Transcript
brian: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Close Mode, the enterprise sales show. I'm Brian Dietmeyer CEO of Close Strong, the home of Precision Guided Selling. And today I'm legit excited to be here with Carol Grant, who's the Senior Director of Product Marketing with Storable.
brian: And what what what I found interesting too is i is looking at your background that you were messing around with AI in 2015, before it was even a thing. And care at Microsoft, and Carol also has some chops from Zillow,
brian: for those of you who don't know, Storable is property management software, provides end-to-end solutions for storage facilities. So with that long introduction, Carol, welcome to the show.
Carol: What an intro. Thank you so much, Brian. Hi, closed mode community. It's a pleasure to be here with you.
brian: And Carol and I coordinated All Black today, where it's the hip Hipster Friday here.
Carol: That's right.
brian: So...
Carol: Sorry, we're kicking off the weekend, right?
brian: So we're we're talking about and aligning product marketing and sales. And we were chatting a couple of weeks ago, and it was very intriguing to me because I haven't had a ton of experience working in a sales organization myself or leading one where I had product marketing. So I learned a lot as we were talking.
brian: And so we were talking about how we can work more effectively yeah together. So you you said something to me. You called product marketing the ultimate enablement function. Tell yeah tell me that and was intriguing to me.
Carol: Yeah.
brian: What did you mean by that?
Carol: Yeah. So, you know, i think when when when people think of product marketing traditionally, right, of course, especially in a sales led motion, we have a huge role to play in sales enablement.
Carol: But I think about it as well as enabling our internal stakeholders, everybody that plays a role in go to market. And so obviously customer success plays a big role in that. But then also our internal marketing partners as well. You know, you think about product marketing really helped shape and define the target in the audience.
Carol: That's critical for our marketing partners to be able to do what they need to do and aid us in the execution of that go to market. yeah Our product partners, right, the ones building, and it's really our job to help bring insights to the table to help them refine what they're doing.
brian: Yeah.
Carol: and kind of give them an additional layer to consider as they're building value. And so I think about it as the ultimate able and enablement function in that aspect. But also, too, a big part of product marketing, i and I found the most successful product marketers, help drive clarity when it comes to go-to-market, especially go-to-markets in complex orgs with complex product portfolios.
brian: yeah
Carol: you're constantly having to drive back clarity and help people connect the dots to get really valuable solutions and product to market. And so I think that's the other layer of the enablement piece when I think about it being the ultimate enablement.
brian: that that's i don't remember us talking about that last week and and i'm with you that's that's that's right on and i can think of the last couple companies i've started where i'm usually about 18 months in before i feel like we have that that simple a simple way to a simple authentic way to communicate it to people so yeah i i hear you on that especially with stuff becoming more complex so i'm ah ah you did some cool stuff when you first took on the role and i want to get to that next but
Carol: and
Carol: and Yeah.
Carol: Yeah.
brian: you You also talked about, I was just talking to you sometimes maybe about friction between product marketing and sales. and
Carol: Yeah.
brian: And you said one of the problems is sometimes product marketing just comes in with the past playbook and why that's not relevant today. Can you hit on that a little bit?
Carol: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, i I do think there are core fundamentals and principles that we apply as product marketers across the board, you know, no matter what role.
brian: Yeah.
Carol: I think what you use when and what frameworks you use when is really dependent on understanding the stage of the business and what problems they're solving in the moment.
Carol: And so that's what I mean by there is no standard playbook, right, as you're switching between companies. Because every company is different.
brian: Yeah.
Carol: and So, you know, as an example, you could go to a company where they don't have an awareness issue. They don't have a problem with driving that top of funnel acquisition for a product. Right.
Carol: But then all of a sudden usage and real adoption becomes an issue. Well, is positioning going to help you there? You know, it's like whipping out, you know, standard playbooks. I'm going to come and do positioning. I'm going to do the messaging frame. We're going to do all those things.
