How to Prioritize When Everything Is Important

Steve and Nate are getting started right now. You guys want to grab a seat? We're getting started right now. Hey guys, we're getting started right now. You guys want to grab a seat? We're getting started right now. This is so fun. Thanks for grabbing a seat. Thank you. Yes, for those of you who can't see, I'm wearing a ridiculous pop star microphone. Eventbrite set that up. Thank you. Thank you everyone for coming. Can everyone in the back hear me okay? We good? Alright, cool. For those of you whose first time it is, welcome. I hope that you get a lot out of it. We're super excited to have you and I think you'll get a lot out of our wonderful panelists here who we'll introduce in just a second. For everyone who's returning, welcome back. Hopefully you've met some returning faces and seen some new people as well. So make sure that you're talking to everyone. We will have some people who are hiring at the end of the event too. So if you're looking for a job or just starting your search, make sure that you contact those people. We'll have a slide up with those companies and I'll direct the hiring managers to go to a part of the room over to that side. So thank you to our sponsors, 23 and Sherbert. Sherbert helps you find better content to get better at your job. And 23 is a video hosting and live streaming platform. So they've got that awesome little bike in the back that is live streaming this event. And there will be a recording afterwards as well. So thanks to them for that. And now I will give it over to our panel to introduce themselves. Okay. Hey, I'm Derek Pando. I do product marketing at Zoom. We are a team of two product marketers, about 500 employees, super fast-growing video conferencing. Recently came from LinkedIn and then a while ago Salesforce. And it's great to see friends from both those companies in the audience. So glad to be with you guys. Hi, everyone. I'm Greg Hollander. I lead the product marketing team here at Eventbrite. We are a mighty team of four. So also I'm doing a lot for the business, which you'll hear about. Yeah, exactly. I've been here for about two years. Very excited to meet you all tonight. My name is Connor Fee. I'm the COO at UserVoice, which makes me completely unqualified for this panel. I came up through marketing and I have done product marketing for many years. So I'm excited to be here. Awesome. My name is James Winter. I am the director of marketing at a company called RevFluence. I was formerly at Dialpad in product marketing and excited to have you all here. So the topic today, as you can see, is how to prioritize when everything is important. And really what we're trying to get at is the fact that product marketers generally have a lot going on. A lot of people don't exactly know what product marketing is or what we do. And despite that fact, we're expected to manage everything. From something like content creation to sales enablement to analyst relations to competitive intelligence. It kind of goes on and on. While some of the people at larger companies might be fortunate enough to be focused on one of those particular areas, I think I can speak for some of you here who are probably responsible for managing all of that at once. Certainly some of our panelists. So with that in mind, the crux of this question is how do you prioritize when pretty much everything is important? Because you're not going to get it from the leadership team to tell you what you should be focusing on on a daily basis. So I'm excited to hear from our awesome panelists. And with that, we'll kind of get it kicked off. Actually, before we start, can I get a raise of hands for everyone who is in product marketing right now? Okay. So most people. And then as a follow up, can I get a show of hands for everyone who is in product marketing right now? And then for everyone who feels like they have trouble prioritizing sometimes? All right. So pretty much everyone. All right. So I'm glad that we chose a good topic then. So to start out with, I just want to kind of set a baseline and ask our panel, how is it that you would define what product marketing does for your organization? Sure. So we talked about this a little bit backstage. There's a backstage, by the way. We talked a little bit backstage. So we talked about the difference between B2B versus B2C and how product marketing can mean different things in different worlds. So to give context, my company, UserVoice, is very much B2B enterprise software. So for us, product marketing is sometimes referred to as the SE or the sales engineer of the marketing function. They're the technical experts. They know the product in detail. But they also set up a lot of the foundational work that the rest of the marketing team uses. So whether that's win-loss, personas, case studies, things like that. So for us, it's a little bit of a workhorse and it's like the strategic foundation of the rest of the marketing organization. Great. Yeah, for us, so our business is B2B as well, but it spans our top tier sales customers. That's more of the enterprise approach. And what we call our longer tail, which is all the event organizers that just come to Eventbrite.com, sign up, and create an event. And so the day-to-day certainly varies greatly, which I know is a motive for the question. I look at the essence of product marketing as I shape and shape it. And our team shapes our role as being the set of activities that are centered around and sort of stem from being the owner and expert in why our product matters to our customers. And so that's outward facing. As you all know, what products are going to market, what segments we're marketing to, as well as taking that expertise and bringing it back to the product team and shaping what products we develop for those customers. I don't have anything to add. I think they covered it. No. No. No. All right. So as a follow-up question to that, given what you've just said, how would you define what the value that that provides is to the business and kind of the bottom line? Yeah, I'll take this one. So I guess I have to, right? So I think there's a couple ways that I think about it. One is, especially when it comes to the voice of the customer, it's actually a lot harder to, like, keep your eye on that price than you would think for lots of different parts of the group. And I think if there's one group that's going to be really, really focused on it, it can be product marketing. The other kind of value bucket that I think about a lot when I think about product marketing is you're a bridge builder, right? It's between product and sales, between sales and product, between sales, marketing, and product and support. And oftentimes the only people who are thinking at the high enough strategic level and have the kind of communication skills and are willing to sign up for some of these projects are product marketers. I'm going to agree with everything you just said. And I'm going to take it one step further, which was kind of an insight that only came to me as I was thinking about this panel. But I think you can actually say, at least for us, that product marketing in a way is the customer-centric prioritization function for the entire business. And when you have a business like ours where we're serving lots of different customers with lots of different products, a lot of teams are doing a ton of work just to keep the business moving and growing. And it's really great work, but it's also impossible for our customers to digest all of that at one time. That's the first question. We're the ones deciding what are the right products to show to the right people with the right messages. And I think that the uplift that you get in a sustained way over time from that prioritization, the same way we're all here to help ourselves be better prioritizers, is the value