Prove Product Marketing Value Like a Cordial PMM
Every product marketer on the face of the earth knows this feeling: walking into a conversation with sales, product, or any executive, already bracing yourself to be on the defensive. You’re mentally prepared to prove your worth before the meeting even starts because half the time, no one really understands what product marketing actually does. What’s worse, most product marketers never get taught how to prove their value. We know how to build messaging, create narratives, and launch products, but translating all that work into results the business can see, measure, and believe in. That’s where so many PMMs get stuck.
So today, we're getting real about how PMMs can demonstrate their value in a way that's simple, credible, and impossible to misunderstand. Which brings me to today's guest: Julien Sauvage. It’s an absolute pleasure to have Julien on the show. While he’s now an adored CMO, he comes from strong PMM roots and is one of the few marketing leaders who’s done it all, from early-career product marketing to CMO. Over more than 15 years, he’s helped B2B SaaS companies go from “So what do you guys even do?” to “How did I ever live without this?”—and he’s done it at brands like Salesforce, Gong, Clari, and now Cordial. Today at Cordial, he leads as CMO, shaping brand, go-to-market strategy, demand generation, and customer marketing, turning brand investments into measurable pipeline. On top of that, Julien is an advisor, investor, and vocal thought leader who isn’t afraid to challenge conventional wisdom.
Proving Impact with The Gong Playbook
Julien shares how PMMs can showcase their value with clarity and credibility, drawing on his experience from Gong, where he cracked the code on linking messaging to revenue outcomes. When Gong needed to prove their new enterprise narrative was moving the needle, Julien used Gong’s own platform to track adoption. He split the sales team, monitored which group used the new messaging, and tracked sales results. This data-driven approach directly connected narrative change to improved sales, providing undeniable proof of product marketing’s impact.
How to Build Your Own Prove-It System
Julien’s playbook is practical and repeatable. Start by picking a single metric that defines what you want to influence. Build your narrative and set up tracking in your tools. Enable your sales team with hands-on training and clear certification. Then, measure adoption and results and use feedback loops to refine the message. This system not only proves value but also creates a culture of continuous improvement.
Messaging Critique: UserGems and ZoomInfo
We also critiqued messaging from UserGems and ZoomInfo. UserGems stands out with a quirky brand and creative thought leadership, but their tagline lacks clarity. ZoomInfo, with its market dominance, uses broad messaging that feels generic. The lesson? Even the biggest brands need clarity and specificity to truly resonate. Selling the problem before the solution gives your narrative power.
If you want to prove the value of your work, Julien’s advice is simple: align your metrics with business priorities, keep your approach flexible, and make your narrative impossible to ignore. Product marketing’s real impact shows up when you can trace your work to revenue and business goals. Thanks to Julien for sharing his wisdom and to every PMM out there making our value visible, one clear metric at a time.
LINKS:
Messaging Critique:
ZoomInfo: https://www.zoominfo.com/
UserGems: https://www.usergems.com/
Connect with Julien:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julien-sauvage/
Connect with Elle:
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/
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[00:00:42] Elle: Every product marketer on the face of the earth knows this feeling, walking into any conversation, whether it's with sales or product, or any executive, and feeling like you're mentally prepared to be on the defensive already ready to prove yourself before the conversation even starts. Because half the time, no one really understands what product marketing actually does and what's worse.
[00:01:05] Most product marketers never get taught on how to prove their value. We know how to build messaging. We know how to create narratives. We know how to launch products. But showing the impact of all of that work, translating it into something that the business can see and measure and believe in, that's where so many pmms get stuck.
[00:01:24] So today we're getting real about how Pmms can demonstrate their value in a way that's simple, credible, and impossible to misunderstand. Which brings me to today's guest. It is my absolute pleasure to have Julian Sauvage on the show, although he is become an adored CMO. He came from strong PMM Roots. In fact, he's one of the few marketing leaders who's basically done it all from early career PMM work to CMO.
