The one word most miss in "product marketing" with Becky Trevino

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This isn't a podcast on labeling product marketing. This is apodcast for product marketing managers who feel misunderstood internallybecause building slide decks and writing copy is not all that we do. So ourtoday's product marketers, actually marketers.

Introduction and Hosts Banter

Track 1: Heyeveryone. This is another episode of We're Not Marketers. Oh, my man, Eric,you, were you trying to kick off the intro? Cause I didn't mean to take thatmic from you, my guy.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:No, you take it away, buddy. That's all yours.

Track 1: Hey, onceagain this is Zach here. The sales water boy, I want to pass it over. I'm goingto pass it over to our guy, Gab to switch things up.

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:Gab Bujold, sales intern. I just do sales deck until I die. And I try to makesure to save them before they disappear. Zach?

Track 1: Exactly.Don't do what I did 30 minutes ago where you finish a presentation and youdon't save it and lose it all in one swipe. But less about that. We're going topass it over to Eric before we introduce our special guest here today.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:Yeah. And Becky, if you're not aware, we all have a little job [00:01:00] titles that are out of the norm. And mineis the Frankenmarketer here at We're Not Marketers. And so Zach, give it backto you to introduce our special guests.

Track 1:

Introducing Special Guest Becky Trevino

Track 1: Everyone,this is Becky Trevino. She is the Executive Vice President of Product at SnowSoftware. What's really unique about Becky is that her deep expertise inproduct marketing that has led her to carve out a path of leading the productfunction underneath with.

Track 1: Productmarketing, UX, and other functions to help a more streamlined function here.I'm really excited to have her on today to talk more about her experience,

Track 1: What itlooks like to partner with product marketing. How can product marketers get abetter seat at the table when it comes to the roadmap discussions here?

Track 1: We're goingto learn a lot more from Becky from this conversation. Fun fact, she's basedout of the Midwest . So if any Midwest listeners out here, give her a holler .Becky, what have we missed in this illustrious intro for yourself?

Becky's Career Journey and Unique Perspective

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:I think a big part of it has been, I've been a career changer. So [00:02:00] I have been somebody who's done since inengineering started off my career in engineering moved over and let customersuccess and technical support. Moved into product marketing and then now lead ateam with product management and product marketing and really get a sense offeel.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:I'm probably one of those few people that by leading both has an interestingperspective, but also has had the experience of going in on customer success,marketing as well as product management. So I almost had the feel with theexception of sales. Like I understand all of the main stakeholders. that aproduct marketing team would have. And I think that gives me a uniqueperspective on stakeholder management for PMM.

Track 1: And, withthat unique perspective, Becky, we're going to ask you a question here that Ithink that you've, if you've heard the, if you heard the pod, what's comingnext. I'm going to pass it off to Gab to kick it off here.

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:Thank you, Zach.

Are Product Marketers Actually Marketers?

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:Becky, are product marketers actually marketers? Why or why not?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Product marketers are business people and good product marketers.. I thinkeverybody in an [00:03:00] organization, likewe try to all say I'm in marketing or I'm an engineer or I'm the productperson. The reality is that we should all be business people. We should all bein it to help a business be successful. And with that, it's like we allcontribute. We're all part of a greater team that brings a unique skill set tohelp us be successful. And product marketing is particularly a unique functionof the fact that it has product and marketing in its name. And bydesignation, it means it's working at an intersection of go to market andproduct strategy to really help a company be successful at this growth engineof bringing and introducing new products in the market.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:And that's hard. And so for that reason, I say, look, I wouldn't get myselfstuck in. Am I a marketer? Am I a product person? I'm a business person hereout to do whatever it takes at my particular company to make it be successful.And I'm also a big believer that there's no [00:04:00]one size fits all to product marketing. You're one size fits allfor product marketing is really focused on what's the right product marketing,roles and responsibilities for the organization you sit in today because theneeds of every org, the maturity of every order are different. And that's whatI think is the big challenge for product marketers is finding what's the rightproduct marketing needs for the organization I'm in.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:That is a

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:one of a kind answer. And what we've had about a dozen now guests on here, andwe have not gotten anything close to that. Thatis hitting home on a Friday.

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:Exactly. But it made me, it reminded me and to what Yi Lin Pei said on one ofher posts and product marketer are business strategist. And she wasgoing into that in depth. So I really like the fact that you said we arebusiness people and I think it's not, it's a role that is department agnosticand you focus more towards your soul is not to a department, it's to theorganization in [00:05:00] overall and tomaking sure everyone get those wins and those successes basically.

