that.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:I fixed the glasses on my forehead. Once those, when I calculus comes up.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:Yeah. Zach's well, if we made any money, we know who our accountant's gonna be.Right? Gab,

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:Oh yeah. It won't be me guys. We'll be, we'll be runned after by, by the IRS.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:I, I just wanna say one, one thing I just wanna pick up out of all that is atthe end of the day, it doesn't matter your source of knowledge. As long as yougive a shit, and you dig in, [00:17:00] and youdig in hard, and then once you've got all that theory up in your brain, applythat, in as many different ways as you

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:can, as many times as you can, get feedback, get it torn up, and, and keep ondoing your thing.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Oh yeah. Learn, learn, practice and train. And I think like Eric, you hit on asubtle point. And I think this has been a challenge I've seen with all of uscan relate to getting those messages from peers and individuals like, Hey, howcan I get into product marketing? And it's okay, I can give you the approach.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:And this is something I mentioned a few days ago. In a separate conversation.But for some people, I know they're not going to do it. Like you can eat allthe protein you want, but if you sit on the couch and don't put it to work.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:preach.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:Preach! So how do you showcase? This stuff,? Zach, you're doing all thiscalculus. How are you bringing that in and showcasing all of our bosses thatyou know, what's up?

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:[00:18:00] Gab, you and I were talking aboutthis earlier, is that even though I'm not going to be writing differentialequations in a messaging review, I use a lot of math frameworks to guide mydecision making and I can have, how to be more of a quote unquote, dispassionateanalysts when it comes to our work as product markers.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:I gave you and I were talking earlier about data analytics, and I'm curiousbefore I dive into my point of view. I want to hear your point of view on thistoo,

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:So basically and for a little bit of the kind of thing, I think it was moredata science and analytics, but still under that realm I was working.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:You're training to be a data wizard.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:Exactly, exactly. I was working in SEO and I wanted to find ways to automate mywork a little bit more. So I discovered via someone who's writing on the web [00:19:00] SEO stuff in that it's possible to usePython. Or, and like data science to analyze a bunch of keywords for site somepotential traffic and just a bunch of cool use cases. And to me, being able toautomate something and save times was always very cool. So I was a bit drivenby that automation aspect of Python. The issue is I did a course on data camp.I saw a part on how to do things. I was able to apply it a little bit, but itwas not a core function of what I needed to do.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:I was miles away from having to automate my stuff. So that training became veryquickly obsolete. So that was my experience with. One data science course inthat specific context.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:So, all right, you're going to, you're going to hear, you're going to hearmyself. I love data analytics. It stretches back to when I was in sales. Sowhen I was in sales, like again, like you live and die by your number. And Iwas looking [00:20:00] for. A better way to hitmy quota with the least amount of work. One way was doing that was toprioritize which accounts to go after.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:And there was an example where I had this, these lists of accounts that alwayscome up in my, come up in my, my call list that were just crap leads. Thesewere leads that I found that were just not valuable. They were not relevant.And I started noticing like a signal. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna teachmyself SQL taught myself SQL through code Academy.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:I pulled like the list and I was like, okay. And I went to my manager. I waslike, Hey, here's these lists of accounts. This is the reason why they're notrelevant. Here's how much time is wasted on us. Here's why this is not how muchof these leads are that are not converting. And it got removed. And from thatpoint of view, I was like, okay, like understanding the framework of how tounderstand numbers and how to break it down again, prior to like my financedegree, but knowing that process of how to think through it made it [00:21:00] more where I wanted to take data analyticsand that's the course I took back in 2020 and it's still served me well todayespecially when I'm working with clients, not only being able to like,understand that, like the sales like context of what might be happening, buthelping to draw better hypothesis and testing them out with numbers. So versusgoing to someone from like bizop saying, Hey, can you run this analysis for me?Hell I can go into SQL.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:I can go into XL. I can. Pull that myself and I can then think through about,okay, what do we need to help better tell this story? And then I can go intoexecutive level meetings and be like, all right, like here's what's happening.Here's what might be causing this. This is what we're seeing. How can we have abetter conversation?

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:So gap, what you said here earlier at the conversation, like how can you be abetter enabler? How can you have a conversation? How can you bring people in? Ifound that for me, data analytics has just been a second language. To help metalk to better talk to stakeholder [00:22:00]stakeholders from different parts of the organization, because.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:My manager, former manager said this best. No one can dispute data unless theyhave better data or a different, a different assumptions or a different frameof reference.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:Exactly.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:So I, I think what I'm hearing is again, you're doing that certification forthe knowledge, not for the piece of paper,?

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Exactly. It's like exactly like what's the specific skill and how can you usethat in context to your work. And I see what you're asking too. It goes back towhat you, Lin said earlier, it's what's, how do you differentiate your careerstory and what are some skills to better support that story?

