WEBVTT
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Hi everybody, welcome to this episode of Said Differently, the show about B2B messaging and positioning and your go-to-market story.
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It is brought to you by Troop.
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My name is Jennifer Sakora, and I am your host.
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Today's topic, we're really going to be honing in on the marketing and sales relationship, particularly as it relates to carrying your message from marketing through the sales cycle and across the buyer journey and what that dynamic between those two go-to-market teams looks like, and especially product marketing's role, marketing leadership's role, what is their stake in making sure that that relationship is smooth as silk.
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I have with me today Marcus Andrews, who I met through my relationship with Pendo.
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But Marcus has a great background ranging everywhere from Google to HubSpot, Pendo, and now he is running marketing at Conveyor.
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So welcome, Marcus.
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Please introduce yourself more.
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Thanks for having me, Jennifer.
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Yeah, excited to be here in chat.
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Yeah, I run uh marketing at Conveyor, but my background's in product marketing.
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You know, I've I uh started out, I I think I joined a startup in San Francisco in 2011, Wildfire.
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Um and that was probably, you know, the first like when I first started working in tech.
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And um I worked on a services team there, but was always sort of like wanted to be in marketing and just really gravitated towards the side of marketing that is product marketing, being close to product marketing.
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And um yeah, that went through an acquisition there at um Google, lived in San Francisco for about five years, moved back to Boston where uh my wife was from, joined HubSpot, did five years at HubSpot on the product marketing team there, learned a lot, and then yeah, ran the product marketing team at Pendo.
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Um and then uh not a year ago, but um maybe more than six months uh ago, I joined Conveyor, which is an AI native startup to run marketing.
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So yeah, um run marketing here.
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We're a small startup um working in kind of cybersecurity and the the relationship between the security team and the sales team.
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And um uh, but yeah, my my whole background's in product marketing, and I have a lot of experience, sort of like I think you know, people know me, they probably know me from my narrative design work and like some of the storytelling framework stuff that I've done.
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But I've spent in a way that's both are hard.
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I will say that.
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I think sometimes people come on podcasts and they talk about like, you know, they make things sound so easy.
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But um it's hard to develop a good story, and it's also very hard to get, you know, to scale it to sales in a way that it has like an impact.
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Um, you know, a first meeting deck or pitch deck or a story.
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So excited to talk about it.
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I've got to do that.
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I love it.
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Yeah, yeah.
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I mean, even on your LinkedIn profile, I think you highlight the fact that you're really into the narrative side of things as well.
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Yeah, I mean, narrative is interesting because it could look and feel really good on the page and in your head, but then when you start to execute it, it's like, oh, that was awkward or that didn't work so well.
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Yes, yes.
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I think the important thing is that like a lot of, I think a lot of companies just like accept you know, their their narrative or like what the market thinks of them, you know, and you can maybe you call it brand or whatever, but the I've seen it done a lot and I've seen it done well, where like if you do spend that time on your story, you can shape it and then you can bring it to market and you can control in a way what the what the market thinks of you and what they think your story is.
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And you don't have to like accept whatever, you know, it's like, oh, everybody is like thinks of us this way, or like our place in the market is X, and like it's plenty of companies who don't even they just say that's just how it is, you know, that's what what can we do about it?
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But I've seen it happen where like the a team sits down inside of the company and writes something and says, This is how we want to be perceived, this is the story we want to tell, and then they go out there and they make it happen like as a reality in the world.
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So um manifest it.
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Yeah, yeah, definitely.
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I mean, it takes a lot of hard work, but yeah, it's you have to do that first.
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For sure.
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But you also have to pay attention to like what results is it driving, and that's gonna be really the theme of this this conversation because the people who are driving the results on that are the sales organization, and so that's where the rubber meets the road because they are the ones having the interactions on the daily.
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Um, assuming this isn't a PLG, you know, motion.
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But if we're talking about a traditional B2B marketing sales cycle, you have a sales organization that is the one, they are the ones delivering that message in all of its different flavors.
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Um, and that's okay if there's some variation, but you know, that relationship, you you don't want to sound like multiple companies.
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Um, one of the things I think that triggered our topic for this episode is I was recently at a local networking event for the product marketing alliance, and um I I met um uh an individual at the at the meetup who used to be in sales, but had decided that he did not feel that in his last company product marketing was serving the sales organization well enough and got sales, like didn't get in, understand the sales challenges, the sales mindset, particularly when it came to knowing what type of messaging works and what doesn't work and the type of support that they need.
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So he got into the PMM role.
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So you, you know, I know you are very passionate about this relationship.
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So what's your kind of first blush reaction to somebody who has that sentiment?
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Yeah, I think there's plenty of, you know, product marketing, it's not, I don't think it's a good thing, but um there's there's it's defined differently at every company in in a way, and that's just kind of how it is in some ways.
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It's like there's really rules where it's like yeah, it's not it's not great because like I think if you're if you think about it as like a craft or an industry, there is a buyer, and that buyer is the CMO.
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And like if that CMO understands product marketing and it's well defined, and they you know that's how executives think that they want to understand it clearly, they want to know if they invest in it, what they're gonna get out of it.
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And if it looks different at every everywhere you look, it's hard to hard for that to happen.
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Um, and I think some people like take like look at that as like a like, oh, but they're proud of it, but it's not a good thing.
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I don't think it's a good thing.
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Um, and I've always tried really hard to like try to, we should have some standardization, but there's it it always will exist that this is just how it is with product marketing, I think.
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Um But some people, you know, I think they take the approach to product marketing where it's very they're very close to the product team, um, and they're doing stuff that I think like a good PM should probably do, you know, and like an example, like a real example of this is like voice of the customer work or like feedback from customers.
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Like I'll I'll hear that, you know, and like you do as a PMM, you do need to be um connected to customers, you need to understand customers, but like a good product management organization should be talking to customers and be really, really dialed in.
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And like that's right.
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I don't want to it it does and if you're trying to do that too, and a PM is doing that, it's like you one, you don't need to, and like if your PM isn't doing that, they should probably do it.
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So I think there's a faction of people in product marketing who think that like it should be closer to product, and you're that's where you're adding value and it's helpful there, and like you do have to be close to product and do that.
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But I think that you know what's most powerful for a product marketing organization is if they can attach they can attach to the the outcome of revenue, like more revenue, right?
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And like how how are you gonna do that?
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And how are you going to um deliver that?
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There's lots of good stuff you deliver, but if you're also delivering all those other good stuff and revenue or a clear tie to revenue, like you're a good things are gonna happen to your product marketing organization.
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Um and you can't do that unless you're really close to sales.
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And like, you know, sales can be tough, right?
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Because like sometimes they just look at the PMM team as like, oh, I need, you know, this stuff you hear is like, oh, the I need slides or like that, you know, I need this one pager or whatever, or this doesn't matter.
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Yeah, they're like a yeah, a content producer for them, right?
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Like an order taker, yeah.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And and that's you know, that's that's not great always, but I think it's worth it to build a relationship with sales and like the if you have a sales team, sales leadership, CRO who is like, I love product marketing, we can't run without them.
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They accelerate sales, really good thing, really good for your organization, right?
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So, like that's my point of view on it is like you can have a bigger impact with the sales team.
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And when the uh sales leadership is a champion for product marketing, it's awesome.
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And you can do that without being the team that's just like the slide team.
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Um, if you're more strategic.
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So probably rambling now, but that's kind of like where that's that's where my head is at.
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Like you should embrace sales.
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Um it in I think CMOs should expect that like if I hire a product marketing leader, I hire a product team, they're gonna, or a product marketing team, they're gonna accelerate my sales motion, right?
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It's like they're gonna uh they're gonna move faster, they're gonna increase win rate, they're going to um all these, you know, uh influence the metrics that show that like my sales team can go bigger faster now.
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Yeah, no, it's a good point.
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I'll also note that like not every company has a well-defined product marketing role, or you know, especially smaller companies may not have even hired product marketing yet, which I would argue is a mistake.
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I think it's one of the most important hires, but that's for another topic.
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Um but you know, like so a common scenario is you're launch you're doing some type of a launch, right?