[00:01:51] Over more than 15 years, he's helped B2B SaaS companies go from having customers say things like, so what do you guys even do to, how did I ever live without [00:02:00] this? and that that wasn't all, he's done it at incredible brands like Salesforce, gong Clary, and now Cordial. Today at Cordial, he leads as CMO building from the ground up, shaping brand, go-to market strategy, demand generation, customer marketing, and all of that, turning brand investments into measurable pipeline.
[00:02:19] On top of that, Julian is an adv and investor, and a vocal thought leader who isn't afraid to challenge conventional wisdom. Julian, it's amazing to have you on the show.
[00:02:29] Julien: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm, uh, glad we're here.
[00:02:33] Elle: Awesome. Okay, let's dive right in. So today's topic is around proving the impact of messaging. So help me create some context for our listeners here. Let's diagnose the problem a little bit. Why is it so hard for pmms to prove impact?
[00:02:48] Julien: I.
[00:02:48] think it is hard to prove impact because there's a lot of different choices, uh, that pmms can have, right? In terms of like where they can prove the impact. Uh, when you think about it, PMM. Really spans across all the different, you know, stages of the funnel. And you can have impact at the top of the prefun with like, awareness type metrics.
[00:03:09] You can have, uh, of course impact at the top of the funnel. You can help, uh, sales accelerate their deals. You can even help CS with product adoption, like the, just like the menu is so vast. And I think because of that, that's a challenge. Um, because pmms tend to, you know, be very cross-functional and they want to please many.
[00:03:32] Stakeholders And, and as such, as such, they can't pick um, they can't pick the one metric. And so my advice is always pick one metric, uh, of that menu of like 10 metrics. All of them look yummy, but you gotta pick that one entre or that one dessert, and that's gonna be where you're gonna build your plan around.
[00:03:51] That's gonna become your, if you will. Uh, and that'll help you basically understand. where to start and stop and how [00:04:00] to better explain what you're doing to your stakeholders. So picking one metric is everything.
[00:04:05] Elle: Yeah. it's a bit more manageable too,
[00:04:07] right.
[00:04:08] Julien: less work for sure. Or you can go a little deeper and then you can expand.
[00:04:12] But, but Yeah. I'm, I'm big on like picking that one metric. that's the best way to clarify what we're doing to everybody else.
[00:04:18] Elle: Yeah. And you've clearly throughout your career have had multiple examples of excellent product marketing. I proving value for pmms. but for today's conversation, I wanna focus on one particular example and. Really, I think where it all started, so specifically around influencing revenue. So for the first segment of our show, I want to start with a case study on how you approached this when you, became the VP of product marketing at Gong.
[00:04:45] And then I wanna take that experience and fast forward into your career now at Cordial and see how maybe your team at Cordial is using. The same playbook, how it's evolved over time. So I guess take me back to when it all started, like what was going on at Gong when you set out to create that measurable impact and how, how you decided you wanted to measure the narrative, um, that was influencing sales.
[00:05:09] Julien: Yeah.
[00:05:10] so it was back in 2021. Uh, so it's been a while now, but I, I always like talking about that example. 'cause Gong was a big brand, uh, still is, but was really a, a, a, an upcoming and bigger brand back, back then. And I think some of that work kinda helped. Shape what the brand had become. Um, so back then, end of, or like mid 2021, if I recall, we were, uh, kinda like combining a, uh, rebrand with a new narrative.
[00:05:38] and the, the visual brand is still what it is today, back, but by the way, so the new narrative was, uh, I think it was, it was a little bigger and bolder, uh, than what we had before. A little more enterprise ready as well. It was differentiated. But then of course the question is always from sales is cool, PMM, [00:06:00] how is this actually helping me win deals and will win, win them faster and win bigger deals?
[00:06:06] Right? And so at the time there was no real critical way of proving that yes, we would have content management systems, um, and whatnot to like track adoption of your sales deck, but those aren't just vanity metrics. Like they don't really prove any. Correlation with revenue. And so the task I had at hand with my team, and my pmms was to basically build a bit of a simple, get repeatable method using gong itself.