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Like I said earlier, I'm a sales trained product marketer. All right. If I saywhat are examples? What are skills I can highlight to experiences I've used? Solike that experience I shared with you earlier about using SQL to betterprioritize my account list. I was like, that's a perfect transferable skill toa lot of the work I'm doing today.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:I think, I think this is very well put and it's, at the [00:23:00] beginning we spoke about having a superpower. I thinkthis is like the perfect framework to get that superpower. You start with atrigger event in your case, Zach, it was, I have shitty leads and I'm trying tofix it. So I'm going to be learning SQL. And you two had said something veryinteresting, like you, what knowledge do you want instead of the piece ofpaper? But I think that knowledge should you should take a part of it to fixthat initial trigger event. So in that case, well, SQL will help me create likea formula to ditch out those bad leads.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:And then I'll be able to use SQL to analyze that data and come up as someonevery actionable to my boss. So you have those two aspects. And then the thirdone and the fourth one, the third one would be, how can I link that to aspecific story of my background to differentiate myself? So, as you said,you're a sales led PMM, this is how you do it.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:And the fourth element in that case would really be, can I have opportunitiesof [00:24:00] testing this out in the wild?Because let's say you have the trigger event, you have the thing, you havethat, and then Zach, you do it in an opportunity, you're able to use it. Butyou don't train it for years. That initial knowledge will be lost. So I thinkthat's why if you have those four elements, like a trigger event, you're ableto figure out what type of knowledge you're trying to do to fix that triggerevent or that problem you're able to create and link your story around it. Andthen you have an opportunity of testing it out. If you're able to use all ofthat with the purpose of training and certification is going to be a lot more valuablefor employers. To make your profile shine instead of just ranking out a bunchof JPEG that looks cool on LinkedIn, but no one asks necessarily you about, anddoesn't necessarily provide something that will expose your value more, Iguess.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:My dude, I like how you broke it out. And Eric, this is, this is what this mandid in French when we were walking through [00:25:00]Quebec City the last few days.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:Value, well, maybe, beckoning as

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:man would, would lay out and I'd be sitting there just nodding my

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:Dude, when you called me the other night, and I was listening to the sweetsilky sound of his voice speak to his partner , in Quebec anese, I was like,this is This is amazing. This is amazing.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:I actually just thought of this little secret tip.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:So for most of our listeners we are not thought leaders who are gettingmillions of influencer dollars for being product marketers. So what I've foundvery helpful in proving some of the knowledge that I've gained personallyaround. People and their learnings Anthony Perry is a good example.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:He's got some awesome frameworks that I'm able to use and reference. Andessentially half my argument. Isn't about what I think I get led to them arguewhat Anthony Perry thinks, right.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:That messaging course I took with winter, I can reference these [00:26:00] exact slides, Figma templates, whatever itmay be. And my knowledge is essentially rooted in someone who's already got theclout, already got the expertise, and then I can just pack in that applicationpiece and make it my own.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Exactly. I really liked that piece really quick. Cause for me, when I thinklike one, one example I've seen as a problem, like when I've talked to likepeers in the product marketing space or individuals who want to be productmarketers, they come in and say Oh, I'm, I'm learning all these skills aboutproduct marketing.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:And it's as we know, product marketers, this is like a litany of skills rangingfrom customer marketing to competitive and market intelligence. And the firstpart that you mentioned earlier, like gab, you said, it's Hey, what's thattrigger event? What is that specific problem? Like all product marketers areproblem solvers, but you don't learn something for the sake of Jess of learningit.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:You're not speaking to everyone. You're focusing on a specific audience, sameapproach. You're thinking about a problem too, as well. And Eric, to yoursecond point [00:27:00] of Courses and likelearnings. Like I would say like the, the three things this past year that werehelpful for me, that many product markers are not doing is one higher careercoach.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:I work with Jeff, work with Jason Oakley for the past, like eight months now,and that coaching on has. Paid itself back like tenfold. Like it's helped meextend my contracts that I've been working on. It's helped me like, likeapproach problems in a different way than I would have before. And it's just areally great experience to have someone to give you a perspective that youhaven't considered who's someone who's been, who's led a product marketingfunction to the second one is that.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:I took the transformational landing pages course with Eddie Schleiner, like afew, like last year, a few, a few people have asked about our landing page, ournew website. I took the man's course, like the guys, and that was specificallythe copywriting, the [00:28:00] formatting,like how to think about it. And then lastly, like I took Devin reads a contentthat converts disclaimer, I haven't read the full guide yet.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:I'm about two thirds done. It's a 30 day guide that has stretched out to sixmonths. That's on me. But what's really cool about that is this like you said,Eric, pulling different pieces from different people and blending and makingyour own conceptual web of okay, how. Do I make product marketing personal andrelevant to me?

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Like courses that like the data analytics, data science course that Gab youtook different from my experience. What what do you take from that? And how doyou make that personal to you? And how do you use that to make you moreeffective at your craft?