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Or maybe you have new, you're refreshing your messaging, or there's something new that you're rolling out that's impacting the story that you're telling to the market.
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And you now need to roll that out to sales.
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So what are like you've done that, I'm sure, a gazillion times, Marcus.
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Um what are common missteps in that?
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Like, what have you learned along the way that it's like, ooh, hmm, we should have done that differently, or like in terms of rolling out your story through the sales organization and that partnership, what works, what doesn't work so well?
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Yeah, I mean, there's so there's basic stuff you know that I see people uh frustrated with sometimes where it's like, oh, you know, you put in all this work into the story and you even, you know, work with leadership on it or whatever, yeah.
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And then you try you just say, Here it is, sales, use it, and then they don't use it.
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And like you're kind of like, what happened?
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Why aren't they doing this?
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Those salespeople, they're so they're why are you know and you get upset about it.
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The uh but that doesn't work because like salespeople are like they're um incentivized to sort of be like as they're gonna do as little as possible, which sounds really bad, but like they want to be on the phone with with with customers, right?
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Or with prospects, and they're trying to spend all their time there.
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So like good salespeople aren't gonna be like, oh, I'm gonna, oh cool, Marcus, I'm gonna take half a day out of the field and I'm gonna learn this narrative and then I'm gonna build the deck and I'm gonna put it to use.
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Like they're never gonna do that.
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And like that's a sign of good sellers, not of bad sellers necessarily.
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So um don't assume that they're just gonna use your story.
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And then um, you know, I think the other things that so you you have to you have to bring it to them in a way that's gonna work.
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And so, like, one is you know, I think there's just some simple ways to do that, right?
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Like, one is you should just match the way they sell.
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Um, so you need you need to understand that like some sellers are like really allergic to slides.
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Like they're like, I don't use slide decks, and they're like very proud of they're very proud of that.
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And I'm like, okay, cool, like, you know, there's nothing wrong with the slide, but sometimes they're like, oh, I hate slides, like death, death by PowerPoint.
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We never use slides, and like, okay, you know, you that's a good thing to be aware of.
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Like, how is that gonna change your pitch?
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I always advocate for slides, but I think that the best way to do it consistently, you should read the room and understand your sales team.
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But if it like I've seen salespeople use two or three slides to tell a story in about five minutes before you do discovery.
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And what that does is that it really influences like the conversation you're gonna have.
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If you can say, you know, you got a prospect and they're cold, and you can say, Hey, you know, before we jump in, I just want to tell you a little bit about Conveyor, I want to tell you a little bit about, you know, Pendo or whatever it is your company, and you tell a story that sort of like starts with them in their world and what they're dealing with, and then talks about like how how we see companies adapting to that.
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You shape the conversation in a way that you're like really narrowing the the field for them, and you're you're establishing yourself as an expert.
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And like that's really powerful for salespeople because I think you know the the average pitch is like you know, the kind of like tell me where it hurts, where it's like, hey, you know, excited to um talk about conveyor or whatever, like you know, why'd you take this call?
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Like, what can we help with?
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And then they just start, they're gonna tell you about whatever they want to talk about.
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But if you take a couple minutes and a few slides to sort of shape their perspective and tell your story, you're gonna have the call that you want to have, not the call that they want to have.
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Yeah.
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So that's nice.
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Yeah, and that's the power of it.
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But you have you've got to match the way your sales team sells.
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Yeah.
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And then you also have to be very good at that pitch and that story.
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Like you can't, it helps if you know how to sell, right?
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And like if you can get on a call and pitch it, or if you can be in the room and be like, if they if you lack any, like it's like um I love salespeople, but they're like sharks.
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You know, if they smell blood, like they smell fear in your pitch, they're gonna like be like that sucks.
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You know, so you have to be very confident and believe in it.
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And then the other thing that's really helpful is like if if it doesn't come from you at all, it's way better.
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So like if you can have a like we would have these monthly sales trainings at Pendo, and as much as possible, I want salespeople delivering the pitch or telling stories about how they used it, so that like the sales team at Pendo likes me, you know.
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I think I like like a lot of them knew that I was there to help them and like we had a good relationship.
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Yeah, but still, when it's coming from me, there's a little bit of like, oh, this is the coming from the marketer.
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Like Yeah, it feels a bit ivory tower or uh yeah, a little, yeah.
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And you're you're absolutely right, you don't want to do that.
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Uh as you were talking, I was thinking about some things in my background that were, you know, I think obviously one of the obvious things uh whoever's working and and owning the narrative needs to actually put it to practice.
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And so trade shows going out and pitching it and like absolutely like I'm sorry, any company that does not allocate budget to send a member of the marketing team who's responsible for narrative out to trade shows is making a big mistake.
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Um, so whether that's head of marketing or product marketing, they need to be there and they need to see how that message is landing and see if people's eyes are glazing over or if they're getting more engaged and leaning in.
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It also allows them to spend more time with people in the field in the live and discuss the feedback that they're seeing.
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So that's one point.
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The other is I don't know if you've ever done this, but I don't know, many years ago, early in my career as a product marketer, um, we would have call blitz days.
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Um and marketing would actually join sales to do call blitzes.
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And um it was very eye-opening for me, Marcus, to actually be the one giving the pitch to uh unsuspecting prospect and seeing what that is like and sitting in sales's shoes and knowing what that's like to deliver that narrative to somebody who's like maybe not the warmest recipient at the moment.
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Yeah, yeah, it's um yeah, I totally true on that last point.
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I was lucky with um my experience where I worked on at Wildfire when we moved into Google.
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I worked on a solutions team, and we would um just do a lot of solutions selling and like you know, consultative selling, and like I learned like the challenger sale and stuff like that.
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And like it's really helpful because yes, you gotta in those, you have your story, and then you you wanna sort of be able to um have a point of view and bring it to a customer.
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Um, but yeah, every once in a while you get someone who is just like not receptive, or they're like, no, that's not how it works, or like, you know, like this is yeah, but and so like you know, objection handling and sometimes challenging the buyer and being able to sort of like, you know, have that, and and then, but also, you know, doing it in a way where it's like this is a relationship we're trying to build, and we're partners.
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Um, you learn a ton from those real, real life calls that I think help strengthen a narrative.
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Cause yeah, it's hard to, you don't, if you don't get that feedback, you end up telling uh, yeah, usually a story that like sounds good on paper, but then like nobody can use.
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Yeah.
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I also liked your point about really understanding your sales team and the different styles of the way they like to deliver the story in their conversations and their interactions.
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When I used to sometimes, you know, well, I say sometimes because AI does a lot of this for us now, but I used to be, you know, audit what the sales team was using.
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I'd like once a quarter, send me the decks that you're using.
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I want to see what you're doing to see what the variability looks like.
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And and, you know, if I saw something that was sort of really, you know, a little more off the narrative than I would have expected, I would have a conversation with that salesperson and say, why, why, why did you do this?
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I like not just lecture them and scold them, but understand why they've changed it.
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There's got to be a reason.
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So when those gaps exist, Marcus, who do you think owns closing those gaps and understanding how we can bring sales and marketing together?
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Yeah, no, that's um a great example.
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I bet a lot of people deal with that.
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I have a lot of experience with that.
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I mean, true, like Troop is very cool with this too.
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And we can talk, we can how I've seen it work is that yeah, it's um when you have a sales team that's doing something, telling a story that's like really off-center.
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Yeah, you know, I think the the best response is to be like curious, right?
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Like, not like you never want to be the police as the messaging police as product marketing.
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I've seen that too, where people are like, they look at the they're they try to police the messaging that's going on out there, and like I think that's just the wrong approach, right?
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But yeah, take like curious about what's going on.
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And like troop is a nice tool to be able to say, like, okay, whoa, hey, this rep is uh hitting their quota and doing great and having good conversations, but they're off message.
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Like, what whoa, what's going on there?
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Um, and so I think you want to learn from that person, you know, especially if they're you want to learn, usually a sale, a larger sales team has a few people who are like are just better and uh you know having better conversations and a higher win rate than other people on the team.
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You want to learn from those people for sure what stories are are working.
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Yeah.
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Um, but there's also like, you know, at Pendo, we had the sales team was very comfortable, comfortable selling Pendo as like a point solution.