[00:06:37] So gong gone gong, and of course all the revenue data stored in CRM to basically determine whether reps using the new narrative were actually closing more deals faster. Right.
[00:06:49] And so the action that we took then was. We kinda created that playbook, if you will. we, started, building what.
[00:06:57] Gong was calling at the time, I think it still is called that, uh, that, uh, trackers, uh, some of them are a little smart than, uh, smarter than others. Uh, a little bit of AI there, but like basically you encapsulate the essence of your POV and your positioning into, a set of keywords and expressions.
[00:07:15] Then we would set up these in gong and basically we would be able to track You know how the reps are using these and then kinda split the, the whole Salesforce. Into two groups, those heavily using the new narrative and those who worked. And then what you do is basically you correlate, uh, you know, adoption of that new messaging with downstream sales metrics.
[00:07:41] and that's what we did. And, and I think we could establish a clear correlation. reps consistently in new, using the new messaging, were able to close more deals or to move through the, the, the set the stages of the cycle a little faster. And that's, that's everything you need as a PMM, right? It's, it's less how many [00:08:00] assets and how beautiful they are you've produced.
[00:08:02] And it's more like, Hey, there's tangible proof now. That when you're using the new messaging, you basically end up closing more deals. Who doesn't want that? So,
[00:08:10] Elle: Absolutely. Okay, so there's two things that I really love about this. The first is that it's like a super repeatable system that you and your team built. The second, and I, I think I mentioned this before ahead of this recording, is we were preparing for this. This podcast episode is that I just, I feel so silly that as a PMM who has used Gong and and other sales recording, um, platforms I never thought of.
[00:08:36] I. Taking the sales team and putting them into two groups, one group with the messaging, the new messaging, or whatever narrative we're using, and one without, and seeing which one is performing better. and it's just, it's a classic experiment that I just, I wish I would've thought of. It's so, um, it's a really strong way to, to really prove that it's actually working versus, as you pointed out earlier, just leaning into like vanity metrics.
[00:09:02] So I, I love that. That was really, clever.
[00:09:05] Julien: Yeah,
[00:09:05] exactly. And I'll say you don't need, like, it doesn't have to be gong. You can do that with Claire. You can do that with probably like the new, the fathoms and the uh,
[00:09:13] Elle: There are so many out there.
[00:09:14] Julien: like, there's like a thousand tools right now, so you kind of pick the one you want and then you track adoption and impact of your POV over those one of these apps.
[00:09:24] Elle: Yeah, and I personally have experienced in my career, and I've heard other product marketing leaders as well say that the more you experiment and, and run experiments like this, the better that you get in your own, in your job, you become a more high performing marketer. So, uh, just little pro tip for anyone listening.
[00:09:41] Run more experiments.
[00:09:44] Julien: Exactly. Yep.
[00:09:45] Elle: now let's take your case study in this story and let's say. That I, wanted to try to replicate it in my role today. where would I get started as a PMM, you know, inspired by this case study? What would be [00:10:00] step one?
[00:10:01] Julien: Yeah.
[00:10:01] I think step one is, uh, pick the metric you want to own or you want to influence a little bit back to what we just said, right. Uh, the playbook you're gonna build using the gong track or the whatever, trackers and all of that, you need to know what success would look like.
[00:10:16] And so is it, stage one conversion to stage two, or is it a SP average setting price or is it. Uh, actual close one revenue, uh, competitive win rates, like, I don't know, but I would assume that you really need to like know the one metric you want to influence with your approach and your playbook. So that's the step one.
[00:10:39] Elle: Yeah, of course. And, and I would imagine that whatever metric you pick, it's gonna be different for every business depending on what your business priorities are. And, and then likewise what, whatever tools you have access to,
[00:10:50] Julien: Exactly. yeah.
[00:10:51] There's a reason why you are shipping this new positioning at this point. Right.
[00:10:54] And it's, and, and so it's gonna like back to first principles in a way. Like, why did we even do this in the first place? Maybe we're setting a lot of deals, but the, the, uh, you know, the, the deal amount, I mean, the deal size isn't big enough.
