Latest / We're Not Marketers / How curiosity didn't kill the cat w/ Amanda Groves
Transcript
- 0:00We are a podcast for product marketers and B2B SaaS who feel misunderstood of what they do.
- 0:04From someone who truly gets what you do and basically help you feel less like a misfit being unenormable in your role.
- 0:21Welcome everyone to another ecstatic episode of We're Not Markers.
- 0:27We've got another illustrious guest on deck,
- 0:30but before we bring her out on this stage,
- 0:35let's pass the mic around to our fellow co-host.
- 0:38Let's kick it off with Eric.
- 0:40Oh,
- 0:40I like that new pass the mic around.
- 0:42We got to keep that.
- 0:44I am Eric Holland,
- 0:45the Franken manager of the group.
- 0:49Gab,
- 0:50your turn.
- 0:51Thank you.
- 0:52Gab Bugeaud,
- 0:53Sales Deck Associate.
- 0:54Still doing sales deck and I'll pass it back to Zach.
- 1:00Thanks y'all.
- 1:01Before we hit the record button,
- 1:03we were speaking with this guest and one comment we strung out was that you've really strung the line of weird LinkedIn as of late.
- 1:13And you'd be surprised who this person is because she's killing it in her career.
- 1:19She's painting amazing photos that she hung up in the wharf.
- 1:23She's running ultra marathons.
- 1:26I don't know how she's doing.
- 1:28It reflects her career growth too,
- 1:30from starting as an individual IC PMM two years later in PMM leadership.
- 1:36But I'm going to stop right there because we're going to bring out on the stage Amanda Groves,
- 1:41VP of PMM at Enable.
- 1:44What's cracking,
- 1:44Amanda?
- 1:45Hey,
- 1:46what an introduction.
- 1:47Wow,
- 1:47I am blushing from ear to ear.
- 1:49Well,
- 1:49thank you.
- 1:49Yes,
- 1:50well,
- 1:50happy to be here.
- 1:51And I
- 1:52I have loved the show,
- 1:53long-time listener,
- 1:54first-time caller.
- 1:55So really happy to be with boys.
- 2:00So now you know the next question that's going to be coming your way.
- 2:05I'm going to stop right there and I'm just going to step back into the sidelines.
- 2:09Is that my turn now?
- 2:11I'm forgetting the way things work.
- 2:13Bro,
- 2:14we recorded over 60 episodes.
- 2:15No,
- 2:15it's always your turn.
- 2:16I know,
- 2:17dude.
- 2:17It's a Thursday.
- 2:18That's why.
- 2:18Amanda,
- 2:19I'm product marketers.
- 2:21Actually,
- 2:21marketers.
- 2:22Why or why not?
- 2:24Ooh,
- 2:25this is the age old debate.
- 2:26I think it's one that we have internally as a team,
- 2:30depending on what initiative we're working on,
- 2:33what we're fighting to be a part of,
- 2:35right?
- 2:35If there's something that we may be getting to learn of after the fact,
- 2:39you want to be in the room.
- 2:40Hamilton,
- 2:41what?
- 2:41We want to be in the room where it happens and it depends on
- 2:44The growth stage of the business where marketing and product marketing is seen and heard as a part of the team and some others that are still learning the craft,
- 2:53where it sits and how it's realized.
- 2:56Are we marketers?
- 2:57I would say the people who I bring into my teams are the nonconformists,
- 3:02like the rebels,
- 3:03the people who are willing to go against the grain.
- 3:07I would love to see more marketers have that fabric of
- 3:11zagging when everyone else is zigging.
- 3:13And so I think with all of those attributes,
- 3:17we are more than marketers.
- 3:18So maybe we aren't marketers.
- 3:20Again,
- 3:20that nonconformist through line is what I do.
- 3:23You have that spidey sense with people.
- 3:25Well actually I see it this way or I heard it from over here and maybe we're considering it that way.
- 3:30Marketing's all about trends,
- 3:32but like to really stick out and go against what everyone else is doing,
- 3:36maybe you shouldn't follow that trend.
- 3:37Maybe you shouldn't be a marketer.
- 3:39Maybe you should be someone else.
- 3:40and a product marketer for that matter.
- 3:43- So when you say nonconformist,
- 3:46are you referring to like
- 3:48Comic Sans on a pitch deck?
- 3:50What does nonconformists on
- 3:53Amanda Grove's team look like?
- 3:56- Nonconformist,
- 3:57well one is just something that I've always been as a person.
- 4:01I think you can have people tell you who you are and who they think you are based on the limited information that they know about you
- 4:08To come back to the introduction of how I've grown my career,
- 4:12I have had a lot of people say,
- 4:14"Well,
- 4:14maybe you shouldn't be in marketing.
- 4:15We're not seeing you in this marketing profile in the way that we've always understood it."
- 4:21So coming back to being a nonconformist,
- 4:24it's about,
- 4:25I think,
- 4:25challenging with intention,
- 4:27staying really curious,
- 4:30bringing a lot of information into the conversation and challenging the norm,
- 4:35challenging the status quo
- 4:37That's what product marketers are doing,
- 4:38right?
- 4:39We're disruptors.
- 4:40You have to be a nonconformist to be the biggest disruptor in the room,
- 4:44in the market,
- 4:45in the industry.
- 4:46So that's what I mean by that.
- 4:48Those people who have struck me to have that fabric or in their DNA,
- 4:53whether it's in the interview or I meet them at a conference,
- 4:56they're asking really good questions.
- 4:57They're really inquisitive.
- 4:59They're pulling on a thread that's invisible to me and I haven't noticed,
- 5:02but they're making me notice it.
- 5:04So
- 5:05I think those are the some of the ways I've identified those similar like rebels.
- 5:09And it's when you have that together,
- 5:12product marketers,
- 5:12we do so much a lot of it is a rally cry for a product and who better to shape that than people who can actually rally and hype in a way that no one else can.
- 5:24Yeah,
- 5:24and I'm really just chewing on that piece about being a nonconformist.
- 5:30Not necessarily having to break things but not being afraid to research in the other direction.