Carol: But that's not the problem. Right. At that point, because you're clearly cutting through the consideration set in the market. Well, now the problem may be onboarding. The problem may be customer education.
brian: Yep.
Carol: And so that's what I mean by there is no standard playbook. and And another thing I will say is some of the best market product marketers I've witnessed are really good at diagnosing.
Carol: Right.
brian: Yep.
Carol: And so that to me, that's kind of the initial thing when you're coming into a new org as a product marketer, that's really the first thing you want to do. You want to do a lot of listening, especially from a customer ah perspective, but you also want to diagnose, you know, diagnose what really are the blockers right now to product adoption?
Carol: acquisition, so on and so forth. And i that starts to lean you down different paths, right?
brian: Yeah.
Carol: And then you start to figure out like, okay, out of my core set of principles or what it is I do from PredMarket what do I really need to apply here?
brian: Yeah.
Carol: Okay.
brian: It's funny because um i'm I'm hearing more. One of the things and you're you're you're not saying, but I'm i'm hearing is you know, this notion of expertise, bringing someone in with expertise. I interviewed somebody who was talking about finding really traditional, non-traditional ways to find salespeople, you know, and I feel like i'm I'm hearing this more and more that sometimes, you know, the traditional model has been, someone's got the chops doing this, bring them in, and then they try to do what they've always done.
brian: And, and so, yeah, just, I feel like there's this little baby leading indicator where people are trying to say, let's let's think about it differently.
Carol: Yeah.
brian: And you, you also, ah ah This is one of those, i mean think, like reasonably obvious, but someone was talking about the difference in sort of established brands versus emerging brands.
brian: And that's what was in my head when you were saying that, that it's it's an entirely different playbook, an entirely different approach.
Carol: totally differentive And a different set of problems. Right. And also like, where's your standing in the market? Right. Are you the market leader? Are you, you know, not the market leader and you're trying to kind of get in and cut through. And so those are going to have different problem sets you need to solve to driving product and market and driving that adoption.
Carol: And so that's what I mean by like, there really is no standard playbook. There's ah there's there is a core set of principles as product of marketers. You have to know how to do, but really what you apply when it's going to be really dependent on the org, the company, the stage they're at, and what are the set of problems they need to solve within within the market.
brian: Yeah, i might I might ask you an unfair question here. Maybe not. It's not designed to be. But I'm thinking of those two things, of it an emerging brand and an established brand, at like the highest levels. So what would you say? I know it's in my mind. Like, what's the the number one thing you got to do with emerging and the the number one thing you got to do with established?
brian: I want to see how different those are.
Carol: Okay. Well, first I will say the first answer, not so different, understand your customer.
brian: Okay. Okay. All right.
Carol: I'm doing the business and understand ah who's who in terms of your customer set and who you guys are really trying to target. Right. And so I think like that is standard across the board.
Carol: and obviously do your triaging with your internal partners to kind of understand where some of those, those issues may be, but from an emerging versus established brands, like established brands, they already have that pull.
brian: Right.
Carol: They don't really have, acquisition or an awareness problem, right? they They have that natural pull.
brian: right
Carol: They almost have that growth flywheel. So and in established brands, most established brands, they they have large product portfolios. So then your challenge becomes, how do I cut through and kind of position within the broader set of this portfolio to drive this product forward.
Carol: Right. And I think that's where you start to get product marketing teams that are evolving into like, you know, you see solution marketing start to evolve. Right. And that becomes a role or you see them break off to focus on segments.
brian: Yeah.
brian: Yeah.
Carol: So you may get enterprise, marketer you know an enterprise product marketer versus SMB marketer. Right. Because now you have this huge set in an step in an established brand. And you have to start thinking a bit more holistically about cross-sell, attach, and so on and so forth, right?
brian: Yeah.
Carol: Where an emerging brand, your product portfolio is probably a little bit simpler. And you're still trying to gain that awareness of your overall brand and market. You don't have that pull necessarily.