that we provide to the business. Awesome. So what are some of the things that you do to help decide what areas of the business that you're looking to prioritize? what area of the business product marketing should be focusing on? Or actually, let me change that. What would you say your kind of high-level definition of how product marketing should go about deciding where they should be focusing their time? Yeah, I have a couple thoughts on this. So I mentioned I just started with Zoom two months ago, right? So walk in, you know, day one, I got to think about what the heck am I going to do? And I'm only the second product marketer, right? So it's not like, oh, you're filling somebody's shoes, et cetera. So there's a couple things that I did that I think helped. One is I was hired to do a specific job. They're like competitive, really, really need some help. So I'm like, okay, that's clear. And a few other things. But then apart from that, what I did, and I think Connor might disagree with me on some of these things. That's okay. That's why we're here. I basically interviewed the head of every different group at Zoom and said, you know, tell me what you do, what your problems are. And then from there, I started to kind of compare what was going on, and also marketing as well, to what I'd seen as best practices at other companies that I'd worked at before and then started to see some gaps. And then that's when I started to insert myself and say, listen, I've seen this done before. It aligns well with our goals and with some of the needs of the business. I think that this should be part of what I do here as a product marketer. And, you know, I'm two months in, so this is a TBD on the results of it. But that is how I have approached it thus far. It's, I don't know, I feel like I'm doing important things at least so far. Want to disagree? I mean, in a group of, like, four people, I was ready to, like, pounce on you for that answer. Now that we're, like, in front of everyone, I'm like, no, that's great. You did a great job. I mean, I disagreed. I mean, I disagreed. I challenged your perspective for the purpose of, you know, taking executive interviews and combining them with best practices is going to lead you to do, I'm not picking on you specifically, but can often lead people to do the thing that it looks like you should do, right? Like, congratulations, you've done the thing that looks like product marketers should do. The question that I posed was, like, well, what are the OKRs for the business? Like, what are the major objectives that the company is trying to achieve? And how can you and your team, like, support those major objectives, those major priorities? Because if you do a lot of things that are in pragmatic marketing, congratulations, you've accomplished the thing that some manual told us to do. But did you move the needle for the business? Now, I know you have a very good retort to this, and I'm teeing it up for you as best as I can. Thank you. But I do think there's an interesting question. And that's one way to do it. And jokes aside, I think there's a big question, which is, like, what are the major objectives for the business? And do any of them that are key and important fit into the areas that product marketing can touch? And if they do, are you working on those things? And, look, I agree that we have an obligation as product marketers to move the needle for the business. My point backstage and what I definitely want to hammer home here is I think we're kind of in a privileged position as product marketers, which is unlike, kind of, the rest of marketing and sales. We don't have numbers to hit every week, every quarter. And so I think that understanding of what are the levers that move the business are crucial. But then we have the ability to look forward six, nine months and say, what are the things that are going to have that sustained impact over time? When you combine that business context with the customer insight that I talked about, I think that's where you get to the things where we can have enormous impact as product marketers and as a team. And that's one place where I would wildly agree. I don't mean I agree with you, too. But, like, this is the strategic group inside marketing. Like, this is the group that's not doing the thing, that's not hitting the number, that's not achieving the goal, that's not interviewing the customer. They are sitting around thinking about, like, what is the really important, wild, hard thing we can do that will move the needle in a meaningful way? That's why I get really excited about this stuff. Yeah, one last comment, kind of piggyback. If during those executive interview process that I recommended you don't think what they're saying is aligned, that's a bad sign. Right? If the executives. Are saying that they need a bunch of stuff that does not align with what is clear to you as the biggest business needs and problems, then I think they got some bigger fish to fry in the organization. Yeah. That doesn't mean they don't. I think one other thing is that you can't always expect the execs to know exactly kind of, like, where the needs are. So the interviews might be a great place, but I think Connor's just natural distrust of people is probably. I think one other thing I'd say there, too, is an approach I've taken is to, I think, so as product marketers, we're all very good at customer research, but treating your internal customers like your external customers. Like, there's a lot that you can do to interview, you know, major stakeholders on the company. We've even sent surveys out to the sales team to see what they're using and what they're not using. But then you, as the individual, have a responsibility to synthesize that insight and decide what you're going to do with it. Yeah. I think that leads us into kind of the next question pretty well. So let's dive a little bit deeper into what some of these techniques you guys actually use are to help decide kind of where you should be spending your time. Sure. Yeah. So I'll keep going from the last comment, which is, again, that research internally. And so I think what we've been able to see talking to stakeholders in sales, talking to stakeholders in marketing, talking to stakeholders in products, a mix of, you know, you know, a mix of, you know, things that we should fill versus where do some things that you'd expect to come up don't come up allow us to make those tradeoffs. And so for us, one of the examples that I'd point to is we've recently put a ton of effort into our music marketing at Eventbrite. We recently made enormous, we've launched a new product in the first quarter. We still actually don't have a pitch deck for our music sales team. And we made that decision because when we interviewed those folks and understood how they were using things, we heard a lot of requests for one sheets and a product overview, things that could be easily left behind or sent through email. We heard no request for a PowerPoint deck. And we actually learned that most of the time they were pitching at a bar over a glass of whiskey. And so it was, that insight that allowed us to say like that, even though it's something that's pretty standardly important, was not important for that audience. So let me, let me dive a little deeper with something you said. So you said that you solicit feedback from the sales team and stuff like that. Is there any tools or kind of analytics that you use to gather that feedback? Or maybe it's just Google forms? I don't know, but that was Google forms. And then we actually also did some like observations. So on other pieces of collateral for that team, we put a draft in front of them. I say we, it was actually my team, remember Dana over here, um, who, who put a draft in front of them and looked at, um, how are they using it? Like how would they actually use