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:Really loving the answer.

Defining Product Market Fit

Track 1: Clarifyingquestion for you, Becky, when you say that product marketing is not a onesize fits all within an organization as a product marketer, like a soloproduct marketer within. How do youfind product market fit within product marketing in an organization?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:So if I were a solo productmarketer, I think the first thing I would do is understand who just hired me.And I would go back there and ask them, look, within the first 90 days, what doyou need me to get done? And also really try to dig into why did they even openthat rec? At any point, because somebody, especially if you're in a smallercompany, budget is limited. So somebody felt enough pain to allocate parts oftheir budget to product marketing versus engineering, customer success, anothersalesperson, which when you're a small startup, that's a critical function. Sothey obviously [00:06:00] value the function either because ofsomething they heard or something that they feel. And so once you know that youcan tailor that role for it. A lot of times in and smaller startups, whatthey're really looking for is product message fit is, Hey, I'm spendinga lot of money on marketing, but I don't know if I'm getting that return oninvestment for it. So if that's the case, then a lot of what product marketerswould be doing that scenario is really understanding. Why we're winning, doinga lot of customer wins, a lot of conversations with salespeople to really diveinto that, or really understanding of win-loss or really driving in aroundideal customer profile, like really diving into particular parts of the messageand resonating, working on a website copy, looking at sales enablement. So ifthat's what was the big challenge versus if the big challenge were. Oh, I don'tknow what my, my, my field, we have a vision or marketing is, we're gettingpipeline, but we're not converting it. Then it would be more of a partnershiparound sales enablement. Let's see the direction of where that product marketerwould spend their [00:07:00] time changes based on the problem theorganization is facing.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:That's why I said, it's it can'tbe a one size fits all where you're like I'm going to bring messagingand positioning. What if their messaging positioning is good. And thenyou're seeing the conversion, but they're not able to. Their problem is bottomof the funnel, then leave the messaging and positioning alone and go focuson sales enablement and have the right pitch decks, et cetera.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:So it's knowing the problems theorganization are having, that's going to help that product marketer reallycreate the right blueprint for that role.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:We've actually heard this, I think it was from Tamara. I've talked and she hada conversation about knowing your superpower, right? So if the company that youwork for needs help on the positioning side and you may be more of a salesenablement guru I Obviously not a good fit. So a direct question for you,Becky.

Product Marketing Superpowers

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:What is your product marketingsuperpower?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:I feel like I've always equatedfour types of superpowers in product marketing. I'm going to try LinkedIn poston this a while back, but I think there was. I think there's the storytellers,there's the [00:08:00] people who can really drive a narrative andI've met these type of product marketers and you can give them something and Ihad a product marketer at work for me and she was doing a part of our securityportfolio and she just came up with this great line of you can't, you can'tsecure what you can't see, and it just, it was, it hit it in a couple of wordswas like, yeah, if you can't see what you're doing because our product did alot of visibility, then you can't secure it.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Yeah. And if you could sit thereand talk a lot of speeds and feeds, but somebody can come up with a one linerlike that. So I call them the storytellers. Then you have another superpower,which is really about the data people. The people that you see a lot of this inB2C PMMs, the one who can dig through the data, call in and find things andextract it.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:I call those like the datascientists. Those are the people that extract all the data and they find theinsights through it. And then I had this third superpower of people whoactually can really dig into the product evangelist. Those are former like solutionconsultants or product managers that come back into [00:09:00] productmarketing.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:They work a lot of times in liketechnical, like somebody who would be an AI right now or deep security or Icame from cloud. So it was like a kind of a cloud computing. So those peoplecan go in the nitty gritty of it all and really go out there and hold theirown. And then the fourth one I see when I see product markets, those are likethe marketing people.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Somebody came over from demandgen and it's spending a stint in product marketing and they always veer towardthe campaign side of things. So those are like my, when I group in. The productmarketing superpowers is like the personas, almost like the four personas ofproduct marketing and of that.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:I'm a storyteller. It's reallyeasy for me to go on stage, be someone that goes in there and talks about it.And then I have a unique part about leadership. I tend, I've been leading teamsfor many years now, and most people like to work on my team and I'm really ableto build strong teams across functions, customer success, marketing is just askill set that I've been able to transfer with. So I'd say those are my bigsuperpowers, but I tend to group product marketers [00:10:00] intothose type of personas and usually somebody who's good at storytelling orproduct evangelism can work through that messaging and positioning in a goodway.

