Shape the product roadmap like a Confluent PMM
Let’s be honest, every product marketing manager dreams of having a hand in shaping the product roadmap. But what’s the secret to actually getting a seat at that roadmap table? It all starts with trust. Trust with your product partners, making it crystal clear that you're all in this together. If you’re looking to nail that kind of influence, then buckle up, because I’ve got the perfect blueprint for you, thanks to our special guest—Sheryl Li, the brilliant product marketing leader at Confluent.
Sheryl isn’t just any PMM. She’s practically a wizard at weaving her magic into the product roadmap. From turning her science fair win into an asteroid named by MIT (yes, seriously!) to spearheading game-changing projects at Twilio and Confluent, her story is incredibly inspiring. Sheryl’s scientific mindset, think curiosity, experimentation, and pattern recognition, has become her superpower in crafting killer product strategies.
The Power of Trust and Shared Ownership
In our conversation, Sheryl lets us in on her journey at Confluent, where she jumped in to boost their cloud connectors product adoption. Her mission? No small feat. She dived headfirst into an investigative odyssey, teaming up with her product management counterpart, interviewing customers, and uncovering those golden nuggets of insight.
A Methodical Approach to Product Adoption
Sheryl is all about owning what you build and making sure it actually hits the customer’s sweet spot. She drums it into PMMs to keep a keen eye on product adoption, encouraging regular catch-ups with product and data science teams—especially if you’re navigating the waters of consumption-based pricing.
Crafting a Compelling Narrative Through Positioning
Sheryl shows us how playing nice with product managers doesn’t just spark curiosity, it strengthens the bridge from tech wizardry to customer ah-has. Her approach isn’t just about spotting performance gaps; it’s about getting into the nitty gritty of understanding the ‘why’ behind them, championing a culture of investigation and customer-centric planning.
Tackling Unforeseen Roadblocks
One thing that stuck with me? Sheryl’s way of working is like crafting a killer narrative. When she’s doing those customer interviews, she digs deep to get the inside scoop on pain points and alternatives, like writing a story that actually means something. She believes this storytelling is the key to making a real impact on product strategy.
Bridging Messaging with Product Strategy
But it doesn’t end when you get the green light. Looping back to your customers shows them they’re part of the process, building goodwill and tighter relationships. Sheryl emphasizes that for PMMs aiming to influence product strategy, establishing trust and regular dialogue with your product comrades is key. It shows genuine interest and sets the stage for more impactful collaborations.
Inspiration to Influence Your Own Roadmap
In our discussion on messaging critique, we talk through two brilliant case studies—Apple and Dust. Apple, as you’d expect, blew us away with their ingenious marketing for the Dynamic Island feature, which ingeniously transformed what could have been a mere functional necessity into a dynamic, interactive experience. On the flip side, Dust, an emerging star in the agentic AI space, captivates us with their clear, concise messaging that cuts through the noise in a world drowning in AI buzzwords. Yet, as a startup, they could benefit from refining their buyer persona to truly make a mark amidst AI titans like Glean. Both examples illustrate how impactful messaging can resonate, whether it's from an iconic tech giant or an AI newcomer.
I hope Sheryl’s wisdom gives you that extra dose of inspiration to make bold moves on your own roadmap journey. Remember, landing a seat at the table is just the start; it’s about making sure your voice echoes loud and clear once you’re there.
LINKS:
Apple Dynamic Island Feature video: https://youtu.be/rFB7uSgFEsY
Dust AI: https://dust.tt/
Connect with Sheryl:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisheryl/
Connect with Elle:
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/
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[00:00:00] Elle: [00:00:00] Sheryl, it's so amazing to have you on the show.
[00:00:02] Sheryl: Hi
[00:00:03] Elle: I.
[00:00:03] Sheryl: Thank you so much for having me. Wow, what a throwback.
[00:00:07] Elle: Yeah, of course. okay, so let's dive right in. First, tell me and get our audience up to speed. What is confluent? So, we can clue in some of the members who may be new to the company.
