Navigate Stakeholders Like a GoldCast PMM

25:25Anand Patel:But some of the more junior reps, I think like had a harder time. So, you know, it's tough. It's tough to like try to get that into a sales deck, the vision part, you know. Correct. Even for us, like I follow the typical advice of like, hey, pick out one or two salespeople to run this with first, just to get validation and proof points. One or two respected sales folks that have done well in their time at Goldcast. I did that. They enjoyed, they thought it resonated. But it was still hard to build an overall consensus like this is the right direction to go. Even in the deck itself, I pinpointed, I had this kind of companion deck that would show each slide.

26:08They would talk about, here's some discovery questions to ask. Here's some things. It's funny because in the conversations that we have with customers around the narrative, we had talked to a CMO who brought this up. So she sent me her companion deck that she's used in the past. And so I stole it from her. So I appreciate it. Appreciate that. Her name was Deb Wolf. So shout out to her. But yeah, that was like something I created. But to your point of that conversation, I made sure like we had like not every slide, but like all key slides. Like here's a great trigger for a conversation that can open up more learning and having back and forth.

26:38But again, it's like a big change and a big shift to make. So even if you have that conversational aspects to it, like it does take a lot of repetition for someone to really start building that into their workflow.

26:50Anand Patel:Yeah. Yeah. What a great tip. PMMs, take note. OK, so you got this massive enablement process that I'm sure took forever. You're probably still working on it, but once you feel like you have a strong handle on the enablement piece, what's the last step of your playbook? So now you have the enablement. Now it's like, obviously, your internal teams and your go-to-market teams are hopefully telling that same story, or at least some version of that story that you continue to work with them on. Now it's also about just making sure you're covering all the other channels, too, as an organization, right?

27:23So that really comes down to the marketing team for the most part. Are we telling the right story? Are we clearly articulating our position on our website, on review sites, on our own social channels? And so just making sure that we have alignment across that. even from a product marketing perspective, like I make sure as a team that we don't do 100 % perfectly, but every release that we have, is there an opportunity to tie that story into that small, even if it's a tier three, like small release, it's just a small release note that goes somewhere on the website, right? Like how do we make sure we bake in that story so we continuously have a drumbeat of what we're saying?

28:00From a content perspective, our content team took this full messaging framework document I had and like they're building that story around mindshare marketing and video content and other topics that are relevant. We have like a thought leadership program going where our CMO and our founders are joining podcasts and doing speaking sessions to continue to kind of have a drumbeat in that voice in the market. So it became more of the market voice that we had to start building out as well.

28:28Anand Patel:Yeah. So you're kind of leading into what my next question was going to be is, how did this look like from the customer's perspective? It sounds like you activated a number of channels and you talked about, you know, it sounds like media pitching and all that sort of things. Are there any like pieces of content or like, I guess, like the messaging that really stood out for you in terms of how this may have looked like for a customer and what you feel like was a really strong success with getting this new narrative in front of the customer? I wouldn't say it was a success right away. It took a little bit of effort to figure out what the right approach was with existing customers.

29:03we were at macon last year which is a large like marketing ai conference and that's actually where we had been taught talking about video a lot and a lot of people thought of video in different ways like motion graphics and that's where we added added the content word to it so video content to make it more relative you know relative to what we were specifically supporting with but it was at that event where um i came to realize like we had been championing this whole content lab and content repurposing and video repurposing things so much. And we still had customers who had no idea that that thing was available to them.

29:38Right. And so like, it's like the product marketing dilemma of like, no matter how much you shout from the rooftops, like people still will not hear. Right. So fall on deaf ears. So what ended up working well so far, and I wouldn't say it's perfect yet. Right. But what's worked well so far is one, we've tried to build a better kind of like relationship with CS so that they help champion a lot of this stuff when they're having customer conversations, right? And a big resource that has played a role in that is that we've started building out these things called playbooks. So if you go to our website, we have a whole section around playbooks where it's partially customer stories and partially our own internal stories or how we're using our own platform for different things.

30:16So like we're doing, we're doing a recording of customer interview and then we're taking that customer interview and creating a clip and using our genetic editor to make it like really engaging. And then we put that into an ad and like it's a full like three, four step kind of playbook. It's been great. And the CS team loves it. They're using that in their conversations. And so maybe it's not as a broad thing. We do put it on social and stuff like that. But even in one-on-one conversations, it's allowing the CS team to have a more effective way of talking about how you can expand your usage of our platform.