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:I love it.

The Art of Storytelling in Product Marketing

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:What's, what makes a good storythen in your case, since it's your superpower?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:A good story is one thatinspires an organization, but also that really makes it clear. What your visionis as a, and this is where I think it's really important for product marketersto understand the vision of the product, the strategy, and then the roadmap.Because a lot of times with product marketing, we get so lost in the speeds andfeeds of the roadmap and the latest release that we don't actually understandwhat's product looking to build. And then what's that connection betweenproducts looking to build who they're looking to become and what we have rightnow, because product marketers who are able to bridge that gap between who weare today and who we aspire to be work really well with founders because [00:11:00] founders,particularly if you're in a smaller company, they're always want to sell thevision. Because the vision gets some investment, the vision gets some earlyadopters. So somebody needs to really understand that vision. And then as youmature and you become a more scalable company, oftentimes you have the strugglebetween the vision of where you want to be in five years and the fact thatpeople know you for something today and that's your core market.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:So somebody who's good atstorytelling at an early stage company is really good at bringing the founder'svision to life. Someone at a more mature company is really able to manage thattension between who you are today and who you aspire to be so that your websitedoesn't just. I'm going to talk about the vision of a core customer, but thatcan sometimes seem incoherent based on where you are, or it doesn't just speakto the vision, but your core customer can't find themselves.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:It doesn't just speak to thecore customer, but the investors that you want to go to the next stage can'tfind where you're going either. Try to

Track 1: and that's,I really liked that point. You said there, Becky, because we had Anthony on forseason one, and he talked a bit about that of the stage [00:12:00] of storytelling, depending if you're a founder sellingto a board from like your early stage, talking about the product with thatcontext in mind, one struggle from like some product marketers is that when itcomes to storytelling, there's two schools of thoughts and it's, Hey, thestory needs to be centered around the product.

Track 1: Because Hey,I'm working closer to the product. So I want to talk about the product. Or,it'd be centered around the customer. Like I'm closer to the customer. Weshould build the story around the customer. From your perspective aroundstorytelling, how should product marketers best be thinking about the product,the customer and what altitude do you talk about that?

Track 1: I'm curiousto hear more about that.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:start with the customer. Ifthere's like very differing needs of, hey, they can't really understand it, butit's really try to talk to the customer. What is somebody facing right now?Somebody's obviously searching for something and how can I fulfill their need?Because at the end of the day, people are people.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:They buy from people. They aresearching to solve a pain point for them. [00:13:00]And when we divert too much awayfrom what that is to visions that are hard to understand, then it's difficultfor people to reconcile and find themselves because storytelling, really likethe powerful one. When you think about it really resonates when it touches youat the human level, like if you think about it, I was listening to thisgentleman who just retired Jason Kelce and really resonated with me at thehuman level because he talked about his family and I talked about how I had areally great relationship with my parents.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Both of my parents have passedaway, and it really like it made me want to listen to his story twice becausehe talked about how he had such a great dad and what his mom had done and itjust really resonated with me because I was very thankful for what my parentshad done for me and how much I love to miss them.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:And it was like everybody, itwas, I was connecting myself to this random football player story because ittouched something was familiar to me. And I think that's what greatstorytelling does is it, it enables us to talk about a product and talk about usecases. I'm a big fan of [00:14:00] use cases.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Use cases tend to be closer towhat a customer does. But also if you find that human element to it, and that'swhere you bring the customer, and it's not random. Becky has a problem. She'sgoing in. It's really going in there trying to sit with something that reallyknowing that part.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:And that's the part that'schallenging and B2B product marketing that we used to do really well. If youthink like the Mad Men scenarios of marketing is back in the day, therewas always so much more money for research. Yeah. And we don't do that in B2Bproduct marketing as well as really intertwine and really get in the heads ofthe customer, really understand what motivates them, but beautiful storytellingenables you to do that.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:It's really to tap into thehuman emotion of it. And intermix some product capabilities in there.

Track 1: I forgot youwere a product leader after that explanation. [00:15:00]Really?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:we going to tap into this? How do we, why do we believe somebody is going togive us money for this? Otherwise, we're just building a build.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:She's got all this product knowledge and she's one of our sharpest PMM guestswe've had so far. This is awesome. Actually, I got a quick question. Unless anyof the other, we're not markers have any objections.