this in a situation and did kind of observation is the same way you would do it. It didn't win a focus group. Oh, just add, um, one, one thing I've done at like every company I've worked as a product marketer, I've had like 10 of my best like sales contacts that when they're in town, I buy them lunch. Um, I'm always like really responsive to them. And when I have a question about like, especially from a sales perspective on if something's going to be useful or not, or I want to kind of get the pulse of the field, like those are the people I reach out to because I'm very responsive to them. They're responsive to us. There's a relationship and I'd be able to move so much faster by able to just, you know, ping like five people in a group chat real quick and say, Hey, like I just created this asset. Like, what do you think? You know, give me your feedback really fast. And that's been really helpful, uh, to kind of make sure you're aligned with what the sales team's thinking. So quick, quick follow up to that. Not all feedback is created equal as I'm sure everyone can kind of attest to. There's always going to be the, people who ask for everything and don't use it or the people that are constantly complaining. They don't have something and it's, it's like blaming it on the tool. How do you decide who it is that you actually go to your trusted people on the sales team? For example, how do you kind of identify those? Yeah. I mean, I try to find members of the sales team that can see the bigger picture, right? Like if it's the, it's, it's not the person that's complaining all the time. Let me just make that clear. Like that is not the person that I go to, not the squeaky wheel. It's the people that they understand. And when, they understand how marketing works because sales is a tough job, right? They, you know, they got a number to hit and they're going to do whatever they need to, but there's a lot of salespeople who think bigger. And those are, those are the people that I really rely on. And even, you know, even with that feedback, it's not like, Hey, my five people, salespeople said to do this. You got to, you know, you have the other inputs, but that's how I try to pick them. So do you just do that by having good relationships with the whole team or how do you stay in touch with kind of who the people that know the bigger picture are? Yeah. I mean, I think it is like, you know, product, product, marketers, especially B2B companies get to interact a lot with the sales team. you know, whether it's their new hire training, like you just kind of get a sense of like who some of the people are that might be a good fit. And so, yeah, not very scientific, I guess, is the response. Yeah. And also add people are different. Different people are different. I think what we, yeah, write that down. We, I, I took a side story, but in grad school, I took a class where it was all about like globalization and the bottom line was different countries are different. So that's, that's why I, thanks. But different people are different. And so even, even amongst the sales team and I'll, I'll stay with the topic of music. Like they, some are squeaky wheels. Some are incredibly insightful about the industry and the needs, but like I would never ask for copy feedback on. And so learning to engage the right people at the right time through the process has been a way that we've been able to move a lot faster. And I think we just learned to do that and kind of iterate over time on, on who's productive and who's not. I would, I want to follow up on that because, um, so like how much of that is a self reinforcing bias, right? So you picked your favorite people that you think see the bigger picture. Uh, I'm going to assume they generally align with your perspectives of what product marketing should do for them. Uh, and then you ask them if you like the things like, uh, they're probably also the better salespeople, right? So how do you know you're supporting like the middle of the pack, right? The, the fat belly of the beast, right? Like the, the top, the curve, right? Like, cause, cause I mean, I did this very job in a different company and like, yeah, there's one or two guys I think are really bright and get it. And I want their opinions. And then everybody else is like, I'm like, how do I make sure that they have what they need? We should probably make friends with them too. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. Like, I feel like when it's negative feedback, there are lots of great channels where that's automatically going to come to you. You don't need to work that hard. Like the kind of people that really don't, the middle of the pack that doesn't like your stuff, whatever it is, like you're going to, you're going to hear from them. I don't feel like I have to work as hard. Whereas like the salespeople who got their like nose to the grindstone or like getting deals done, they're a little harder to get ahold of, you know? So that's been at least my philosophy. I do. I mean, I think that's a valid point, but I don't know. I haven't worried about it as much. And also that's for us, it's sort of a mix of like quantum qual comes in of actually surveying out to the full team and understanding what's getting used and what's not, what those needs are. So let me actually follow up on that. Like which of you uses some sort of, like sales enablement tool, like show pad or seismic or docs end or something along those lines? Not at my current company, any of those for us either. Okay. So do you guys do anything to track content usage other than service? Yeah, we, we use a Salesforce plugin called knowledge tree. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Can you tell us a little bit about how that kind of feeds into the topic? Yeah, sure. So knowledge tree is basically, you know, it's a plugin within Salesforce where all content goes through knowledge tree. And it's tracked. So like a, you know, you can make it internal or external. A sales rep can always know that this is the place where information is accurate and up to date. It's kind of the one source of truth. I always tell them you can get stuff anywhere, but if you want accurate stuff, this is the place you need to go. And then as part of it, you have analytics on the backend that say, these are your most popular pieces of content. This, this is who's using them. This is who's not, which is really helpful as you prioritize. You're like, Oh my gosh, like that data sheet, everybody wanted three, people have looked at in the first two months. Uh, those are, those can be really helpful insights. Yes. But was it three deals that closed versus was the contrarian? Uh, yes. Um, I don't know if knowledge tree has that sort of analytics or if I had the time to call each of those reps, but if I did, you should call my, that would be important. My, my CSM. Now, one of my CSMs now was the original CSM and knowledge tree. Oh, so if you want to know, we can hook you up. I got you. Okay. All right. Sounds good. I didn't get a chance to answer the original question. Uh, and I would like to answer the original question. So the original question was like, specifically, how do you prioritize? Man, I'm really enjoying this by the way. Really? Was that really the original question? Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We have veered far off. That's okay. Yeah. So the original question was like, how do you, how do you prioritize? Like specifically, how do you prioritize? Right. And so, um, one of the things like I have this running theory that, uh, the first hire is okay. The second hire is better. The third hire is great. Uh, and so like the more you do things over your career, the better you get at these things and the smarter you get, the more you learn along the way. and so after many, many, many failed attempts, uh, we've come up with a, a system at user voice where, uh, we put all of our ideas. So first we like come up with a lot of ideas of things we could do. And then we, we select the ones that we think are reasonably the top of the bucket. Right. Um, and then we do due diligence on those ideas. So it might be, it might mean that we do a little bit of research. We talked to some people. It might be that we talked to our analytics department and say, Hey, uh, if I did this, what would this move look like? And then everything gets plotted on this two by two, which is essentially ROI. So like, do we think it's a like positive for the business versus negative for the business and then confidence, right? So like, okay, on any given thing, if I did this one thing, it's totally going to move the needle like 4,000%. Like how confident am I relative to other things? And so we have, that gives us this, this two by two essentially that lets us evaluate. Do we think this is highly valuable? And something that we're very, very low confident about, and we need to gather more data and be more confident about, or is it something that's like, it's, it's, it's a pretty good idea and we're reasonably confident that we can move that needle. So, uh, what the, the product marketing team and the marketing team all do is we look at all these options and we start to try to select, or we start to try to group things to say, Hey, these things all aligned together. They feed the okay or the business, but specifically we can reasonable with reasonable confidence predict that they will return value for the business and we're reasonably confident about it and therefore we should go with it. So, uh, it's been a long, slow process and there's like green and red and yellow. It looks like the Jamaican flag. Um, but, uh, it's given us a, it allows us to have a much more meaningful conversation about whether we should or shouldn't do something. And I think the biggest thing, I'm, you're ready to go. I'm cutting the question actually. Okay. Well, I think the biggest thing here is the risk of opportunity cost, right? Cause there's always other things we could do to your point. And there's always other things that we could do that would move the needle for the business. So it becomes a question of like, how do we prioritize a bunch of different things? Uh, we want to consider how, do you keep that on a running basis or how often does your team do that exercise? Yeah. So we, we started doing it. Um, well, uh, these things evolve over time, right? Uh, we started doing it quarterly and over the, in quarters, we would also get together and vote. We're like, this is a really stupid idea. Um, this like is a wildly self reinforcing prophecy. Um, and that's what we can just started adding data to it. So, uh, as we take on major projects, whether it's a win loss analysis or build personas or something like that, we then go back to, we go back and say like, well, what's the next best thing? And every time we have an idea, we add it to the queue and those things, which we think generally are in the top 10 or 20%, those are the ones we spend the time to go value or we ask analytics or data science to help us value essentially. Raise your hand. If you'd like to see this two by two. Okay. All right. That was a very delayed set of hands. All right. I think you're gonna have to send it now. Send it out. So Connor, as the leader of your organization on the marketing side, this I think has a little bit different context for you, but I'm curious for the other panelists who have to report up to someone else on the marketing team. Do you ever have issues where your priorities might not necessarily be aligned with the leadership team? And do you think something like this might help or I think, yeah, it's all right. So we have kind of a different, but for the same objective process on a quarterly basis, which is, um, taking, basically listing, all the things we could do as an organization, discussing with my team, have this set of internal research that I talked about earlier, into which of those things are high priority, low priority. We're not doing. And then how much of our team's time do we think we should be spending against these things and then what's in and out of scope. And then I take that to Dan, our head of marketing. I take it to our head of products and we have a conversation of, of what, what, how, where are we aligned and where are we not aligned? And I think that's been super productive, for, for a few reasons. One is, I think the expectation is obviously that these evolve as the business evolves, but it gives us that foundation to have future trade off discussions of, okay, well this is shifted, but where, where are we taking this time from and how do we collectively solve for this? Um, and then it, it also, um, I think again, it's kind of back to like the internal user research, but it's a, it's a little bit of a beta test of like, what is the gut reaction from, from, from those folks and from other folks? And does that, does that feel right? And if enough people that understand the business, and understand the customer, it feels right to them, then that's a good go forward to continue to test and iterate. So in the interest of time, I want to make sure that we get to this other question that we all think is very important. But Greg, you have something in the, um, in the notes that you were taking beforehand, which was basically, where did I see? Um, there was something around the reactions that I got from people and how many people like down the line, were still talking about whatever thing it was that you did. Ah, yes. Um, so, yeah, it's, it's a little bit two different things. It was a very cagey way to ask that question, James. Um, so I think you're talking about one or two things, so I'll throw them both out there. Um, I think one is asking ourselves and it comes back to this, like we have the privilege to be able to take a longterm view. Um, but is anyone going to remember that you did this six months from now? Um, and being really answering that question, I think on the margin, it's surprisingly easy to ask that question or answer that question. I think it's harder to say no to the things that that doesn't fall that are front of mind for a lot of people. Um, and then is that, was that where you were talking about? Okay. Um, yeah. And so that's where I think it comes in order to answer that question. You have to have that customer expertise because it's whether it moves a needle for our customers, you've got to have that business expertise of what are the levers that are moving the business that are going to get to the next level. You've got to continue to move the business. and then you've got to be honest with yourself. And then the saying no part comes out of creating that foundation between the framework for prioritization trade offs, um, to building relationships in the organization and where people trust that you have the expertise that went into that decision. Um, and so it kind of facilitating that foundation for, for kind of letting people down in the right way that are going to care about things they can't do. Just, just a quick comment about trade offs. I feel like most, most product marketing leaders are not great at this, right? Of, of actually having like a real trade off conversation with their partners. I had one manager when I worked at LinkedIn that was awesome at it. And when you can do that, like your product marketing team is just like doing the best things. Like they, you, they say like, no, we will not do that. And they're clear and they get in fights with other leaders of other organizations. Like that's how you know that your product marketing team is really working on the highest priority, biggest impact type stuff. But if they're not and everyone's happy with them all the time, like, I would be very worried and