Build Platform Messaging Like a Blue Manta PMM
Remember when Netflix was just a DVD-by-mail rental service? Or when Apple only sold computers? What about when Google was simply a search engine? Every giant brand you know today started with a single product story, and that story was beautifully simple: here's the problem, here's how we solve it. But once you expand with more offerings, the story gets messy fast. Go too broad with your platform narrative and you sound like empty buzzwords. Go too narrow and you undersell the bigger value you've built, leaving money and market perception on the table.
Here's the brutal reality most PMMs face: you've built something genuinely valuable that solves multiple problems across different use cases, but explaining it without confusing everyone or sounding generic feels impossible. You're stuck between "we do everything" (which makes prospects tune out) and "we do this one specific thing" (which undersells your actual capabilities). It's the platform storytelling paradox, and it's where most companies either lose deals or leave massive opportunities untapped.
That's exactly why I brought in two experts who've cracked this code across dozens of companies. Jonathan Pipek is the founder of Blue Manta Consulting and the strategist B2B SaaS startups turn to when they need to get their go-to-market right. He's built PMM departments from scratch, worked across Fortune 500 giants like Samsung and T-Mobile, and mentored over 90 PMMs across 20 countries through the Product Marketing Alliance. He also serves as a go-to-market mentor at 1871, Chicago's largest startup accelerator.
Joining Jonathan is Craig Brown, founder of Troubadour, the UK's first dedicated product marketing consultancy for B2B tech. Craig's been the founding product marketer at several fast-growing VC-backed SaaS startups like Beamery and Invisible, spearheading positioning and go-to-market motions for US market entry and expansion. He co-created the UK's first PMM meetup group back in 2018 when there were only about 350 B2B tech PMMs in the entire country. Together, they're walking us through platform storytelling that actually works, revealing how to expand your narrative without losing what made your original story compelling.
The Real-World Challenge: European Legal Tech Meets US Market
Jonathan and Craig shared a transformative case study where they helped a European legal tech company transition from single product story to platform narrative whilst entering the US market. The challenge was brutal: they were already a market leader in Europe, but the US required completely rethinking how they positioned themselves. This wasn't just translation work; it was navigating a rapidly changing market landscape whilst expanding what their story could encompass without losing clarity.
Their process started with comprehensive internal research and alignment workshops, ensuring every voice within the company was heard. This wasn't feel-good team building; it was uncovering the misalignments that would sabotage any platform narrative before it launched. They followed this with extensive external market research to understand both competitors and customer needs fully, because assumptions about what makes you special rarely survive contact with actual buyers.
The Platform Messaging Framework That Actually Works
The central task was articulating the shift from single product to platform story whilst aligning with strategic goals around expansion, acquisition, or market penetration. Where most PMMs get it wrong is treating platform storytelling as purely an external exercise. Jonathan and Craig proved it's actually a crucial internal process that aligns strategic objectives with market realities before you ever talk to a customer.
Jonathan emphasized handling the potential slowdown in sales cycles or changes in financial standards that might accompany strategic shifts. Nobody wants to hear that your brilliant new platform story might temporarily hurt conversion rates, but ignoring this reality sets unrealistic expectations. Craig focused on the mechanics of creating effective messages centered on what problems the product solves and the clear benefits it offers over competitors, not the laundry list of features your engineering team is proud of.
The Playbook: Five Steps to Platform Storytelling That Sticks
First, invest in genuine internal alignment through one-on-one conversations that uncover misalignments before they become public embarrassments. This isn't about getting everyone to agree; it's about establishing a cohesive vision that survives contact with reality.
Second, conduct thorough market research by engaging with both current customers and potential buyers. Understanding unmet needs and how your platform fulfills them beats assumptions every single time. Third, build a flexible messaging framework using a jobs-to-be-done approach that relates to customer needs whilst remaining adaptable for future product developments.
Fourth, ensure leadership buy-in by presenting options that weigh pros and cons rather than pushing a single "perfect" solution. This establishes trust and consensus on strategic direction instead of forcing executives to rubber-stamp your preferred approach. Finally, empower teams with practical tools like messaging guides that facilitate easy translation of brand messaging into effective copy across various channels, because brilliant strategy that nobody can execute is just expensive paperwork.
Why This Approach Separates Winners from Wishful Thinkers
Jonathan and Craig's experience underscores something most PMMs overlook: platform messaging isn't about strategic repositioning alone. It's about crafting a story that resonates internally and externally, guiding the company toward future growth whilst maintaining what made the original story work. The companies that nail this balance unlock entirely new growth paths. The ones that don't end up with confused sales teams, skeptical customers, and a narrative that sounds impressive in boardrooms but falls flat in actual conversations.
Shifting to a platform narrative involves more than expanding your product descriptions or adding buzzwords to your homepage. It requires data-driven storytelling paired with empathetic alignment to customer needs, internal consensus that survives quarterly planning cycles, and messaging frameworks flexible enough to evolve without requiring complete overhauls every six months.
Messaging Critique
For this segment of the show, Jonathan and Craig chose to critique Metomic, a company known for its innovative approach to data privacy solutions. They walked us through how Metomic’s initial messaging struggled to convey both its technical sophistication and user-friendly advantages. Through their expert lenses, Jonathan and Craig illustrated how subtle shifts in language and strategic positioning could transform Metomic’s narrative from overly technical to clear and compelling. By aligning the message with customer pain points and emphasizing unique benefits, the critique became a masterclass in effective communication. This exercise demonstrated the real-world impact of thoughtful messaging adjustments, reinforcing the broader insights our experts shared on platform storytelling.
For PMMs navigating this transition, whether at scrappy startups or established brands, the lesson is clear: your platform story must be as compelling and cohesive as it is expansive. Nail that balance, and you've unlocked sustainable growth. Miss it, and you've just created an expensive mess that confuses everyone whilst helping no one.
LINKS:
Metomic (messaging critique): https://www.metomic.io/
Connect with Jonathan:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanpipek/
Connect with Craig:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigobrown
Connect with Elle:
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[00:00:42] Elle: [00:00:00] Do you remember when Netflix was just a DVD by mail rental service, or when Apple only sold computers? Or what about when Google was just a search engine? Every giant brand you know today started as a single product story and with one product. [00:01:00] This story is simple. Here's the problem and here's how we solve it.
But once you expand with more offerings, the story gets complicated. If you go too broad with the story, your platform sounds like empty buzzwords. If you go too narrow, you undersell the bigger value. The art of platform storytelling is finding that balance, painting a big picture vision while anchoring it in clear, differentiated value.
But don't worry, I've got two experts to walk us through an amazing case study on this topic. Jonathan Pipek and Craig Brown. So, Jonathan Pipek is the founder of Blue Manta Consulting, and he's built his reputation as the expert strategist that B2B SaaS startups turn to when they need to get their go to market.
Right. Earlier in his career, he worked with B two B2C with Fortune 500 Giants like Samsung, T-Mobile, and Xfinity launching specialty insurance products to millions of consumers. Since then, he's built PMM departments from [00:02:00] scratch at startups, worked in the mid-market and mentored over 90 pmms across 20 countries through a DP list.
He also serves as a go-to-market mentor at 1871, Chicago's largest startup accelerator. Also, joining us today is Craig Brown, the founder of Troubadour, the UK's first dedicated product marketing consultancy for B2B Tech. Craig has been the founding product marketer at several fast growing VC backed SaaS startups like Beamery Invisible, where he spearheaded positioning and go-to market motions for us market entry and expansion.
He also co-created the UK's first PMM Meetup group back in 2018 when there were only about 350 B2B Tech pmms in the entire country. Today he mentors for programs like OVH Cloud's, uh, startup program, and start out for LGBTQ plus founders, and you can even catch him on stage as an mc this year at SaaS Stock Europe Conference [00:03:00] in Dublin.
Craig and Jonathan, it's amazing to have you both on the show.
[00:03:04] Craig: Hello.
[00:03:05] Jonathan: Thanks so much for having us.
[00:03:06] Elle: Of course. Okay, so before we dive into the case study, tell our listeners a little bit more about how you two started working together in the product marketing world.
[00:03:16] Jonathan: So I think it was, uh, what, like a year, year and a half ago, Craig, at this
[00:03:20] Craig: Yeah. It, it was about, yeah, a year and a half ago. Yeah.
[00:03:23] Jonathan: Yeah. So about a year and a half ago, um, I got a new client that's based in Europe and I wanted to find a really smart PMM that's also based in Europe because I wanted them to understand kind of the nuances of each market, right?
Uh, Europe's multicultural, a lot of different countries. It's not, you know, as, as uh, kind of straightforward as one country like the us. So really wanted someone to understand the nuances. And then also was looking for someone who was just absolutely killer at positioning messaging. Uh, the first person I thought of was Craig.