Torture Chamber: Tough Choices in Product Strategy

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:We have a little game. We like to play. It's called Torture Chamber, but wemodify it for each guest, so it started off With Anthony Pieri as a messagingdevice and we've adapted it now. So for you, I've actually tried to form itaround the product side of things. And so it's a short game of either-orwhere we put you in a little phone booth and we give you an eitheroption, which is really terrible or an or option, which is equally asterrible.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:And we want to [00:16:00] know if you had topick one to bring through your team, which would it be? How's that sound?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Let's go.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:All right. So first one kind of easy, but still hard product led or salesled go to market strategy?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Oh, shit. The salespeople are probably going to hit me. Product led. I don't

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:That's a good kicker. All think it should be hybrid, but since you can eitheror,

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:Yeah there's no plead the fifth here. All so would you rather delay yourproduct launch to perfect all those little tiny details? Or, just launch itknowing there's a few minor bugs and capture that market momentum?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Launch it.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:Launch it. Okay.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:Choose between following

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:In fact, I did this a couple months ago. It was good. It was the right call.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:You did. All right. We might take that a

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:A couple months ago, and then two years ago, I forced our team to do this. Evenwhen I was in PMM, I actually forced product to do it.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:All right. Then we know what to do. Launch it and fix out the kinks [00:17:00] later.

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:Don't wait.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:Strictly follow user feedback that contradicts your original vision orfollow your roadmap, even if early feedback suggests you should make somechanges. Ooh, Ooh, spicy take maybe. All right. So in terms of theinvesting side, more heavily in a user acquisition, knowing that the productstill needs refined or funnel resources in a product dev, risking a little bitslower on the user growth.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:I would go to user acquisition.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:Prior to prioritize a highly requested feature that completely deviates fromthe main value prop or doubled down on the core functionalities. that only asubset of users continue to be passionate about.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Oh, popular. Go with something that was popular.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:Focus on pleasing early adopters with a niche advanced feature, whichobviously could risk alienation, or go for that broad appeal [00:18:00] and potentially lose the coresupporters you already have.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:I'll go. If you're early in a product, you focus on your niche.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:I'll get a, get a group of people that really like you. You don't even know ifyou're early enough, you don't even know if you're going to make the mainstreamand us, we'll continue focusing on that niche and then grow from there.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:All right, cool. And then this is probably my favorite one that came up in mylittle noggin here. You have to cut costs. So you're going to do it bycutting your product team size or decrease the marketing budget.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Marketing. If your product sucks, there's only so much lipstick you can put ona pig.

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:Awesome that

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:is a great cliff right there.

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:Awesome

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:All right,

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:You can,

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:CMO that, no, every good, any good CMO knows this is the product sucks. You dida good job making pipeline and you can do the best stories you can, but you'renot converting.

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:Exactly.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:this is great, all right, Becky, we've unlocked the torture chamber, great jobbeing a good sport [00:19:00] there, I knowthey're not probably mostly ideal scenarios for you, and we can get back to theregular scheduled convo.

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:I have a quick question.

Should Product Marketing Live Within Product?

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:So you've been in product marketing, joined product. On our end, we don't believe that product marketing should livewithin marketing, but do you think it should live within product?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:depends on the organization. Soone of the reasons I feel comfortable having product marketing is I have anappreciation for product marketing. So if you gave product marketing and therewas a product leader who had no appreciation for the function, then that wouldbe a terrible, scenario. So I'm a big believer of there's no one size fits alldepending on an organization. Needs, then you know, but I see it like productmarketing is like the pendulum. It's like BDR. Sometimes they sit on ourmarketing. Somebody's in our sales is that I find there's always a pendulum inorganizations where sometimes product marketing could sit in marketing for solong where the product team feels like the product marketing team has [00:20:00] becomeIt's no longer hearing them and it's just, there's just a big disconnect. It'softentimes a new leader will come in and move product marketing back intoproduct and then that product marketing can spend so much time in product thatit becomes disconnected from marketing. The ideal scenario when productmarketing sits in marketing is that the marketing leader still feels like thatproduct marketing leader is part of their team and is almost dotted line intothem, attends their staff, really thinks about them as somebody who's stillpart of their function. And I think that's critical. It, if you have that typeof partnership, it really doesn't matter where they sit. But if you don't havethat, then it can be really detrimental to the function. And there's a lot ofother functions that have that, like you, for instance, product management,engineering, you could always argue that product management could sit underengineering.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:I could think that's perfectlyplausible if it did. But if it doesn't, it's still that relationship. It's thenum, it's the biggest relationship with product management is actuallyengineering. And so how does it [00:21:00]sit there and have that goodrelationship with engineering when it doesn't sit in there?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:And that's about having a mutuallevel of respect for the function.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:Do you have any tips or advice, cause actually it's the root of this podcastfor a lot for, Most of it is, elevating that product marketing role. So it doeshave respect from, not just the product side, but all of the peers in theorganization would love to hear some of the things you've found that aresuccessful.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:And some of the things you push some people on the product marketing side onyour team to do