30:46Anand Patel:I love that. Yeah. And a really great way to help customers get started with, I guess, just diving deep into your new narrative and your new offerings. So I love that. That's great. Okay, so I want to summarize what I think I've heard today for what your playbook, not to confuse with the playbook you're giving your customers, the playbook we're giving to PMMs, what you did, I think, to pursue this big narrative shift. You got executive sponsorship, or maybe it's their priority that they've given you. You've got this, what it sounds like establishing a point of view on where you are now and where you want to be and how you're going to get to where you want to be.

31:26Making sure that it's an easy shift, right?

31:29Anand Patel:Not like a 180. You validated that with customers. And then you did the big enablement push with the sales team and maybe the rest of the company too. And then you had that drumbeat that where you partnered with the marketing team and you made sure that this story got out into all the channels and all the places. Does that capture everything? Let me know if I missed anything. No, that's a good summary of like the steps it takes. Obviously, there's a lot of nuances to it for every organization. But like those are generally like the process that we follow to get to this point. It's still a working progress, right?

32:03But we've definitely made a lot of movement and we've come a long way from where it was just a few years ago.

32:10Anand Patel:Yeah. Okay. So now I'm really curious. If you were to do this again from the start, how would you use AI? Or maybe you did use AI, but what part of AI would you leverage to accelerate or increase the efficiency of all the product marketing aspects of this entire initiative? Or would you not use it at all and why? Yeah, I would definitely use that. I don't remember if I used it too much when we were doing this about a year and a half, two years ago. I'd probably use it a little bit. But some areas where I could definitely see it being valuable is synthesizing a lot of the conversations, the founder conversations, trying to take all those.

32:47Again, it wasn't just one conversation. It was multiple conversations. So I could take transcripts and try to pull out the key nuggets in terms of what matters to them, what's the vision. the customer conversations I was having are the key themes or, or like, Hey, I talked to eight people about the idea of video. What were some of their concerns? What, where was some of the kind of lack of clarity and what video means to them? Like it would have been a good way to just like summarize and take all those nuggets away. And then I think after that point, I'm sure there's a way you can leverage AI to help build out like the narrative and stuff like that.

33:20I think you could definitely use it to support, but also you have to just be very careful. like it has to be authentic to the way that you want to speak as a company what's what's important to the to the to the founders and the executives themselves the other thing like i would probably i don't know how i would do this but i think it would be very important and very effective is to have like whether there's a custom gpt or whatever tool you're using a kind of like a hub where the go-to-market or internal teams can go to ask questions around this narrative and it can help kind of enable them right um yeah and so i think that would be i could still do that right it's still be very useful even now.

33:55So I think that could be a very fun way to leverage AI to help with the enablement piece across the company.

34:01Anand Patel:I'm actually seeing that a lot. Like in some of these conversations that I've had with product marketers, I'm seeing like, it's like a go-to-market engineer sort of who like builds these, or sometimes PMM can do it too, but like, we'll build these custom GPTs like for enablement or, you know, build out an agent, agent quotes I built one recently where our CS team can tap into it and it pulls all the playbooks customer quotes, case studies and so it's like hey we have this customer who wants to do a little bit more of this can you help me and it'll pull all the right content for it for the CS to use with that customer so there's so many great ways to use AI it's probably an endless way of using it so it's just for you to figure out where do you have the most gaps that you want to help I know.

34:48Anand Patel:I love that. Yeah. Likewise. Okay. So, um, before we move on to the next segment of our show, I have to ask if, uh, like if you were to give a PMM one piece of advice, who's embarking on this like big narrative shift and stakeholder management initiative, what's like, what, you know, maybe they're nervous about the pushback. Like what's one piece of advice that you would give? um i might cheat and give two two pieces of advice one is just like if if if it doesn't feel like the leadership team is kind of demanding this and pushing for it be skeptical about how much effort you're going to put into it because again i've gone through this process done a lot of effort everyone loves the output but then nothing happens with it right and so it just becomes wasted effort, which is unfortunate.

35:40But if you are doing it correctly, and if the leadership team is like really prioritizing this and pushing this, it is going to be a bumpy ride. Like I mentioned, there are uncomfortable conversations. Everyone has concerns. Change management is a very difficult thing for people to deal with. So just like have empathy, take the feedback. Like there were times where like I got feedback from CX or sales and like, you know, they were not for something and kind of stings a little bit because you put so much effort in the work and like, ah, they don't know what they're talking about. But if you like take a step back, you realize like they're coming from a place where they are talking to prospects.