[00:11:06] Well, that if That's the reason why that new POV was shipped, then use that as, you know, the criteria for you.
[00:11:13] Elle: I love that. Yeah. Yep, that's helpful. Okay, so, then at, what's step two, after I get the, the metric down?
[00:11:20] Julien: Yeah. Step two is kinda like all the pre measurement groundwork. Um, you actually need to develop your message, right? and so, uh, as we know, there's plenty of frameworks to talk about this. This is
[00:11:33] Elle: I feel like you could do another episode about just narrative building
[00:11:37] Julien: Uh, just that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. But like, once you, you know, once you have that, you have your pitch, you have your POV, you have your narrative, you have the key phrases you would expect to show up in, in these real calls.
[00:11:48] and um, and so typically you would, you know, certify your go to market team on it. And, and now you have your trackers set up in gong, so you're kinda like ready for the next step, which is starting to [00:12:00] measure stuff.
[00:12:00] Elle: I love that. Okay, so I've got my metrics set up, and then I do other pre-work where I have the narrative built out. then what's step three
[00:12:09] Julien: Yeah, I would say step three is a little bit what I just, uh, mentioned, like the, I would say the rollout of the positioning or of the, of the messaging, right. The new deck, the new demo, the new whatever. Um, we all know that training one-off trainings are pretty much. Useless. So it's all about repeating it, reinforcing it, getting people certified on it.
[00:12:31] As I said, you can make it fun. You can have prices and incentives and uh, gamify it, and you have a leaderboard and you see who's. Uh, you know, doing a good job at taking the certification and whatnot. So, everybody in tech and in sales in particular, uh, is competitive in nature. So I think you play off that to make sure people really are
[00:12:50] trained and like the new pitch is ingrained in how they think and speak.
[00:12:54] Elle: yeah. Yet, another topic that we could do an entire episode on is sales enablement and sales training.
[00:13:00] Julien: Yeah. So many things to talk about.
[00:13:02] Elle: Yes. Okay. So, um, we picked the metric, we've built the messaging, we enabled sales. What happens next?
[00:13:10] Julien: Well, you gotta start measuring, right? So sales now is like actually taking active calls with your clients, your customers, your prospects. So, you know, depending on your. I guess transactional volume of calls, then you need to wait until you have a critical mass of calls to be able to, uh, do a more robust analysis.
[00:13:28] But typically takes, you know, a few days, few weeks depending on your go to market and your ICPI guess.
[00:13:34] Elle: Yeah. And whatever metric I would, I would imagine whatever metric you choose too,
[00:13:38] Julien: That's right? Yeah. If you choose more, that's a good point. If you choose more like downstream metrics, like win rates against competitor A, then you actually gotta wait until a few cycles are complete, lost or won before you can actually measure that stuff for sure.
[00:13:51] but yeah, you measure, uh, you, you, you have your trackers is, uh, as I, as I said, in any of these, uh, of, of these apps. Um, and uh, [00:14:00] and as I said, you like organically. you can see who's heavily adopting the new POV and who's not, and then you kind of like define the median and that's what creates that Almost like A/B testing of, of reps, behavior adopters. And the one who aren't really using the new POV could be more than two, by the way, if you wanna be fancy, I'm not, but like, if you want to do like four or five, whatever, but I would, start small and simple.
[00:14:28] Elle: Whatever makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. I do wanna call out because I think I don't know if I mentioned in it as I was kind of summarizing the steps in the pre, I guess like pre-training or pre-ex experiment, the part of your step two to actually create the trackers and whatever tool you're using to just make your life way less manual.
[00:14:48] Like there's probably even AI built into some of that. So,
[00:14:52] Yeah, definitely a piece that you wouldn't wanna miss in some of that operational setup. Okay. So now that I have everything set up and I've now run my experiment, I'm assuming all these tools gong, cl, whatever, probably also have some kind of like exporting report analysis that they can run.
[00:15:10] what happens once you get the analysis back and or complete the analysis on the experiment?
[00:15:15] Julien: Yeah.