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:good one is adding value. And,and this is maybe what makes me a product person. It's always thinking aboutproblems. You always heard me say what are the problems organization has? Andyou have a good sense of your view to someone in the organization that solvesproblems, then you're going to be respected. As a product marketer in some goodways in which particularly somebody who's early in their career and productmarketing starting off is a simple one of why am I winning and [00:22:00] losing and how are you talking to thesalespeople about that? Because product management, for instance, getsreally busy in Jira, is talking to customers.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:There's always somebody responding to them. They have to sit there and go toengineering if they don't have to talk to alot of salespeople about win-loss and competitive intelligence and doing therest of it. God, they're so thankful. And so if the product marketercomes in and says, you know what, every month I'm going to give you a downloadof all the deals we've just won.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:It can tell you why we've won them. And I'm also going to give you a downloadof all the deals we've lost and give you some insights across that. And then here's a summary of what's going onin the competitive market. And here's where we're winning.

Building Strong Relationships with Product Managers

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:And then here's where we're winning steam.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Here's where we're losing steam. You're goingto be somebody that product manager always wants to spend time with. Oh,and by the way, I got you some insights on pricing. And here's what the launchis heading in. And here's what sales really is into. Here's what they're not. And you become the voice of sales andmarketing to that product manager where the product manager doesn't haveto worry about that.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:And they're like, Oh, Zach has [00:23:00] that.No, my PMM has, I don't have to deal with that. I only got to deal with overhere. You're going to become a strategic part of that product managementorganization, hands down.

Navigating New Challenges in a New Role

Track 1: Are thesethe same tips that you use for your pivot from product marketing to leading theproduct organization today?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:It was actually one of the big things I took on. When I joined snow that helpedme build a really strong brand. There was, I was new. I had, this is how new Iwas. I had sat there and I ended the job on a Friday and then on Saturday I wasflying to Stockholm, Sweden for a, it was like week two of a two-week producttransformation. I end that I'm the new person in the room and someone justhands me off. They're like, Becky, here's this whole pricing and packagingexercise. You can have it. I'm thinking they're giving it to the newperson. This must be like, yeah, it's gonna be due in February. It's for saleskickoff. Okay, great. Must be easy. I dig into this. I was like, oh hell no.Is this not easy? This is like a month's long projects before I'm saying whydid they give it to the new person? I don't even [00:24:00]know what door is coming in. This is and so I just sat there and womanedup, got a whole cross functional group of people together. And I executed onthis pricing and packaging thing. It was painful. It was hard. It was beingthrown into the ocean in a whole company I didn't even understand and I made ithappen. And I think that was a big critical part to it. Because part of that isI took over ownership of pricing and packaging. I became knowledgeable aboutall we did because I had to sit there and package our whole one. And then Ialso understood a lot of our customers and our partners because I had to gothrough and put that in. And then not only that, at the time we really weren't,we were really focused in onwhat our product revenue was or like what if sales hit their number or not, butwe had no idea from our product lines, despite having multiple of them, whichones were doing well, which one weren't.

Leading Commercial Reviews and Gaining Respect

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:And so for about two years, Iled something every quarter called the commercial review. And the commercialreview was product marketing and product management presenting to sales,customer [00:25:00] success, and others, our CEO and others. Andit was this hour and a half, two hour meeting. Once a quarter, we would talkabout where our products were winning, where they were losing, what was goingon in strategy and what was coming on a roadmap and product marketing led thatat our function at snow.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:And so I would open it up andthen I would go through each of our core products. And it really justestablished me as somebody who knew what they were doing. And as a strategistwithin that, I got a lot of respect from our CFO, our CEO. Every time I wouldlead this, it would be like great meeting. Thank you for the insights.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:And it would drive a lot ofactionable about where should we be spending more time. And in fact, one of ournew products got a lot of investment out of it because it was one of those thatI showed, Hey, we're doing, we're seeing triple digit growth in this product,but there's only three engineers working on it.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:That doesn't make any sense. Soit was a lot of that helped me lead that in is really bringing that marketintelligence, that commercial intelligence into our product teams rather thanit just being speeds and feeds that eventually, laid the foundation for me tobe the person to lead [00:26:00] product.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:I do have a quick question.