- 5:37This might be my opinion,
- 5:39don't want to say it's the other two on the show,
- 5:41but
- 5:42I tend to find that we're asked to conform.
- 5:48Others are wanting us to maybe go in a certain direction,
- 5:50like you said,
- 5:51zig while
- 5:53we maybe want to try zagging for a while.
- 5:56What do you think is like the way to get over that and encourage some of the people who might be a little skittish to go against the zigging grain?
- 6:03And start moving in that zag.
- 6:05Yeah,
- 6:06well it's a good way to preface it where you're not trying to be disruptive to the point of breaking things.
- 6:12And certainly you may have to what the is the saying crack some eggs to make an omelet.
- 6:16Like sometimes you just you do need to break some things.
- 6:19To tap into the weird LinkedIn
- 6:21I was,
- 6:21I shared this with Zach before the call,
- 6:24just thinking about product marketing and all of the ways that we are nonconformists.
- 6:28And I use the analogy like Bogwitch isn't quite correct.
- 6:31Maybe you're a troll under the bridge,
- 6:33but you're stopping people before they pass.
- 6:35And that is in a sense of non-conforming,
- 6:38right?
- 6:39People want to skirt right over maybe the go-to-market process and shout about something before it's ready.
- 6:44We have to stop them,
- 6:45kind of check the scorecard a bit before we're ready to go.
- 6:49And that nonconformity will help us speed up.
- 6:52So it's a slow down to speed up mentality that product marketers can bring to the organization where we're not doing this to be difficult,
- 7:00we're doing this to get to write faster with more predictability so we can make a splash as a team and get more market share from slowing down to speed up and maybe nonconforming to what our competitors are doing to make
- 7:15that
- 7:19us,
- 7:19the business and the product marketing team.
- 7:22How do you socialize that philosophy in an industry that has always believed in moving fast and breaking things?
- 7:31I think you can move fast and break things once you've shown you can and you have to do that in a way where it becomes that slow down to speed up again
- 7:42It doesn't happen overnight.
- 7:44No one walks into an organization with trust built and it's something that has to be earned.
- 7:49And so if a product marketer can say,
- 7:51hey,
- 7:52this is something where I have conviction with a capital C and we need to really think about this and this is why,
- 7:58that's to me the difference between good and great product marketers.
- 8:02It's having that conviction in their point of view.
- 8:05And once they've been able to test that,
- 8:07show the business that there's meat
- 8:10to this conversation,
- 8:11then it will allow them to move fast and break stuff more.
- 8:14And I would want anyone on my team to break the things that need to be broken.
- 8:19Like,
- 8:19I don't want to do the right thing or the wrong thing the right way.
- 8:22I want to do the right thing more.
- 8:25And the best way to do that is to continue to test and experiment and challenge.
- 8:28But in challenge in a way that we've done the work,
- 8:31the voice of the customer,
- 8:32the market intelligence,
- 8:33all the R&D to say why it's a good thread to pull on.
- 8:39How many people do you have on your team right now?
- 8:43Let's see.
- 8:43I think we are about sitting between seven and eight right now.
- 8:47Nice.
- 8:47All right,
- 8:48so shout out to all those awesome seven and eight.
- 8:51What are you shielding them from outside of your little mini product marketing org?
- 8:56So they can go out and do some of those things and bring you some really good information and knowledge that says yeah Go let's move forward with this and I can help you in
- 9:06navigate these tough discussions that are obviously going to come up?
- 9:10Yeah,
- 9:11I think it's not a muscle that,
- 9:14again,
- 9:15is grown overnight.
- 9:16And depending on where you are in your product marketing career and how you got into product marketing,
- 9:21you'll have more comfort level with challenging.
- 9:23I think everyone has a different story for how they got into it.
- 9:27I've seen a lot that are journalists.
- 9:29I was a journalism major,
- 9:30so asking questions is critical to the craft.
- 9:34So those that maybe are comfortable with asking questions and the five whys or whatever framework you're comfortable with can help you break into that.
- 9:42And you start to track like where the questions are leading to better conversations.
- 9:47You're better qualifying your questions.
- 9:49So that's something that I will encourage.
- 9:51And then something that is it's unignorable in the practice is bringing it back to the customer.
- 9:57If you're framing your intent with I think we should.
- 10:01be doing X because it's going to have a better customer outcome and we all benefit from that,
- 10:05it's going to neutralize the conversation and make every party lean into what you're trying to drive forward.
- 10:11So coming at it from that place of this is for the benefit of the customer,
- 10:15we're wrapping our intention around that allows product marketers and not even just product marketers,
- 10:21really anyone that's driving towards that outcome to...
- 10:24again,
- 10:24just neutralize if there's turf wars or if we're challenging something that maybe someone's precious about.
- 10:30Strip that away.
- 10:31It's not about us.
- 10:31We're not bringing ego into the equation.
- 10:33It's about the customer experience.
- 10:36Tell us a bit more about how the customer experience is changing with AI and I'll give you some more context.
- 10:46Everyone's talking about AI but I noticed that
- 10:50Again,
- 10:50I'm not familiar how that is impacting in the manufacturing space that your company works within today.
- 10:55Yeah.
- 10:55But
- 10:56I think one challenge that we've observed is that we talk about AI,
- 11:04but our buyers don't know how to use it within our product.
- 11:09But our leadership wants us to just throw AI on our homepage and into ad nauseum to show that we're innovating.
- 11:21And then it creates this pressure for them,
- 11:25the PMM teams to try to figure out a way of talking about AI while still trying to connect with their buying audience.
- 11:35How does that statement resonate with you?
- 11:38What have you been hearing from your peers?
- 11:40And then follow up maybe is like,
- 11:42how's you and your team approaching this?
- 11:46It's a really good question.
- 11:47And yeah,
- 11:48It's the soup du jour topic amongst everyone,
- 11:51whether you're out in
- 11:53LinkedIn land,
- 11:53you can't scroll without seeing a post about AI impact,
- 11:56AI replacing people.
- 11:58And I wouldn't say if the positioning is AI replacing a role,
- 12:03you are going to have a positive reaction to that.