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It's just an easier way to talk about Pendo.
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It's like, you know, there's analytics and then there's also guides.
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But what we needed to do was sell a platform because we were just, you know, having these little single use case tiny deals.
00:19:54.160 --> 00:20:09.920
We needed to be able to come in and sell a platform with a bigger vision that increases ASP, where we talk to people up the food chain, and you're selling more of a system than like these one-off point solutions, and like just harder because a like a single solution to a single problem is pretty easy to describe.
00:20:10.240 --> 00:20:12.319
It is as a clear mapping there, right?
00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:16.880
And the sales cycle is a little cleaner and shorter, the buying committee is smaller, right?
00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:20.000
There's a natural tendency, I think, to want to go there, right?
00:20:20.240 --> 00:20:21.119
Yes, yes, yeah.
00:20:21.200 --> 00:20:22.559
And rightfully so, right?
00:20:22.799 --> 00:20:27.200
Um, path elites resistance, but it's not good for them.
00:20:27.440 --> 00:20:40.240
And so that was something where I think like even if you see that happening, you do need to uh, you know, not be the police, but you need to like build a plan with sales leadership to be like, we gotta squash this.
00:20:40.400 --> 00:20:52.400
And like I think that's a place where it's like, you know, you can use the tools that you have to be like, hey, there's a we see this faction of sellers still using these old slides and having these point solutions, and like it's it's they've got a low ASP.
00:20:52.480 --> 00:20:59.920
And it's like we don't we know that if you you know they're coming to the table with this big bigger story and trying to sell the platform, it's going to work.
00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:02.240
And like, how do we how do we attack this problem?
00:21:02.640 --> 00:21:06.000
Um yeah, and that's where the data piece of it really helps.
00:21:06.160 --> 00:21:07.680
And thank you for mentioning Troop.
00:21:07.759 --> 00:21:27.759
I mean, I don't want to make this program an advert for Troop, but you know, Troop does help bring the data and the evidence that says, you know, when these types of messaging approaches happen, these are the results, and compare that to these types, and you can slice and dice that by mid-market enterprise team, et cetera, or deal types.
00:21:28.079 --> 00:21:37.920
But when you lean into data, Marcus, as now you're in a marketing leadership role, um, not just a PMM or PMM leader.
00:21:38.319 --> 00:21:45.839
What type of data are you looking at, like evidence wise, to bring to the rest of your executive team, to the board?
00:21:46.400 --> 00:21:54.000
How has that changed for you in terms of how what are you reporting on versus what is sales reporting?
00:21:54.240 --> 00:21:59.759
We all know what sales is reporting on, but how can marketing better complement that revenue story and strengthen that?
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:01.200
revenue story.
00:22:01.519 --> 00:22:49.920
Yeah, I mean I think there's a lot of um you know just understanding the the funnel behind pipeline and being able to like uh understand the sort of the the science of it but then also the art of it you know and like there's people care about the pipeline number but there's a lot of like um there's a lot behind that right you know and it's just like how are people converting into QLs and then and like I think it's just the conversations that come behind it like what we you know at a smaller company where it's much smaller sales team right like we need to find you know we just launched a new product and like I think one thing we need to find is like it's less about at a bigger company it's more about like we know the story that's going to work and we need to get the sales team rowing in the same direction.
00:22:50.319 --> 00:23:23.920
In a smaller company it's more of like what is the story that's going to work like we have to get really good at like extracting insights there's um we talk a lot about this at Conveyor but it's like um it's a very complex problem right like the market right now is weird there's AI there's like we know there's um a lot of market validation for our new product but we need to learn really really fast who are the um where did the best conversations happen and like what is the value that these people are experiencing from it.
00:23:24.640 --> 00:23:50.480
Do they care about the differentiator that we have if not why like what are the other things they need to see from the product like is there things we can learn from the ICP so a lot of it is that which it you know is kind of like product market fit stuff but it's like where it's like all right new product and that is um it's very hard to you know I got that I don't know if you've seen the jellyfish model or whatever where it's like you know you should have all of these like 10 people if maybe there's someone listening who knows what I'm talking about.
00:23:50.559 --> 00:23:51.519
I can share the link to it.
00:23:51.680 --> 00:23:54.880
But okay there's all of these things that go into a good story.
00:23:55.039 --> 00:24:03.839
It's very hard to tell a good story or to know what story to tell if you're not pinpointed on like this is the ICP use case and the value they're gonna see from it.
00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:06.960
And here's here's how we're unique and our point of view.
00:24:07.200 --> 00:24:14.559
And so I think a lot more of it for us is like being able to like articulate that like what are we learning with this new product?
00:24:15.119 --> 00:24:20.559
Where are we going to make our bets in terms of like you know stories and campaigns and how is that going to help sales.
00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:22.880
So I think that's some stuff that I'm like working on now.
00:24:23.119 --> 00:24:24.480
Oh that's interesting.
00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:45.359
Yeah I think uh also you've seen you know what that looks like at a it's certainly a smaller company like Conveyor um that's grow in growth growth mode um but then compare that to Hubspot right they probably had like in terms of their relationship with sales what how what did they measure there?
00:24:45.680 --> 00:24:50.160
I mean at HubSpot we were more it was I mean there's more of a PLG motion.
00:24:50.319 --> 00:25:12.880
What we would do at HubSpot, you know, there's one when we would work the when I would work the closest with sales and like with a small team we we launched a new product line and um you know there was just it's mostly about like I think the best way to do it is more about like feedback loops, you know, where there was a um me uh a uh we had a small group to launch this new product line which is great.
00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:34.480
So we had a GM sort of ahead of sales ahead of product and me like head of marketing and we're launching this brand new product line service line at at um Hubspot and we spent a lot of time working on the story on the narrative that we're trying to sell um that we were trying to communicate to sales and then like to our customers who would buy this in addition to the other stuff that they had.
00:25:34.640 --> 00:25:50.000
And so much of it was just like tight tight feedback loops right like so like okay we have our story um we're gonna go out and we're gonna share this like how is this working like what like what do the executives think like what do customers think like let's improve on it and work on it and jam on it.
00:25:50.160 --> 00:26:56.240
And so we just had these really tight feedback loops where we would like pretty instantly get like all right is this messaging working are we onto something does this is this busted um and we're always working on it which was really great and I think it just um got the marketing really tight and I mean then it's like very easy to report on how things are going because you just see the the the stuff working you know it's like okay we have a story that crushes we've been working on it our email opens are higher like our meetings uh the the QL rate is higher like the win rate is higher revenue is growing and it's a lot of the same familiar marketing metrics I think but you can sort of like um see the difference and like one thing that I think that really helps product marketing too is just benchmarks right so it's like you know here's this launch a lot of the elements look the same but we know we have a story that works because we benchmark these against our average and we're just seeing like right we we clearly nailed the my the right message to the right person at the right time that's what that's awesome.
00:26:56.319 --> 00:27:11.279
That's a great example I really like that and the the con the concept of that really tight feedback loop and a high cadence level there is is really I think probably something we can I'm gonna maybe take a note and may embrace that even more.
00:27:12.079 --> 00:27:29.759
So last question wasn't really in our uh talk track plan for this episode but I'm just curious what you think like you know now thanks to AI and this has been the case for the better part of this year as everybody's gotten more comfortable with it everybody can come up with a messaging plan for the company.
00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:42.160
Everybody right yeah you know you can have anybody in sales any BDR anybody can just you know pump Claude or Gemini with some content and ask it to come up with messaging.
00:27:42.480 --> 00:28:04.160
So how do you see that relationship in terms of control of the narrative and I don't mean control in terms of like command and control but in terms of who ultimately has the say on what the narrative is when you have everybody is in the kitchen, you know, developing what that should should be.
00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:32.160
Yeah I think I mean there's some there's um that that definitely is happening and I think in some ways it's good because it it is a tool that people you know when used well people can there's a lot more that a salesperson can do um or like a marketer can do uh with uh Claude now right and it's crazy and it's awesome and it's but like people should be excited about it.