Balancing Technical and Marketing Perspectives

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:Looking at your kind of career track, it seems like you've definitely been in amore maybe technical space, so to speak. Do you feel like. There's anydelineation there between maybe putting your product marketing team withinproduct when you do have a more technical audience, as opposed to, a more techaudience, for example.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:I think if you had, if you were selling the marketing, I could see where itmakes a lot of sense to keep it within marketing. Because at the end of the dayyou're a target customer. So you're close to it. What's going on, within that.So for instance, if I were in Martech, I would see where that's a good,overall, I just think the best place to put it is where there's more supportwhere there's more need, when product marketing moved to product at Snow, itwas because product needed more of that commercial support about, Hey, makingsure that we understood error by product that we understood adoption by a lotof our products. Make sure we could build our [00:27:00]business case in the right way. And it just happened to be that I had built theproduct marketing team who could do that and could support that. I'm also atthis stage because I'm one of the products I try to build that up withinproduct management, but I think it really just depends on it.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:But oftentimes, if you were in a more technical space. Sometimes you will findproduct marketing sitting within product because the product manager doesn'toften feel that marketing is really telling the story in the way that they wantthe story to be told. You start seeing a lot of really technical organizationswhere the product leader has a really strong opinion about that, about just howsuccess is for their product. And so are you telling the right narrative versussometimes in a very non technical company? Sometimes the sales leader thatreally has an opinion about how this story isn't working for me within that. Sothat's where I think you can put it. It really just depends on the strength ofthe product leader.

The Role of AI in Product Marketing

Track 1: How shouldone trending topic the past year and we make a lot of fun [00:28:00] about is AI. How should a product marketertalk about AI in context of their messaging? Should it be the forefront of yourwebsite? The first top line say AI powered. Or is there another way ofhow like practitioners should be considering talking about AI in the context oftheir product?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:I was around during thistransition of cloud computing, and it used to be at a point where when youstarted off, you had Salesforce. It really used cloud as a positioning like we'renot software, we're SaaS. And so at that point, you see some really stronghere's we're using the technology is quite helpful.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:So I think AI is at a pointwhere if you have something to talk about AI versus your competitors don't, youcan actually find some differentiation within that. So you have to find a way,but I also think that we're at a stage where I don't think you should justpepper it in there just for glitter, but every of all of your [00:29:00] customers,because AI is so hot right now. Everyone wants to know your point of view onAI. And if you don't have a point of view on AI and you're not sharing that point of view, you actually riskcoming across as somebody that's not doing anything. And if you are, thenthat's a shame because somebody, particularly the new logo, somebody is goingto buy your product for the first time, they're making that investment intoyour solution for at least three to five years, hopefully longer, and they wantto know that you're going to be able to grow with them and you're and you havea sense of technology and how you're going to bring those new technologyfeatures to be able to make their life better.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:And if they can't glean that,Then they may choose somebody who's telling them otherwise. So you have to havea perspective on what's your vision for AI, whether you glitter your websitewith it or not, I think just depends on your capabilities. But somewhere inthat narrative, you do have to provide your perspective on AI. And that mightbe a slide in the sales deck that just might be equipping your salespeople, butsomebody is going to ask. You have to be ready to tell that story.

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:[00:30:00] I love the way you put it where it'svery similar to, we're not software, we're software as a service. We'reSaaS basically. And we had a discussion internally about that recently whereit's like AI, those two letters are like a stamp of approval, but it'stasteless when you don't have a point of view. And it's similar, like if you goback and I don't know, 2008 and whatever, and it's like, Oh, we're a B2B SaaS.What is it? What's your category? What's your point of view? And all of that,this is what is giving you the flavor to ultimately, show people why you shouldsolve a problem and why you would be the best pick for them. So I really lovethe way you're putting that where it's, it's not just about AI. It's what'syour point of view, what AI is, and then. What does it actually do? It's notabout unlocking the power of AI. It's about still going back to, we need to fixsomething. We need to solve something. And we're looking to solutions to do it.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Yeah, because even for, I came from cloud and still being able to say cloud native, there are a lot ofsoftware companies that aren't cloud native. And so cloud native,while it sounds like [00:31:00] marketing jargon, still actually is relevantthing to say I'm a cloud native or I'm a cloud first. I see thata lot with security products where security products were traditionally builtfor on-premises world. And you have upcoming security providers likeWiz, Daz, et cetera, that were saying, I'm for the cloud, I'm for nextgeneration cloud, cloud native world. And so they're using that as part oftheir position to say these other providers, they're old school, like we're newschool, we're for a cloud first world.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:And so that helps tell theirstory and their narrative.