[00:00:19] Sheryl: Absolutely. So Confluent is a data streaming platform that helps companies work with real time data. And so that's what we call data in motion. And you can think about this in contrast to storing data in a database or data warehouse and analyzing it later. It's built on top of Apache Kafka, an open source technology that our founders created. Kafka has become the standard for handling such large volumes of real-time data, and it's being used by 80% of the Fortune 100 companies
So to bring this to life, uh, a good example is fraud detection and banking. So when you have a transaction, realtime data is actually being [00:01:00] streamed, in the backend and analyzed instantly so that they can flag suspicious activity. And so for you that might mean getting a push notification from your bank on your phone, you verify if that transaction was actually made by you. And so preventing fraud before it actually happens.
[00:01:17] Elle: Oh wow. Yes. It's good to hear the technology that's actually powering some of that. I've always wondered, I'm like, how do they know and how do they get to me so quickly to validate? Right. very interesting. Thank you for that context. So, for the first segment of our show today, I want to start with a case study of how you and your team took customer insights, bringing some of your scientific magic and truly impacted the product roadmap.
So tell me more about this. What was going on at Confluence when you realized you may need to bring in new elements to the roadmap?
[00:01:51] Sheryl: Yeah. so when I first joined Confluent, we had just launched our cloud connectors product and we were really trying to grow its [00:02:00] adoption within our existing Confluent Cloud customer base. for those who are less familiar, connectors are prebuilt integrations that connect Kafka with popular data systems like your Oracle database, snowflake data warehouse, or your S3 buckets. Given its widespread adoption of, uh, with Kafka users in the open source community and just the critical role connectors play into bringing data on and off the platform, wanted to really un unan answer this question of why isn't the growth higher already? Was it an awareness problem? Were there product gaps?
Was there a gap with sales and go to market. so to do that, I kicked off an investigation and decided to conduct interviews with the field folks and customers, as that's oftentimes you can get a lot of, uh, good insights and answers there.
And as part of that process, I also partnered with the PM to drive those conversations so that we can [00:03:00] both hear the feedback firsthand.
[00:03:02] Elle: Yes. Okay. So there's so much that you said there that I wanna unpack. first of all, what I love about how you described your process is that it's so true to who you are. It's scientific, it's methodical in terms of the investigation. really emulates that curiosity that you and most pmms. Have, okay.
So let's say that, I'm inspired by this story and as a PMM in my own organization, I want to contribute to the product roadmap in my role today in the same, similar way that you and your team were able to impact your products roadmap. So let's outline the steps that A PMM would need to take. I guess what would step one be?
[00:03:44] Sheryl: So at Confluent pmms, we actually own the entire end-to-end, go to market motion from messaging to launches, and then also post-launch. Option. after a launch, we work together with PM to help drive product adoption [00:04:00] and the revenue metrics. So I would say if you're not in a position where you officially own these metrics, I would still really encourage you to get curious about it and have regular syncs with your PM and data science teams to track them. And this is especially important if your company has consumption based pricing that's how you ultimately drive revenue.
[00:04:22] Elle: Yeah. Yes, of course. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. and it's, it's interesting that you said and brought up whether or not pmms own the metrics, because as you probably know, product marketing is so different in every organization, and sometimes product marketers and product managers, their roles and responsibilities blend with one another, which is why it's so important to be hand in hand.
But from your perspective, why is it. Such a good best practice for pmms to monitor product adoption or similar metrics.
[00:04:54] Sheryl: Yeah, so when I'm thinking about the product marketing function, it's really the connective tissue [00:05:00] between products, sales, and the customer.
[00:05:02] Elle: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:03] Sheryl: So when you do a launch beyond just the launch metrics, it's important that we aren't just sending out these products into the universe without knowing how it's being used.
Who's using it? If it's being used at all. So I really encourage my team to feel a sense of ownership to what product and engineering are building and making sure that it actually resolves, uh, the customer pain and then channel that feedback back from the customers to the product and ENG teams.
[00:05:32] Elle: Yes. Yes. And just to double click on something you said, is that the feeling of the ownership and being able to look back and understand how the products that we're launching are influencing the rest of the world and influencing in particular our customers is so important. And as pmms, who should be wearing the customer shoes every day, looking at these insights, I think would just add additional [00:06:00] color and value.
To that overall analysis. okay. Very helpful, thank you. Okay, so first up is review that product data or adoption metrics, and then what's next? What's the next step?
[00:06:12] Sheryl: next step?
is thinking about. How the product data and adoption metrics you've seen compare to where you need to be or where it should be or where you want to be. at Confluent, because we have this
[00:06:25] Elle: I.