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:Yeah, dude, shout out. Shout out Oakley.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:Yeah. Professor O.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Professor Oak.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:since we're talking about Oakley shameless plug They're ready for launch cohortgives me a lot of those templates that I was talking about earlier too, for myproduct launches. So hit them up.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:On my end, I would say I, [00:29:00] I did afew engagement, not engagement, but certification, but more towards courses on,on building an audience a little bit more on LinkedIn. So I did, I started, notdid, the creator MBA of Justin Welch. There's some very interesting notion,marketing notion that kind of came out of it. I did the unknowable challenge aswell on the cohort tree, same cohort, then then another bunch of people. Ithink there was some PMs leaders in this as well. And maybe more recently, Ialso did the DIY interview course. From Rand, Paul Gibson if you haveinterviews in, in any type of nature as a PMM, I highly recommend that course.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:It's a good reminder on why are we doing that research? What type of questionshould we ask? Why it should always be linked to objectives. And it's just welldone in a way when you can don't just talk to customer lead customerinvestigation, get, get [00:30:00] betterframeworks out of it. So I highly recommend that one. But yeah, other thanthat, I, I think it's I did a ton of certification and I think it's alwaysabout in that trigger point. And then you need to, I don't think if I do thiscopywriting certification, I'll get better at copywriting and then my skill setwill just be improved. Like Zach, for example. You did it for the website. Youdid it for a lot of your other use case when you always have to write. So itjust makes sense to invest into that because you have opportunities to developthat skills more and more. And that's vacation will give you like a part of theway there. Basically

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Hey, look, average product markers, just focus on learning and don't doanything with it. The good product markers are going to practice it.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:They're gonna, they're going to take some time outside of it, find a way topractice it in the workplace. And the ones that are just consistently trainingare going to find new ways to apply. And I think one really great example oflike kind of the , experiential learning we've seen so far.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:It's two things. One [00:31:00] is like foreach of us, we're using LinkedIn as a forum to practice what we learn and sharethat with a broader audience. And the second one, a bigger one is this podcast.It's really cool to think about what we've done here from in the last, like sixmonths, building a podcast from the ground up, using what we've each havelearned from prior to product marketing to what we're learning right now andapplying that, like the ability to like.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Talk with some of the dopest like P. I. mebs in the space hear their bestpractices on like things that validate what we're learning or gives us a newidea. Like one example is that with Harvey Lee, like after the pod had it, weeach had a chance to talk with him. He recommended reading million dollarconsultant.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:That's not something I've seen on like a traditional product marketing list.The second one is just building connections with other peers. Like I so cool.Like the gap you and I met earlier this week here, like air, we're all going tobe meeting in, in fall up at, in Vermont, shout out to exit five on drive.[00:32:00]

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:And then knowing people beforehand I'm like, there's so many people. I mean,it's like the dude, it's like the first day of school. I already have my stuffpacked up. And this trip is not going to be for the next four months, but likethis people we know, because just the relationship we built through the pod,either directly or indirectly.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:And three, it's just Kind of like the dope shit we do with this podcast. Likewe're doing things that people, other markers aren't doing like seeing the workthat we're taking skills that product markers, we all know and love andapplying in different Avenue. And we're getting different experiences thatothers might not be able to speak to

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:This is the cheat code. I mean, we, we're very fortunate because we get to dothat on a near weekly basis when we have these conversations with other productmarketers and with each other. So that's everyone else's call to action is to,to find some other product marketers and talk about your other learnings,

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:you can pick these things up, have some really good conversation just likewe're doing and maybe even get wild and start your own podcast [00:33:00] too.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:Exactly.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:start a newsletter, start a newsletter, start a blog or something like Get outthere. Talk to people.

eric_1_05-22-2024_154652:Exactly. And I think that's one, the last takeaway I have for this perspectiveis since we started in November, the amount of knowledge I've picked up in thetimeframe in which it's happened is something like I haven't experiencedprobably over any point of my life. Cause it's just having conversations. Withreally smart people and picking up new things each time we talk to them.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:Speaking about newsletter, every Friday, we have our own newsletter for themarketer called dying for influence. So it's a private club. You can get in ifyou want, but we're breaking down every episode. We're adding memes. We're justbasically rounding up all of the relevant info that you're trying to getbecause as a PMM, you're dying for influence.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:So, subscribe at not marketer. com and you'll be able to get all of those [00:34:00] freebies on your inbox on Fridays.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Yerba Mate. When you, when your startup CEO is chasing leads and chuggingLaCroix's. The relevant product markers are drinking yerba mate, dying for theinfluence to quench it.

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:dry it in your pipeline.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:But yeah, like I said, here, check out the newsletter. It's if you're, ifyou're looking for a written version of what we talk on thoughts that we'relooking to expand on gaps at best die for that influence at newsletter.notmarketers. com,

gab_1_05-22-2024_154651:We're wrapping up for another episode of We're Not Marketers.

zach-_1_05-22-2024_154652:Bum, bum, bum. Unofficially sponsored by your drink of choice. Yeba Mate.

Thank you for listening to We're Not Marketers. If you likewhat you heard, please subscribe, review our podcast, and share this episodewith other PMMs. Thanks again and see you [00:35:00]soon.

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