Carol: And so you're trying to kind of build your brand cachet at the same time by driving really that top of funnel for a It's a little bit different. you know It depends on kind of, again, how mature you in the market to your point, where your customer set is and kind of understanding and trusting trusting you, right? Because if you have to go build that trust, that's an extra layer.
Carol: And so you then you don't probably have that product adoption yet. And so it's just kind of thinking about those things in the realm of like really kind of where are you at from a market perspective and then where your customer's at from a trust perspective and what do you have to try and overcome?
brian: Well, and yeah, you you just made me think of something with this trust thing. yeah Years ago, I worked with a tech company in Silicon Valley, and and we we referred to this thing very generically as legacy practices.
brian: They had kind of been jerks in the marketplace. They always had the coolest new tech, you know, and and so they played hardball with everybody.
Carol: Yeah.
brian: And so it occurs to me, yeah, when you talk about trust, that some some of that established brand thing, we We actually, in in helping them get deals done, we had to undo some of the brand, right?
brian: Which is yeah, that's got to be difficult.
Carol: Yeah. yeah
brian: that From product marketing, I bet that's tricky.
Carol: Right. and And it's, you know, it's a bit of a dance with your brand partner, depending on if there is a brand partner, right?
brian: Yeah.
Carol: Because they really have to work with setting the broader stage of like the company brand and then
brian: Yeah.
Carol: you know I think about product marketing as helping provide the proof points to that, right? From a product value perspective. And so it really is is a core partnership. But yeah, like at the end of the day, if that trust layer is broken, it's like we all have to back up.
Carol: We all have to kind of back up and and reset. And sometimes you know that happens. And that's why I intentionally use the word trust, because that has to be in place for that pull to really be effortless.
brian: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yep. And i I remember us landing on that. And my my point to them was, we're going to, so we we have this this intention of how we want to do deals going forward.
brian: we're We're going to have her to consistently do deals that way for a while, to depending on how long we've been jacking the market around, like to build trust, it's going to take time.
Carol: Yeah.
Carol: Yeah.
brian: So
Carol: yeah
brian: Yeah, going going back to something you started on earlier, which I i ah ah really liked and I think everybody in it in a new role should do this, but you did it. Most people don't. So you're talking about how how you sort of started your work you came to Storable and how you did that discovery, much like most of us in sales do.
brian: And yeah, can you share a little bit about the you know the instruments you used, how you did it, what you learned?
Carol: Yeah, for sure. And so, you know, i think it it it goes back to what I said, where it like be diagnoser, you know, don't just assuming, you know, what your deliverables are, you know, really take time to understand, like, what are the challenges that the company is facing?
brian: Yeah.
Carol: What are the business objectives? What is the go to market motion, right? My org is a sales led go to market motion, right? And so Are there any blockers in that? Like, how are we doing today with go to market? And are we really getting the most out of helping sales go drive that adoption for the product that we want to bring to value, right? And really asking those questions. Is that a key blocker?
Carol: Because I do see for me in a sales led organization, sales is such a core channel for us, right?
brian: Yeah. Yeah.
Carol: And so that's not working um the most optimal level, then we're not we're not doing our jobs.
brian: yeah
Carol: so what I did do, you know, when I, once I joined Storable and really started to get embedded with my and internal stakeholders, sales leadership, and also our client success leadership really kind of identified enablement as an opportunity working with them.
Carol: And what I set out to do was us product marketers do best, go get the customer insights. And in this instance, sales was the customer and we did a survey.
brian: Yeah.
Carol: get deeper about you know how how do you feel most set up for success when we're bringing in new market a new product to launch? Can you tell us a time when you felt the most ready to go sell something new? What are you know what kind of format do you learn best in? right What assets do you find the most useful? And so kind of just getting kind of a total landscape of really how did they how do they learn best?
Carol: And then how do we use that as a container to start to restructure how we're thinking about our assets for product marketing and start to plug plug that in? It's also a ah partnership partnership with our sales enablement director as well.