[00:06:25] Sheryl: Source counterpart, we were able to compare and see like, hey, actually the open source connectors product has really good adoption with Kafka users, and that really needs to be our North Star for our own cloud connectors product as well. so to be able to answer that question, customers often have the answers to those,
to those type of questions. And so that's why we decided to conduct interviews, and really get in deeper with the customers in terms of how and why and are they aware of this [00:07:00] product.
[00:07:00] Elle: Yes. Okay. So you mentioned having some kind of benchmark for you guys. It was that, um, open source database, uh, but for potentially other pmms who. Don't have a similar benchmark, they'd have to create one of their own. so, but very good to note. Okay, so first is analyzing that data, the customer adoption, product, adoption, usage, et cetera.
Measuring that against a benchmark. And once you identify some kind of, discrepancy or. maybe that your metrics are not where they should be. That's a signal that it's time to start discovering why that's hence the investigation aspect of that, right. where you started to do your customer interviews.
So how did you conduct these interviews, I guess, like how did you determine who you needed to interview and, talk through that process with us?
[00:07:56] Sheryl: Yeah, that's a good question. So when you're determining who to interview, [00:08:00] you have to start by defining who you're trying to target with this product. in my example of Cloud connectors, our target were confluent Cloud customers and. My PM and i, we sampled accounts across different geography and sizes for this interview so that we can get good coverage, of our potential customers. to generalize all of this, I would recommend that you work closely with your PM to help define that target account list.
[00:08:31] Elle: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:32] Sheryl: Then data science usually can help pull that list. If not your pm.
[00:08:35] Elle: Yes. So it's good to have an understanding of your ideal customer profile and make a short list of those target accounts. Okay. And then follow up question, what kind of questions did you ask to. These perspective, I guess like interviewees you could say.
[00:08:54] Sheryl: Yeah, so as we were scheduling the, the interviews with customers, we did draft, a [00:09:00] short list of questions that we wanted to, make sure that we asked in every one of these interviews. a large part in our situation, they were. Discovery questions relating to our connectors product. So things like what type of data systems are in your tech stack. That way we would be able to know like what type of connectors uh, they would
[00:09:21] Elle: Uh,
[00:09:21] Sheryl: so understanding what they're currently using and why. There are also different alternatives for this product. So like I mentioned, there's an open source alternative they could build and, and create their own connector as well.
So we wanted to really dig into, Uh, why they've made their choice and how open they are to adopting cloud connectors based on their current pain points. and then the last part is a bit more technical, and part of the reason why I wanted PM to sit into this conversation is in case there were product or technical blockers, we wanted to have the PM on the call to just dig in a little bit deeper.
So we're
[00:09:58] Elle: Uh, for [00:10:00] why. Yeah. Yeah. What's really interesting about how you structured your interview questions is that they almost mirror a positioning statement, right. You've uncovered the exact, that that first part of the positioning statement of who this is for with your ideal customer profile. Those are the people that you're interviewing.
And then you try to uncover the pain points. That's what they're, um, the pains or tr challenges they're experiencing. and then the alternatives I. Who you know, right? That like, unlike X, Y, Z, you know, vendors. So the ineffective alternatives. I really like that you dug into that because sometimes that's missed in PMM investigation and research work when talking to customers.
So I think that's really critical, that you included that into the interview questions. Okay, so quick recap. You step one. Looked at the product adoption metrics. step two, you did, um, some kind of [00:11:00] benchmark analysis to see where your metrics stood against where you think they should be created, that North Star vision.
I guess part of step two slash step three, did the investigation and the interviews with customers with PM in the room. I think that it's a very important tip. Uh, so what's next? After you did all of this research and then interviewing? I,
[00:11:22] Sheryl: Yeah, maybe I'll start by sharing some of our findings from the
[00:11:26] Elle: uh, yes.
[00:11:27] Sheryl: so from these calls, three key themes really surfaced, from, from customers. So the first one was around the fact that they needed variety of connectors to, to be able to connect to the different data systems they have in their tech stack. So about the breadth of our connector portfolio. Now, this was a problem that we were aware of. Uh, since this was a new product, um, we were rapidly adding more connectors rapidly to our roadmap, and it's already there and it should be [00:12:00] resolved, fairly shortly. The second thing that we learned was that during the configuration and and setup of launching these cloud connectors, there were some unexpected friction points, that the customers brought up.