36:15They're talking to customers on the day to day. Like they have a very, very important view into this. Right. And so like it allowed me to like rethink things. And it doesn't mean that I take every piece of feedback and operationalize it. Right. But there are things that can really help you do better. And sometimes you just have to put your ego aside and be like, you know what? that's a very good point. I'm going to make an adjustment here.

36:37Anand Patel:Yeah, I think that's a really smart piece of feedback because when you think about it, as much time and effort as we as product marketers spend creating the narrative, for us, we're not like speaking it every single day until the narrative changes, which could be years. And those salespeople every single day. so i um yeah i agree definitely want to bring those guys along for the ride and make them feel like their feedback is valuable okay thank you so much annette for walking us through that incredible case study um now i would like to yeah move on to the next segment of our show it is the messaging critique so this is where we as product marketing experts get to analyze real world messaging.

37:27Anand Patel:But you as the guest of my show, I get to pick the company. So before we get started, I want to share the ground rules for everyone who may be new to this. So first, you're going to tell me, obviously tell us what the company is and you know, who their target audience is and what they do and all that. You're going to tell us something that you're loving about the messaging, like what's working, what's resonating, and why. And then you're going to tell us something that you wish the PMM would have considered when they were building the messaging or bringing it to market. And then finally, we're going to do a fun brainstorm and iterate a little bit and give that PMM some ideas on what they can do with the messaging, maybe some creative content or campaign or something.

38:12Anand Patel:Cool. Yeah. So without further ado, what is the company we are critiquing today? I wanted to go, I've been, I'm in B2B, so I want to go kind of opposite of that. So I picked the B2C company, which is Remarkable, a product that I use and enjoy using. So I figured let's go with Remarkable. I love it. Okay. So for anyone following me on, we're looking at remarkable.com. So tell us, what do they do? Who are they? So they are a digital kind of notebook. The reason why I use them is when I used to take notes, I used to have like five different notebooks I'd go through every couple of months and it was getting too much to handle.

38:47And so this is a digital version of having a notebook and so it just made things a lot easier and cleaner to manage i don't know exactly who they you know the market to to me it feels like it's probably like working professionals probably more tech forward working professionals looking at their website it feels like very like techie type of people by the way the visuals are and the way that they're dressed etc but yeah i would say like working working professionals and tech forward working professionals

39:14Anand Patel:Got it. Okay. And now walk us through their messaging. What are you seeing, you know, I guess above the fold on their website that's popping out at you? Yeah. So for me, this was interesting because, again, coming in the B2B world, we always talk about, like, the high level value. But you see in B2C where they're, like, they usually kind of sometimes, like, you see with Apple, highlight the recent innovation or recent product that they launched, which it seems like this is what Remarkable is doing with their ProMove product. the messaging felt kind of weird to me like be there with like the big thing that stands out which you know if you don't really have too much context on Remarkable it may not make a lot of sense but like once you see the image and stuff you realize it's like a a more portable notebook that you can take places with you which for me as a buyer probably isn't as relevant I work from home I sit in my desk almost every day right so like this product specifically is not relevant for me but obviously that's something that's the new thing that they're pushing it does i am getting very um apple inspired vibes not necessarily from obviously apple's very like sleek they have a very distinct aesthetic not not from that perspective but exactly to your point like the um just the way that they are it looks like advertising the new product they haven't watched the event yeah um so they made an event even that like at first like i mean i work i work for goldcast which does a lot of virtual events and we cosplay so i i kind of got what they meant by that but like there was nothing around that context so there was a launch event that they announced this thing in right so that was a bit confusing to me at first that's exactly what i was gonna say i was frankly confused when i first pulled up their website i'm like okay something about notes but like it was it just kind of like I didn't really like I thought it was an app to be honest like I'm like I didn't realize until like I continued to scroll like oh it's like an actual product yeah so tell me more like what's interesting there is like I have a remarkable so my context is different coming to this oh interesting right so like um like I know what they do generally so I knew okay this is a different version a different model of a digital dope notebook but you had less context So you took it as an app, right?

41:33So it's interesting.

41:34Anand Patel:Yeah, yeah. Okay, so what are you loving about their messaging? What's working? So a couple of things that I do like, it's probably less messaging, more visuals. If you scroll down a little bit after the hero, they have really great visuals of the product, right? People have their notes written down. And so to me, this just makes it more real. This is what you do with this product, right, kind of thing. and as again maybe the context is different but as someone that uses this every day I can relate to this but there was a couple of things that stood out to me one is like social proof is like a big thing in any product marketing or product kind of whether b2c or b2b yeah like in b2c like I think it is probably more relevant to have like these publications that really champion your like your product right out in the world and they have really great quotes from it So it helps build that trust.