00:28:32.400 --> 00:29:13.279
But yes I think that the other side of that is that it's very scary um what they can do because um I think with um yeah I I wrote about this more from like the lens of the marketing team um but you know I think about a lot of the times like uh demand gen teams are sort of like um dependent on product marketing teams for content and messaging it's like they could say hey you know we want to run this industry campaign and there's a webinar as part of it but we don't really know what to talk about or um what we should message to this audience product marketing team can you help us out and so like product marketing team comes and helps out and that's that's good but that's what the product marketing team is there for.
00:29:13.440 --> 00:29:37.839
But if you have Claude you could just skip that step and you could say like hey Claude here's yeah you know I'm doing this webinar generate all the content for me right so and then what happens is yeah you get things get a little schizophrenic right where it's like okay this marketer and this sales team they're all just doing whatever and it's all like whoa and it looks looks good because Claude made it so it's like technically clean.
00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:38.160
Right.
00:29:38.319 --> 00:29:40.400
There's there's there's there's like it sounds good.
00:29:40.559 --> 00:29:58.400
It's yeah there's no errors in the copy it kind of makes sense but one thing I think is that people really you know they notice AI writing immediately now and it can really suck people out of um what they're doing you know like you're reading something and then you see one little thing and you're like oh okay this is really like AI.
00:29:59.440 --> 00:30:45.920
You know yeah uncanny valley whatever um so yeah I think product marketing teams need to be I think like if I were like what we've done at Conveyor and like I imagine what I hope they're doing at Pendo and like larger teams is like build Claude use it but have product marketing and you know work with ops or whoever to instill everyone's Claude with like updated clean ICP messaging product copy you can um you know uh enrich Claude with skills and knowledge that you can share with the rest of your team so that you have this like foundation and it's just like with messaging right like product marketing done well creates this foundation where you know all your marketing is better.
00:30:46.079 --> 00:30:56.160
And so like if you if you take the same approach it's and it's pretty awesome too right I've had for years and years I've I've seen messaging docs like you know go into Google Drive and just die, right?
00:30:56.240 --> 00:30:56.880
They don't go anywhere.
00:30:57.039 --> 00:30:57.279
Yes.
00:30:57.440 --> 00:31:20.079
But if it becomes a skill in Claude and Claude then knows like oh hey we're talking about this product I need to dial up this value prop and this differentiator and then the marketer gets it and they're they're they ask Claude for a landing page for this product and Claude knows that because it's in the skill and they just generate it it's at your messaging is actually getting used in a way that it never had before.
00:31:20.640 --> 00:31:43.519
So yeah I think CMOs need to be like there's a manic push to get everyone using AI and I think every CMO wants to be like my team is the most AI pilled marketing team on the planet right uh but if they if there's no product marketing foundation that they've built underneath this system um it's going to hurt them.
00:31:43.680 --> 00:31:58.880
So I think like you know the idea is like you know pause have ops and or whoever and product marketing sort of build a really good foundation and then go nuts and you'll have you'll be much more successful with um um with AI.
00:31:59.200 --> 00:32:00.240
Yeah I agree.
00:32:00.400 --> 00:32:08.799
I think there's also um you know Gartner's covering this a lot more now lately around um messaging and and experimentation and testing.
00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:27.519
So there's the generative piece which you just talked about um in in an you know extremely thoroughly um that is a great use for it but pattern identification you know using AI which is what Troop does um helps you see okay once we roll those out now what's happening.
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:30.880
So I think the combination of those two things is pretty powerful.
00:32:30.960 --> 00:32:50.079
So yeah the idea generation is there experimentation yeah maybe we do experiment with some ideas that other people are producing through their own work um but let's make sure that we're monitoring that and and seeing what and and AI is a great partner to help you get that data.
00:32:50.240 --> 00:32:52.160
So yeah two use cases.
00:32:52.400 --> 00:33:15.680
Well this has been a great conversation Marcus thank you and I think you know the sales the sales relationship I know you've paid a tremendous amount of attention to it in your career and did an excellent job with that it it uh pendo I'm sure as a leader at conveyor that's um serving you well uh I always love to hear about product marketers who become marketing leaders.
00:33:15.759 --> 00:33:17.119
So I hope we're enjoying the role.
00:33:17.440 --> 00:33:22.000
There's a lot of us now I feel like for a long time there there weren't it was more um demand gen.
00:33:22.319 --> 00:33:33.200
So but yeah I mean all of I think a lot of a lot of companies are they they want they realize the power of having um you know someone in marketing leadership who's got that background in product marketing.
00:33:33.519 --> 00:33:33.920
Awesome.
00:33:34.079 --> 00:34:41.920
Well thanks for being here and just kind of closing at it out who is conveyor for what do you got who what do you guys who are you selling to and and for what uh uses yeah so essentially it's um vertical AI for um security teams um and sales team and kind of the combination of the two it's it's uh you know there's a lot of um when companies are selling into enterprise businesses like the enterprises really have a very high lack of trust for the companies that you know they're buying from and so they scrutinize them with RFPs and customer security reviews and they're these really nasty sort of like painful manual um uh reviews usually come in the form of like questionnaires and that sort of thing but they're extremely important to get right right you can't mess up the answers on a customer security review or an RFP um and if you you if you're using sort of general purpose AI to answer those uh it's very risky and so essentially what we've built is like this really powerful engine and workflow and tool and process that helps people build a customer trust program or an RFP response program.
00:34:43.199 --> 00:34:52.719
And it automates a lot of the work there while sort of increasing the accuracy and um the win rate of RFPs.
00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:55.280
So you know we're we're very proud of what we built.
00:34:55.360 --> 00:35:11.519
We have a lot of awesome customers like um atlassian and carta and Zapier a lot of these larger uh software companies that you know are still growing really really fast like love love using us because it just accelerates things.
00:35:11.679 --> 00:35:25.599
Oh that's amazing yeah I have to imagine that really takes down some of the friction in the sales cycle and accelerates some of those final steps right you're no longer sitting at 90% you know closure for 30, 60 90 days.
00:35:25.920 --> 00:35:32.960
That's the thing it's not fun to be like oh we're gonna get this deal to close for the quarter and then stuck in CISO review.
00:35:34.639 --> 00:35:39.519
Awesome well thanks Marcus I appreciate your time and your contribution thank you
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Hi everybody, welcome to this episode of Said Differently, the show about B2B messaging and positioning and your go-to-market story.
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It is brought to you by Troop.
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My name is Jennifer Sakora, and I am your host.
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Today's topic, we're really going to be honing in on the marketing and sales relationship, particularly as it relates to carrying your message from marketing through the sales cycle and across the buyer journey and what that dynamic between those two go-to-market teams looks like, and especially product marketing's role, marketing leadership's role, what is their stake in making sure that that relationship is smooth as silk.
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I have with me today Marcus Andrews, who I met through my relationship with Pendo.
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But Marcus has a great background ranging everywhere from Google to HubSpot, Pendo, and now he is running marketing at Conveyor.
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So welcome, Marcus.
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Please introduce yourself more.
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Thanks for having me, Jennifer.
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Yeah, excited to be here in chat.
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Yeah, I run uh marketing at Conveyor, but my background's in product marketing.
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You know, I've I uh started out, I I think I joined a startup in San Francisco in 2011, Wildfire.
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Um and that was probably, you know, the first like when I first started working in tech.
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And um I worked on a services team there, but was always sort of like wanted to be in marketing and just really gravitated towards the side of marketing that is product marketing, being close to product marketing.
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And um yeah, that went through an acquisition there at um Google, lived in San Francisco for about five years, moved back to Boston where uh my wife was from, joined HubSpot, did five years at HubSpot on the product marketing team there, learned a lot, and then yeah, ran the product marketing team at Pendo.
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Um and then uh not a year ago, but um maybe more than six months uh ago, I joined Conveyor, which is an AI native startup to run marketing.
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So yeah, um run marketing here.
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We're a small startup um working in kind of cybersecurity and the the relationship between the security team and the sales team.
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And um uh, but yeah, my my whole background's in product marketing, and I have a lot of experience, sort of like I think you know, people know me, they probably know me from my narrative design work and like some of the storytelling framework stuff that I've done.
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But I've spent in a way that's both are hard.
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I will say that.