And so with that, we've built in additional usability features into the product roadmap to help make all of that a bit easier. Now, the third thing that we realized, this was what really brought us back and, and. To the roadmap and, and really take a look at it end to end. It was that we've realized that with customers, are aware of the benefits of using cloud connectors, but they actually, they want to use it, but they are not able to do so because they're storing their most sensitive customer data in their Oracle databases.
[00:12:50] Elle: Of course. Yeah.
[00:12:51] Sheryl: With a cloud product and sending all that. Sensitive data over the internet. That's not something that their company's InfoSec [00:13:00] policy will allow them to do, and that's just, uh, not something they're comfortable pursuing. that really informed us of a pressing need, this hard technical blocker of having connector private networking, was not something that we knew was so important and forefront in our customer's evaluation.
[00:13:19] Elle: Wow. Okay. So interesting. So there were some things where you were able to immediately influence the product roadmap and get those features created, but some which are a bit more technical and complex. it's a really interesting point because. Potentially surprising as well and a good, another good reason why to have PM in the room with you when you're doing these interviews.
So what do you do in that scenario where you get a pretty surprising piece of feedback that's pretty serious and a technical blocker for your product? What do, what do you do in that scenario?
[00:13:56] Sheryl: Well, first of all, in the interview, since PM was in the room, [00:14:00] they were actually able to dig deeper into the specific requirements that would. Enable, our customers to use our cloud connectors. And so with that and the themes that we've surfaced from these calls, we were able to gather, these meaningful qualitative insights. And we wanted to do a readout to share our our findings. And so with this presentation, we also included customer quotes and little soundbites from the call just
to bring that
All to life since our
audience
weren't in the calls with us.
And then the,
The other key Part of this readout was to make the recommendation to move up the timelines for this private networking features, as that's really the key feature that would unlock our customers, uh, to be able to use this product. However, whenever you're doing that, you're really making trade offs, so we wanted to be able to size this opportunity with a business case to be able to anticipate the questions that we might [00:15:00] receive.
[00:15:00] Elle: Oh, very smart. Okay, so you, created this business case, essentially the readout for some internal stakeholders to, make the proposal and recommendation to move up. These really, I don't wanna say monstrous, because I'm, maybe I'm not, I don't know if I'm technical enough to call it quite that, but.
We'll say pretty lofty road blockers for your customers that maybe weren't on the roadmap, but just not for a while. So, this business case can help justify why you would need to move that up. And as part of the business case, you sized the opportunity and I guess the business value and benefit to doing, uh, taking that action.
[00:15:42] Sheryl: Yeah. no, that's exactly right. So with a business case, you're basically making a financial model based on a set of reasonable assumptions. And then looking at what that upside is. If you did, uh, release this feature and all these customers were able to use, cloud connectors.
[00:15:58] Elle: And who was the audience for the [00:16:00] readout for this business case? I.
[00:16:02] Sheryl: in our case, we did the presentation to our C-Suite executives, and the reason why we needed, needed, at the highest leadership level was because we needed. across the organization. And that's because private networking features were owned by, not by the Connect product team, but by a separate, uh, networking team. And so meeting this customer need required shifting resources, for the next two years essentially. so we were in a fortunate position at Confluent as PMM is a strategic function here. And so we already had. syncs and direct access to that leadership level. However, if you are not in that position, I would recommend going through an exec sponsor If you don't already have a CF table, I.
[00:16:52] Elle: Yeah, great tip. Who would be a good executive sponsor in your opinion?
[00:16:58] Sheryl: Yes. So since this is [00:17:00] about the product roadmap, I.
think you should find a PM leader who really
[00:17:04] Elle: I.
[00:17:05] Sheryl: about the outcome of product adoption and revenue.
[00:17:08] Elle: Yeah,
[00:17:09] Sheryl: them looped into the whole investigation also makes that easy, since they also want to do what's best for their product.
[00:17:17] Elle: yeah. Yet another reason to be hand in hand with your product counterparts. tip. Okay, so once you got the green light, how did you kind of tie up loose ends?
[00:17:29] Sheryl: Hmm. in real life, if you know anything about cloud networking, which I think you do al,
[00:17:37] Elle: I do working at Cisco. That is our bread and butter.