- 12:05And so you extrapolate that out into the buying world.
- 12:09We don't want to position AI as a threat like AI needs to be.
- 12:13If you're looking at it as an architecture,
- 12:15you have your platform layer.
- 12:17AI embedded layer and then the applications you're building on top of it.
- 12:21So when you think of your homepage,
- 12:24you're not messaging that as a market texture.
- 12:26So it's interesting right now that the technology is taking such a front seat in how we are connecting with other humans.
- 12:33We know that it's a bubble,
- 12:34we know that it's a buzz.
- 12:36So
- 12:36I think it's something that we have to actively navigate and pressure test and show our leadership team.
- 12:43I know you're really eager to talk about AI.
- 12:45It's a very exciting
- 12:46opportunity for all of us to better enrich our technology and help our buyers get to outcomes faster.
- 12:54But that getting to outcomes faster has to be the story.
- 12:57It's not the what or the how,
- 12:59it's the why and why does that matter to the customer cannot get lost in the sauce.
- 13:04So
- 13:05I think Elena Verna,
- 13:07lovable head of growth,
- 13:08does a great job in showing how AI is
- 13:11extremely powerful,
- 13:13but in a way that,
- 13:14and she described it great.
- 13:15I really latched onto it.
- 13:17It's allowing AI to handle the 101,
- 13:20like the very administrative work,
- 13:22not in all cases,
- 13:23but in most,
- 13:23at least where we are,
- 13:24I think in my industry's AI use cases,
- 13:27it's just automating away all the 101 so the user can get to the strategic 201 and 301 and 401 work classes that they want to do,
- 13:37where they get energy from.
- 13:39No one wants to be...
- 13:40in my industry,
- 13:41to answer your question,
- 13:42it's a lot of agreement creation,
- 13:43agreement negotiation,
- 13:45just that agreement creation work and alone between your trading partners.
- 13:49We're essentially a trading platform for suppliers,
- 13:52retailers,
- 13:53manufacturers to come in and exchange data and get the best deal and price and run rebate programs intelligently.
- 14:02So having your best people create agreements not the great
- 14:06the best use of time.
- 14:07So again,
- 14:08going back to that automating away the one-on-one so they can do their best work.
- 14:11I know that's a cliche saying at this point,
- 14:13but that is really the core of what I think product marketers need to hold on to.
- 14:17And if they have leadership that is well,
- 14:20you know,
- 14:21that Portlandia episode,
- 14:22like put a bird on it,
- 14:23put AI on it.
- 14:24We don't need to do that.
- 14:26There's so much fatigue in AI and the test show messaging tests show that buyers aren't interested in having AI everywhere.
- 14:32They want AI to be their partner.
- 14:34But they're the human,
- 14:35they're in the control seat.
- 14:37And that's where it needs to stay and how we message it at least at this point.
- 14:41Because I want to make sure we all hear this.
- 14:44Let's settle this once and for all.
- 14:46So buyers don't want
- 14:48AI to automate everything in their job?
- 14:52Now look to the rest of the crew.
- 14:54I'm curious what you're hearing.
- 14:56I've so I'm still in house until tomorrow.
- 14:59So I get the benefit of talking to our customer base.
- 15:04There's yet to be a single person who's,
- 15:07I want AI.
- 15:10And I've not heard that in a single call.
- 15:12People will ask,
- 15:14what are you doing with AI?
- 15:15But I've never heard anyone say,
- 15:17I need this AI feature.
- 15:20They'll normally say,
- 15:21wouldn't it be cool if I could do this?
- 15:24Yes,
- 15:24same.
- 15:25And that's what I typically hear.
- 15:27And it's again,
- 15:28yes,
- 15:28the conversation is around AI,
- 15:31but the customer doesn't even think of it that way.
- 15:34They're just like,
- 15:36I don't care if you're using sticks and paper or you're using robots in the background.
- 15:40Just let me get to what I'm trying to do.
- 15:44Yeah.
- 15:44What I'm hearing is there's usually a lot of technologists wants to pivot in that sense.
- 15:49They're like our use cases are not big enough for market just doesn't fit.
- 15:53So they're looking at that.
- 15:54But from a customer perspective,
- 15:56it's just creating even more noise.
- 15:58And I'm hearing a lot of people these days that are saying that they're almost sick and tired of just scrolling LinkedIn because it feels very much...
- 16:06Sorry about that.
- 16:07Very much AI-powered,
- 16:08right?
- 16:09There's the dead internet theory that everything that is getting written down is like bland and it's just stuff that has been repeated and repeated over and over.
- 16:19So that's why posts like...
- 16:21being a bug or troll,
- 16:23then people need to pay the toll to interact with product marketing.
- 16:27I feel like it's great because that weird stuff we dig it,
- 16:30we love it.
- 16:30It's so far left or like left field that we're just like,
- 16:35yeah,
- 16:35we need more of that.
- 16:36We need more of that element that makes it relevant and unique technically.
- 16:40Yeah.
- 16:41I'm going to give you guys an analogy that's recently happened to me.
- 16:45Do any of you guys have a robotic vacuum at home?
- 16:50Yep.
- 16:50and she's almost destroyed entirely.
- 16:53Yeah,
- 16:54Roomba
- 16:55Yeah, Roomba.
- 16:57Let me...
- 16:57I'm gonna disclaimer this:
- 16:58I love my robotic vacuum.
- 17:00Like,
- 17:01I love AI.
- 17:02But for the love of God,
- 17:03like every time I turn this thing on,
- 17:06like every five minutes I'll get a little alarm.
- 17:09Why?
- 17:09Because
- 17:10"Oh no,
- 17:11it ran over my shoelace!"
- 17:13"Oh no,
- 17:14it got caught into cable cords!"
- 17:16And so this is why I come back to the point is that,
- 17:20A robotic vacuum cannot do everything in your house.
- 17:23There's still,
- 17:23like you said,
- 17:24Amanda,
- 17:24there still requires that human touch.
- 17:28Even though I have to sometimes crawl underneath my bed and pull it out,
- 17:32today AI can't do everything.