Track 1: Earlier inthis conversation, you said the line, you can't protect what you can't see.With that reference in mind, like you're a storyteller, Becky, how should aproduct marketer develop a point of view with AI messaging, other than saying, AIis here, and we are the leaders of AI?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:I think a good part is trying to figureout what your particular customers could use AI for. So for instance,I'll talk about my own company, my own [00:32:00]industry, which is IT Asset Management and FinOps. With an IT Asset Management, if there's a big pain point thereon oftentimes met, customers are manually uploading contracts into our productsets or they import the contracts and no one, the imports don't always work orpick up the right elements of it. And so entitlements. Are something that can be solved in a great way by machinelearning. And so we've been doing out some machine learning to really sit hereand try to ingest these contracts and figure out what's most important for themthat works into our product. So that is one of those where they say we'releaders in AI, we can sit here and talk about, what our approach is to solvingthis industry problem using machine learning and artificial intelligence. Andso because we know that this is an industry problem for our audience, then thatenables it to be something that doesn't come across as marketing jargon, butrather saying, Hey, this [00:33:00] is how we're talking about AI reallyimpacting our industry because I understand my customer and I understand thepain points that my customer is facing within that. And so I think ifyou can use that, understand how could AI help my customer to either savemoney, be more productive, or get insights that they haven't gotten before, andI'm sure there's a myriad of other benefits, but those three come to mind, thenI think you don't come across as just wishy washy with AI. You can actuallyfind AI for a reason.

Balancing Present Offerings with Future Roadmaps

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:I've got a self serving question and maybe we can wrap up with this so we don'ttake too much time, but so I'm working contract work right now for a companythat's using AI, Klue. I won't be shy here. Anyone can look at my LinkedIn.And, obviously that's a big conversation and my direct question would be, how do you balance out the now,right?

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:What do you have to offer peoplenow and the learnings you have now? Versus, where you're trying to [00:34:00] go?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:I think a big part there is really being honest on what's working for Klueright now to get customers and making sure that shines. But every customer that buys B2B software tends toask you, what's your roadmap? And then oftentimes that vision of where you're heading can besomething that's included as part of the roadmap section. So if it's somethingwhere you're like, we're so far off of this, and we don't want to just putgarbage on our website, the roadmap review is also a great way. And evenif the customers aren't requesting it being like, Hey, let's talk to you about our roadmap where we'reheading. That's a great way of actually being able to sell somebody on theproduct vision of where you're going. Without being too false in what your narrative is and also notconfusing that poor customer that's coming to your website.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:That is crystal clear for me. Thank you for that. That is one nugget I'mstealing for me, whether our audience cares or not. Thank you, Becky.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:I used to

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:have an [00:35:00] oldleader that used to say that hey, the responsibility of product is to sellthe roadmap. My husband, who's a product manager, has never agreed to this.He's always just No, the people need to buy what's on the truck.I've always been like, you got to sell the roadmap. I think

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:Would like that roadmap reviewaspect be a way for PMMs that would like to ultimately influence it be a firstproject? Like, how do you, would that be something that you think product wouldtake? If, Hey, let's review the roadmap based on those insights I was ableto get from sales and marketing.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:the PMMs can come with data andintelligence and people that they've spoken to, they can influence the roadmap,unless you're dealing with a real douche product manager. If you're sitting inthere really getting in sales insights, you have marketing insights, you'reusing something like Klue to get competitive information.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:You're having win-lossconversations. You've sat there and culled in through Salesforce. You'reregularly talking to sales people that are winning deals. You're going throughand looking at pipeline and seeing where pipeline isn't working. And you're seeingwhat campaigns are going in. You're seeing [00:36:00]what products are.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:And if you're sharing that witha product person, then you should be able to say you're saying, Hey, this iswhat's hurting us. And if they should be taking your feedback. And if theydon't, then they're that there's something interesting going on in thatdynamic.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:You're a douche, like you said.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Sometimes you work with people that are douches and you just got to move on

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:to the different product.