[00:15:16] I would say that, that's a good point. Uh, the, the level of, analytical views that you get pretty much highly depends on the app. Like certain apps are just better at providing reporting and dashboards of, you know, out of the box, if you will. I remember back then at gone 2021, the reporting wasn't as, um. How should I say, comprehensive. And so we actually ended up exporting a lot of that data and then building rev ops would own that, building some, some charts in basically in Excel to kind of like compare the A, the the group A and B. But I would say pick your reporting tool, uh, of choice. It could be inside the conversation intelligence app itself, or it could be [00:16:00] outside.
[00:16:00] And then while you show the wins, you highlight. The reps who adopted the message and who are crushing it on that one metric that you picked. Step one, and then you show the other ones. And you know, um, that's how you can close the loop by showing how the message ties back to the metric you, you initially picked and set.
[00:16:21] So in our example, if you said, you know, I need to close bigger deals, but I'm, I'm, I'm like, my close rates are great, I just need bigger deals, then that's the one metric. And then hopefully group A behavior adopters, their average setting price on average is higher than the one of group P of group B.
[00:16:38] And that's, that's enough proof, right.
[00:16:40] Elle: I would guess that your, stakeholders would be really excited to see that kind of result. also the team that that's in the camp using old message with the lower steel sizes, probably a little bummed that they didn't get the bigger
[00:16:57] Julien: They know now they know what to do. They need to, like, they know that they need to embrace the new message and, you know, you know, hop on that train. So it's, it becomes, it, it lifts everybody's, uh,
[00:17:07] Elle: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure this probably changes a little bit based on what metric you're using. but I guess if we're talking about impacting revenue, it's, it will absolutely include sales or some kind of sales leader. But can you like, just quickly give some examples of good stakeholders to use as you're doing, uh, feedback loop.
[00:17:25] Julien: Yeah, as you said, I think it's, it is highly dependent on the metric you picked. If it's, uh, relevant to more like net new logos and net new business, then sales is gonna be there. Uh, marketing is gonna be there. Uh, if you are a PNG company and you want to impact how your, I mean you want to measure how your narrative is impacting product adoption or product utilization, then you're gonna have PMs and even ENG engine product in the room.
[00:17:50] So it kind of depends. If your metric is NDR and NPS or churn rather, uh, then CS would be in the room. So I would assume like pretty much all of go to market, [00:18:00] including, you know, products would kind of be interested at least in that project.
[00:18:06] Elle: totally. Yeah. Uh, any product manager is gonna care about revenue and any good product manager anyway
[00:18:12] is gonna care about The good ones, Care. Yeah. They wanna know all of that. okay, cool. I think we actually got a little bit of a head, but. Yeah, assuming there is a step six and that is the, the feedback loop that we kind of touched on already, but um, quickly walk us through what that looks like.
[00:18:29] Julien: Yeah. Uh, listen, no message is perfect ever, and it always changes with time. And what's top of mind for your buyer today might not be what's gonna be top of mind for them in like three days, or three months, or three years, right? So it keeps changing. You always have to adapt. Typically, you don't change your.
[00:18:47] Like value propositions and your positioning statements as often. Uh, 'cause consistency is and repetition are key, but the actual messaging of it, uh, and the way you kind of like approach that and talk about your value. Can change over time. So that's the feedback loop. Uh, that's where typically the top reps would tell you, I really like this piece.
[00:19:10] I think this piece is a little weak. Or the, you know, the group B would like tell you what's happening with, uh, with their experience. And that's how you, you know, refine your assets. Your POV, your messaging. You made these updates. And, you know, you keep shipping and they keep using what you're shipping, so it's kind of like a, a flywheel, if you will, or a new cycle that starts all over again.
[00:19:36] Elle: Yeah, and it helps build, build trust with your stakeholders when they see their feedback, you know, obviously, uh, reflected in the messaging too,
[00:19:43] Julien: a hundred percent. yeah.
[00:19:45] Yeah. The messaging is never an irate tower type of thing. It's always like you're in the trenches working, baking the cake, as
[00:19:51] Elle: Yeah.