- 17:35And just to assume that it can just wipe us out,
- 17:38I think that's a very simplistic argument for us to be making today.
- 17:42And that falls on deaf ears,
- 17:43like you said here,
- 17:44in terms of when we're talking fires.
- 17:49Totally agree with that.
- 17:50We're still very early days,
- 17:51there's a lot of excitement.
- 17:52And one example,
- 17:54too,
- 17:55I don't know if any of you have tried this where you have two phones and you have your chat GPT voice mode on and you have them talking to each other,
- 18:04you can prompt it to see like how long the conversation will last and test the model in that way.
- 18:09So we did this last night,
- 18:11me and my partner and the first one was just like asking the other one the question.
- 18:15So they just went on a loop like asking a question.
- 18:17Well,
- 18:17I don't know if you've ever done that.
- 18:18I love that question.
- 18:19Would you ask that question?
- 18:21They couldn't get beyond the question.
- 18:23So we had a prompt where we wanted the one to be Socrates and role play with the student,
- 18:30the scholarly student.
- 18:32So that was the furthest we could get it to engage.
- 18:34But even then there was a plateau where they were just in the same loop of not getting to the next best action.
- 18:42So again,
- 18:43very rudimentary experiment,
- 18:45but there's still a lot to be desired from
- 18:48artificial intelligence.
- 18:50Y'all my type of household,
- 18:51I'll be like,
- 18:52"Yo,
- 18:52choose Kato next."
- 18:54All right.
- 18:55I want to be Kato.
- 18:56How about Marcus Aurelius?
- 19:01The stoicism household.
- 19:03Yeah.
- 19:03I'm like,
- 19:05"Y'all my type of house."
- 19:08Exactly.
- 19:09I would like to go back to the move fast and break things discussion we had just from a practical perspective.
- 19:16Okay.
- 19:16Let's say
- 19:17a founding PMM or I'm a junior PMM and I'm working with other folks in your team,
- 19:22hopefully having like seven or six great people I can kind of call on.
- 19:28If I'm trying to break things and make sure that the organization succeed and we're all working together,
- 19:36there's moments when like PMMs,
- 19:39we struggle between,
- 19:40okay,
- 19:41should I do with the consensus and just trust my colleague even if I have
- 19:45some sign or data that might tell me otherwise,
- 19:48or should I prioritize taking initiative on something else?
- 19:52Right.
- 19:53Just from your experience from product marketing leadership and everything you did in your career,
- 19:57I'm just curious,
- 19:58is there low-hanging fruit or specific observation in terms of data or triggers that us product marketing managers should take a look at to make sure that we can decide,
- 20:11is it better to have a consensus?
- 20:13or to take initiative and focus on breaking things without hurting anyone's feet a little bit.
- 20:17If you know me this far in the conversation,
- 20:20I am not one to be a consensus queen.
- 20:23Like a kitchen sink solution is not great.
- 20:25I've seen organizations where they've tried to go that route and you have a messaging doc that has just been red penned with all of these different thoughts,
- 20:33opinions,
- 20:34and it's diluted.
- 20:35It's worse than AI at that point.
- 20:37So it's something where I think you have to learn that where consensus can be good.
- 20:45And maybe that's like an
- 20:47you've deputized a small group and this is why these stakeholders are going to make a choice,
- 20:51whether it's a pricing committee or a product council,
- 20:54like consensus can be good in those environments where you need to hunt and gather your strongest voices to drive an initiative forward.
- 21:03But for product marketing teams where they have an initiative that they are the owner of and like their,
- 21:10the KR is tied to their outcome and their output and,
- 21:13I will always guide them and this is,
- 21:15I have a list of mantras on my team.
- 21:17They probably have a bingo card and roll their eyes with the many times I say them but it's consent over consensus and so we give our team members the knowledge that we are doing this,
- 21:28this is the path forward if you disagree you have your time to share that now but we plan to move forward in this way and this is why
- 21:37And so very much a fan of consent over consensus.
- 21:40I think consensus can be really dangerous in product marketing,
- 21:43especially when we have to have conviction in our point of view for the messaging,
- 21:48for the positioning.
- 21:49It's a surgical practice.
- 21:52And so if it's consensus,
- 21:53you're not going to be precise.
- 21:55That's to me,
- 21:56not what we should be aiming for.
- 21:58Unless like I started,
- 21:59there's a why and it's a product council,
- 22:01a pricing committee.
- 22:02There are certain times where consensus is correct,
- 22:05but it shouldn't be the...
- 22:06default posture of the team by any standard.
- 22:08I love it.
- 22:09And yeah,
- 22:09if everyone agrees,
- 22:12but we are not getting the input of the customers,
- 22:16it's wrong.
- 22:17Marketing and messaging by committee will just please potentially stakeholders,
- 22:21but they won't be happy when they see that no result is getting out of this.
- 22:25Yeah.
- 22:26Yeah.
- 22:26And that echo chamber,
- 22:28we think this is right.
- 22:28We're high on our own supply,
- 22:30so it must be right,
- 22:31but we didn't talk to anyone about it.
- 22:32And then you get it in market and it's
- 22:34Missing the mark and you've lost time and everything's moving so fast.
- 22:39You can't afford to lose time.
- 22:41Like you can't have so many of those versions of what you could have gotten if you were just listening with active listening.
- 22:46So great point.
- 22:48Eric,
- 22:49we should create a hoodie consent over consensus.
- 22:53I like it.
- 22:55So this is my first time meeting you for anyone listening in.
- 22:58And I can quickly tell how awesome it would be to have you as the leader of the PMM team.
- 23:04But I'm curious,
- 23:04what do you miss about being an IC and doing some of that IC work?
- 23:08That's a good question.
- 23:11It's hard.
- 23:11I'm fortunate that the team,
- 23:13they still will...
- 23:14I think they still want me to be involved in more of the IC work because they asked for my opinion on things.
- 23:20They trust their judgment through and through.
- 23:22But I think what I miss most is the hand-to-hand combat with creating messaging documents.
- 23:30I loved doing customer listening tours and just
- 23:34like asking questions and putting together those briefs myself.