[00:17:40] Sheryl: It's a super hard problem to solve, and not one that you know has an easy solution. So these networking features actually got released over many quarters, and as they were released by cloud, by region, we had to make sure that we then go back and activate the field and notify the customers [00:18:00] who gave that feedback. We also made comms, out to all of new confluent cloud customers that we've acquired over this, long period of time. And it's important to go and circle back. Otherwise, that business case would just stay as a model in Excel, right? You're making assumptions that you are unlocking and unblocking customers the quarters, in order to see that upside.
[00:18:24] Elle: Yeah, it's,
[00:18:26] Sheryl: you know, due to product and our go-to-market efforts, we have, grown our product adoption metrics for connectors significantly since then.
[00:18:34] Elle: brilliant. And I just wanna note that it was thoughtful. To circle back with the customers that you interviewed, to give them just some communication around how they're taking a part in influencing and shaping the roadmap too.
I could imagine as a customer how that could go a long way in terms of feeling valued. in my experience, sometimes customers will even choose a vendor because they get to take part. In shaping the roadmap [00:19:00] for the products that they use every day. so very helpful. So last question for you, Sheryl, on this topic.
What piece of advice do you have for a product marketer who is trying to shape the product roadmap?
[00:19:13] Sheryl: Yeah, I would really advise that you build a strong relationship with product management and realistically, it takes time to build that trust. And what I encourage my team to do is to have regular things with them, to learn about their product vision, their roadmap, get to know them personally. And when you're working with pm. Especially for such a technical product that we have at Confluent, don't be afraid to ask questions. And I, I.
think that really shows your genuine curiosity into the technology and willingness to learn. I've always found that PMs are really patient in educating you, and they find that as a signal of trust as well for you. And then finally, when you're working through your first launch [00:20:00] together with your pm, they will be able to see the value that PMM brings into making all the hard work, for them and their ENG teams and bringing that to market.
[00:20:10] Elle: so with that. I would like to move on to the next segment of our show, the messaging critique.
alright, so in this segment of the show, this is where Sheryl, you and I, as product marketing experts get to analyze real world messaging. it's so fun because you, Sheryl, my guest, get to pick the company. But before we get started, I want to lay out some ground rules for our listeners who may not be familiar with this segment of the show.
So first, I want to hear something that you're loving about the messaging, what's working. What's not working? And then, uh, second, maybe share something that you wish the PMM would've considered or done differently. And thirdly, how could this PMM iterate on the messaging or storytelling? Like, what's a creative [00:21:00] campaign or asset they could do?
It's just fun brainstorming. and maybe a plug for that PMM who could be listening to, take it to the next level. okay, so with that, Sheryl, tell me what is a product or company that has caught your attention? Good, bad, or somewhere in between.
[00:21:17] Sheryl: Oh, I'm so excited for this segment and I
[00:21:20] Elle: It's so fun.
[00:21:21] Sheryl: I have two
[00:21:21] Elle: I love it.
[00:21:23] Sheryl: so when you originally came to me with this, and you mentioned about loving the messaging, I couldn't help but think of Apple
[00:21:29] Elle: I,
[00:21:29] Sheryl: and specifically
[00:21:31] Elle: of course.
[00:21:32] Sheryl: with their launch of the Dynamic Island feature.
[00:21:36] Elle: Okay. I have to admit, I had never heard of this before, and I don't know if maybe that's because I'm not a big enough Apple fan, which I, thought I was, but tell me more about it.
[00:21:48] Sheryl: Yeah, well you may not know it.
by that name, but Dynamic Island is essentially that pill shaped cutout you have on top of your iPhone. And that replaced the notch on iPhone [00:22:00] 14 versions or later. what I really love about this release is the creativity behind what the marketing and the software teams had done for what's essentially a hardware limitation. So functionally. the cutout houses, the front facing camera for your phone and face ID sensors. But instead of letting that become static dead space with software, it has transformed into a dynamic and an interactive part of the screen.
[00:22:27] Elle: Got it. Okay. And I have to say, how did you stumble upon this? Like, is it obvious or have I been living under a rock that, it's called Dynamic Island?
[00:22:37] Sheryl: So sometimes I would watch, the keynote for developer conferences at other companies. And so that's how I came across the awesome launch video in which they released Dynamic Island? at the time. I.
think it's a few years ago by now, but you can still find on YouTube. it's only 40 seconds long. Super sleek.