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I think sometimes people come on podcasts and they talk about like, you know, they make things sound so easy.
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But um it's hard to develop a good story, and it's also very hard to get, you know, to scale it to sales in a way that it has like an impact.
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Um, you know, a first meeting deck or pitch deck or a story.
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So excited to talk about it.
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I've got to do that.
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I love it.
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Yeah, yeah.
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I mean, even on your LinkedIn profile, I think you highlight the fact that you're really into the narrative side of things as well.
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Yeah, I mean, narrative is interesting because it could look and feel really good on the page and in your head, but then when you start to execute it, it's like, oh, that was awkward or that didn't work so well.
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Yes, yes.
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I think the important thing is that like a lot of, I think a lot of companies just like accept you know, their their narrative or like what the market thinks of them, you know, and you can maybe you call it brand or whatever, but the I've seen it done a lot and I've seen it done well, where like if you do spend that time on your story, you can shape it and then you can bring it to market and you can control in a way what the what the market thinks of you and what they think your story is.
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And you don't have to like accept whatever, you know, it's like, oh, everybody is like thinks of us this way, or like our place in the market is X, and like it's plenty of companies who don't even they just say that's just how it is, you know, that's what what can we do about it?
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But I've seen it happen where like the a team sits down inside of the company and writes something and says, This is how we want to be perceived, this is the story we want to tell, and then they go out there and they make it happen like as a reality in the world.
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So um manifest it.
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Yeah, yeah, definitely.
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I mean, it takes a lot of hard work, but yeah, it's you have to do that first.
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For sure.
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But you also have to pay attention to like what results is it driving, and that's gonna be really the theme of this this conversation because the people who are driving the results on that are the sales organization, and so that's where the rubber meets the road because they are the ones having the interactions on the daily.
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Um, assuming this isn't a PLG, you know, motion.
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But if we're talking about a traditional B2B marketing sales cycle, you have a sales organization that is the one, they are the ones delivering that message in all of its different flavors.
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Um, and that's okay if there's some variation, but you know, that relationship, you you don't want to sound like multiple companies.
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Um, one of the things I think that triggered our topic for this episode is I was recently at a local networking event for the product marketing alliance, and um I I met um uh an individual at the at the meetup who used to be in sales, but had decided that he did not feel that in his last company product marketing was serving the sales organization well enough and got sales, like didn't get in, understand the sales challenges, the sales mindset, particularly when it came to knowing what type of messaging works and what doesn't work and the type of support that they need.
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So he got into the PMM role.
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So you, you know, I know you are very passionate about this relationship.
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So what's your kind of first blush reaction to somebody who has that sentiment?
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Yeah, I think there's plenty of, you know, product marketing, it's not, I don't think it's a good thing, but um there's there's it's defined differently at every company in in a way, and that's just kind of how it is in some ways.
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It's like there's really rules where it's like yeah, it's not it's not great because like I think if you're if you think about it as like a craft or an industry, there is a buyer, and that buyer is the CMO.
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And like if that CMO understands product marketing and it's well defined, and they you know that's how executives think that they want to understand it clearly, they want to know if they invest in it, what they're gonna get out of it.
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And if it looks different at every everywhere you look, it's hard to hard for that to happen.
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Um, and I think some people like take like look at that as like a like, oh, but they're proud of it, but it's not a good thing.
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I don't think it's a good thing.
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Um, and I've always tried really hard to like try to, we should have some standardization, but there's it it always will exist that this is just how it is with product marketing, I think.
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Um But some people, you know, I think they take the approach to product marketing where it's very they're very close to the product team, um, and they're doing stuff that I think like a good PM should probably do, you know, and like an example, like a real example of this is like voice of the customer work or like feedback from customers.
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Like I'll I'll hear that, you know, and like you do as a PMM, you do need to be um connected to customers, you need to understand customers, but like a good product management organization should be talking to customers and be really, really dialed in.
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And like that's right.
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I don't want to it it does and if you're trying to do that too, and a PM is doing that, it's like you one, you don't need to, and like if your PM isn't doing that, they should probably do it.
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So I think there's a faction of people in product marketing who think that like it should be closer to product, and you're that's where you're adding value and it's helpful there, and like you do have to be close to product and do that.
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But I think that you know what's most powerful for a product marketing organization is if they can attach they can attach to the the outcome of revenue, like more revenue, right?
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And like how how are you gonna do that?
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And how are you going to um deliver that?
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There's lots of good stuff you deliver, but if you're also delivering all those other good stuff and revenue or a clear tie to revenue, like you're a good things are gonna happen to your product marketing organization.
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Um and you can't do that unless you're really close to sales.
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And like, you know, sales can be tough, right?
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Because like sometimes they just look at the PMM team as like, oh, I need, you know, this stuff you hear is like, oh, the I need slides or like that, you know, I need this one pager or whatever, or this doesn't matter.
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Yeah, they're like a yeah, a content producer for them, right?
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Like an order taker, yeah.
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Yeah, yeah.
00:08:28.319 --> 00:08:43.360
And and that's you know, that's that's not great always, but I think it's worth it to build a relationship with sales and like the if you have a sales team, sales leadership, CRO who is like, I love product marketing, we can't run without them.
00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:48.080
They accelerate sales, really good thing, really good for your organization, right?
00:08:48.159 --> 00:08:52.399
So, like that's my point of view on it is like you can have a bigger impact with the sales team.
00:08:52.559 --> 00:08:56.720
And when the uh sales leadership is a champion for product marketing, it's awesome.
00:08:56.799 --> 00:09:01.440
And you can do that without being the team that's just like the slide team.
00:09:01.519 --> 00:09:02.960
Um, if you're more strategic.
00:09:03.039 --> 00:09:06.799
So probably rambling now, but that's kind of like where that's that's where my head is at.
00:09:06.879 --> 00:09:08.960
Like you should embrace sales.
00:09:09.440 --> 00:09:20.559
Um it in I think CMOs should expect that like if I hire a product marketing leader, I hire a product team, they're gonna, or a product marketing team, they're gonna accelerate my sales motion, right?
00:09:20.639 --> 00:09:33.440
It's like they're gonna uh they're gonna move faster, they're gonna increase win rate, they're going to um all these, you know, uh influence the metrics that show that like my sales team can go bigger faster now.
00:09:33.679 --> 00:09:35.679
Yeah, no, it's a good point.
00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:47.840
I'll also note that like not every company has a well-defined product marketing role, or you know, especially smaller companies may not have even hired product marketing yet, which I would argue is a mistake.
00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:51.919
I think it's one of the most important hires, but that's for another topic.
00:09:52.159 --> 00:09:58.879
Um but you know, like so a common scenario is you're launch you're doing some type of a launch, right?
00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:06.399
Or maybe you have new, you're refreshing your messaging, or there's something new that you're rolling out that's impacting the story that you're telling to the market.
00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:08.399
And you now need to roll that out to sales.
00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:13.120
So what are like you've done that, I'm sure, a gazillion times, Marcus.
00:10:13.279 --> 00:10:16.159
Um what are common missteps in that?
00:10:16.320 --> 00:10:29.279
Like, what have you learned along the way that it's like, ooh, hmm, we should have done that differently, or like in terms of rolling out your story through the sales organization and that partnership, what works, what doesn't work so well?
00:10:29.519 --> 00:10:45.200
Yeah, I mean, there's so there's basic stuff you know that I see people uh frustrated with sometimes where it's like, oh, you know, you put in all this work into the story and you even, you know, work with leadership on it or whatever, yeah.
00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:50.799
And then you try you just say, Here it is, sales, use it, and then they don't use it.
00:10:50.879 --> 00:10:52.399
And like you're kind of like, what happened?
00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:53.360
Why aren't they doing this?
00:10:53.519 --> 00:10:57.919
Those salespeople, they're so they're why are you know and you get upset about it.
00:10:58.240 --> 00:11:12.639
The uh but that doesn't work because like salespeople are like they're um incentivized to sort of be like as they're gonna do as little as possible, which sounds really bad, but like they want to be on the phone with with with customers, right?
00:11:12.720 --> 00:11:15.919
Or with prospects, and they're trying to spend all their time there.