I had already kind of built a relationship with him through LinkedIn. I knew he knew his stuff. He had a fantastic reputation, uh, through Troubadour, and I knew he'd be an [00:04:00] excellent partner. So I reached out. Uh, luckily he said yes. And, uh, that was, uh, the beginning of a wonderful, uh, partnership and, and friendship.
So.
[00:04:07] Craig: Yeah. And, and Jonathan has just been disappointed ever since. So, um, I really apologize, um, for that Jonathan, um,
[00:04:15] Elle: So fun. I love it when LinkedIn friends turn into beautiful partnerships. That's
[00:04:21] Craig: IRL.
[00:04:23] Elle: IRL. Yeah. Um, alright, so let's get into the heart of today's episode. For our first segment, we want to unpack a case study where you two helped a growth stage European legal tech client, um, enter the US market and with a really big shift from a single product story to a platform story that is no small feat.
It sounds simple, but it's actually super hard. So, uh, set the stage for us. What was happening at this company when you two first came into the picture? I.
[00:04:55] Craig: Yeah, so it was really interesting because, [00:05:00] um. Despite them being one of the market leaders, the market itself was shifting. and that pace of change was accelerating. So we saw new competitors coming in and it wasn't this kind of slam dunk as it would've been back in the day for, I guess, the market drivers that were there kind of eight, nine years ago for this company and, and the product that they were selling.
So a lot more competition and need to innovate and, uh, it, it just meant, if you like, that they really had to start thinking externally about their positioning, but also internally around how. The whole go-to market engine, was being organized. So, it was really around redefining their positioning, clarifying, uh, the problems that they were solving, and ul ultimately that evolution from, uh, a kind of single product focus to much more of, uh, a platform.
[00:05:55] Jonathan: For sure. Uh, the way we tackled that was a lot of internal research [00:06:00] workshops. Um, a lot of external, uh, market research, both with customers and with different market leaders. So much, so much, so much internal alignment, you know, mapping kind of a platform to products, to jobs to be done. And then the biggest thing was C-Suite buy-in.
the other part that we didn't mention was that this was all, yes, of course, because the market was changing. That was a big part of it. There were European focus, European based, but also entry to the US market was a big component of this. So it was kind of two different, uh, initiatives. Initiative.
One was, Hey, our market in Europe has changed. We need to adapt to that. We need to respond to these competitors. We need to rethink how we're gonna position and market ourselves. Right? That was kind of part one. And then part two, it's like, hey, we're entering the US market, which by the way, is completely different from Europe in this particular matter, right?
'cause it's a legal tech company. Obviously the laws, regulations, et cetera, are different country to country. so how do we enter the US market? Like what is the right position messaging there versus Europe, right? Which is more mature market in this particular case. So that was, that was kind of a big part.
And [00:07:00] then, the other part was we really empowered the product marketing team at the company, uh, with the playbook we created and, and, you know, really help them kind of accelerate, their, uh, status and their position in the org.
[00:07:12] Elle: Right. So any one of those initiatives is its own big challenge, right? You mentioned a lot, a lot, a lot of internal alignment, which is of stakeholder management is such a big role in product marketing. So shocked, but not surprised that, that, that was so much of the effort. And then you talked about entering into the US market.
So just like a new market in general, that's another big initiative, can be extremely challenging. It has its own go to market motions and a pivot from a single platform or a single product to a platform story. So there's a lot to unpack here. Um, so just imagining, putting myself, myself in a listener's shoes today, let's say that I'm a PMM who's on a similar journey.
Walk me through the playbook. What is step one? How do I get [00:08:00] started?
[00:08:00] Craig: So this is an approach
that Jonathan and I share, which is we really want to get to know the team, the company, the people if you like, um, who are the key stakeholders, influencers within the wider go go-to market organization within the company. And I always make assumptions that there is going to be some level of disagreement or misalignment, which is something that we have to uncover.
usually true to a certain extent, but that was really our starting point. So, We had a lot of internal interviews and we were very deliberate in having one-on-one interviews. We wanted at this point to avoid any group think or potential influence from senior person saying one thing, and the slightly kind of mid senior level person nodding, nodding along and, and agreeing.
We wanted to get the perspectives from, sales, marketing, customer success, uh, products, uh, senior and more kind of on [00:09:00] the ground as well. So, It was really important to have those perspectives. But then there was also your, your classic internal research and the, I want you to send us absolutely everything that you have data dump.
So, um, one thing that we did was prepare a sort of menu of all the possible things that we could find, interesting, whether that be examples of recorded prospect calls and qualification calls, uh, certain reports from your CRM. Send us examples of collateral that you've put together, pitch decks, presentations, uh, any kind of wider company strategic presentations as well.
Because we want the context around are you growing, you moving into a new market? What is that north star right now for you as a wider organization? and also any actual product marketing frameworks. Templates. We want to get an understanding of how you are approaching product marketing within, your organization.
So, high level, it was very much. I wanna get one-on-one [00:10:00] conversations. I wanna dig into things that I think sound interesting, but then please just like, send us all the content, send us all the data. Jonathan, I dunno if there's anything else that like, you can kind of remember, but it was just, we just want a tidal wave of information.
[00:10:14] Jonathan: Yeah, I mean, product roadmap, you know, any kind of documentation on the products themselves. So like demos, key features, benefits, positioning, messaging, pricing, uh, who they consider their competitors, um, competitor evals, uh, battle cards, et cetera. Literally everything you could possibly think of.
We just wanted a massive data dump, and just between that data dump and the interviews, we already started seeing misalignment, like probably like day three.
[00:10:40] Craig: that was such an interesting point because that was something I was just reflecting on as, as Jonathan was talking as well, as much as we're looking for. The data. We're also looking for the gaps in the data, but even how you are approaching a product roadmap, for example, um, I've worked with startups where their product roadmap goes two weeks out [00:11:00] and you go, okay.
That in itself is a signal of like a massive issue in this organization before we've even jumped on the first call. So we are looking for their approaches to product strategy, product marketing, et cetera. As much as we're actually looking for the data itself
[00:11:16] Elle: Yeah, I'm imagining, I don't know if you guys remember this super old movie, Erin Brockovich, when she's like going through all of the data and there's like boxes and boxes and boxes. I'm like, that's you guys doing this investigation?
[00:11:30] Jonathan: Right.
And, and just like Aaron, when we find something that's missing where you're like, huh, there's pro, there's piece A and PC, but not piece B. Like that tells you things. Yeah.
[00:11:39] Craig: yeah.
[00:11:40] Elle: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, I have some questions about this.
So you mentioned the misalignments, and I think that it can happen so often in the go-to-market strategy, in the, you know, as you're thinking about positioning. Um, so when you guys started to do this investigation, how did you actually spot the [00:12:00] misalignment? Like, were there any symptoms and if there were, talk through those a little bit.
[00:12:04] Jonathan: Yeah, so I think the key part here was what Craig mentioned earlier, right? Having independent conversations. So there's gonna be a very strong bias towards, oh, well let's just combine these folks. They think the same way anyway. Maybe it's like the CMO and CRO, or maybe it's like, like Craig mentioned, like the VP of product and the CPO, so on and so forth.
You have to resist that urge in that pressure because there absolutely are differences, number one. Number two, we, we asked the same questions like of course there were nuances based on the person's role or the person's department, but we asked very, very similar questions. And what we very quickly found out was if we asked for example, you know, Cynthia, hey, who's your ICP?
And we asked Bob, who's your ICP? We got two different answers, which from a product marketing perspective is kind of a very scary thing, right? Like ICP is pretty major. that was kind of part one. Part two was like, oh, okay, well we have these different ICPs, how are we gonna go after them? And again, we got very different answers, right?
PLG, kind of this like low touch motion. [00:13:00] Versus SLG. Okay. That, that's like very different. ICP very different go-to market motion. Then kind of aligning with that, it's like, okay, well if you're an SLG product, you're probably positioning yourself and you're probably putting yourself in a category that's very, very different than PLG.
So again, we had misalignment there. Um, it, it was basically different teams saying different things, even within the teams having inconsistencies. you know, like Craig mentioned, we listened to sales pitches. Those were different depending on country, depending on sales rep, depending on product. Um, and just internal confusion.
Like there wasn't a ton of alignment or where everyone was like, yes, this is the way we're rowing. We're all going in the same direction. It was like literally like a, a, you know, a a a classic nineties movie where everyone rose in the wrong direction and everyone ends up in the river. Right. it was, it was a lot.
[00:13:47] Elle: Yeah. And then I guess once you've spotted those misalignments, and it sounds like it was really key by the way, to, have those one-on-one conversations. And I can totally see the temptation [00:14:00] to, especially from like a timing perspective, like you're trying to just work a little bit faster and more efficiently and you think, oh, I'll just do this whole team together, or this group of people together.
But that's where you can. Overlook the misalignment. So I think that's a really big takeaway for me that I'm hearing from you as a, as guidance. So once you spot and diagnose that misalignment and you've done this big investigation and you've found the gaps and you know, kind of everything's out in front of you, what's next?