[00:19:51] Julien: with with reps for sure.
[00:19:52] Elle: Yep. Yep. Okay. So let's fast forward now to, what life looks like at Cordial. [00:20:00] Like where do you see this playbook show up and, and how has it evolved since, it's inception back in 2021?
[00:20:07] Julien: Yeah, I.
[00:20:07] would say it's been refined over time like this. What I just explained was very much like the V one, if you will. And we're talking four years ago or Yeah.
[00:20:16] even more than that, four and a half years ago. Right. Uh, like one thing that I remember. Uh, we didn't, we were not really thinking about, was naturally the top performing reps.
[00:20:27] Are gonna be adopting the new message if that's a good message. And so there's a bias there. and you cannot attribute, uh, them winning just to the message. It's also because of all the other stuff and their sales man shape and whatnot, if you will. so what we did then, uh, the, the next company is kinda like introduce a bit of a time, the time dimension if you will, and know if with the new messaging.
[00:20:53] kind of do the before and after, like is there a delta over time between, before and after? For the new rep, I mean for the top reps as well as for the, the middle and the bottom reps, if you will. And then if you see that, that spike or if you see that that delta, then it's a better sign of, you know, your messaging being working.
[00:21:13] So that's just one example of like a tweak that we added and we've adopted over time. and there's way more. Um, we used to like do exactly what I said, but we would do that on all the gong calls. And yet you don't pitch your products all the time, so you need to like limit your calls to a certain subset.
[00:21:31] you need to include email as well, so there's like. A lot of different tactics and details that I'm not gonna bore you with, but I would say that playbook has been refined and robust. Robust defined, I dunno
[00:21:43] if that's an English word,
[00:21:45] Elle: yeah,
[00:21:46] Julien: for sure.
[00:21:46] Elle: yeah. And everyone should take a playbook and iterate on it, like make it your own. Right? This is just kind of the bare bones, but you know what, what you do with it is really what you get out of it. so. I love how scientific this is. So if I just very quickly [00:22:00] recap the steps here, step one is try to figure out what that metric is that you wanna use.
[00:22:05] Step two, I think was to actually build your narrative and to do some of that pre-work, right? The, like the logistics, setting up your trackers,
[00:22:13] and then,
[00:22:14] Julien: so that I can keep track.
[00:22:15] Elle: yes. Thank you. Thank you. And then step three was to enable the sales team. Step four was to actually run the experiment and do the analysis. Step five is to do the share outs, and then step six, I'm gonna call step six, the feedback where we
[00:22:34] like, you get, you do the iterating on the, on the messaging.
[00:22:38] Yay. Okay. it's actually really simple to do. It's just, it's so clever and scientific and it really comes, it really showcases the, like a true measurable impact of. Narratives and messaging. So one last question for you before we move on to the next segment of the show. any last advice you have for a PMM who's gonna take this playbook and run with it?
[00:23:00] Julien: I.
[00:23:00] think you start simple. that's, uh, that's for sure. Uh, you, as I said, you pick that one metric. only do two groups. You don't do the, the time thing, the delta over time, like, it's just, it's just too complex. I would say all of that stuff we just talked about, it's a sales metric or it's a more like a downstream revenue metric.
[00:23:19] We picked maybe. You are crushing things on revenue, but you need to go and explore a new, you know, segment of the market or whatever. And what keeps your CEO up at night is awareness in the enterprise segment. I'm making that up. You're crushing your mid market down market revenue numbers, but you have nothing up market and you're gonna start at the top of the funnel.
[00:23:44] Then none of that stuff that I talked about is really gonna apply, right? Like it's, uh, it's, uh, it still is more in the funnel. So my, my one advice would be, you know, beyond everything we just discussed, Eddie, it's like, know what's top of mind [00:24:00] for your CEO. What keeps him or her or them up at night? And then you insert yourself where it matters.
[00:24:05] That's how you build that trust and that's how you show impact.