00:11:16.080 --> 00:11:26.720
So like good salespeople aren't gonna be like, oh, I'm gonna, oh cool, Marcus, I'm gonna take half a day out of the field and I'm gonna learn this narrative and then I'm gonna build the deck and I'm gonna put it to use.
00:11:26.879 --> 00:11:27.759
Like they're never gonna do that.
00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:31.440
And like that's a sign of good sellers, not of bad sellers necessarily.
00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:35.519
So um don't assume that they're just gonna use your story.
00:11:35.840 --> 00:11:41.200
And then um, you know, I think the other things that so you you have to you have to bring it to them in a way that's gonna work.
00:11:41.279 --> 00:11:45.440
And so, like, one is you know, I think there's just some simple ways to do that, right?
00:11:45.519 --> 00:11:47.600
Like, one is you should just match the way they sell.
00:11:47.759 --> 00:11:53.600
Um, so you need you need to understand that like some sellers are like really allergic to slides.
00:11:53.679 --> 00:11:57.440
Like they're like, I don't use slide decks, and they're like very proud of they're very proud of that.
00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:03.840
And I'm like, okay, cool, like, you know, there's nothing wrong with the slide, but sometimes they're like, oh, I hate slides, like death, death by PowerPoint.
00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:08.399
We never use slides, and like, okay, you know, you that's a good thing to be aware of.
00:12:08.480 --> 00:12:10.159
Like, how is that gonna change your pitch?
00:12:10.320 --> 00:12:18.159
I always advocate for slides, but I think that the best way to do it consistently, you should read the room and understand your sales team.
00:12:18.320 --> 00:12:27.440
But if it like I've seen salespeople use two or three slides to tell a story in about five minutes before you do discovery.
00:12:27.600 --> 00:12:31.919
And what that does is that it really influences like the conversation you're gonna have.
00:12:32.159 --> 00:12:52.799
If you can say, you know, you got a prospect and they're cold, and you can say, Hey, you know, before we jump in, I just want to tell you a little bit about Conveyor, I want to tell you a little bit about, you know, Pendo or whatever it is your company, and you tell a story that sort of like starts with them in their world and what they're dealing with, and then talks about like how how we see companies adapting to that.
00:12:53.039 --> 00:13:02.559
You shape the conversation in a way that you're like really narrowing the the field for them, and you're you're establishing yourself as an expert.
00:13:02.720 --> 00:13:15.360
And like that's really powerful for salespeople because I think you know the the average pitch is like you know, the kind of like tell me where it hurts, where it's like, hey, you know, excited to um talk about conveyor or whatever, like you know, why'd you take this call?
00:13:15.440 --> 00:13:16.399
Like, what can we help with?
00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:20.080
And then they just start, they're gonna tell you about whatever they want to talk about.
00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:28.480
But if you take a couple minutes and a few slides to sort of shape their perspective and tell your story, you're gonna have the call that you want to have, not the call that they want to have.
00:13:28.639 --> 00:13:28.799
Yeah.
00:13:29.039 --> 00:13:30.080
So that's nice.
00:13:30.559 --> 00:13:31.919
Yeah, and that's the power of it.
00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:35.039
But you have you've got to match the way your sales team sells.
00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:35.440
Yeah.
00:13:35.600 --> 00:13:39.440
And then you also have to be very good at that pitch and that story.
00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:43.039
Like you can't, it helps if you know how to sell, right?
00:13:43.120 --> 00:13:53.679
And like if you can get on a call and pitch it, or if you can be in the room and be like, if they if you lack any, like it's like um I love salespeople, but they're like sharks.
00:13:53.759 --> 00:13:58.399
You know, if they smell blood, like they smell fear in your pitch, they're gonna like be like that sucks.
00:13:58.639 --> 00:14:01.440
You know, so you have to be very confident and believe in it.
00:14:01.600 --> 00:14:07.600
And then the other thing that's really helpful is like if if it doesn't come from you at all, it's way better.
00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:24.240
So like if you can have a like we would have these monthly sales trainings at Pendo, and as much as possible, I want salespeople delivering the pitch or telling stories about how they used it, so that like the sales team at Pendo likes me, you know.
00:14:24.399 --> 00:14:28.799
I think I like like a lot of them knew that I was there to help them and like we had a good relationship.
00:14:28.960 --> 00:14:33.039
Yeah, but still, when it's coming from me, there's a little bit of like, oh, this is the coming from the marketer.
00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:37.200
Like Yeah, it feels a bit ivory tower or uh yeah, a little, yeah.
00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:40.799
And you're you're absolutely right, you don't want to do that.
00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:53.679
Uh as you were talking, I was thinking about some things in my background that were, you know, I think obviously one of the obvious things uh whoever's working and and owning the narrative needs to actually put it to practice.
00:14:53.840 --> 00:15:12.000
And so trade shows going out and pitching it and like absolutely like I'm sorry, any company that does not allocate budget to send a member of the marketing team who's responsible for narrative out to trade shows is making a big mistake.
00:15:12.159 --> 00:15:23.440
Um, so whether that's head of marketing or product marketing, they need to be there and they need to see how that message is landing and see if people's eyes are glazing over or if they're getting more engaged and leaning in.
00:15:23.679 --> 00:15:29.360
It also allows them to spend more time with people in the field in the live and discuss the feedback that they're seeing.
00:15:29.440 --> 00:15:30.320
So that's one point.
00:15:30.480 --> 00:15:40.799
The other is I don't know if you've ever done this, but I don't know, many years ago, early in my career as a product marketer, um, we would have call blitz days.
00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:45.279
Um and marketing would actually join sales to do call blitzes.
00:15:45.600 --> 00:16:09.200
And um it was very eye-opening for me, Marcus, to actually be the one giving the pitch to uh unsuspecting prospect and seeing what that is like and sitting in sales's shoes and knowing what that's like to deliver that narrative to somebody who's like maybe not the warmest recipient at the moment.
00:16:09.519 --> 00:16:13.759
Yeah, yeah, it's um yeah, I totally true on that last point.
00:16:13.919 --> 00:16:20.399
I was lucky with um my experience where I worked on at Wildfire when we moved into Google.
00:16:20.480 --> 00:16:31.679
I worked on a solutions team, and we would um just do a lot of solutions selling and like you know, consultative selling, and like I learned like the challenger sale and stuff like that.
00:16:31.759 --> 00:16:43.039
And like it's really helpful because yes, you gotta in those, you have your story, and then you you wanna sort of be able to um have a point of view and bring it to a customer.
00:16:43.200 --> 00:17:10.319
Um, but yeah, every once in a while you get someone who is just like not receptive, or they're like, no, that's not how it works, or like, you know, like this is yeah, but and so like you know, objection handling and sometimes challenging the buyer and being able to sort of like, you know, have that, and and then, but also, you know, doing it in a way where it's like this is a relationship we're trying to build, and we're partners.
00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:15.599
Um, you learn a ton from those real, real life calls that I think help strengthen a narrative.
00:17:15.680 --> 00:17:23.119
Cause yeah, it's hard to, you don't, if you don't get that feedback, you end up telling uh, yeah, usually a story that like sounds good on paper, but then like nobody can use.
00:17:23.359 --> 00:17:23.599
Yeah.
00:17:23.839 --> 00:17:33.359
I also liked your point about really understanding your sales team and the different styles of the way they like to deliver the story in their conversations and their interactions.
00:17:33.519 --> 00:17:42.799
When I used to sometimes, you know, well, I say sometimes because AI does a lot of this for us now, but I used to be, you know, audit what the sales team was using.
00:17:42.880 --> 00:17:45.759
I'd like once a quarter, send me the decks that you're using.
00:17:45.920 --> 00:17:49.119
I want to see what you're doing to see what the variability looks like.
00:17:49.279 --> 00:18:01.920
And and, you know, if I saw something that was sort of really, you know, a little more off the narrative than I would have expected, I would have a conversation with that salesperson and say, why, why, why did you do this?
00:18:02.079 --> 00:18:07.119
I like not just lecture them and scold them, but understand why they've changed it.
00:18:07.279 --> 00:18:08.480
There's got to be a reason.