42:29It's less about wearing B2B. It's like these logos use us. And B2C is like these publications who know what they're talking about are saying incredible things about our solution, right? And so that felt like it was positive. But the part that really, I think, there's just one line that really stood out to me. It says, everything you love about paper in a digital notebook. Because to me, it feels like a lot of people that do end up going, like especially new customers, they take notes. They write down notes. They like writing down notes. They don't want to type it out on their computer, et cetera, right?

43:03And so, like, I remember a few years ago, I used to tell my wife, why don't you just, like, write your notes on your computer and type it up? And she's like, no, I like to write it so I can remember things, right?

43:15Anand Patel:Yes, yes. So this line of everything you love about paper in a digital notebook, it gives you that sense of people who are kind of, like, on the fence of whether they should move to something digital. like they still get all the value and all the same kind of benefits of writing it down. But now it's just digitized, right? It just makes it a little bit better. Yeah. What I, what's standing out to me, and this is just per the language that they used, it's immediately tapping into the emotion of joy. So that's what's, I think it's working really well with their messaging is that it's joyful and it's causing me to make that association with their product.

43:55Anand Patel:Like, oh, this is going to be a joyful product experience. So kudos there. What do you think the PMM could have done differently? Yeah, I mean, obviously we talked a little bit about like the hero and like it's very product centric. So does it is it relevant to everyone, the event stuff? But there was two things that stood out to me, like right after the hero, they have this I noticed this buyer's guide thing. It's like clicked on that. And it felt kind of fell short to me. like to me it felt like a really great opportunity especially if they have multiple products to really help the buyer understand like which product is the right one for them yeah and i don't think it really hit that in terms of like i was trying to get this place that you can click on things but it doesn't change anything so i felt like that kind of fell short in terms of what my expectations were for that but the other one big thing like um was two things but kind of connected they have this whole section below of like connect subscription right so they have some type of subscription that you can add on i didn't really get a clear sense of like what that means necessarily like what is that what is connect what am i getting out of it yeah and related to that the big question i have and i i'm a customer i use it i still haven't gone and figured out if this is possible but the thing i really want to see is like i write these notes it somehow digitizes them and makes them searchable right Like that would be like really powerful to me.

45:17Anand Patel:Wait, I just assumed that that would be part of it. What? Well, there probably is a way. I don't know if it's part of this whole Connect subscription. I know when I first started using this thing a few years ago, that was not possible. Like you can send the digitized version like PDFs to yourself, but it doesn't like change your writing into text where it can search across it, right? So maybe it does it now. But like that is very important. And I feel like they're missing the opportunity to like talk about that. Right. Especially because they talk so much about like organization and managing things and finding ways to like keep things in order.

45:53Anand Patel:Yeah. Like it doesn't necessarily touch on the idea of taking handwriting. Yes. And digitizing it into like, you know. Yes. In a way that's searchable. Right. Yeah. That could be a power feature that they could tap into. And whether they have that feature or not, you know, it sounds like they could either bubble it up or maybe, hey, add it to the roadmap. Okay, we might be kind of getting into this conversation already. But how would you iterate on this from a messaging, storytelling standpoint? Or like maybe what are some creative ideas that you have for the PMM? Yeah, I mean, I think obviously that one I just mentioned.

46:31And just making sure what are some of the clear, not even roadblocks, but features that people would expect from this. To your point, you said you expected to already be part of that, right? And so you would potentially purchase this thing and then realize after the fact that you can't actually do that, right? Or maybe you can, it's just not easy to figure out. So just making sure those things are more clear and upfront. I don't know. I mean, I think to me, again, I do enjoy the visuals and how they try to bring it more to life. Yeah. I think where they could really probably put a little bit more emphasis on is like this whole idea that I already said of like everything you love about paper in a digital book.

47:13Like, again, to me, that feels like probably the largest roadblock to people buying. Like they love the process and the experience of writing on paper, right? And this one sentence does a good job of like, you know, starting that conversation.