There's no narration. Only the [00:23:00] most vibe, the music, and it shows you exactly how dynamic Island smoothly transitions from providing incoming call notifications to tracking your Lyft ride and playing music. I just find it such a refreshing change from some of our B2B marketing roles in which we have to use big, clunky words to describe something.
[00:23:22] Elle: Yeah,
[00:23:23] Sheryl: this 42nd video was just like the perfect example of show don't tell.
[00:23:27] Elle: I am really impressed that there's no. Like narration, voice or words, the show don't tell is very strong storytelling. Just for our listeners, I will track down that 42nd video and I'll put it in the show notes. I'm intrigued. I definitely wanted take a look. okay. And there was another company you wanted to chat about.
[00:23:49] Sheryl: Yes. So the other company that's caught my eye is called Dust. They are a Sequoia backed startup in the AG agentic AI space. And what their product does [00:24:00] is, in their own words, a. AI operating system for enterprises. So a horizontal solution that will be able to serve all business units of a company to help use AI agents and boost productivity. And of course, this is all powered by LLMs and grounded by internal data sources.
[00:24:18] Elle: Yeah. Okay. So I just pulled up their website. So for the listeners, that's Dust, it's D UT tt. I'm scrolling and they, they've listed out a couple example use cases. One of them is for pmms, which I really like, and they have examples like write on brand content in minutes, create consistent launch messaging.
So I'm really intrigued by that. But tell me, what do you love about the messaging of this product?
[00:24:47] Sheryl: Yeah, so I, I think the product is super cool, first of all, and like you said, as A-P-M-M-I would be able to build an AI agent to quickly synthesize customer insights from gong calls or run a query. I. [00:25:00] data warehouse to self-serve. Some of That analysis I talked about earlier
Using natural language. So I could just describe my criteria instead of having to learn sql.
And
[00:25:10] Elle: it.
[00:25:11] Sheryl: Overall for dust, their messaging is, is really well done. Uh, the website copy is tight and I can quickly get a sense of what I'm able to do with dust and its value props. And for a horizontal solution like this, I really like that they've included a solution pages where I can get more tailored messaging based off the business function I'm coming from and also use case suggestions.
[00:25:34] Elle: Awesome. Okay. Yes. It's always such a win when you can like very quickly understand what a company does. And I gotta say, in the world of AI we're in, everyone is just jamming AI into as a buzzword into. Like every single header and subheader I can think of, it's pretty impressive that you can be clear and concise and still show your differentiation.
So hats off to the dust [00:26:00] team. That's very cool. I'm impressed. okay, so what's something though that maybe you wish the PMM would've considered?
[00:26:06] Sheryl: Yeah, so I've actually met the dust team before and they run super lean, maybe because they use dust, but they don't actually have dedicated pmms yet
[00:26:15] Elle: Oh wow.
I'm even more impressed then.
[00:26:19] Sheryl: Exactly. something we've discussed is the challenge of identifying the right and consistent buyer persona, uh, for a horizontal solution like this. within the organization has the pain around this lack of productivity, but also the budget influence to be able to champion this? And once a company implements dust, how will it be used? Like, is everyone expected to build their own agents or will it really be, concentrated in a handful of super users who build reusable agents that everyone else then, uh, just use? And the [00:27:00] other thing that's. Comes to mind is how is dust different from all the other AI
[00:27:05] Elle: Mm-hmm.
[00:27:06] Sheryl: Enterprise search agent products? Uh, for example, like Glean. so getting a better understanding on their primary buyer persona will help inform the messaging on the homepage.
[00:27:20] Elle: Right. Yeah. So this sounds like a really great segmentation opportunity. And then from there. They could hone in on particular pain points they're trying to solve for their priority target market. They could understand how they're trying to solve those pains and how that's different from all those other AI powered agents like lean.
I could totally see that being a good next step. okay, cool. So lastly, if you were the PMM here, what would you do to take it to the next level? Like do you have any super creative ideas for our friends over at Dust?
[00:27:54] Sheryl: just brainstorming out loud here, maybe some sort of creative campaign that will [00:28:00] target a few key business functions. To start,
I'm
[00:28:03] Elle: Ooh.
[00:28:03] Sheryl: Marketing, uh, engineering. And based on the performance of that campaign, the team will be able to get a clear. understanding of which functions has that most pain and ROI balance, uh, for a tool like this and be able to start there as an entry into the organization and build out like a repeatable go-to-market motion.