go back to some of the functions that these guys are doing to really force the prioritization. I think, I think you've got all your customers are happy. You're doing it wrong. Like you asked me for a quote, he asked me for a quote, like when we started this thing and I, I pulled the Steve jobs, right? Focus isn't choosing the good, right thing to do. Focus is saying no to the thousand other good ideas that aren't the right thing to do. And the challenge for product marketing is an over same challenge for product management is an overwhelming amount of no. I'm not going to do that, which means you have to have a fair amount of organizational buy-in. You have to have a fair amount of organizational capital that you've built within the company and you have to have a fair amount of, um, departmental level. Like your boss and your boss's boss has to have their spec of the organization. Apparently you guys did it linked in to be able to say, no, this is the best thing. This is the thing we all agreed upon. And I think there's a value in, in making the process relatively clear because if you do that, then you can sort of fall back on the process to say, no, well, that's a good idea. It's not the good idea. And we are working on this good idea. And when we finish this good idea, we will evaluate other good ideas. Perfect. So that actually leads us kind of to probably what will be our final question, which is what advice can you give to product marketers who are constantly being spun off in different directions? And I think this is really the crux of the whole title of the meetup, which is, you know, you will be getting feedback from every single angle from product management to sales, to the CEO, to demand gen, like whatever it is, what advice can you give to those of us who are responsible for managing all of those different kind of disparate aspects of product marketing to focus on what matters? I just have a quick example, I guess. So I told you that I just started a new P a new product marketing job. One of the first things they said was you're, you're in charge of competitive, right? We have like 200 salespeople and like one me, right? Doing competitive. So the first thing that I did, you know, after kind of talking to a lot of different people in the organization, and once the plan was put together, I outlined, uh, basically what I was going to do. And I had a whole like section on what I am not going to do. And I socialize that right with the sales leaders and the marketing leaders. And so basically when something kind of comes my way, I'm like, Hey, really sorry, we can't do that. Uh, by the way, here's what we do do, right? This is how we do support you, but this is on the, we don't do list. And of course, you know, if my CEO asked me for something, I might don't do list. I have a very diplomatic way. To be like, well, I normally don't, but let's talk about this and reprioritize. Right. But that has helped me multiple times is just documenting it. And then when people come to you, you can say, I buy in, we've all agreed to this and you don't have to worry about it as much. Yeah, I agree with that. I think that the last point around documentation is huge is, um, to be able to have those very explicit conversations. I think one of, one of the things I learned is I got good fast at conceptual prioritization. It took me longer than it probably should have, but like very tactical prioritization. Um, but the more that you can say like this comes at the expense of this on paper, it makes for, I think much more productive and kind of collaborative conversations. Um, and then the last kind of tactical thing, um, that's been super helpful for me is like Ellie, Ellie's for me, context switching is just like a total killer. I'm trying to push too many things along at once. Just doesn't work. It like drains me. It's not productive. It's, it doesn't deliver value in the way that is expected of me and our, and our team. Um, I think so. The, the solve for that is, is, you know, the prioritization that we're talking about, but then very tactically like choosing one or two things a week to really make progress on. Um, and then it becomes a question of sequencing. Um, but you're able to make show significant progress over and over again, um, in different areas that move the business along. And that's where I think you get people saying like, I want more of that, um, and, and what this team is doing. And then that helps with, you know, resourcing growth and all the things that allows to do just like a little bit more, uh, show of hands. How many people in the room think, 10% of their week is controlled by the shiny object problem. Somebody else telling them what they should be working on right now. Jesus Christ. That's a small number. You guys are, you guys are not in product marketing. I don't know what, are you asking if it's higher or lower? At least, at least 10%, at least 10%. Uh, keep your hands up. How many of you think at least 30% of your week is controlled by the shiny object problem? 50, 75. You people should get new jobs. Um, no, it's like, this is, this is actually a very interesting topic. And I think I agree completely in theory with what you guys have said. And the basic premise of what you guys have said is define what you're going to do, define what you're not going to do and make sure everyone who works for, with, and around you wildly agrees with those things. Right. And I think for a lot of folks who don't run their own teams, which I'm assuming is a decent amount of the audience, that means actually getting buy-in, from your manager as well. and so what I would say for me, for my teams is, uh, I expect most of the people that I work with and for, and who work for me are going to have different opinions on things. I don't actually care that you have different opinions. I like different opinions. I want different opinions. I pay you for different opinions. Why? How did you come to that conclusion? What was the data? What was the information? What drove that choice that led you to this belief that this was the right answer? Right. Right. Right. This is the thing I care about. And so if you can, if you can communicate with the people around you about why, and you can come to some level of consensus on how you came to that conclusion, then your conclusion is in some ways unassailable. When your conclusion is unassailable, then you get to work on the things that really matter. Um, I happen to be very close to someone who, uh, has a very hard time getting that level of agreement across her management team, her executive team. Uh, if you cannot get that level of agreement, either a, you are not documenting your process. You are not documenting your strategy. You are not explaining your logic or B, they're the wrong people. Don't be afraid to recognize that you are not surrounded by product marketing geniuses. You may very well not be. Uh, and so like, I, I'm not, I mean, I am hiring, but I'm not hiring right now, but I, I'm not making this as a hiring pitch. I'm making this as a, like, if you can define your process and your structure and you can articulate, what you want to do and you can build buy-in, then you will have an enormous amount of freedom to do amazing and incredible things. If you can't build that inside your organization, go somewhere else. Cause there's some really cool shit product marketers can do. And I'm like super pro, but it requires the right kind of company and the right kind of management team to understand that and allow you to be successful doing that. Soapbox. So kind of to wrap, wrap this up, what are some of the ways that you guys would define success in product marketing? I'll go back to, uh, one of the last things I said in the last time I was talking, that's a horrible way to start a sentence. Um, is, is this idea of like, I want more of that. Um, and