00:18:08.640 --> 00:18:18.880
So when those gaps exist, Marcus, who do you think owns closing those gaps and understanding how we can bring sales and marketing together?
00:18:19.359 --> 00:18:22.319
Yeah, no, that's um a great example.
00:18:22.480 --> 00:18:23.759
I bet a lot of people deal with that.
00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:24.799
I have a lot of experience with that.
00:18:24.880 --> 00:18:26.880
I mean, true, like Troop is very cool with this too.
00:18:26.960 --> 00:18:39.839
And we can talk, we can how I've seen it work is that yeah, it's um when you have a sales team that's doing something, telling a story that's like really off-center.
00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:43.599
Yeah, you know, I think the the best response is to be like curious, right?
00:18:43.759 --> 00:18:48.319
Like, not like you never want to be the police as the messaging police as product marketing.
00:18:48.400 --> 00:18:56.960
I've seen that too, where people are like, they look at the they're they try to police the messaging that's going on out there, and like I think that's just the wrong approach, right?
00:18:57.039 --> 00:18:59.200
But yeah, take like curious about what's going on.
00:18:59.279 --> 00:19:08.720
And like troop is a nice tool to be able to say, like, okay, whoa, hey, this rep is uh hitting their quota and doing great and having good conversations, but they're off message.
00:19:08.880 --> 00:19:10.960
Like, what whoa, what's going on there?
00:19:11.200 --> 00:19:26.880
Um, and so I think you want to learn from that person, you know, especially if they're you want to learn, usually a sale, a larger sales team has a few people who are like are just better and uh you know having better conversations and a higher win rate than other people on the team.
00:19:27.119 --> 00:19:30.720
You want to learn from those people for sure what stories are are working.
00:19:30.880 --> 00:19:31.200
Yeah.
00:19:31.519 --> 00:19:40.400
Um, but there's also like, you know, at Pendo, we had the sales team was very comfortable, comfortable selling Pendo as like a point solution.
00:19:40.559 --> 00:19:43.039
It's just an easier way to talk about Pendo.
00:19:43.279 --> 00:19:46.640
It's like, you know, there's analytics and then there's also guides.
00:19:47.039 --> 00:19:54.079
But what we needed to do was sell a platform because we were just, you know, having these little single use case tiny deals.
00:19:54.160 --> 00:20:09.920
We needed to be able to come in and sell a platform with a bigger vision that increases ASP, where we talk to people up the food chain, and you're selling more of a system than like these one-off point solutions, and like just harder because a like a single solution to a single problem is pretty easy to describe.
00:20:10.240 --> 00:20:12.319
It is as a clear mapping there, right?
00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:16.880
And the sales cycle is a little cleaner and shorter, the buying committee is smaller, right?
00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:20.000
There's a natural tendency, I think, to want to go there, right?
00:20:20.240 --> 00:20:21.119
Yes, yes, yeah.
00:20:21.200 --> 00:20:22.559
And rightfully so, right?
00:20:22.799 --> 00:20:27.200
Um, path elites resistance, but it's not good for them.
00:20:27.440 --> 00:20:40.240
And so that was something where I think like even if you see that happening, you do need to uh, you know, not be the police, but you need to like build a plan with sales leadership to be like, we gotta squash this.
00:20:40.400 --> 00:20:52.400
And like I think that's a place where it's like, you know, you can use the tools that you have to be like, hey, there's a we see this faction of sellers still using these old slides and having these point solutions, and like it's it's they've got a low ASP.
00:20:52.480 --> 00:20:59.920
And it's like we don't we know that if you you know they're coming to the table with this big bigger story and trying to sell the platform, it's going to work.
00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:02.240
And like, how do we how do we attack this problem?
00:21:02.640 --> 00:21:06.000
Um yeah, and that's where the data piece of it really helps.
00:21:06.160 --> 00:21:07.680
And thank you for mentioning Troop.
00:21:07.759 --> 00:21:27.759
I mean, I don't want to make this program an advert for Troop, but you know, Troop does help bring the data and the evidence that says, you know, when these types of messaging approaches happen, these are the results, and compare that to these types, and you can slice and dice that by mid-market enterprise team, et cetera, or deal types.
00:21:28.079 --> 00:21:37.920
But when you lean into data, Marcus, as now you're in a marketing leadership role, um, not just a PMM or PMM leader.
00:21:38.319 --> 00:21:45.839
What type of data are you looking at, like evidence wise, to bring to the rest of your executive team, to the board?
00:21:46.400 --> 00:21:54.000
How has that changed for you in terms of how what are you reporting on versus what is sales reporting?
00:21:54.240 --> 00:21:59.759
We all know what sales is reporting on, but how can marketing better complement that revenue story and strengthen that?
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:01.200
revenue story.
00:22:01.519 --> 00:22:49.920
Yeah, I mean I think there's a lot of um you know just understanding the the funnel behind pipeline and being able to like uh understand the sort of the the science of it but then also the art of it you know and like there's people care about the pipeline number but there's a lot of like um there's a lot behind that right you know and it's just like how are people converting into QLs and then and like I think it's just the conversations that come behind it like what we you know at a smaller company where it's much smaller sales team right like we need to find you know we just launched a new product and like I think one thing we need to find is like it's less about at a bigger company it's more about like we know the story that's going to work and we need to get the sales team rowing in the same direction.
00:22:50.319 --> 00:23:23.920
In a smaller company it's more of like what is the story that's going to work like we have to get really good at like extracting insights there's um we talk a lot about this at Conveyor but it's like um it's a very complex problem right like the market right now is weird there's AI there's like we know there's um a lot of market validation for our new product but we need to learn really really fast who are the um where did the best conversations happen and like what is the value that these people are experiencing from it.
00:23:24.640 --> 00:23:50.480
Do they care about the differentiator that we have if not why like what are the other things they need to see from the product like is there things we can learn from the ICP so a lot of it is that which it you know is kind of like product market fit stuff but it's like where it's like all right new product and that is um it's very hard to you know I got that I don't know if you've seen the jellyfish model or whatever where it's like you know you should have all of these like 10 people if maybe there's someone listening who knows what I'm talking about.
00:23:50.559 --> 00:23:51.519
I can share the link to it.
00:23:51.680 --> 00:23:54.880
But okay there's all of these things that go into a good story.
00:23:55.039 --> 00:24:03.839
It's very hard to tell a good story or to know what story to tell if you're not pinpointed on like this is the ICP use case and the value they're gonna see from it.
00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:06.960
And here's here's how we're unique and our point of view.
00:24:07.200 --> 00:24:14.559
And so I think a lot more of it for us is like being able to like articulate that like what are we learning with this new product?
00:24:15.119 --> 00:24:20.559
Where are we going to make our bets in terms of like you know stories and campaigns and how is that going to help sales.
00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:22.880
So I think that's some stuff that I'm like working on now.
00:24:23.119 --> 00:24:24.480
Oh that's interesting.
00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:45.359
Yeah I think uh also you've seen you know what that looks like at a it's certainly a smaller company like Conveyor um that's grow in growth growth mode um but then compare that to Hubspot right they probably had like in terms of their relationship with sales what how what did they measure there?
00:24:45.680 --> 00:24:50.160
I mean at HubSpot we were more it was I mean there's more of a PLG motion.
00:24:50.319 --> 00:25:12.880
What we would do at HubSpot, you know, there's one when we would work the when I would work the closest with sales and like with a small team we we launched a new product line and um you know there was just it's mostly about like I think the best way to do it is more about like feedback loops, you know, where there was a um me uh a uh we had a small group to launch this new product line which is great.
00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:34.480
So we had a GM sort of ahead of sales ahead of product and me like head of marketing and we're launching this brand new product line service line at at um Hubspot and we spent a lot of time working on the story on the narrative that we're trying to sell um that we were trying to communicate to sales and then like to our customers who would buy this in addition to the other stuff that they had.
00:25:34.640 --> 00:25:50.000
And so much of it was just like tight tight feedback loops right like so like okay we have our story um we're gonna go out and we're gonna share this like how is this working like what like what do the executives think like what do customers think like let's improve on it and work on it and jam on it.