Carol: But that is essentially the tool that we use. It's like, let's go get let's go get the data. Let's go get the insights. We're making a bunch of assumptions right now that we can collectively start to see where do we need to optimize and where do we need to start focusing from a product marketing perspective.
brian: If yeah I know you're not going to, know well, maybe you do. I doubt you have a stat on this, but I'm wondering like how that seems like you absolutely should do that when you walk in How common do you think that is with, so a new product marketer comes in because you, you mentioned the old playbook and I can already see in your facial expressions.
Carol: Yeah.
brian: Go ahead, answer that.
Carol: I don't think it's that common.
brian: Yeah.
Carol: But again, right. Like, and, and I, and I, and again, it depends on like, what problems are you trying to solve and and what are you finding in your diagnosis? I do feel like there's a bit of a, sometimes, you know, we talked about this tension, right.
Carol: Between sales and white marketing and we, and, know,
brian: yeah
Carol: we know that there's broader tension with sales and marketing overall. Right. And one of the things that I really try and land internally is like sales to me is the best, has the best level of information but of what's happening in the market.
brian: yeah
Carol: And so, you know, I, I really look at, you know, if we're enabling them in the best way possible, we can really accelerate what we're trying to do. and drive more efficiency in how we and how we go to market.
Carol: And so to answer your question, i don't suspect it's happening a lot in terms of that kind of formal way that I you know that i kind of try to gather those insights.
brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Carol: but like do But what I do believe is happening like across the board, because product marketers just can't be affected without it, right? I do think they are having those informal conversations, getting that anecdotal feedback, right? And and having those conversations to understand at a high level what is working.
Carol: I am very data driven and so I like to get insights in mass. And so that was part of my intention of of doing that. But I do think we are trying to gather it at a high level in different ways.
Carol: I don't think kind of maybe the process that I did is is probably not the norm.
brian: Yeah. No, and I think I got the sense when we were chatting last week, it was a more formal diagnostic, right?
Carol: Yeah.
brian: And I was thinking about that question in terms of, hey, you're new in the role. What's the first thing you should do? you You could be in your role and go do that right now, right?
Carol: Absolutely.
brian: Yeah.
Carol: Yeah.
brian: Yeah.
Carol: I mean, you could be, you know, month 12, right?
brian: Yeah.
Carol: go do that. and And as sales teams grow or there's, you know, turnover, things might start to look different in terms of what the needs are. Right. And so you just you asking that question now is making me think and I'm like, oh, I think I got to probably do this. I don't know, twice a year, quarterly.
Carol: is something that we're now baking into our product marketing goals.
brian: Yeah. Yep.
Carol: And so we will do almost this like benchmarking survey more often so that we can start to see as we learn and we refine, are we moving the needle with our partners and helping them feel set up for a success?
brian: yep
Carol: And so that is a goal that we're taking on in partnership with our with our enablement function.
brian: And i'll I'll make an assumption as a lifelong sales leader, sales consultant, salesperson, that like the the the market reaction, like as a salesperson, I'd want to be asked that. So I'll make an assumption that they like the process. But I have a question for you now on outcomes.
Carol: yeah
brian: what What disconnects did you learn about in the survey? Like, holy smokes, like they don't really like this or they don't really use this. And then any insights where like, wow, they want this? and Yeah, what what were the big takeaways? Yeah.
Carol: I think so. Some of the the the bigger takeaways are just on like format of delivery of assets. Right. where My team is spending so much time churning out. one pagers, battle cards, you know, all, you know, all of these standard things that you can think about.
Carol: And they're like, hey, we just want more time with, you know, solutions architects on live demos, you know, and then maybe some videos to go along with that, right? Like compete information, and not so much.
Carol: And so, so that to me was a bit of a like, oh, wow, that that's a little bit of a surprise, right? And so i you know, I think as we start to kind of peel it continue to peel those insights and and refine, we'll find more of that. And I'm intrigued to see as we start to get into that and make changes, how does that evolve? I'm i'm assuming like if I did this by the end of the year, we'd find some new interesting nuggets that that make us go like, huh, that's interesting.
brian: um'm And I'm wondering if you have any formal or informal indicators of of adoption. If they said this is what we want and you put it out there, like if you were to compare, do they use it? Or, you know, they say that the marketing stuff sits in the trunk of the car.