Like what's, what do you do with all that information? What's the next step?
[00:14:31] Craig: one thing which I think is really interesting when, when we're diagnosing the, the misalignment is to get real cultural insights as well into how the organization is run. And you start to see how they operate, what they consider to be really important. And so, for example, working with companies that want perfect positioning and messaging before they launch, that's in, in itself an insight.
And so it makes us realize, okay, we have [00:15:00] some work to do to make the point that actually that we have to go to market much quicker in a small way with something that's a little bit more rough and ready because actually we need to acquire data that is lacking here. So that in itself gives us an insight.
And so then when we get to the next steps, which is okay, we've had the one-on-one conversations, what now happens when we start to bring people together? And so that's when the workshopping really comes into its own, but we. We need to be conscious that there are some voices that may feel more confident or louder when you're in that group situation.
So you allow for that, but you, you need to be conscious of that. And how can we, as the external. Consultants, advisors step in to ensure that actually we're also giving space to the others, to, to more junior folk or to those who are just more insular and more introverted as people, right? Like we, we need to be making space for all of that.
So we play mediator and ensure that we're, [00:16:00] we're exploring, um, all different perspectives. So, you know, for example, we spoke to some folk that would say, well, you know, we think the big opportunities in the mid market, whereas others would say, um, we think we should be firmly, you know, sticking to SMB. So, you know, why is that?
And so the workshop allows for us to kind of bring those voices together. And so this is when you can start to firstly see the reaction of others when you go, oh, actually there are different opinions here. But then start to dig deep and explore the nuance in their opinions because it's always, you know, someone says this thing, but to what extent do they believe that?
And, and that doesn't really come out until. The, the, the workshops, uh, are really kind of brought together. So I think, you know, we order this deliberately. We do the one-on-one conversations, then the workshop comes later, and we feel prepared for the conversations that need to happen.
[00:16:54] Elle: That is such a good idea and I love doing workshops. I've done so many myself as a product [00:17:00] marketer with my stakeholders, usually the bulk of pm, maybe a couple salespeople, but it's, it can be so hard. And I've had, I've botched workshops where like, it was just a huge waste of time because I just didn't structure it properly.
I didn't have those one-on-one conversations ahead of time, which I think is so smart. So you can prepare for how you're gonna handle these difference of opinions, and I think it can get so easy to have your entire agenda derailed because you're debating some tiny little minute thing over here. So to help, help me and the rest of the PMM world, what does a good workshop look like in practice?
I guess, like how did you structure it? You know, make sure that, um, you're not just gathering feedback and you're also kind of exposing the gaps to leadership and, and discussing it and finding a solution in a healthy way.
[00:17:51] Craig: in terms of the information gathering, there are a few, Strategic points to consider around what we're actually trying to get outta the [00:18:00] workshop. And so the first thing is, okay, let's bring data, let's bring data into this and make sure that we're not just kind of, you know, licking our finger, putting it in the air, seeing which way the wind is blowing that day.
you know, do we have demand gen data for, for example, can we see where AB tests have, have played out? Can we get, um, sales to tell us if particular segments have been progressing through the cycle much quicker versus others who have actually been closing? so that's, that's kind of the first piece.
The other piece is around prioritization. So when we're asking questions around, for example. You know, let's talk about this segment. What are the most important jobs that they're trying to accomplish? You might get lots of different answers to that question. And we are looking for answers for us to then later on, do the jobs to be done research.
So we, so we can kind of cross reference that, right? But there's also a prioritization piece. And so something that we do is to deliberately not [00:19:00] give enough votes to the participants. So they're really forced to think about the most important answers. So if we say, you know, out of, out of these competitors, who do you think are the most important that we should be considering?
That's one of the questions. We will only give them two votes. And so the, the point of that is, sure, you know, we should be thinking about five or six and, and we're not just going to focus on those two, but with all the participants here, when you are forced to really, really think about this, which way are you going to vote?
So. It's about being data driven. It's about prioritization and then in terms of the actual data where, you know, and, and the, and the topics and the questions that, that we're looking to cover. It's things like, you know, what are the bias segments that we should be looking at and that we should be targeting and, and what is the data that you can use to back that up once we have the conversation, after, you know, we've done the, the, the Miro whiteboarding, um, [00:20:00] who are those internal champions we should be considering?
What are their jobs and challenges? Your, you know, your standout product capabilities, the value you think you're offering ideas around product categorization, right? Like, so, so those are the topics that we would cover, but the most important thing is the data. And then how do we prioritize all of this stuff so that we make sure we are doing something at this early stage to begin that process of narrowing down the positioning and, and blocking out the noise.
[00:20:29] Jonathan: Yeah. So if you think about it, right, we've had these one-on-one conversations. We've already asked a lot of these questions, right? So what segments should we go after? Who are your main competitors, et cetera. We've primed the pump, so to speak. So all these folks have, if they didn't have ideas before, they've definitely thought about it since they come to the workshop.
One, we present, like Craig mentioned, all the data we have, right? So from the demand gen team, from the market, so on and so forth. Any, any internal surveys they've run, et cetera, right? So we present all of the data, say, Hey, this is what we know factually to be true. And then by the way, here are the different topics that we want to dive [00:21:00] into.
We want to get internal direction on, you know, is there alignment here? Is there misalignment? For the most part, there's typically misalignment. Right. It just kind of par for the course, but the, the point of this is not to make decisions, right? The point is for us to have directional, kind of like Craig mentioned, directional feedback and directional guidance into, okay, now that we're going to these, to customers and, and, and talking to them and doing market research and competitive research and so on and so forth, where do we focus in and, and how do we see the alignment, not just internal alignment, but alignment from like leadership to the market?
Because if there's misalignment there, now you're talking about, okay, there's internal misalignment, but there's also misalignment with the market. So again, it helps us kind of figure out where do we go next?
[00:21:42] Elle: Yeah. Got it. Okay. So helpful. And after you've worked through a lot of that internally and you've kind of moved into this external, you know, market research. So tell me more about that, I guess, like where did you start for that external market research, right? Because you had all that internal, the big [00:22:00] investigation that you did internally and all the one-on-one conversations, but then when it turn, when it came to bringing in that, you know, here's, here's how, you know, the, c-level point of view or whoever it is to the market.
How did you get that market insight? Um, what channels did you use?
[00:22:15] Craig: I could probably talk about this way too much on LinkedIn, but, um, customer and buyer interviews, uh, I love, I love them. there is so much nuance that you can capture when you are hearing someone express frustrations and pains around the challenges and obstacles with particular tasks and jobs that they are trying to accomplish.
And so it means that you can, you can identify the difference between here is a regular job where they have the pain, versus here is a slightly less regular job. That's still regular, but actually is really painful. And when you look at the existing solutions that they use to try and get this job done, they are completely insufficient and.
When you [00:23:00] hear these pains, these emotions, uh, start to kind of come out. Then you, you use that as like a, okay, I'm, I'm honing in on that. I'm going to dig down more and, and understand, you know, a lot more about this, because I think we're, we're stumbling upon. Potentially new information that the customer hasn't articulated to us yet, but actually is really fundamental in pivoting, positioning.
one thing which I notice is when I work with founders and startups that come from a background of really knowing their industry, they almost see customer researchers either slightly secondary or potentially even a bit redundant because, Hey, I used to do this job. I come from this background. I get it, I understand it.
We don't need to talk to customers. I, you know, it'd be, it would be great to learn, you know, what online social media channels they're on, so we can target them later. But what I always say is, yeah, you understand 95% of it, but there's 5% of stuff that you don't know. And also things have shifted since you started your, your company.
So, Customer interviews is, [00:24:00] is always something that I say to founders, look, it's time consuming. And often the most difficult thing is getting people on the phone that you're looking to speak to, but get the perspective of both your existing customers and then also buyers that aren't your customers.
Because buyers can tell you what are they researching right now. Whereas customers will sort of have a bias around like, this is why I am staying, or I decided to stay with you. and I can think back to my previous problems, but you're still getting two very interesting perspectives that, uh, that can be very helpful, uh, and, and very insightful.
So, yes, so the kind of, the first piece really around, um, customer research, I'm, I'm, I would say is, uh, sort of non-negotiable
[00:24:40] Elle: Yeah, I love that. And like you, just as you were speaking, uh, 'cause I've had that, I've had that happen in my career so many times where a leader in the company or a product leader felt like, I know this just as well as the customer. I don't need to talk to the customer. And it's so frustrating as a PMM 'cause I'm like, that's [00:25:00] great, but you don't know everything.
And you've been in now this job for. However many number of years, not that one. So it's can be really frustrating. uh, so it just made me think of a pro tip. If you're, you know, pmms out there who are interviewing for their next in-house role, like you should ask them how are you getting your customer insights?