it, it, it was, I think the first time I thought about this as like a metric for success, it, it felt like super self-involved. Um, but if you think about it, like aiming for that, like really forces, you to focus on a lot fewer, bigger, better things. Um, because to mention earlier, if you're like pushing a lot of small stuff along at once, like no one's going to say that about you. Um, and so I think it, it, it kind of up levels your ability to prioritize, to force yourself to where that's what you're gunning for. and then also I think is something that is measurable somehow because it's what people around your organization are saying about your team. It's how in demand your team's work is. Um, and so I think kind of at a very macro level and it's still a little bit self-involved, kind of way. Um, I think that's something that we should all strive for. Yeah. I, you know, I think how you measure success is going to depend very much so on, uh, how big your product marketing team is, right? What kind of scrutiny is, what kind of business is it, you know, fast growing, is it slow growing, et cetera. Uh, but overall, like the, the best measurement I've seen is like project based, right? Like I'm a product marketer, I'm leading this project. This is what it is. These are the metrics for the success of this project. And as the leader of that initiative, whether it was like a product launch, um, or like a market validation, um, you're going to be tied to those success metrics. And those could vary like anywhere from like, you know, how much buzz we get on social from this launch to, you know, how much money is this product making now, like 12 months later. but I think it can be, I've seen a lot of people spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to measure stuff. And, um, you know, it's tough as, as PMMs, we don't have like just that one number. So spend some time on it, but not that much. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. I'll piggyback on that. There is no one ring to rule them all, right? Like I agree with the very project base. Like we have projects that we do and we are specifically trying to see if win rate in this segment improves in a 30 day trailing window. Um, there are other projects that we do. Like we just did a, uh, personas and use cases update. And the measurement for success is adoption by the sales and marketing teams. How much are people now speaking in this vocabulary that they weren't speaking in six months ago? So, um, totally agree. Just wanted to add some example flavor. All right. Thank you guys so much. Uh, now we're going to open it up to some Q and a, uh, Derek and Alex, can I get your help passing mics out to the crowd? Uh, let's just keep one of them. Oh yeah. Sure. We'll keep one. So pass it. Uh, so raise your hand if you have any questions, uh, for the panel. All right, we're done. Thanks guys. That was awesome. Um, what I think one of the things I heard was, you know, the importance of saying no in priorities, important prioritization and totally feel that I'm wondering how much you think about the impact of what that no is and the repercussions of that. No, I don't know if anyone else has this experience, but I think in our organization, sometimes when we say no, we have sort of folks go off the reservation. And build their own decks and their own one pagers. Um, and I'm wondering how much you think about like how to kind of wrangle that and maybe like to kind of actually get the best out of what's being created in the field and make sure that it's accurate and up to date. Um, I don't know. Just wondering if you had any thoughts on that. Yeah, I, that's tough. So basically you're saying is when you say no, people create a bunch of crap and then people are like, why is this crap? And you're like, well, I didn't create it. And then it's suspicious cycle of, yeah, uh, you know, I, I, I don't know. Like, uh, my, my initial, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's, it's not that I haven't experienced this. It's like, I just don't know. Does you, you guys have a great solution? Okay. Um, yeah, no, got it. Philia. Uh, my last company, we had a field sales team, uh, field sales teams are the worst. Um, uh, they are, they like think they're Kings of their kingdom. Um, I had a, uh, I had my West coast team, uh, spend five grand on a consultant to build us a deck to, to go to Mark. We, we had a deck mind you, um, that everyone else used. Uh, but they just felt like it was shit. Um, you know, so the honest answer is like, chances are there's a failure of alignment at the executive level, right? So, um, if the VP of sales is allowing his team to do that and the VP of marketing, isn't like throwing an absolute fit, um, that I understand, like, you can't be, you can't be everything to everyone at all times. Do the thing, like choose the things, prioritize the things, have a clear structure, how to do that. And then acknowledge like people do shitty things because they, like that sales guy is doing that thing. Cause he thinks it's going to move the needle for him. Right. Uh, he may very well be right. That may be his biggest problem right now. Uh, you don't see it. You don't see his world. Like I'm not going to fault him for doing that. Five grand was a lot to spend on that. Um, I'm not, that's my problem. Nate yours. I'm not trying to put that on you. Um, but it, it's, the executive level for us, like overwhelmingly. So, uh, don't let that choice and that failure. Don't make that your failure would be my biggest comment. And also put, pose the question back to you a little bit, which is like knowing that that's going to happen. Is it a top three activity for you? And if not, then it, it's just something shitty that's going to happen. And it, otherwise there's just a never ending stream of things to do. And, and like if they all, like if all the sales guys rally around the new deck, if they all rally around the new deck, then there is something there that should be paid attention to. Like it may be crappy and you may hate the graphics and everything else, but maybe there's something that, that resonates with their customers in the field. Listening to them. I had just a couple, couple of thoughts. So one is I ignore, like if it's not that bad, I typically ignore it, right? Like we got this guy that loves to make YouTube videos about our products and I'm not joking. Yeah. And he, and it actually, they're not bad. And some of them have like 10,000 views. And so in marketing we're like, Oh, like do we take them down? Take them down or not? Right? Like the SEO is great. Um, so I would say if you, if it's not really, really bad, maybe just, it's probably not worth your time, right? The other thing that I'd say is I haven't been in my company, current company long enough to have experienced this or had like something atrocious bubble up that I feel like we need to crack down on. But if it did, what I would say is, listen, we have one source of truth. This isn't there, you know it. So this is on you. Like we've communicated to the sales team that this is where the stuff that is approved for external uses. And this, this is not, and you just trace it back to where it came from, who created it and said, Hey, this is, this is on you and have, you know, have the higher level sales and marketing leader discussion and uh, go from there. I have one tactical thing to add to that, which is, uh, I've had this problem before with field sales and uh, I think that's what we are. Um, we did a, a sales slide amnesty program where we said, send us all the slides that you use, send, send them all to us. We will unleash our design, team on them and we will send you back great versions of the shitty slides that you make. And it worked really well. Uh, and, and we ended up putting together like 150 slide best of sales deck. Yeah, we