Carol: Yeah.
brian: Nobody does that anymore, but it used to say like, do you have any sense of that? if If you give them what they want, are they actually going to use it?
Carol: Yeah, that's a great question. We don't have a sense of that yet. And, you know, one of the things, and I think this, and I'm sure a lot of product marketers would appreciate this, like we are using, you know, content management system to deliver to sales, right, where we can track.
brian: Yeah.
Carol: And so one of the things we do have to do as a part of this, I would call like reset, is figure out how to get that to a place where consumption is easy so that we can start to track.
Carol: So in short order, we will have that. But you're absolutely right. Like those things have to go together. Right. and And, you know, as we refine, how do we know? How do we know if what they say they need is actually going to be used? And so I think that goes hand in hand. So that is something we're retooling and lining up with our efforts.
Carol: Yeah.
brian: So my my last question is one that I'm personally, if anybody's listened to more than one episode of closed mode, i'm I feel like the one thing that shifting how we all approach business more than anything else is is what one of my friends and advisors, Jim Dickey, calls the speed of change, selling at the speed of change.
brian: and and And I've sort of double clicked on that, that I think ah that's a big, broad statement, but your value proposition is changing. Your competitors value proposition is changing.
Carol: yeah
brian: Customer needs are shifting. I mean, think back to when supply chain interference and then you know geopolitical stuff changes. and And so all of these things are changing. And i had a VP of sales say to me about a year and half ago, we do the equivalent of annual planning quarterly now.
Carol: yeah
brian: and which which but but Which, by the way, freaks me out because I can go back to when I was with a Fortune 50 and we shut everything down three months before the annual plan. So I'm like, how the hell do you do that quarterly? But so, yeah, how how does that impact? Like, how how do you feel about that speed of change? Is that a thing? And then how does that change the role of product marketing?
Carol: Yeah. First of all, I love change and transformation. So its it's it's right up my alley. And how I think about that for product marketing and and also what I'm seeing product marketers do to to kind of rise up and respond to that speed of change is
brian: Yeah.
Carol: not have a fixed mindset or a fixed way or plan when they go to drive go to market.
brian: Yeah.
Carol: i you know traditionally and I've been there you know at big companies where it's like, you're launching a thing, it's six months out, you know everybody's kind of marching to this thing.
brian: yeah
Carol: Nobody says a peep about it. It's hush hush. You launch it and and you sit back. right And then that's it. You go on to the next thing and launch. you know what What I see happening is It's less about getting to that launch, perfect launch moment and and stopping.
Carol: But it's like, how do we quickly, iteratively get it out there, launch, get insights, iterate, go back? And then go past a launch motion, right?
Carol: It's really start thinking through the entire life cycle of that customer and then being able to be flexible to respond to how the market is shifting, right? And and not being so tied down or weighted in your in your plan, right?
brian: Yeah.
brian: Yeah.
Carol: And so it's building that flexibility in your plan. It's knowing that like, you know, okay, yeah, we have a we have a launch date, but, you know, maybe we're teasing some things in before that to get a little bit more signal so we can make that launch date stronger, right?
brian: Yeah.
Carol: So I think, you know, product marketers are thinking about go-to-market, I feel like almost more multidimensionally. And then in the context of a full customer lifecycle, not just I'm getting the launch and then that's it.
Carol: Good luck. Good luck, sales team. And then you're and then you're onto the next and then you're on to the next product.
brian: Right.
Carol: So that is how I think product marketing. And that's how I'm experiencing product marketing kind of rising up to meet the speed of change.
brian: Well, it's it's it's interesting to me too, because you know sales enablement is making the evolution to revenue enablement for that for that very, like, let's look at the whole sales cycle, not just getting the product out there or or getting or getting the deal.
Carol: Okay.
brian: So yeah, it's, go ahead.