Where do they come from as a question that you should be evaluating them to make sure that they have an alignment and understanding around, like supporting you, being a PMM and wanting to do that. Customer insight and customer interviewing. So anyway, more questions for you though Craig and Jonathan about this.
when you're doing the customer insights in the customer interviews, sometimes they talk and talk and talk, which is great, but how do you separate what's actually meaningful versus just like noise in info that you're getting from them?
[00:25:46] Jonathan: Yeah, so I think part of it is just having comprehensive research to begin with. So of course, customer research is important, but beyond that, like competitive research. So we did a lot of competitive research. We forced, you know, we, Craig talked about the, [00:26:00] um, limited votes, right? So we forced the team to say, okay, who are our current competitors based on data?
So if you do a win-loss analysis, which they had done. Who are our top, you know, three to four competitors on top of that, who are our future competitors? So we're here today, we're one platform shop, or sorry, one product shop. We wanna move to this platform positioning fair, but that opens us up to new competitors.
Right. Okay. So who are the two to three competitors that we're gonna see kind of in the, in the future? so doing that competitive research, we did a ton of other research on, you know, customer surveys, sales calls. Uh, we looked at the industries and the market. So, um, different markets had different, uh, legal needs, legal requirements, et cetera.
So as we started kind of amassing all this data, to your point, it was, it was overwhelming, right? There's just so much data. If you look at just the US like 50 different states with 50 different laws, so on and so forth. So what we really looked for were kind of recurring themes. So. you know, are there like three to four topics that keep coming up in terms of jobs to be done, right?
Maybe it's the same two jobs to be done with like a slight variation for this other [00:27:00] segment. we also looked for differences, right? We talked about Aaron Brockovich and kind of like, Hey, there's document A, no, document B, and there's document C. So same thing like, you know, in internally we think A, but customers are tone as B.
So is there kind of that misalignment? Are there differences between that customer feedback and internal direction? as we start looking at competitors, are they all moving in the same direction? What was really interesting for us is we could literally, like, we literally mapped out our, the, I think it was what top seven competitors?
Something like that. So we looked at the top seven competitors and said, Hmm, interesting. Here's who, who, they're like the segment they're approaching, here's the persona they're targeting and how they position. And we saw a lot of commonality, which made like the white space for us, like super obvious, right?
you know, that, that opportunity for differentiation. So I think for us it was really. Look at the, the white space, look at the common themes and look at for, those differences that, to spot that misalignment. 'cause that's where the, the money is. That's where the insights are.
[00:27:56] Elle: Okay. I got a question for you guys. I'm guessing [00:28:00] based on just like when I think you guys conducted or, or had this engagement with a client, probably didn't use any, but like, did you use any AI tools when you're doing some of this analysis and research and like trying to identify the themes?
And if you didn't, if you were gonna do this again, would you, and if you would, what tools would you use? Or if you wouldn't, why wouldn't you use any AI tools?
[00:28:23] Jonathan: Yeah. So I think the answer is it's complicated. Uh, I think Craig and I will, we'll both give you some examples. one, like client privacy and client, you know, proprietary information, et cetera, is number one. Like, that's the number one thing we respect, with both of our companies. Like we we're both very, very serious about that.
Uh, number two, there are some things that are public. So for example, one of the things we did was look at. Um, G two reviews, Capterra, et cetera. So what we did is, you know, we basically grabbed the pages for our top seven competitors and for our, for our own company, our own products, and said, okay, you know, chat GBT or perplexity or whatever, LLM of choice, find the top five themes of positives and [00:29:00] top five themes for negatives, right?
So we didn't have to look through hundreds of comments, hundreds of reviews. You know, the LLM did that for us. That was huge. And that gave us a sense of like, Hey, when these customers are buying this product, sure they're buying it for all these 15,000 features or this price point or whatever, but what are the top three to five things that actually move the needle?
And by the way, what are the top three to five things that are just a major pain where we could potentially position ourselves competitively? So that was one way where AI came in. Super handy. Uh, Craig, not sure if you want to dive into a different example.
[00:29:30] Craig: Yeah, I mean, I have, well, we have strong opinions about this because, um, you know, and we, and we've, we've tried it, we, we, we've tried AI to see what it can do. And, uh, I mean, one example was around competitive analysis. I'm, I'm a little bit nervous about using AI for, for certain kind of strategic research exercises because, it is just like the hallucinations are crazy and.
I mean, we did. You know, a few examples where we said, okay, can you compare, you know, these tools [00:30:00] and, uh, you know, do, do they have particular feature sets? and either they would say they do when they, they don't, or they say they don't when they do. And so, you know, the follow up prompt is by the way, that competitor does have that.
Oh, yes, you're absolutely correct. Thanks for pointing out. I'm like, you are welcome. I'm here. I'm here to help you. You know, thanks, hun. They're like, cool, awesome. So I'll just do this manually. and then again with, you know, competitor analysis. It's not just saying, do they have these features versus us, you know, what is the depth and the quality of this?
What are the capabilities, right? Like, that's, that's so crucial. And again, I think it's quite difficult to rely on LLMs to, really capture that in the fullest. So I think. You know, Jonathan makes a great point, which is to say for certain things it's great. For other things, be careful. and so for the really strategic positioning stuff, once you've got the information and you are confident on the information, and then you can plug it in, cool.
But once you are asking [00:31:00] an LLM to go and do the research and go and find the information and then interpret it, I, I'm, that's when I get nervous.
[00:31:08] Jonathan: yeah, I think the, the scalpel analogy is a good one here. Like you don't wanna use LLM as like kind of the mallet or you know, the hammer to just like do it all, but it, in addition to that G two example, right? So we were trying to find pricing for one of our competitors that didn't display it publicly.
I go into Chachi, bt or perplexity, whatever, search for it, and it pulls up like this obscure blog that's like, I don't know, a year old. And someone in the comment said, oh, I actually paid this. So that like, amazing, right? Like huge, uh, finding pricing on like random websites that we would've never found, never go, like it would've been on page, I don't know, 300 of Google.
that was really helpful or. I don't know. Um, competitor, like we think the competitor, this competitor specifically targets Enterprise. Is there any mention of them targeting mid-market? Oh, they actually did a webinar last week, which we didn't see anywhere, but it, like, it caught it on their LinkedIn [00:32:00] social post.
Right. Which is like things like that where we can just like find stuff out really, really quickly and really interestingly, um yeah, exactly. Needle in haystack situations where honestly it's just more efficient. Like, could Craig and I go and look at a LinkedIn and like go through last 15 posts over the last 20 days?
Sure. We'll perplexity find it faster or chat gt. Yeah.
[00:32:20] Elle: Yeah. Wow. Okay. That's helpful. That makes a lot of sense. I totally agree. I've had like really similar experiences with those tools. Uh, okay. So a big turning point for this and this poll initiative that you guys, um, pursued with this client was that you moved from single product to platform storytelling.
So talk through that. Shift in, um, would love to hear like what does like good platform messaging actually look like?
[00:32:44] Craig: So when it comes to this, it, it is always a very interesting point in any positioning and messaging exercises when you are starting to shift towards messaging. But you are, you can't really entirely run away for, it's not, you know, positioning's done messaging, right? [00:33:00] They, they're both always going to to be influencing each other.
So the first thing we consider is, okay at this. Point from what we know and the work that we've done, what do we identify as the most important jobs that we should be solving for the segment? and this is where a lot of the research that we've done starts to get pulled together. So for example, you know, one thing to consider is even when we want to prioritize key competitors that we are considering, those competitors are more relevant depending on the job that we're talking about.
If you are doing this job, here are a set of tools that, and alternatives that you are using. So actually the, the, the positioning context will slightly change because we are saying, we're comparing you to this, for this job, actually, we're comparing ourselves to this other different job or, um, alternative or, or, or competitor, right?
So like this is where, you know, often I see startups talk about like, okay, we are going to frame our messaging around. Core benefits or, [00:34:00] or get really hung up on the, the phrase value propositions. And I really try and avoid the phrase value propositions. And this, this might be a slightly controversial point, but I think it gets so distracting and it moves us out away from being a bit more mechanical about how we construct messaging.
So I, you know, Jonathan and I were very pur purposeful in saying, look, we need to get clear on what we're actually helping our customers solve. So the situation for us was very unique. We had a tech startup that was catching up with other competitors. And so there were lots of new products that they were developing, which was part of the reason we were moving from single product to platform.
So. We sort of had to both consider the product first as well as the job. So it meant that we were appreciating both perspectives. Typically, I would say job, right? What are the key, most unique, most impactful product capabilities solving that we sort of had to make sure that we weren't ignoring other products as [00:35:00] well.
So it was just, it was just part of the psyche, but it's, it didn't fundamentally change our process. So making sure that, you know, at the top we were highlighting the key jobs that we're solving. Now let's start to consider, okay, how are they currently solving those jobs? What are the downsides? And then what are the upsides of them using us instead, and how can we prove that?