- 23:38But now I have a fantastic team,
- 23:41highly competent,
- 23:42wonderful humans who do this day to day.
- 23:45So I trust them fully to take that and have been able to share some of my frameworks,
- 23:50war scars,
- 23:51lessons along the way.
- 23:52But yeah,
- 23:53I still certainly engage with customers,
- 23:55but to the degree where they're in the rooms,
- 23:58having those one-to-one conversations and follow-up conversations.
- 24:03We have a lot of exciting,
- 24:04I know it's very timely,
- 24:05like agentic prototypes going on right now and just testing really quickly,
- 24:10getting those design cycles in place.
- 24:12I know the team is learning a lot.
- 24:14And what a time to be a product marketer.
- 24:17We're able to be at the forefront of groundbreaking technology,
- 24:20having customers use it for the first time.
- 24:22And so it's really cool to see.
- 24:25I do miss being in those conversations.
- 24:26I'm hearing a lot about how it's going,
- 24:29but I do miss that,
- 24:30I would say.
- 24:31But yeah.
- 24:33Going back to 2019,
- 24:34when you made the transition to leadership,
- 24:38what was one growing pain that you just had to go through from
- 24:43IC to leadership?
- 24:47It sounds maybe easier said than done,
- 24:49but delegation is hard.
- 24:52When you care about something so much and you have a point of view on how it should be done,
- 24:57it took me a while to figure out how to share my Legos,
- 25:00if you will,
- 25:01and
- 25:02Yeah,
- 25:03I wasn't good at it in the beginning.
- 25:04Like it was something it would come in my inbox or in a Slack DM and yeah,
- 25:08I'll do it.
- 25:08Hey,
- 25:08I got it.
- 25:09But it wasn't helpful for me.
- 25:11It wasn't helpful for my team.
- 25:12It didn't give them the opportunity to stretch and grow in the same way that like I have to afford as a leader.
- 25:18So delegation was not easy for me in the beginning.
- 25:22And I definitely had to get actively better at it and ask other people in my internal board of advisors.
- 25:29How do they manage delegation and get comfortable with it?
- 25:32I would say I'm much better at it now and knowing when to delegate,
- 25:35when to bring someone in and be their champion for maybe it's something that they've never done before.
- 25:40Like how can I shape that learning growth curve for them?
- 25:44Something that has been a big part of my career is pricing and packaging.
- 25:48It's very difficult to get right.
- 25:51And something that
- 25:52I think is a big differentiator for who I am as my PMM makeup,
- 25:56but-
- 25:57Giving that away in my team recently was a big change.
- 26:00And the person who is now owning it is crushing it.
- 26:03And I'm like,
- 26:04if you do nothing else in product marketing,
- 26:05you are excellent at pricing and packaging.
- 26:07Keep doing that.
- 26:08So it's only by sharing that you are able to grow and help others along the way.
- 26:13How did that feel?
- 26:14What was that like when you realized like,
- 26:17yep,
- 26:17this,
- 26:18I got to give this up.
- 26:21So it's something where at the end of it,
- 26:23You feel proud that you were able to see attributes or skills in someone that,
- 26:28you know,
- 26:29they have the making to be.
- 26:31Like excellent,
- 26:32not only at product marketing,
- 26:34but this very important specialization that not everyone wants to do.
- 26:38There's some people that are like,
- 26:39Oh,
- 26:40like that's it's hard.
- 26:41Or there's a lot of opinions flying around about pricing and packaging,
- 26:45or maybe at a business,
- 26:46it's just an afterthought.
- 26:47But at the businesses I've been at,
- 26:49it's been like core to how we work.
- 26:52But to answer your question,
- 26:53definitely proud at the end of the day that someone was able to own it.
- 26:57They've gotten more recognition and visibility.
- 26:59They're now the go-to and source of truth and expert within the business.
- 27:04And I certainly am still involved and I'm helping to shape how it continues to ebb and flow our business right now.
- 27:11We're going through a lot of M&A.
- 27:13And so the impact on pricing and packaging from an M&A standpoint is massive.
- 27:19We're navigating these things together.
- 27:21It's new for me.
- 27:22It's new for the individual.
- 27:24So being co-pilots and a specialization within the team and knowing she's got it,
- 27:30but I'm here to help.
- 27:31And you're certainly going to skin our knees.
- 27:32But to go back to the analogy,
- 27:34there's no patient on the table.
- 27:36It is just software and we're going to figure it out.
- 27:39But yeah,
- 27:40I was ultimately proud and had all the confidence in the world in this person.
- 27:44And I think if you have that energy,
- 27:46like you're going to be successful.
- 27:47There's no other option.
- 27:49I love it.
- 27:50I love it.
- 27:51And shout out to the young lady who's out there killing it with the pricing on your team.
- 27:56Totally echo what you said.
- 27:59Pricing has always been the big,
- 28:00scary,
- 28:01hairy monster that I've wanted to touch,
- 28:04but it still gives me the diabetes.
- 28:06It is not easy to give that up and trust is going to be one of the biggest things that dictate whether you can pick up a project like that.
- 28:15I think it would be really helpful if we could
- 28:19people in terms of upward management,
- 28:22in terms of building that trust with you?
- 28:25And what are those things that you feel like they can come in and do,
- 28:29whether it's short term,
- 28:30long term,
- 28:30whatever.
- 28:31So it's,
- 28:31hey,
- 28:31you know what,
- 28:32we have I have this thing in my lap,
- 28:35I'm ready to give it up.
- 28:36Because that's,
- 28:37it's not a one way street.
- 28:39With my team members or even aspiring PMMs,
- 28:43I do a lot of mentorship outside of the PMM community.
- 28:47And again,
- 28:48there's different flavors of what product marketing looks like.
- 28:51So raising your hand and putting a stake in the ground,
- 28:55like this is where I want to grow my career.
- 28:57I've had people on my team who had the option to stay in what we define as core product marketing.
- 29:04And so you're map to a product area.
- 29:08And that peak.