Debating Product Management Strategies at Home

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:I just want to fall back to something. You said your husband's in productmanagement

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:He is. My husband's a product manager.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:and he was disagreeing with you on a topic.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Oh, he just disagrees with a lot of stuff

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:that I think, but like at first, like what I, he, I consider him like, I thinkhe's amazing at what he does. Like now it's like the Padawan who used to gowith him to a lot of advice, but has her own opinions about things now. So wedo. So there's often product management debates in our house.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Sometimes I have to be like, shut it down because I'm like, I actually like yououtside of product because you'll sit there I don't see why you're having thisbig debate at work. And I was like, I don't really need this. I've made a calllike this

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:if you I've made the call. them, you can always remind them of the one thingthat I've learned [00:37:00] now that I'mengaged is happy wife is a happy life. And if you're both in product

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:He's going to debate with me anyways. There's no the, I like him despite it. Ilike them, despite it, like sometimes I'll be struggling with something.They'll be like this product book or this article that pops up in my textmessage. And it's Oh, mentor thinks I could be doing this better. I don't likemy coworker. How do you deal with all that feedback? But I was like, it dustedoff. It

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:a dynamic household. And you have kids. Do you guys have kids?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:doesn't bother me.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:Do you guys have kids too?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:We do that. Fortunately, they don't have product opinions.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:I was gonna say, they probably aren't yet. What are you even talking about? Butthat's awesome. That's They have no opinions on roadmap and whether or not youshould sell the roadmap or go with the roadmap. I don't definitely agree withhim on selling the truck, selling what's on the truck. I think that's everyproduct manager's dream. That's not going to happen.

Track 1: I'm like, Ithink that's a future conversation. I think we need to have to bring you bothon to have that because that's a separate

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:[00:38:00] Oh yeah. He's very much themarketing team and the sales team needs to sell what's there right now. Whywould you even show a customer a roadmap? What's wrong with you guys?

Track 1: Funnyenough, I agree with him. Coming as a former rep, I do you're just gonna setthe customer up for disappointment? I

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:This was my favorite conversation I think we've had, guys.

Final Thoughts and Farewell

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:Becky, I don't know if the guys I don't want to end this prematurely, butBecky, this has honestly been a treat. A great way to end a Friday. And it wasnice from Gab and I to actually get a chance to meet you. And I've picked up alot personally here.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:So I know our listeners will too. Do you have anywhere that you'd like todirect some of our listeners to, to learn more about you and keep in touch orany passion projects that you might want to let anyone know about?

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Think just follow LinkedIn. I'm very random and some people do really strongniches about things. I think we're gonna go back to really [00:39:00] talking about product marketing, productmanagement leadership. I think if you're like, what do you do best about it? Itreally is leadership and it's leading teams and making decisions around that.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:So I'm gonna streamline a little bit more of my sometimes just post whatever Iwant to post because I don't get paid for that. So it's just like whatever elsecomes in mind, but I'm gonna probably streamline a little bit more towardleadership. So someone wants to think about how I become a leader.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:What do I go in? How do I work with teams? How do I learn more about randomlywhat Becky thinks about product marketing, product management? They can followme on LinkedIn is probably where I spend most time.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:maybe my husband and I should come up with debating product product podcasts. Ithink, because, yeah, we see products differently.

Track 1: a future inthat right there. I'm gonna have you totally disagree with everything I say.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:That would be a great podcast. I'm just going to say

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:right now, husband and wife product versus product. That's

Track 1: Move overMark and Kelly, move over Mark and Kelly. Like this is the conversation we wantto hear.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:awesome.

Track 1: [00:40:00] incredible. But I'm going to say this. Ido agree with your husband about selling what's on the truck though. But I'mgoing to leave it at that.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:oh it's on the job,

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:I'm with, I'm in Becky's camp.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:I'm in Becky's camp. You can tease what's getting loaded on the truck.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:you shouldn't be selling something three years out the door. You can give awaya six month rolling roadmap, you get a peek of where you're heading.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:You need beta testers, right? Beautiful investments, or making three to fiveyear things I gotta know this B2B software. You're not buying a keyboard.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:Yeah. You need those beta testers.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:Yeah, people, they're making a commitment. People are putting their badge onthe table for something that's going to say, Hey, this is going to grow with meto know that you're going to grow with them.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:You nailed it.

Track 1: I'll keepthat in mind. I'll keep that in mind.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:All

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:right.

Track 1: Becky, ithas been an absolute pleasure.

eric_1_03-08-2024_161301:Yeah. I was going to say thank you to everyone who's listening in and thatwraps us up for another episode of We're Not Marketers.

gab_1_03-08-2024_161258:Thank you, Becky.

becky-trevino_1_03-08-2024_151346:all for having [00:41:00] me.

Track 1: Thankseveryone.

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 soon.

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