So that, that was really a, a big shift in how they thought about messaging as well. And so as much as we were doing the mechanics around reconstructing their messaging approach, it was also a bit of a cultural shift as well that we had to, that we had to take into account.
[00:35:38] Elle: Yeah, so you had these like jobs to be done and it sounds like you mapped them to both like the um, your product or platform, the company, your client, and then also what's the alternative to doing this job? Like if I had to do this task, task, my option is to the status quo [00:36:00] or you know, the, this platform.
So, which I think is so smart. And I know you mentioned that a lot of like startups in your experience. Um, they do this where they get hung up on the benefits and the value propositions. It's not just the startups, it's not, I've been at these big, big companies. They do it too.
[00:36:18] Craig: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:36:21] Elle: Yeah. Okay. So when you're trying to build, when you're trying to build out, if I was a pm m and I was trying to build out this like jobs to be done framework for my, you know, working on my platform story, I guess like, do you literally create like a table? Like do you plot it against, is that how you do it?
I guess like talk a little bit more about that process just so I make sure I'm understanding how to do it.
[00:36:40] Jonathan: Yeah. So one caveat for this client though, just to make sure, 'cause there's what we did for the client and then what's the best practice, and those aren't always necessarily the same thing, right? So for this client. They already had like products in market, and then they had products that were coming down the line in the next, what, three to six months.
And then we also had competitors that had a combination of [00:37:00] products. So the way we approach this, like I think Craig and I always, always, always say, start with jobs to be done. Like a hundred percent. The reality in this situation was if you did that, you would only consider the, the current product set.
You wouldn't consider future products, number one. Number two, you wouldn't consider what competitors have done, right? The different products competitors have done. So what it, it's almost like, you know, we're comparing, um, I don't know, we're comparing, this is gonna be food analogy. So for anyone who knows me, that's, that's kinda my go-to.
Like you're comparing burgers to burgers, which is great, but our competitor, they actually sell fries and a drink.
[00:37:35] Elle: Yeah.
[00:37:36] Jonathan: We need to start thinking about how do we, like, what is the way in which customers or prospects want to buy, right? In terms of, yes, combination of products, right? Burger and fries, but also how do they get to a decision, right?
Are they going and asking like their local food blogger, where's the best burger and fries? Or are they just going out themselves and trying different places? So again, it's, it's kind of like taking a holistic approach to [00:38:00] this process. but beyond that, like, yes, of course started with the jobs to be done.
Um, looked at competition, worked with the product management team to identify like, Hey, here are the key products for not just current or, sorry, key features, not just for the current product, but for what's coming down the pipeline. and then tied kind of the customer interviews we had and those jobs to be done that were mentioned.
You know, to those products. Um, of course we asked for like technical aspects of their jobs, kind of their goals, outcomes, status quo for folks who aren't familiar with, with jobs to be done. Right. those are kind of the the big things we, we did. And then we mapped kind of those features to the products.
[00:38:35] Elle: I love that. So helpful. Okay, so then once you have that framework and you have, um, did you have to get like buy-in from senior leadership on that? Like when you showed it in that, I'm guessing you had some kind of readout or discussion, were they like, no, that's not right. Or were they like, kind of what was the reaction?
And as a pmm m how do you, how do you handle the reaction if it's not what you want, want it to be or hope it is?
[00:38:59] Craig: I, I [00:39:00] think. We were really determined to avoid that reaction. And so we thought, what, what do we have to do to make sure that, that that doesn't happen? And, um, I, the thing is there were, there were a lot of eyes on, on this project, uh, and a lot of, uh, opinions. So we, we knew that we had to go back to the, the one-on-one approach way before any kind of final recommendations, final messaging, positioning, um, you know, kind of presentation or, or delivery.
Uh, we almost wanted that final piece to be a formality. We actually wanted everyone to know everything about it before. Everyone jumps on a call to say, this is what, what we've decided and what we're going with. So, uh, we identified the, the, the key stakeholders, the, the most influential folk that we knew we needed to get that buy-in.
And so we organized one-on-one calls to kind of talk through, um, our thinking. And I think Jonathan and I were clear on the [00:40:00] components to both positioning and messaging, where we felt we have to stick to our guns on this because this is just right. Especially where the data was, was proving that, that we were correct.
there, there's always a point where you have to consider, okay, this, they're suggesting, I don't know, a, a, a change, for example, to a specific phrasing. or, uh, they want to highlight a particular job more than the other and, uh, et cetera, et cetera. Sometimes you have to accept that it's not a hundred percent to what you would like, but if this. Helps move things forward and you can contextualize positioning and messaging as a journey. As as a process you will go to market, you are going to validate this and you are going to get feedback that will ultimately tell you whether the decision you're making right now is correct or incorrect. And in fact, what we are saying is the way forward then, then so be it.
And let's just agree on this approach now and just go to market straight away. The thing that we don't want to do is just make this a really academic discussion and [00:41:00] argument about why this way, that way. And we just, we just need to kind of move on. So, um, so the one-on-one calls were really important.
The other thing as well that we're really big on is when it comes to a final presentation that really talks about a new direction on positioning and messaging that we are equipping. Those senior folk to then deliver those presentations internally because as much as we are fine, Jonathan and I doing that, uh, internally, it's not gonna have that impact.
And so this is where you have to look at where is that soft power internally and how can we ensure that we leverage that as part of the dissemination process.
[00:41:39] Jonathan: Yeah. And, and the, the one big thing, like as consultants is like you have, first of all, you're brought in, right? Like someone is paying you for your opinion, literally like your expertise, but also your opinion. So kind of l to your, to your question of like, you know, how do you get that buy-in? Yes, of course.
It's like bringing up all the insights, bringing up, you know, what the [00:42:00] market said, you know, kind of getting internal alignment, et cetera. But it's also playing the role of consultant, which is look. L If you wanna launch with a platform, that's fine, but here's, here are the negatives, right? One, you're gonna have more competition, right?
You're gonna be competing with point solutions and platforms. if you go with a lead product positioning, you're more competing with point, you know, individual point solutions. That's the kind of co, you know, consultative approach that you as a consultant have to take with your clients. And when you do that, then you get a lot more buy and a lot more trust because you're saying, look, at the end of the day, like let's say L you're, you're the CE, you're making the decision L, right?
Like we're, we're not gonna tell you one way or the other, but what we are gonna tell you is, Hey, here are the pitfalls with decision A. Here are the pitfalls with decision B and the benefits of A versus B, and how that stacks up in the market, right? So a lot of what we do is like, it's not just. An internal decision.
It's what is the market telling us? What are competitors doing and what are the pros and cons of the entire kind of situation? So when you go in with that kind of consultative approach, you have the one-on-ones, you talk to the influential people and, and kind of [00:43:00] get them, like, get their pre reactions and incorporate that into, into your final presentation.
Then it becomes a, hey, we're, we're all kind of gathered here just to kind of like talk about something we already agreed on versus like, Hey, let's do like this big reveal, right? It's like we're not like magicians doing this big reveal. Like, no, no, no. Everyone's seen the act. Everyone knows the bunny comes outta the hat.
We're just, it's a formality at that point.
[00:43:22] Elle: I am so glad that you mentioned that and explained it that way. And it's funny because I actually advise my team to act like a consultant whenever we're doing, wherever we're embarking on a new product initiative, new research initiative, whatever it is, and they're kind of afraid to go to the, it's usually the product team to go to the product team and to say, you know, here's what we think.
And I'm like, you need to look at this as if you are a out an outside consultant. Don't be biased as the uh, PMM for company X. Go do the market research and come with your data. Here's what I found from customers, from competitors, from [00:44:00] analysts, from the, from the market. Um, so I, I I love that. That's such a, I think it's such a practical approach.
okay, so, um, let's talk about the final step of this playbook. I guess you've got this amazing research that you've done. You've brought everybody along for the ride, doing all of the one-on-ones, doing the workshops, doing the investigation, doing this jobs to be done. Like wrap us up here, bring us home.
What happens in the end?
[00:44:27] Jonathan: the, the beautiful thing is that we created kind of a two step approach is one is we had all the artifacts. So like of course we created a position in Canvas. Of course we created messaging canvas, so on and so forth. But we also had presentations that explained the logic and the thought process and the data.
So we always talk about storytelling when it comes to product marketing and I think, and, and Craig and I have very strong feelings about storytelling, but. Storytelling in product marketing. Like especially if you, like, you look at LinkedIn or any kind of like the quote unquote gurus, they always talk about storytelling in terms of like, oh, what we present to customers or [00:45:00] to prospects.
That's great and that's definitely needed. But internally, when you're pitching, Hey, we're gonna shift, we're gonna do like a fundamental company shift. Like this is a, like a literal, like the world is, is tilting a different direction kind of shift. You need to say why you need to tell the story and like, data points are great, but what is the story?