literally took every single slide that they loved and we turned it around and gave it back to them. Uh, and then like six months later we said, okay, now show us your decks. And they sent us their decks again. And then we used all of those and created like the actual pitch deck that they were then trained on. And had to use. So we sort of like did a two phase, uh, phase out. Um, and they ended up really liking it. I hate shitty slides. Uh, like with a passion. Um, most people make shitty slides. Uh, but also most people are not good connoisseurs of slides. Uh, and so like people make shitty slides and other people go, that's a great slide. That's very productive. Um, so sometimes like things that to us, look absurd and like, are we're disgusted by the whole rest of the world. It's like, Oh, it's some really strong bullets. I should buy this product. So like, don't let your own like very opinionated, healthy, good perspective color. Like don't perfect is the enemy of done. Yeah, exactly. Totally valid. So is your, is your point that if it works, it's not bad. Like perfect is going to be done. Like don't be like people make shitty, people make shitty slides and they're fine. And like, don't, it doesn't always have to be perfect. Like it's perfectly okay. You guys talked about making sure you're surrounded by the right team. What questions do you ask in interviews to make sure you're surrounded by the right team? Something a recruiter would say. Oh man, I don't worry. We're about to hire, so I don't want to give it away. Um, but what, what I think something that I really look for, what? How do you figure out? Okay. Okay. You guys hear that? Right. Or a product marketer. Repeat, repeat the question. The, the question is as a candidate, what do you ask the team to see if it's the right fit for you as a product marketer? Wait. So it's the, I'm so confused by the, as the candidate, what do we ask when we're interviewing? As a candidate, you're interviewing for a new job. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I, I just did this a few months ago. A couple of things I asked was like just their philosophy on customer feedback, their philosophy on engagement with the sales team. And from there, like that's, I know it's kind of broad, but you know, it's, I'd ask questions like how do you, how do you gather product feedback? Like how do you help the product team prioritize if that's part of your role as a product marketer? It's not always at all companies. And you know, if, if stuff they're saying is like really like you don't feel like that's the best way to do it or you, you know, you start to get concerned about some of the kind of higher level, you know, I guess theories of product marketing at that company, then I'd be worried. Right. But if you're like, oh yeah, like you're totally speaking my language, like voice of the customer, like I'm all about the voice of the customer, then you can feel a little bit better about where you're at. But that's how I would do it. Yeah. I think for me it would, it would come down to what is the role that product marketing plays in the organization. And I think we all, every, every product marketer I know has very different shades of how much they like doing certain things that sometimes fall on the plate of a product marketer. And so I think understanding what that scope is and how well that's matched to what you're really interested in is really important. I also think some of the things that we talked about here tonight are great topics as well, which is, you know, how does that team manage the study flow of things they could be doing? And do you feel confident that you as a product marketer on that team are going to get the things that are gonna be really high impact for the business? So my question is, as a single product marketer, I help a lot with the in-product prompts or the in-product marketing in addition to your sales and proactive and acquisition marketing. Oftentimes those are very different stakeholders, very different people who have different opinions and control. If you have experience in that, how did you navigate that when you have to deal with the engineering team, the product manager, and then you also have the marketing department and sales to both please to, and it's the same customer, but those are two different, very different channels. So there's only two product markers at my current company. And what I'd say is this is actually a unique opportunity for you to define what the role of product marketing is, right? Like you can look at it and say, these are all things people are asking me to do. This is what I love to do. This, these are the things I think that are strategic. And then you kind of go back and start trying to communicate what the role of product marketing is at your company. If you can and get alignment from, you know, your, whoever you report to and the other key stakeholders. But yeah, you can't, I mean, especially in a small company, you can't be, you know, you're not a copywriter. You can't spend 90% of your time writing in product copy if that's what's coming at you. And so I would just shape it. I think you got a really awesome opportunity. You can shape the role for what you want it to be. You just got to communicate it out. My question's kind of, so you guys are saying no to a lot of things. And so obviously you're going to streamline one process that you think is most effective. Yeah. But you're not going to know it's effective until you actually execute because you can't know until hindsight. So when do you pull the plug on something and maybe admit that maybe this wasn't the best strategy and how do you handle that situation? If that's ever happened to. I think for us, it's less about less about pulling the plug on things and more about making sure that we're capturing like what did we learn? Like to the extent that we were able to track metrics related to that specific initiative or that specific project. Like did we move the needle? If we didn't, then that's a great learning of what didn't work. We also try to do a lot of AB testing. So even like at the campaign level of just sending out two campaigns and see like what really drove the adoption or the acquisition that we were looking for. And so I guess it's less about kill it and more about how do we make sure we're kind of like acting and learning in short spurts that are going to allow us to evolve and get better. Yeah, I just want to follow up on that. Also, do you guys work with your clients at all or customers, whatever you're referring to them as and do some sort of beta testing if you have a close relationship to kind of see what would work most effectively with them to get their initial feedback before you do anything? Yeah, very frequently for us. It's a mix of, as I mentioned, like our businesses sort of part big salesy customers of which we usually will have a handful that love trying new technology to get them in and try it out. We also often do releases. batches to our longer tail and then iterate as we go. Let me go back to your first question. So if you design a long strategy and wait six months and hope for results, like you're setting yourself up for failure. Like I would strongly encourage you to. So my company works in and around product management. So we've adopted a lot of the agile mentality in a lot of places. And so we try to figure out like what is V1? What is V2? What is V3? What is V4 look like? And so what are the success markers for V1? Let's do that. Were we successful doing V1? Great. Let's let's open V2. Were we successful doing that? Let's open V3. So there are things we're going to do which we may not know the results until 12 months after we've completed them. And there are things like we will know right away. And so at times we're going to. We may we may not. We try to set it up to be. How do we