- 29:09product manager is your co-pilot and you're running launches like traditional product marketing and then there's solution product marketing which
- 29:16I think some business will have solution and industry marketing and this area of the team is taking the fabric of product and mapping it by segment by persona by industry and so there was a time where someone had the option what do you want to do and I was not precious about which track but they made the choice.
- 29:35They wanted to do solution and it's giving kind of
- 29:38the people the keys to raise their hand,
- 29:40say they want to go down this route.
- 29:42And my job as a leader is to support them,
- 29:44be an advocate,
- 29:45get out of their way.
- 29:47I think a lot of the times it's the business that will be in the way.
- 29:50And I have to be the one to help remove that and shield them so they can focus.
- 29:55So again,
- 29:56like just having the individual raise their hand,
- 29:59have conviction that this is something that they want to try.
- 30:02And maybe it won't work out,
- 30:03but hey,
- 30:04we'll have explored something new.
- 30:05It's very low risk in terms of
- 30:08putting yourself out there to try a new discipline.
- 30:11And there's only upside in my opinion.
- 30:13So again,
- 30:14I think to the ICs listening,
- 30:16it's being very vocal,
- 30:17like you have to advocate for yourself and what you want,
- 30:20you have to keep your hands on your career wheel at all times,
- 30:24let your manager know,
- 30:25and it's their job to make it happen for you.
- 30:27And maybe they can't right away,
- 30:28but making sure that your intentions are known and you're raising hands,
- 30:33your hand for that is going to help them find that opportunity for you.
- 30:37in the short term or help you network with others who may have experience there in the short term.
- 30:42Let's take it back to 2017.
- 30:44Oh,
- 30:44Eric,
- 30:44go ahead.
- 30:45I didn't mean to cut you off.
- 30:46Yeah,
- 30:46no,
- 30:46it's all good.
- 30:47I want to see if maybe a little bit more there,
- 30:48because I'm totally in on that.
- 30:50I'm totally bought in on you got to raise your hand.
- 30:52And if your boss doesn't know what you want to do,
- 30:55how are they going to put you in a position to do that stuff?
- 30:58Do you have any other tips around the actual trust building aspect yourself?
- 31:02Like,
- 31:02of course,
- 31:03let's say
- 31:04I'm in here for 60 days.
- 31:06And I'm just like,
- 31:07Amanda,
- 31:08come on,
- 31:09give me that pricing exercise I asked you about.
- 31:12I don't,
- 31:13maybe it's just me,
- 31:14but I probably need to do a lot of work in that 60 days outside of just raising my hand.
- 31:20Do you have anything particularly that you feel like people should do to really start building that trust with their head of product marketing?
- 31:27So when the time comes,
- 31:29it is,
- 31:29you know what?
- 31:30I remember they told me they want this and I trust them to go get it done.
- 31:35That's such a good call out on just like the trust card and making sure you come in with an idea of what you want to achieve and aligning that to the business goals.
- 31:46Like it should be clear what the business is aiming to work towards in a calendar year,
- 31:52a quarter,
- 31:53you know,
- 31:54in a few weeks.
- 31:55And so if you can identify where you can make some quick wins and impact and
- 32:00stay accountable for what you've signed up for,
- 32:03the more you do that and are showing incremental value,
- 32:06the more your leader will begin to identify not only like those wins as like excellent showcases of the work,
- 32:14but sign you up for more and more of what you want to do.
- 32:18There's certainly a two by two of different areas where we get energy and that's something for the leader.
- 32:24the individual to calibrate on.
- 32:26You're delivering wins.
- 32:27You're delivering impact.
- 32:28Great.
- 32:28Like,
- 32:28where do you want to be doing more?
- 32:30Where do you want to be doing less?
- 32:31Where can we bring your best energy to the business?
- 32:35And so it should be an ongoing conversation,
- 32:37but with focus and incremental impact along the way.
- 32:42And I'll be quick on this,
- 32:43but I shared recently on LinkedIn as well.
- 32:44I run my teams on agile marketing.
- 32:47We do two-week sprints.
- 32:48So we're
- 32:49every two weeks,
- 32:50very tied into our cadence,
- 32:52what we're producing.
- 32:53And it's easy for me to see and easy for everyone on the team to cross-pollinate on where folks are being effective and where there's density on areas of interest.
- 33:02So I think leaders who adopt that sort of framework as well will allow for organically more opportunities to shine through for their team members.
- 33:12And
- 33:13ICPMM, what was a really good piece of career advice?
- 33:19got back then that you might still be seeing happening today but shouldn't be relevant anymore
- 33:31I would say something that I struggled with being an individual contributor,
- 33:35founding PMM,
- 33:37was asking for permission a lot.
- 33:40Like I would wait to get permission to do something.
- 33:43And I think more and more,
- 33:46that advice is not relevant.
- 33:47And it's something that maybe some others have been told,
- 33:50don't ask for permission,
- 33:52just settle for forgiveness after the fact.
- 33:55That was always just really hard.
- 33:56It just didn't feel right,
- 33:57especially founding.
- 33:58It's so precious,
- 33:59the remit and how you want to mold it over time.
- 34:03But now I think it is more of this,
- 34:05let's continue to try,
- 34:07fail fast,
- 34:07learn faster,
- 34:08ship value in increments.
- 34:10And just back to the consent versus consensus,
- 34:14show initiative and just trust yourself.
- 34:17And so it's more trusting your instincts,
- 34:20not waiting to be told things should be done.
- 34:23I think that more of that advice to the product marketing team especially is the sage advice versus permission.
- 34:30I also think that there's just a lot of,
- 34:33in general,
- 34:34like coming into the role as an ICE founding,
- 34:38PMM,
- 34:39you're reading like April Dunford,
- 34:41all of these books,
- 34:41these frameworks,
- 34:42and are they all relevant for you right now?
- 34:45Probably not.
- 34:46There's probably pockets that are,
- 34:49but things are changing so quickly that even some of and
- 34:53Not to
- 34:53April's our girl and she'll always be like the go of product marketing.
- 34:57But
- 34:58I think we can get stuck in this echo chamber of this is the framework that you need to use.
- 35:02And this is the tiering model that you need to use.