What is the rationale? Why are you doing this? So that was a really big part of what Craig and I did. I think we compliment each, complimented each other well, I think we did a combination of data story, customer insights, market insights, competitive, et cetera. Um, that was a really big part. The other part we did, which uh, you know, I think was really helpful is we kept spotlighting the product marketing team and saying, look, this is step one, but if you want this to actually work.
Execution is where this comes to life, right? And you're gonna have to entrust and kind of leverage a product marketing team to steer the ship here. the, the other part we did was [00:46:00] we, we, we told them like, look, this is again part one, part two and three is go test this with demand gen. See what works, what doesn't.
And then I really, Craig, if you don't mind, like I was really blown away with, um, a messaging guide that Craig created. Um, I had, I, like, we've all created messaging guides in the traditional sense of like, Hey, here's your messaging. But what he created like really enabled the team. I'd love for you to talk about that.
'cause I thought that was so unique.
[00:46:22] Craig: Thanks, Jonathan. I'll give you $20 later. It's just another bribe. This is how I get people to compliment me. I just pay them. but um, look, I think, um, so the thing is, I think when. You have experience working with product marketing teams and you have in-house experience like Jonathan and I, I think you can almost get to a point where you sort of dismiss frameworks and templates as being, you know, kind of slightly unimportant.
And we, we get so philosophical and we get so deep into, you know, the, the cultural importance and the politics of it, of like, [00:47:00] why is, why is the product marketing in this organization really not driving forward? But sometimes there are still some kind of practical gaps in the implementation. And so something which.
I notice is when we have put together a position in Canvas, here is the messaging framework, you know, to us, probably because we're so in it all the time, we go, yeah, like that's all we need. Like, sure, we like go to town, but then it's like, okay, but how do I write copy? How, how do I translate this to, you know, to, to some copy that I put into a campaign on, on this landing page, on the homepage, uh, for, uh, cold emails to prospects.
And so, you know, something I wanted to do is to say, look, if you don't have a copywriter internally, because by the way, I also have a very strong opinion around like how underrated B2B copywriters are and also how underrated the opportunity of, uh, kind of brand differentiation is and how. Much product [00:48:00] marketers and brands should be collaborating on that process within positioning and messaging.
That's another tangent, and I could go to town on that another day. But in the meantime, if you are a smaller startup or you are a growth stage, um, scale up you and you don't have an internal copywriter, like what do you do? And so I wanted to put together a guide that was quite formulaic. So how, how do you write a headline?
How do you take a capability and add a benefit? What does that look like? Um, if you want to talk about specific outcomes, how can you ground that outcome by also speaking about the product in a way that makes it easy to understand? Because often I look at messaging that really, it's either very vague and it's very ambitious, and I understand that because it's the sense of keep on asking why, why is this thing important?
Why, why, why bec Because the company wants to grow faster and people wanna be happier. And you go, great. Oh, that's a great lead message. You know, let's sell this brand new disruptive CRM or make people happier with cr, right? So. There are [00:49:00] building blocks to a message that lands with a buyer. And so start with a capability or start with the thing your product does that is unique, then justify how there is a benefit to using that.
And to me, I see benefits as what is this short term positive impact that is source of measurable, calculable, palpable that you can see straight away. Then the outcomes are slightly longer term, more strategic, right? Then we can build those steps to get to that point, but not unless you've grounded it.
And so I wanted to really explain that in the messaging guide and pro and provide like formulas in how you can use the components of this messaging framework to actually write clear, compelling copy,
[00:49:46] Elle: That is so brilliant. If you have that messaging guide in a template that
[00:49:52] Craig: drop it into dms.
[00:49:55] Jonathan: There you go.
[00:49:57] Elle: we can use it as a lead gen tool for your [00:50:00] consultancy and we can put it in the show notes.
[00:50:02] Craig: Good idea.
[00:50:03] Jonathan: Yeah, there you go.
[00:50:04] Elle: I'm just throwing it out there, you know, sometimes I got good ones. Okay, so you guys have delivered some really golden advice here and I just want to summarize what I think I've heard as the playbook. So tell me if I've got it wrong. There's the. The big investigation that you guys did. Right. And diagnosing the misalignments, getting the big data dump, um, around, uh, around how the company views themselves in the market and what the product can do and all that good stuff.
And then you did the. Internal workshops, maybe the external homework, maybe that maybe there was like done in parallel some of those things. Maybe like the, all the research and maybe there were a couple workshops, but there were workshops and there was investigation internally and externally. And then you worked on the actual, okay, well what is the story here?
How are we moving from a single product to a platform story? What are those jobs to be done [00:51:00] and what are the alternatives? How are the competitors come into play here with these jobs to be done? and then you had another discussion and aligning that with the senior leaders. And I think Jonathan, as you were saying, that you wanted to, um, give them a, here are the option A, option B, option C, whatever they are.
Here are the pros and cons to those as a, you know, coming in as that consultant. and then you brought it home by empowering the PMM team and the marketing teams on with the messaging guide and like, here's how you do it, here's how you can take all this. Wonderful stuff that we gave you and take it to market.
Did I miss anything?
[00:51:38] Craig: Backdrop.
[00:51:39] Jonathan: Yeah, I think that was great.
[00:51:41] Craig: That was
[00:51:42] Jonathan: outta 10.
[00:51:43] Elle: Awesome. awesome.
It was amazing. It makes me like, wanna go, makes me wanna go write a platform story now, like with the framework. Okay. So such a powerful process. I have one more question for you guys before we move on to the next segment. what is like one piece of advice that you have for a pm [00:52:00] m who's like never done this before and they're just getting started on moving from a single product story to a platform story.
[00:52:07] Craig: I can kick off.
[00:52:08] Jonathan: Yeah. Go for it.
[00:52:10] Craig: it is going to be one of these annoying, it depends, um, um, oh, the land of nuance here. Um, I think one question I ask. Sometimes to founders is does this need to be a separate product or is this really an extension of your existing tool? Existing platform? Sure. We can have conversations around what the, the pricing strategy looks like.
What are you offering for free? What, what is a bolt on? Right? But if we park that to one side, I think sometimes there is a tendency to want to build out a product suite because it, it, it sort of just feels like the, the next step, without quite understanding the, the use case and also what is the, the journey of existing customers or prospective customers.
So the first thing I would [00:53:00] ask is, are you at an early stage? Are you at a later stage? Like, what does, what does your product roadmap look like? It, does this make sense as a separate, um, product? You know, um, I think other things as well, like what, what is the goal? Are you acquiring new customers?
Potentially? Are you moving into a new segment with this new product? Is this for existing customers? And so is the opportunity more cross-sell, upsell? Um, and I think these are are really important questions to consider before you go, alright, we want to go to platform positioning because platform positioning doesn't necessarily make sense.
And like, to be really frank, it, it, it's, it's more difficult. As soon as you go to platform positioning, it's hard. It's harder to, to stand out, right? and I say this with a lot of. Sympathy with, product marketers and tech companies that, that are platforms. It, it, ultimately, it is something that, that is part of the long-term growth story.
Look at Stripe, right? Like when they started out, it was simple online [00:54:00] payments for software developers working at some online store, like it was a really simple use case and proposition. Today, Stripe is financial infrastructure for the, I
[00:54:12] Elle: like. what does
[00:54:13] Craig: like.
What is, yeah. But, but, but I am sure that their product marketers have done the research to go like this really encapsulates it.
When you, when you go and, and look at the, the headlines for, um, you know, Salesforce and HubSpot and they're saying, grow better with us, grow faster with us. You just, you know, it's easy I think for product marketers, especially those of us that have some experience in the early stages to go, oh, come on, be more specific.
So I really do have sympathy with it, but it really makes the point of platform positioning only makes sense if, if part of a broader strategy where building out a product suite to serve new segments, new markets is actually a natural progression in your growth story now. So do it when you almost have to,
[00:54:57] Jonathan: Yeah. And the other nuance is like, [00:55:00] 'cause I love that you, you talked about like, think about the strategy first. The other part of that is what is the business strategy? Meaning if, if you're a startup, for example, is your goal to raise next round of funding is your goal to blitz the market and like hit up market penetration?
That's your goal. You want to increase a CV, you're trying to get acquired. So you want like NRR or GRR to like, you wanna maximize those because guess what, when you shift to a platform, generally speaking, your ac, your A CB goes up. What does that mean? It slows down your sales cycle. S so right. And, and then also potentially it means more cross sells and upsells for your current customers.
To, to Craig's point. So from a strategic lens, like you not only have to think about why are we making the shift, but what is the impact it's gonna have on our financials, on our sales cycle, on our, on our sales team. Right. because the other component is, and I think Craig and I, I'm sure Al you, you as well have been at many startups where you had a customer success team, not an account management team or vice versa.