I.
[00:28:26] Elle: Yes. Okay. I love that. It's like a BM style, land, and expand kind of opportunity. that could be a really strategic way to partner with sales too. you know, I might also suggest as part of the segmentation exercise, doing that like ideal customer profile exercise too. So when they create that ideal customer profile they wanna target, they can establish super strong personas across the buy team.
And I think that could really, pair nicely with your. sort of land and expand, sort of, I'm putting words in your mouth [00:29:00] now.
[00:29:00] Sheryl: No, that's exactly it.
[00:29:02] Elle: very cool. Solid messaging critique. Sheryl, also, I now want to use their tool because it's just looks really cool. Shout out to Apple as always. Yeah, the goat and marketing and messaging and then of course to the.
Yeah, of course. To the dust pmms out there. You've got some fans. Great job with the messaging. Uh, okay, Sheryl, before we go, I just wanna have a gratitude moment and say thank you so much for your willingness to share your knowledge and expertise with the product marketing community today and me. How lucky am I that I just got like a mini coaching session on shaping the product roadmap, so cool.
[00:29:44] Sheryl: No. Uh, thank you so much for having me. Um, it. Been really fun to be able to come on and, and share, uh, some of the projects we've been working on at Confluent. But one thing that I don't know if you still remember, but. At [00:30:00] the beginning you were mentioning how I didn't have like, uh, a traditional background
[00:30:05] Elle: Right,
[00:30:06] Sheryl: marketing,
[00:30:07] Elle: right.
[00:30:07] Sheryl: Were one of the first pmms that I reached out to at Twilio
[00:30:12] Elle: I remember,
[00:30:13] Sheryl: to make that switch. And you to kind of. Take me under your weighing and give me little assignments, and you really taught me kind of the importance of having customer proof points to strengthen your messaging.
[00:30:27] Elle: oh, thanks for that. Shout out.
[00:30:29] Sheryl: yeah, you honestly have shaped, uh, my career as PMM as well.
[00:30:33] Elle: Aw, I'm so touched to hear that. yeah, whenever I get a chance to meet amazing pmms like yourself, I do get curious. I'm like, how did they get to be so amazing? not trying to toot my own horn, but I, I got to help this one.
[00:30:47] Sheryl: A hundred percent. And I think it would be really cool if we did a podcast episode that switches, the interviewer and the interviewee, and you could be the guest to your
[00:30:59] Elle: Oh, [00:31:00] so fun.
[00:31:01] Sheryl: Your expertise in this
[00:31:03] Elle: Oh, that's so sweet and so fun. Yeah, I should definitely consider that sometime. any other shout outs to pmms who have shaped how you got to where you are today?
[00:31:14] Sheryl: Yeah. definitely. So the first one is Nick Bryan. He was my manager for many years Confluence, and honestly, he's taught me everything I know. And, he is a great product marketer, perfect blend of creativity and messaging, technical, aptitude and also analytical powerhouse. And, under his leadership, I was able to grow a lot. And now that I have my own team, I still hear his voice in my head about how to get crisp, clear messaging. Um, so he's been. A huge influence to my PMM career. another colleague, uh, Greg Murphy. Uh, we [00:32:00] did, a launch together, and that was my first, official launch as a PMM. And, he just has such a high bar for excellence.
He, and it's just so great at communicating through written words. And so he always strived me to, be better,
[00:32:17] Elle: Yeah.
[00:32:17] Sheryl: then get better again.
[00:32:19] Elle: I love those PMM friends who help us really understand like, this is what excellence look like. And honestly, that is why I wanted to create this podcast and why I thought of you to be such a great guest for the show because you strive for that excellence and obviously have had such great mentorship.
So. Those mentors are such, they're the secret sauce to how we get to where we are. And, now you're gonna be able to shape that for our PMM community. So thank you so much. And for people who are listening and thinking, I need to have more Sheryl in my life, like, how can they find you
[00:32:57] Sheryl: Uh, I think on LinkedIn is probably the [00:33:00] best bet. Yeah, I would love
[00:33:01] Elle: great.
[00:33:02] Sheryl: Connect and, and share ideas.
[00:33:04] Elle: I love it. Thank you so much, Sheryl, and thank you to our listeners for coming on this adventure with us today. I hope this episode leaves you with inspiration in taking the next step in your own journey.