- 35:05And if you're setting up the function,
- 35:07this is exactly like the checklist.
- 35:10And that's just not the case.
- 35:11Like it's so fluid anymore.
- 35:13So there's Amanda from 2017 and how I set up my function.
- 35:17And I am contrarian with a lot of her beliefs right now,
- 35:20honestly.
- 35:21And I think...
- 35:22with some of my peers that are consultants right now,
- 35:24I'm having open conversations like with how much is changing and with
- 35:28AI supplementing a lot of the 101 that we built frameworks on in the past.
- 35:32Is it right?
- 35:33Is it correct?
- 35:34I don't know,
- 35:35but I think we should be asking those questions.
- 35:38It's a very valid question to bring up.
- 35:40I think we had this conversation a few months back about
- 35:44AI expertise,
- 35:46and one example sticks out to me really clear as day.
- 35:50Someone posted another day,
- 35:52they were like,
- 35:53hey,
- 35:53I built this PM dashboard using AI,
- 35:56comment AI for access to it.
- 36:00And
- 36:01I see the guys laughing because I think we were all thinking the same line of thought here.
- 36:06But what was really tough about that is like,
- 36:08don't get me wrong,
- 36:09it could be a very incredible tool.
- 36:12But imagine if we were to use that and you take this on a leadership call and they're like,
- 36:16what is the inner workings of this?
- 36:18How did you come up with this output?
- 36:21And you're just like,
- 36:23I learned it on LinkedIn.
- 36:25I don't know what went into it.
- 36:26I don't know the process.
- 36:28I don't know the checks and balances.
- 36:30So I think that's where one example where AI could be hurting us in the foot,
- 36:35going back to what you said.
- 36:38Yeah,
- 36:38we're definitely all very excited to replicate what we're seeing and hearing.
- 36:43But is it right?
- 36:44Is it a good use of time?
- 36:46I'm not sure.
- 36:47I think there's certainly...
- 36:49And just going back to a product roadmap and what customers are asking for,
- 36:54I don't think it's AI.
- 36:56It's like the core product of what the software was built for,
- 36:59for the most part.
- 37:00AI is great if it can help you get to better outcomes.
- 37:04But yeah,
- 37:05it's a good question.
- 37:06I think we're all learning and in some cases leaning in or on the sidelines,
- 37:11just staying curious.
- 37:13So that's all I ask within my team.
- 37:14Let's stay curious.
- 37:15Let's certainly,
- 37:16we're going to be AI illiterate.
- 37:17You have to be.
- 37:18but
- 37:19Let's be smart about our application.
- 37:20It's not a silver bullet.
- 37:22And at the end of the day,
- 37:24it's what's going to serve our customers best.
- 37:26And we're selling to humans.
- 37:27It's human to human.
- 37:30You can have agentic kind of negotiations happening,
- 37:33but it's still at the human level at the end of the day.
- 37:35Yeah.
- 37:36I think it's like you need to master the foundation before you want to make redundant stuff less redundant.
- 37:41Like how can you optimize it within your context in your reality.
- 37:45Absolutely.
- 37:47I think like you guys are saying,
- 37:48it's like that expertise first.
- 37:49I don't know about you all,
- 37:51but I wouldn't hire a contractor and remodel my home.
- 37:57Don't worry about it,
- 37:57guys.
- 37:58I got you.
- 37:59I've never done this before.
- 38:04Yeah,
- 38:04yeah.
- 38:05A hundred percent.
- 38:07I have a question.
- 38:15Chat GPT this.
- 38:16We're good.
- 38:18Oh my God.
- 38:20I got this.
- 38:22Go ahead,
- 38:22Gav.
- 38:23So what we're hearing right now with the market of product marketing managers is there's a lot of people that are taking the route.
- 38:30to go fractional,
- 38:31to go consultant.
- 38:33But something that we also can realize and we heard as emerging chatter is a lot of
- 38:40VP of product marketing,
- 38:41VP PMM,
- 38:42they don't want to become
- 38:44CMO.
- 38:45And we're unsure about it,
- 38:47especially in the product marketing leadership land.
- 38:49Is that something that you heard as well?
- 38:51And can you help us navigate or answer this?
- 38:53Because I'm still,
- 38:55I'm blanking right now,
- 38:56trying to understand.
- 38:58the differences and why would you not take that
- 39:02VP of product marketing position towards the chief marketing officer?
- 39:08I wonder,
- 39:09certainly there's different flavors of leadership and one can argue you can be a VP or a product marketing leader and still have a fantastic career and never want to be in the C-suite.
- 39:22Product marketing,
- 39:23I think you can take it,
- 39:25you could go into product leadership,
- 39:27right you could
- 39:28take it through to marketing leadership,
- 39:31ops leadership.
- 39:32I have heard among some of my peers,
- 39:34a lot of them are going fractional.
- 39:36I think there's,
- 39:38depending on the need of the business,
- 39:40there's certain ways that product marketing can ebb and flow.
- 39:44Your early stage,
- 39:45you're doing product market fit and making sure you're connecting with the market that you've defined.
- 39:51At later stage,
- 39:52it's a lot of M&A.
- 39:53So we're integrating technologies,
- 39:55we're merging markets,
- 39:56we're introducing.
- 39:57products landing and expanding.
- 40:00For me personally,
- 40:01I do want to ride it out to CMO land.
- 40:05And that's always been something I've had conviction in.
- 40:07And I've had the opportunity to try on different marketing specializations throughout my career.
- 40:13I've done content,
- 40:14demand gen,
- 40:15customer,
- 40:15digital,
- 40:16product marketing was always the most fun.
- 40:18And I was like,
- 40:18if I'm gonna,
- 40:20again,
- 40:20ride it to CMO,
- 40:21where am I going to have the most fun for the years that I am in this discipline?
- 40:25product marketing through and through.
- 40:26So I think it just depends certainly on the puzzles you want to solve in your day to day.
- 40:32And for me,
- 40:32being a CMO is definitely the ultimate puzzle,
- 40:35but it has to be within the right company.