And those are very different scenarios where you're like, Hey, [00:56:00] we're selling this one product. We need like account, like we need customer success folks just to help them adopt a product. Cool. And then you suddenly shift to this platform positioning and you're selling multiple products. And these folks that are good educators are not good salespeople.
And you're telling them, Hey, Mr. And Mrs. Customer success manager, you need to sell the, this cross sell product. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm not a sales person. You need an account management team. So again, like these are all nuances and, and considerations that. As a startup, you, or scale up or whatever company, honestly, like, you really have to think about does this make sense and does this help us achieve our goals next quarter, next year, whatever.
Because the worst thing you would want as a product marketer is to just nail the heck out of your platform positioning. Like, just be honestly like an incredible job. Everyone goes to your website, they buy it, they love it, and then you realize, hey, um, so our sales cycle slowed down by 50%. We didn't hit our acv, our, our A RR targets for the quarters, so we're not actually gonna be able to get series B funding.
And the companies weren't gonna run
[00:56:56] Elle: oh.
[00:56:56] Jonathan: like
[00:56:57] Elle: Oh my gosh. Yeah. [00:57:00] Yes. Such great advice. Awesome. Thank you so much Craig and Jonathan. I loved this case study. Really appreciate you guys taking the time to dig through this.
All right. And now it's time for our next segment of the show, the messaging critique. So this is the fun part where, uh, Jonathan and Craig as guests on my show, you guys get to, uh, pick a company and we get to critique. Real world messaging as the product marketing experts. Um, so before we get started, I wanna quickly walk through the rules as always.
so once you reveal the company, you guys are gonna talk through who they are, what they do, who their target audience is. then you're gonna tell me, um, what you're loving about the messaging, what makes it stand out, um, maybe something you wish the product marketer would've done differently, as they were building out the messaging.
And then lastly, we will do. A quick creative brainstorm on how the product marketing team can take it to the next level. [00:58:00] All right, so Jonathan Craig, reveal who is the company we are critiquing today.
[00:58:05] Craig: Roll. Um, so, uh, a, a, uh, a startup that I've noticed recently, uh, it's called, uh, met, they're actually based in London and it's a data security platform that basically helps. Companies within their own, SaaS tech stack to automatically detect and secure any sensitive data that might be in those applications.
And so it would be sensitive personal data, kind of personal information. It could be health information, financial, uh, but it also could be stuff like intellectual property. And so. As you are a fast-growing company, and especially because you are implementing kind of AI across the board, it just means that you can lose control of your data very quickly.
So this very quickly, uh, identifies surfaces that data that [00:59:00] is, um, you know, potentially, risky, critical, important needs to be, protected. Um, some of the information is redacted. You can ensure that certain people don't have access to it, et cetera. So,
[00:59:11] Elle: Very handy in today's day and age. Um, so for those of you who wanna follow along, it's met.io. It's M-E-T-O-M-I c.io. Okay. So walk us through the messaging.
[00:59:25] Jonathan: So in terms of the messaging, so one, just for context, so they're targeting security teams at companies that handle sensitive information, right? Because there's just more opportunity there. So think like classic tech companies, you know, revolt, checkout.com, oyster, et cetera. Um, and then also just companies that are growing really quickly, right?
Because they're gonna feel the pain more of, Hey, we have all this data, now we have an influx of data. Where do we save it? Where do, or how do we protect it? How do we secure it, et cetera. So generally speaking, it's kind of tech companies that fit neatly within their ICP, um, and then most likely kind of like security teams, product management teams, that kind of thing. Um, in terms of the [01:00:00] messaging itself, they really lean on a specific use case, which is preventing data oversharing and AI deployments, which I think it's something you can really like a, a really specific problem that you can kind of imagine as you're rolling out ai. Of course, AI has access in a, in an ideal world to all this data, but. Do we really want it to have access to all this data, right? Do I want it to have my social security number? Probably not, right? so the messaging is really clear. It says Detect sensitive data in your SaaS tools. And if you look at, if you kind of go down the page, the messaging is kind of like a story, right?
So. it builds over time. So it starts from that specific capability, and then it kind of goes to that broader outcome, which is accelerate AI adoption. Which by the way, uh, for folks looking at the page, if you flip that, if you start with accelerate AI adoption, isn't that the most like blase generic term, right?
Like you would know you, right? You would have no idea. But the fact that it's, that it's at the end now, it's like, okay, we understand exactly what you're doing and now [01:01:00] it makes sense. And I'm like, oh, okay. Yeah. I could see how you accelerate AI adoption with this tool because you're helping me ensure my, like there are no security issues or data privacy issues.
Right. Um, so, so I think that makes a lot of sense and it just really like contextualizes that value and, and those, those kind of outcomes and benefits by starting with product capabilities and then going to kind of like the more aspirational, um, kind of message. Not sure Craig, if you would add anything there.
[01:01:28] Craig: Uh, be beautifully says, yeah, it, and, and it goes back to a previous conversation that, you know, that we were having. when you start with the really big aspirational headline, um. The irony is that you are not just competing with so much within your existing category. You then end up competing across categories.
So if you have, you know, accelerate AI adoption or you have another, um, you know, lead positioning on, on your website that says, you know, um, 10 x, 10 x your growth. What, are you an accountancy
[01:01:58] Elle: Yeah, [01:02:00] yeah,
[01:02:00] Craig: crm? Like, are you, are you climate tech? Are you product like you could be anything. And so you are pointlessly making yourself exposed to more competitors that have decided to be specific and it all, ultimately, that always comes down to the fear of leaving money on the table by not going after,
[01:02:18] Jonathan: Yes.
[01:02:19] Craig: One single segment and use case where, by the way, the tam of that segment is still really big, but because it's not like.
Tens of billions, you think, oh no, I, you know, we've gotta get to that point. So, um, so I think, you know, what Jonathan said is, is brilliant. It's, you can get to that aspirational message once you've contextualized it, but start from that, that specific point. And they do a great job.
[01:02:42] Elle: Yeah. Yeah. And you know what, as you were talking, it made me realize that it doesn't help give context to how your product fits in your customer's world. So when you don't add that context, then your customer is left to fill it in. And that's how you end up with a confusion and Well, who are you and oh, [01:03:00] you're this, when really you're that.
So I completely agree. Um, I'm also on their website. I really like how that's unfolding and that story as you scroll through. I think that was a really strategic point. Um, so what's something that you wish that PMM would've considered differently building out some of this messaging?
[01:03:19] Craig: Yeah, and look, I'm always, um, I'm always very sympathetic because. so, you know, these guys are kind of, you know, I wouldn't say they're like early stage. They're, they're series A, but they're still building out an understanding of their market and they're still AB testing and figuring out what works and what doesn't.
So, um, I'm always hesitant to say they should have done this and should have done that because actually, you know, you'll see lots of advice that says all in one lead positioning never works. I recently worked with a medical, uh, a med tech platform, and actually that was exactly the positioning that we needed.
And I, again, a whole separate conversation to justify that. So I [01:04:00] never, I never like to kind of just say, here's a universal rule. That being said, I think one thing. They could do in the above the fold is specifically call out security teams. You sort of have to scroll down a bit before you re you realize that's a target audience.
It's a really tiny thing, but just dial up that empathy like straight away. Just provide that clarity as early as you possibly can. and then I would also say there the opportunity to learn even more through that research of customers and, and prospects and buyers. Is there an emotion, for example, that you could identify around, you know, some of the concerns that they're addressing?
So for example, you know, they say accelerate AI adoption, and I imagine that that is a really key use case for their target customer. They're like, look, we're growing really fast. We're implementing all of these AI tools and like we just lose control of data. So something like this really helps. But I would love to know some of the emotions behind those pains.
Like is there stuff that is keeping you up at [01:05:00] night with the acceleration of AI adoption? If that's the case, what is it? What is it? And so, you know, one thing which I always do when I look through messaging it, and one of my favorite words is the word without, because it immediately tells. G you can achieve this thing without the downsides of the, the alternative that you are probably using
[01:05:19] Elle: Right. The alternatives.
[01:05:21] Craig: The alternative.
And so I want to know, like right now, what is it that is keeping them up at night? Yeah, they want to accelerate a AI adoption, but there is some real worries behind that. And I think it could just slightly edge up, if you like the, the, the concern and the anxiety that their target buyer is experiencing that they can solve.
[01:05:40] Elle: Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing. I, as I was scrolling through and I'm finding there all of the benefits and the cool stuff that their platform can do, I am left thinking, um, it's not, I mean, I'm not the target audience, so let's be clear about that. But I'm not seeing a way for me to [01:06:00] empathize with the target audience though, because I don't see any use of Yeah, to your point.
There's, there's no emotion, or I'm, at least I'm not picking up on it. I don't know. Jonathan, what are you seeing?
[01:06:12] Jonathan: Yeah, I mean, same, it, it, it feels like it's saying the right message, but I think one honing on the emotion, like what are, what, what happens if you don't have this solution? Right. I think to Craig's point without, I think that's where you, you kind of really drive the point home. Um, one other thing I noticed was that.