00:25:50.160 --> 00:26:56.240
And so we just had these really tight feedback loops where we would like pretty instantly get like all right is this messaging working are we onto something does this is this busted um and we're always working on it which was really great and I think it just um got the marketing really tight and I mean then it's like very easy to report on how things are going because you just see the the the stuff working you know it's like okay we have a story that crushes we've been working on it our email opens are higher like our meetings uh the the QL rate is higher like the win rate is higher revenue is growing and it's a lot of the same familiar marketing metrics I think but you can sort of like um see the difference and like one thing that I think that really helps product marketing too is just benchmarks right so it's like you know here's this launch a lot of the elements look the same but we know we have a story that works because we benchmark these against our average and we're just seeing like right we we clearly nailed the my the right message to the right person at the right time that's what that's awesome.
00:26:56.319 --> 00:27:11.279
That's a great example I really like that and the the con the concept of that really tight feedback loop and a high cadence level there is is really I think probably something we can I'm gonna maybe take a note and may embrace that even more.
00:27:12.079 --> 00:27:29.759
So last question wasn't really in our uh talk track plan for this episode but I'm just curious what you think like you know now thanks to AI and this has been the case for the better part of this year as everybody's gotten more comfortable with it everybody can come up with a messaging plan for the company.
00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:42.160
Everybody right yeah you know you can have anybody in sales any BDR anybody can just you know pump Claude or Gemini with some content and ask it to come up with messaging.
00:27:42.480 --> 00:28:04.160
So how do you see that relationship in terms of control of the narrative and I don't mean control in terms of like command and control but in terms of who ultimately has the say on what the narrative is when you have everybody is in the kitchen, you know, developing what that should should be.
00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:32.160
Yeah I think I mean there's some there's um that that definitely is happening and I think in some ways it's good because it it is a tool that people you know when used well people can there's a lot more that a salesperson can do um or like a marketer can do uh with uh Claude now right and it's crazy and it's awesome and it's but like people should be excited about it.
00:28:32.400 --> 00:29:13.279
But yes I think that the other side of that is that it's very scary um what they can do because um I think with um yeah I I wrote about this more from like the lens of the marketing team um but you know I think about a lot of the times like uh demand gen teams are sort of like um dependent on product marketing teams for content and messaging it's like they could say hey you know we want to run this industry campaign and there's a webinar as part of it but we don't really know what to talk about or um what we should message to this audience product marketing team can you help us out and so like product marketing team comes and helps out and that's that's good but that's what the product marketing team is there for.
00:29:13.440 --> 00:29:37.839
But if you have Claude you could just skip that step and you could say like hey Claude here's yeah you know I'm doing this webinar generate all the content for me right so and then what happens is yeah you get things get a little schizophrenic right where it's like okay this marketer and this sales team they're all just doing whatever and it's all like whoa and it looks looks good because Claude made it so it's like technically clean.
00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:38.160
Right.
00:29:38.319 --> 00:29:40.400
There's there's there's there's like it sounds good.
00:29:40.559 --> 00:29:58.400
It's yeah there's no errors in the copy it kind of makes sense but one thing I think is that people really you know they notice AI writing immediately now and it can really suck people out of um what they're doing you know like you're reading something and then you see one little thing and you're like oh okay this is really like AI.
00:29:59.440 --> 00:30:45.920
You know yeah uncanny valley whatever um so yeah I think product marketing teams need to be I think like if I were like what we've done at Conveyor and like I imagine what I hope they're doing at Pendo and like larger teams is like build Claude use it but have product marketing and you know work with ops or whoever to instill everyone's Claude with like updated clean ICP messaging product copy you can um you know uh enrich Claude with skills and knowledge that you can share with the rest of your team so that you have this like foundation and it's just like with messaging right like product marketing done well creates this foundation where you know all your marketing is better.
00:30:46.079 --> 00:30:56.160
And so like if you if you take the same approach it's and it's pretty awesome too right I've had for years and years I've I've seen messaging docs like you know go into Google Drive and just die, right?
00:30:56.240 --> 00:30:56.880
They don't go anywhere.
00:30:57.039 --> 00:30:57.279
Yes.
00:30:57.440 --> 00:31:20.079
But if it becomes a skill in Claude and Claude then knows like oh hey we're talking about this product I need to dial up this value prop and this differentiator and then the marketer gets it and they're they're they ask Claude for a landing page for this product and Claude knows that because it's in the skill and they just generate it it's at your messaging is actually getting used in a way that it never had before.
00:31:20.640 --> 00:31:43.519
So yeah I think CMOs need to be like there's a manic push to get everyone using AI and I think every CMO wants to be like my team is the most AI pilled marketing team on the planet right uh but if they if there's no product marketing foundation that they've built underneath this system um it's going to hurt them.
00:31:43.680 --> 00:31:58.880
So I think like you know the idea is like you know pause have ops and or whoever and product marketing sort of build a really good foundation and then go nuts and you'll have you'll be much more successful with um um with AI.
00:31:59.200 --> 00:32:00.240
Yeah I agree.
00:32:00.400 --> 00:32:08.799
I think there's also um you know Gartner's covering this a lot more now lately around um messaging and and experimentation and testing.
00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:27.519
So there's the generative piece which you just talked about um in in an you know extremely thoroughly um that is a great use for it but pattern identification you know using AI which is what Troop does um helps you see okay once we roll those out now what's happening.
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:30.880
So I think the combination of those two things is pretty powerful.
00:32:30.960 --> 00:32:50.079
So yeah the idea generation is there experimentation yeah maybe we do experiment with some ideas that other people are producing through their own work um but let's make sure that we're monitoring that and and seeing what and and AI is a great partner to help you get that data.
00:32:50.240 --> 00:32:52.160
So yeah two use cases.
00:32:52.400 --> 00:33:15.680
Well this has been a great conversation Marcus thank you and I think you know the sales the sales relationship I know you've paid a tremendous amount of attention to it in your career and did an excellent job with that it it uh pendo I'm sure as a leader at conveyor that's um serving you well uh I always love to hear about product marketers who become marketing leaders.
00:33:15.759 --> 00:33:17.119
So I hope we're enjoying the role.
00:33:17.440 --> 00:33:22.000
There's a lot of us now I feel like for a long time there there weren't it was more um demand gen.
00:33:22.319 --> 00:33:33.200
So but yeah I mean all of I think a lot of a lot of companies are they they want they realize the power of having um you know someone in marketing leadership who's got that background in product marketing.
00:33:33.519 --> 00:33:33.920
Awesome.
00:33:34.079 --> 00:34:41.920
Well thanks for being here and just kind of closing at it out who is conveyor for what do you got who what do you guys who are you selling to and and for what uh uses yeah so essentially it's um vertical AI for um security teams um and sales team and kind of the combination of the two it's it's uh you know there's a lot of um when companies are selling into enterprise businesses like the enterprises really have a very high lack of trust for the companies that you know they're buying from and so they scrutinize them with RFPs and customer security reviews and they're these really nasty sort of like painful manual um uh reviews usually come in the form of like questionnaires and that sort of thing but they're extremely important to get right right you can't mess up the answers on a customer security review or an RFP um and if you you if you're using sort of general purpose AI to answer those uh it's very risky and so essentially what we've built is like this really powerful engine and workflow and tool and process that helps people build a customer trust program or an RFP response program.
00:34:43.199 --> 00:34:52.719
And it automates a lot of the work there while sort of increasing the accuracy and um the win rate of RFPs.
00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:55.280
So you know we're we're very proud of what we built.
00:34:55.360 --> 00:35:11.519
We have a lot of awesome customers like um atlassian and carta and Zapier a lot of these larger uh software companies that you know are still growing really really fast like love love using us because it just accelerates things.
00:35:11.679 --> 00:35:25.599
Oh that's amazing yeah I have to imagine that really takes down some of the friction in the sales cycle and accelerates some of those final steps right you're no longer sitting at 90% you know closure for 30, 60 90 days.
00:35:25.920 --> 00:35:32.960
That's the thing it's not fun to be like oh we're gonna get this deal to close for the quarter and then stuck in CISO review.
00:35:34.639 --> 00:35:39.519
Awesome well thanks Marcus I appreciate your time and your contribution thank you