- 40:37Certainly,
- 40:38I think a product led growth company is a great layup for obviously a product marketing to leader to grow into doesn't necessarily have to be PLG.
- 40:46But given where we sit and where our thought cycles are most often wired,
- 40:52that's a great.
- 40:53opportunity to leverage and move into.
- 40:56But yeah,
- 40:56I think it's interesting.
- 40:57And I'm observing the same thing where a lot of people moving into fractional and it's a great time to be fractional gig economy is up and on the rise.
- 41:05And if PMMs can be surgical and help companies and certain disciplines,
- 41:10whether they have a big launch and they need to hire some additional PMMs to help get ready for it,
- 41:15or it's a really early company and they need help with positioning and product market fit.
- 41:19That's great.
- 41:21I do.
- 41:21hoped more product marketers maintain their conviction in going into CMO.
- 41:29I'm biased,
- 41:29but I think
- 41:31I love those CMOs that I've met that have product marketing backgrounds as well.
- 41:34So definitely biased and I recognize that,
- 41:37but I would love to see more and more want to take it that far because it is a great,
- 41:42we have so much to flex on in what we've gained from market and ultimately chief market officer like we.
- 41:49own the market point of view,
- 41:51right?
- 41:51And so it's a great foundation for the business to have at the helm.
- 41:56Really,
- 41:57you mentioned about the,
- 41:59that principle of disagree and commit.
- 42:02And I think one challenge for us when we were at IC land is that leaders,
- 42:06like sometimes leadership for us would make decisions and we're like,
- 42:09oh my God,
- 42:10like why,
- 42:11why are we doing this?
- 42:12What's going on?
- 42:12So just for just like a dose of empathy for myself and just anyone that has listened,
- 42:18what is one
- 42:19thing that i see pmms don't know that pmm leaders like yourself are fighting eric said earlier outside of the team meeting that if they did know they'd be like oh my gosh amanda
- 42:35i was an i am so sorry
- 42:38Yeah.
- 42:38Wow.
- 42:39That's very real.
- 42:40There's so much that we have to make peace with and you'll see this is a hill that I will die on.
- 42:46So understanding those hills and what you're willing to really push for and where of all the things that you can try to problem solve,
- 42:55because I think a lot of us in product marketing,
- 42:57you just want to solve all the problems.
- 42:59I have so many people that they see something and
- 43:01I have to put the blinders on and like,
- 43:03is that a controllable?
- 43:05Or is it an uncontrollable?
- 43:06So I try to focus the team on what are our controllables?
- 43:10Because there's only so much,
- 43:11again,
- 43:12that we can impact and technology is changing so fast.
- 43:16Every business is doing their best to high growth,
- 43:19do more with less.
- 43:20And so to answer your question is just making sure that we're focused on what we can control those uncontrollables.
- 43:26I'll try to identify what battles like are really worth our litigation effort,
- 43:32for lack of a better way of saying it and
- 43:34I mean,
- 43:34they're the ones going back to the customer.
- 43:37They're what's best for the customer.
- 43:38If I have conviction that there's an area of product,
- 43:40for example,
- 43:41that has been gapped and we're going to events where it's still gapped,
- 43:46I need to make sure leadership is aware.
- 43:48Right.
- 43:48So it's my due diligence at the end of the day and making sure that what is best for customers are seen and heard.
- 43:55And then also making sure my team understands like what they can control,
- 43:59where they can drive impact.
- 44:00so they stay focused while I'm...
- 44:02making sure our senior leadership team also is keeping the hearts and minds of customers involved in their decision making.
- 44:09So again,
- 44:10pricing and packaging is a big one.
- 44:12Roadmap,
- 44:12obviously,
- 44:13prioritization,
- 44:15and just messaging and positioning.
- 44:16AI,
- 44:17fighting the AI Mad Lib game is something that is a big one for our team and just trying to throttle and be smart to make sure there's resonance.
- 44:25So yeah,
- 44:25it's definitely an ongoing challenge,
- 44:27though.
- 44:32so thank you for that what a fire get what a fire guest guys we're already we're ramping up all of the quotes and the mantras that you've been saying i feel like oh yeah this is the next collection now i've got so many good ones after
- 44:49this session i have to open up my windows just to air up the space from all this even dropping over here man well well done and so
- 45:00Amanda,
- 45:00this is where we like to wrap up the show.
- 45:03But we do give you one more opportunity because a lot of us have some cool stuff that doesn't always make the airwave.
- 45:09So other than just coming and finding you on LinkedIn,
- 45:13is there any other places or activities you got coming up that you want people to know about?
- 45:20Oh,
- 45:20good.
- 45:21So,
- 45:21yeah,
- 45:21LinkedIn land,
- 45:22definitely.
- 45:23I will share my unhinged product marketing takes,
- 45:26some of my paintings I like to share just for funsies because we are whole people.
- 45:30Work is only one part of the many roles that we play.
- 45:34You can definitely connect with me there.
- 45:36I am a big contributor on Sharebird.
- 45:38I will host AMAs there pretty often.
- 45:41So you can check out my Sharebird page for answers to any of my product marketing questions,
- 45:46sign up for an upcoming session.
- 45:48And those are the main ways to connect with me.
- 45:50But yeah.
- 45:51DMs are always open if you have a question.
- 45:53I'm here to support,
- 45:54care deeply about product marketing and where this craft is going,
- 45:58shaped with you all here on the recording and then also listening in.
- 46:03So consider me a friendly.
- 46:04We're in this together for sure.
- 46:07Let's go.
- 46:08Another PMM friendly added.
- 46:11Love it.
- 46:12All right,
- 46:12everybody.
- 46:13Well,
- 46:14this was a dope episode.
- 46:17Hopefully you learned a lot and you had a lot of fun as well.
- 46:21So we're going to wrap this up and call it another episode of
- 46:26We're Not
- 46:28Marketers. We'll catch you next time.
- 46:30See you guys.
- 46:32Thanks.
- 46:33For listening to We're Not Marketers.
- 46:36If you like what you heard,
- 46:38review our podcast,
- 46:40and share this episode with other PMMs.
- 46:42Thanks again and see you soon.