I think the, the CTA on the homepage like takes you to a demo request, which I was kind of surprised by that because I, I think visitors wouldn't necessarily, like website visitors wouldn't necessarily expect that. Um, and it seems like a very, like, Hey, you just learned about our website or, or about our product.
Like, go get on a demo immediately. I wonder if this is an opportunity to kind of have a softer CTA, like, um, a product tour would be really nice. Or a video case study, like something like that.
[01:06:55] Elle: Such a great call out. Yeah. If there's something that I know my [01:07:00] buyers hate, it's like forcing me to get on the call with a salesperson just to see the product. It's so frustrating.
[01:07:07] Jonathan: It really is. I mean, even,
[01:07:10] Craig: just learned like how this product works, right? Demo, I, I'm, you know, I'm not. I'm kind of not quite ready, or actually I still don't feel like I've got the full context. So, um, yeah, I totally agree that there's also a point around like what does that journey natural journey feel like for your target audience?
And actually this is where it, there is a little bit of nuance with sub sub verticals. If you are, if you are working with security tech, uh, or legal tech, your audience. If they work in those fields, probably want a little bit more information. There might be an extra level of risk aversion. So there's an extra layer of education that is required in that journey.
Um, you know, again, that's a huge generalization, but it's just, you know, something to consider when you go. Right. What is the CTA? We want to get them on a call straight away. Well, actually they might go to that demo page and go, oh no, I'm okay. [01:08:00] Thanks.
[01:08:00] Elle: Yeah. Okay.
[01:08:01] Jonathan: At the end of the day, it's a trust building exercise. That's what it is.
[01:08:04] Elle: Yeah. Right. So taking some of that, that, that great commentary. Um, what would you guys do? What, what are some tips and advice, um, how can these pmms take it to the next level
[01:08:17] Craig: One thing, which I think is, I mean, it's something that we've, we've spoken about, um, but it's this idea of you are the new way. What, what is, what is the old way? And I think really stepping into that mindset. Is also something they could bring to their homepage as well, is not just talking about what makes you great, but, but what is it that, you are solving in the day to day for your target buyer that is really difficult for them.
and so it is. Spotting those emotional dynamics, the social dynamics as well, and then bringing that out in the messaging. So they're probably doing a great job of that. I'm there, there's just an [01:09:00] opportunity, I think to to really dial up the urgency, uh, in, in the message. And I think that would be a really great route to that.
[01:09:07] Elle: I love it, Jonathan.
[01:09:09] Jonathan: I mean, agreed. I think, um. Along with kind of the CTAs, along with kind of the, the things we've already talked about, just really differentiating from the alternative, I think is kind of a different way to state what, what Craig mentioned, is, would just make it easier because I think it's almost like, um, and, and again, security teams by definition should understand what the ramifications are, what the problems are with adopting ai.
But if it ever comes to a point where it's a different persona going to the page, it's not necessarily super clear. Like you don't, you're not a security expert. You're like, oh, well what is the problem? Why can't we just roll out chat GBT or insert AI tool here?
[01:09:46] Elle: Yeah.
[01:09:47] Jonathan: That a little clearer, uh, would, would help for sure.
[01:09:50] Elle: Yep. Yep. Totally agree. Uh, alright, Metomic, we like what we see, but you've got some really good tips here, so we'd love to see some of that [01:10:00] implemented so that you can take that, that messaging to the next level. alright, so Jonathan Craig, there's one thing that I'd like to make room for on this podcast and that is having a moment of gratitude.
Um, because as product marketers, none of us get here alone. We're always. Building on each other and being mentored by each other. So thank you both so much for your willingness to come on and share your playbook and your expertise and all the time that you spent prepping for this. Um, I really appreciate it and I know it benefits the PMM community.
So thank you. Um, and then, yeah, and I wanna turn it over to you. let's give some shout outs to some of the pmms who have brought you to your point in your careers and how you've been mentored along the way.
[01:10:43] Jonathan: Yeah, for sure. Um, so I've got two that come to mind. So, one, I know this is cliche, but Craig, uh, you're easily number one on the list. Uh, you know, when you start a collaboration with another pm m like, you don't know how it's gonna go. And I think, with Craig, I like, I've gained a true product marketing [01:11:00] partner.
It's not just like, oh yeah, sure, I'll bounce ideas off of you. But someone that's like. Actively pushing my business forward. I think he's also kind of given me the strength, like the, the courage to like, just do whatever the damn thing is, like, and just be unapologetically me. and like the other part is like, I've been doing product marketing for well over a decade, like.
I know product marketing like the back of my hand, but every time I work with Craig, I learn a new way of doing things and that's something I really enjoy. So definitely appreciate you bud. the other person I'll shout out is Kevin Chan. I think he is absolutely an incredible PMM top 1% of all product marketers in the world.
Um. He's, uh, on top of being just an excellent PMM. He's like an adored product. Uh, uh, people leader, I should say, like his team absolutely loves him, run through a wall for him, so on and so forth. And he's just a visionary. he's the one who actually started my mentorship journey on a DP list, so I joined a DP list because of him.
he's given me tremendous business advice and he inspired the idea of a company that I'm actually hoping to launch next year. And then [01:12:00] even beyond that, he's referred product marketing candidates to me for my product marketing agency. And just like generally always been super supportive. Uh, and just the nicest guy, like you cannot say a mean thing about the guy.
Like just such a kind guy. So, uh, big fan of both so,
[01:12:15] Elle: oh, so great. Craig, your turn. Let's hear it.
[01:12:19] Craig: Well, I'm gonna throw it back to Jonathan, um, and, uh. I, I had to, I had to pay Jonathan a lot of money for that one. Um, but, uh, yeah, that was the most expensive inducement so far. Um, but, uh, but no, seriously, I think, um, the first thing I'm, I'm gonna say about Jonathan is that, he's really great at clear direct feedback and.
it has made me a better product marketer and it's something that I actually really miss from my days working internally for B2B SaaS companies. Like it was such a, it was such a point of the beamery culture, which is like. Look, as long as [01:13:00] we're respectful, we're not hurting anyone's feelings here.
Just like, let, if you don't think it's a good idea, like let's just, let's just talk about why and let's find a better idea. And I, I really love that dynamic with, with Jonathan. we always get to a better solution, uh, you know, with what Jonathan said about me, like I've also learned, uh, different approaches also working, um, with him.
I think I also feel a lot of trust with Jonathan as well. And like that is something that has really like, uh, been part of the strength of our, our relationship that has grown. and I just want to do like work Al always with, with Jonathan. Like I always want to be partnering with him on every project.
Like, it's just, it's always such a, it is such a joy and I think, you know, we've, being a founding product marketer can be a really vulnerable thing within a startup. So I just wanted like, shout out to like any. Founding solo product marketer. Like I, I get you. I see you. It's, it's tough. Like you are doing freaking awesome work and it's just nice to like have someone [01:14:00] that's been through that I can really like, appreciate a lot of the challenges and like, you know, the amount of work we've had to do to get to a point that we actually feel confident enough to like talk about this stuff.
Right. So, um, Jonathan's just. Fricking awesome. Um, I'm gonna very quickly shout out a few other people. So, um, one other person, Sophie Coleman, who is, um, a product marketer I worked with at Beamery that Beamery was my first product marketing gig. Um, Sophie came in as a more senior product marketer and it was really the first time I saw what I considered to be very kind of elevated, what elevated product marketing looks like.
Um, you know, pmms going beyond just being a content creator. And that was a moment where I thought. That's really cool. I like that. also, um, Christelle deport and, uh, Chloe Nichols because they were the two product marketers that I formed the meetup group with, in London, all those years ago when there were only 350 of us in the country.
Um, you both rock [01:15:00] and, and you are awesome. And, um, you know, we were all, again, solo founding product marketers and it was just nice to have such a really cool support network. So yeah. That
[01:15:10] Elle: I love it. You guys are gonna have to make some intros to some of these peeps 'cause they sound amazing also. I see, I see future collaboration happening for you guys. I'm sure more is coming. Okay, I promise this is my last question for you. Is it just best for our listeners to find you guys on LinkedIn?
How can we access your expertise a little more? I.
[01:15:31] Jonathan: LinkedIn is great.
[01:15:33] Craig: Yeah, we, we, we chat a lot on LinkedIn, so, um, I love meeting new people. Um, I think Jonathan's the same. Um, so just drop me a connection. Request. Drop me a message. Let's hang out.
[01:15:44] Elle: Sounds good. You have it. We'll put it in the show notes for everybody to find you. Um, so with that, like, we're gonna conclude that, uh, today's episode. Thank you again, Craig and Jonathan. This was lovely and so appreciative of your time. And thank you PMM [01:16:00] listeners for coming along on today's journey with us.
I hope this episode leaves you with inspiration to take on the next step of your own journey.