have certain markers for success that open up the next opportunities for success? Quick kind of comment on killing projects. I think the quickest and most effectively like I put a bullet in a project is when there is like the business case just doesn't stack up. Now sometimes it takes some effort to make the business case and say this doesn't stack up anymore. But just do it and comparing it to three other things you got going on and say, guys, this is not where we should be spending our time. I think we got time for one last quick question. All right. Two more questions. Hi, guys. Thank you guys. You guys are super helpful. So you guys had mentioned earlier that there were many components to product marketing, whether that's market research, analyst relations, content creation. So if you had a limited marketing budget and I think this more addresses like in a smarter, a smaller startup, how do you prioritize those activities and what metrics of success do you guys use to ensure? And let's say your goal is lead gen and driving sales. What would be how do you prioritize all those activities? So as someone who is formerly in product marketing who now oversees all of marketing, my short answer would be content first and foremost because it has the most impact on a lot of different areas. So here comes Connor. Like good content can be used on your website, on your landing pages, by your ads, like by your sales team. It handles kind of a lot of different use cases like that. It depends on how limited your budget is. But for the most part, like ads are not going to – depending on what your product is, ads are not going to drive a lot of results for you, at least in the B2B space when you're up at like the enterprise level. So without kind of knowing the answer, I'll let Connor – We'll keep it to B2B space. I'll let Connor embarrass me real quick. That's a good, pithy answer. That's a bullshit solution. The honest answer is like none of us at this table can answer your question because that's a nuanced question that has like I need to – we need to understand like what is the best way to get the most out of your product? We need to understand like what is your challenge? Where is your stage? What are your big problems, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? And like if you want to have a conversation, find me afterwards. I'd love to have that conversation. But like if – so I was on the content bandwagon for like a while. But in enterprise, content sucks. It doesn't matter nearly as much as it does in an SMB world. So it's a good question, but it's a very nuanced question that – like best advice I can give you, find other people you think are smart product marketing. Explain your situation. Ask them specifically. Get reasonable good advice. You're not going to get it from us up here. Feel free to disagree. No, but I actually – All right, last one. Yeah, I had a – I guess I'll give it to you. You talk about product marketing being a bridge builder with many different stakeholders and saying no sometimes. You think about relationship building as – do you ever think about how to decline? In a compassionate or a way that maintains a relationship and how to do that better? Yeah, I think it goes back to I can't do this for you, but this is what I'm already doing for you and this is what I'm about to do for you. Now, I would be worried if like this is your sales leader and your answer is, well, I'm not currently doing anything. Then it's like I would reevaluate. But that's typically how I approach those conversations. And get them to agree. Be like, okay, like these three things are helping your group. I can't do all three. How would you prioritize them? And then from there discuss it. A lot of it goes back to process. So like can you design a version of the process that gives you buy-in from that group? So we all agreed these were the things that were important and we came to this conclusion based on that. And they haven't changed, so this conclusion is still our conclusion. Everyone is always going to have something they want to work on right now. But if we can get buy-in on the process, then the outputs become reasonably unassailable. I'd also add to the last thing you said, Derek, around like having the conversation of, okay, we're doing these three things. Like this is number four. How would you reprioritize? I think that for me that allows me to have a much more constructive conversation. I felt kind of early on getting very defensive of like we agreed to these three things. Like how could you not? Come on. And that's not productive. What's productive is, hey, we're both working towards this goal. We've gone through this process and like prioritized these three things. What's changed that makes this important? And that's not productive. And then how do we solve for that given the bandwidth that we have? The only thing I would add to that is the challenge for every single person who doesn't do your job, like in any job, is they don't understand why you're so slow. Like why the hell aren't you faster at that? And so a lot of our job in any job, not just product marketing or any job, is managing expectations. This is what we talked about. This is what we agreed to. Here's what we want to do. Here's how long this is going to take me. And here's what the investment we're going to make and why we're choosing to make that investment. And if we all want to cut that in half, then the output is going to be very different than you imagine. And so like a big part of that is success around the problem with sales or any other department is they just want the thing faster. The same is true as if you're in product marketing or product management or sales. So I think it's a lot about managing expectations both in process and in timeline. All right. Last question or we're good? Okay. If you have any questions, come up after and speak to the panel. Hey, my name is Alex. I just want to thank you guys for coming out here. Can we get a really big round of applause for the panelists? And James also, great moderating. So one more round of applause just for James. All right. I have one announcement, then James has an announcement. Can we get the slides back on here? Okay. Awesome. So my announcement, if you have your phone, can you take it out? It's in a purse. Then you have to take it out if it's in your pocket. All right. We have an event coming up on September 12th. It's called Building Effective Partnerships Between Product Marketing and Product Management. Who here works with product management? All right. So I expect to see all of you guys. But we have early bird pricing. So if you want to go ahead, go ahead and reserve your ticket right now. And that is Tuesday, September 12th. And it's going to be a really good event. So just wanted to tell you that. And then with that said, I'll flip it over to James. All right. Just a couple more quick things. For the most part, these are everyone who reached out to me ahead of time to let me know that they are hiring. So if any of these roles look interesting to you, I'm going to ask everyone who emailed me to please go step over to James. If you want to go step over to the little coffee station over there from these companies. And I'm just doing this so that it should be a little bit easier for you all to find each other. So if your logo is up here, please head over there. And on the other hand as well, pretty much everyone up here will be hiring sometime relatively soon, some more than others. So if you're particularly interested or have any questions, feel free to take it away with these fine gentlemen. Once again, thank you all for coming. I hope you had a great time. And let's give it up one more time for our awesome panel. And it looks like there's still lots of food. So if you didn't get any, feel free to have it. We're here until 8, guys.