47:28Anand Patel:It does, yeah. Can they expand on that more? That's where I would probably focus. I was going to say the same thing. And I think they've done a really good job with sparking some of that joy and to double down on that. Typically, I say sell the pain. I don't know if I would do that here. I think this is an exception where I wouldn't sell the pain and I would sell the joy. and this is more like less less of feedback for product marketing maybe i'm not super qualified to give this feedback but like some of the images that they have with the customers like they're a little flat it kind of doesn't match the joy that i would expect to have they do like they would you know it would show what you can do and that's really cool but i think maybe there's something there around storytelling with the joy of everything you love about paper but like in digital.

48:23Anand Patel:So I'd love to see more of that. It would be really fun to do a campaign around that. I'm sure there's, if we could get our hands on some of their customer data, I'm sure we'd have lots of ideas on content. But even talking about your idea of like pain, right? And you're obviously maybe not leaning to the pain part, but the thing that got me to finally make the purchase is the fact that I had all these notebooks that were trying to pile up. And I am one of those weird people but I don't like to throw away those notebooks oh me too not oh my gosh ever gonna go look at them again but you assume maybe you do right and so like is there something there that you can tug on I have them from the last 15 years and it's like I can't throw them away because like what if there's something in there that like it's like a nugget of information no I think you're right but but you could do that in like it's still a joyful way not in the paints ah yeah I would love to just brainstorm with their with their marketing team on that.

49:21Anand Patel:Okay. So thank you so much for walking us through such a fun critique and shout out to any remarkable PMMs out there. We really like where you're going with the emotion and would love to see more. Okay. So, and on to one thing that I like to make time for is a moment of gratitude on this podcast because in product marketing, we never get anywhere alone. We're always building on each other and learning from each other. So first and foremost, thank you for your time today. And I know it's a lot of work to prep for this session and share your expertise. So just want to wrap up and say thank you for everything that you've done for us.

49:59Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me, Ella. I really appreciate it. It's been a fun conversation.

50:03Anand Patel:Yeah. And just a quick shout out, just put some good kudos out in the world. Turning it over to you, who are some PMMs that you've worked hand in hand with who have made an impact on your career and molded you into the awesome PMM that you are today. Yeah, so I have a couple of people I'll quickly give shout outs to. So first is like, maybe not as much PMM, but like my managers, right? So Melissa Pollay, when I joined Paysafe, she was the first time I realized like managers, managers play an important role in your career development. Like I had not really had great managers prior to that. And like, I got to see firsthand like how important a good manager is to your growth as an individual so ever since then like that's been a big factor in my decisions to when I'm looking for new jobs and then similarly when I was at TeamSnap Desiree Jewell joined our team as to lead our marketing team and she had a product marketing background but she was taking a more expansive head of marketing role at that point but the way that she just had like the ability to connect with people and really have empathy for everyone on the team, like the human side of managing.

51:11Like I really appreciate that. I try to replicate that. I'm not as good at it as she is, but like, that's something I have always appreciated. And then on the product marketing side, like I've worked with some great product marketers, but I've also worked for small organizations. So there wasn't as many of us, right? I've had to tap into other people. And so I've been fortunate enough to work with some, some folks you you know you probably heard of like julian savage jam con uh daniel cooperman um of like they've just been so willing to like have conversations and chat and like hear ideas and kind of bounce things back and forth like they're like these are well-known people they you know they have busy things going on in their lives working for you know great brands but the fact that they were so open to have conversations and not just once but like we've continued to have like a strong relationship um i'm always thankful for that because it allows you to feel like you're not alone in this thing and you're you're talking to other people and getting validation and feedback and continuing to like feel good about the work you're doing because you know other people kind of see see you know been in your place and see see what you're going through i love that about

52:12Anand Patel:product marketing it feels like for the most part everybody in our community is so willing to share feedback and mentor yeah and i couldn't i couldn't feel more similar to you in terms of having you You get that one experience of an amazing manager and same, I will not like that is my make or break decision on any career, anywhere I go work. Correct. If the manager isn't amazing, it's a it's a pass. OK, I promise this is my last question for you. Where else can we access your expertise? Is it best to find you on LinkedIn? Yeah, LinkedIn is probably the best place. I'm on Twitter slash X, but like I don't talk about marketing there as much anymore.

52:54so I'm not on there as much. So LinkedIn is definitely the best place to catch me.

52:59Anand Patel:Awesome. Well, again, thank you so much, Anon. It's been a really fun conversation. Yeah, thanks, Al. I really appreciate you having me. And thank you, PMF listeners, for coming on this adventure with us today. I hope this episode leaves you with inspiration to take in the next step of your own journey.

53:24you