Carol: Exactly. Yeah. I was going to say, I think it's more critical, you know, even for companies who are trying to drive cross-sell and sell into like multiple product portfolios, right?
Carol: Like you really have to think about how complex that is and how many touches you need. And then what does it mean to kind of go beyond launch and continue to kind of hit it, hit it, learn, iterate, bring it back and keep going and going and collecting that and collecting that data in real time.
Carol: I think you know product marketing discipline, we're really good at like gathering the insights upfront, doing the customer interviews, locking and loading on, like messaging is set, positioning is set.
Carol: But i you know I see the change as like even being more fluid with that, you know, with that process. It's like, yeah, we we kind of got what we got, but we really don't know until it's in market.
brian: Yeah.
Carol: And so we just got to know that even those things that we deem as like the foundational part of the strategy may need to shift a little bit and we might need to change course. Maybe we find a whole new ICP or segment when we get into market. It's like, okay. And so, you you know, i think it's more about that flexibility and how you approach your go to market and thinking about it in the context of the full life cycle.
brian: one one of One of the ways I've heard this expressed in in a quite frightening way is a book called The End of Competitive Advantage, which is a very sad story written by a professor from Columbia, ah Columbia, ah Rita Hunter McGrath.
brian: And she said that our challenge today is to learn to compete on not our like fixed position that we started at the beginning of the year with, but we need to learn to compete on a series of short-term transient advantages.
brian: And it's just like, that kind of exploded my brain because that is it. like we have We have this thing and this thing has got what, a 90 day, day you you talk about how tech, you earlier you were talking to me about how tech companies can punch above their weight now by by leveraging AI, that kind of thing.
Carol: that Yeah.
brian: so yeah We're rolling stuff out, but but the competitive life cycle of this stuff is a minute and a half because data is so pure, people get access to it and they copy it.
Carol: Yeah. Yeah. It's really the wild, wild west. That's like the best way I can describe it.
brian: Yeah. Yes.
Carol: Right. And it's almost like we got to figure out how do we, how do we put our cat cowboy hat on to like, rise up to the challenge and just not be so fixed in the way that we were thinking about in designing go to markets and just know like everything is fluid now.
Carol: And what drives that fluid fluidity is how quickly can you get information, learn and get the data to then reshape and go and go back.
brian: Yes.
Carol: And so
brian: Well, and that's also back to one of your earlier points about coming in with the old playbook. The entire structure has changed. I did a podcast a week or so ago with Gordon, the CEO of Strategic Account Management Association. His whole topic was disrupt or be disrupted.
Carol: Yeah, that's true.
brian: you know and And I think that's it. And it wasn't, part of his whole dialogue was you could milk it for a while in the past. You cannot anymore. You just have to blow stuff up. Like in advance, you got to blow stuff up or you're going to get blown up.
Carol: Yeah. Yeah. You just got to assume like whatever model you have is not going to, it's not to work. And so, yeah, I think you're right.
brian: Yep.
Carol: Right. And, and it's like, to me too, it's like refining that diagnosis muscle. as well right and that's part of also rising up to meet this this change rapid change
brian: yeah
brian: Yep. Well, I'm just jealous that I don't have you as a product marketer in my organization. I'm legit. like i it's It's so fun talking you. And you've been super generous you know for folks who listen to this. like We have pre-calls.
brian: you You and I ping back and forth. like we We get ready for these things. And you've been really generous with your time and your ideas. And I think of closed mode as sort of this body of knowledge for those of us who are out here doing hard jobs where we can go, hey, you know what?
brian: maybe there's a little therapy and go on listening to a peer, you know, whether it's, whether it's forecasting or product marketing or whatever. So you you've added to that body of knowledge and it's been really fun for me. I really appreciate it.
Carol: I was saying you've been so gracious to have me on and to have me speak to your community. I thank you for the time as well. And it's been It's been a real pleasure. Thank you, Brian.
brian: Happy hipster Friday.
Carol: Happy Hipster Friday.