[00:24:08] Elle: Yeah. Yep, And so often I've seen really successful pmms be really involved in business outcomes and. Being close with executives and senior leaders around, okay, well what are our shared as a company, our shared, you know, north star metric that we're gonna achieve together. So, makes a lot of sense.
[00:24:29] Alright, now it's time for the next and final segment of our show, the messaging critique. This is so
[00:24:35] fun.
[00:24:35] Julien: excited.
[00:24:36] Elle: Yeah. Um, yes. For anyone who is new or hasn't, heard the segment before, this is where we as product marketing experts get to analyze real world messaging. And the fun part is, Julian, as my guest, you get to choose the.
[00:24:50] Company that we look at. and before we get started, there's just three main rules, or, or I guess, uh, guidelines for this. We're gonna talk about what's working really well with the messaging, what's standing out in a positive way. We're gonna talk about something that we wish the PMM would've done differently, and then we're gonna iterate a little bit and maybe give some creative ideas to the PMM who's owning that product.
[00:25:10] alright. So Julian, tell us reveal, what are we looking at today?
[00:25:16] Julien: Yeah, I picked, uh, when you and I were prepping for this, I you told me the, the main thing was, uh, picking companies that you would be, you know, using Right. Apps you would be
[00:25:27] using, or like a market you're really familiar with. Otherwise, it's just like, I'm not gonna critique messaging for like whatever
[00:25:34] Elle: I could totally, yeah. I couldn't do like
[00:25:36] Julien: Uh,
[00:25:37] Elle: It wouldn't be fair.
[00:25:38] Julien: there you go. Exactly. You said it. I I thought about it. Yeah.
[00:25:41] So, right now we are working like revamping a little bit at Cord, uh, revamping our, a little bit of our stack. Uh, and part of that is the intent platform or the signals platform, if you will. As well as the data piece, the data enrichment that is, so I picked two companies.
[00:25:59] We're looking [00:26:00] at, uh, very different in style and in size. Uh, one of them is called User Gems and the other one is called ZoomInfo. I'm sure you've heard of. at least one of the two.
[00:26:10] Elle: I've definitely heard of. Yeah, I've definitely heard of ZoomInfo. I actually before, you shared with me, I had never heard of User Gems. I'm really excited to learn a little bit more. so just for anyone who wants to follow along, I'm going to use user gems.com. That's U-S-E-R-G-E-M s.com. So, I guess Julian get us started with like, what do they do and just tell us a little bit about their product.
[00:26:35] Julien: Yeah.
[00:26:36] they have two products mainly. Um, the one that, that I think we can spend a little bit of time on, well, we can, we can spend time on like the whole pitch, but one of them is, uh, an ai, an AI agent, if you will, that basically builds, lists. Captures signals, uh, scores your accounts and your contacts, and then write some emails for, you know, automated outreach.
[00:26:58] Um, so they, in a nutshell, they automate your inbound motion.
[00:27:02] Elle: It sounds a little too good to be true,
[00:27:05] but uh,
[00:27:05] Julien: I know. Yeah.
[00:27:07] Elle: but, um, but I haven't been, I've, I haven't investigated that space in a while, so I'm sure there's been advancements there. So I'm guessing then their target audience would be like the marketing org, right?
[00:27:17] Julien: Correct. Yeah. I would say growth marketers is like typically the user, uh, persona for them for sure.
[00:27:22] Elle: Yeah, Yeah, that makes sense. okay. So what are you loving about their messaging? And I guess again, with the caveat of like, this is how they're presenting themselves on their website, because that's what we have to go off of.
[00:27:33] Julien: that's right. Yeah, that's a good, that's such a good call out. Sometimes the messaging on the website for good or bad reasons isn't exactly the same you have in the sales deck, so, uh, we can only speak about public, uh, facing stuff. Uh, Yeah.
[00:27:45] I like, I like their brand in general. Um, and by the way, they're, CMO is friend of mine, so like, and I'll let you know, let her know that this is, this is coming up and I'm sure she'll
[00:27:54] find that very, uh, very, very fun.
[00:27:56] Uh, but they have a bit of a mascot, it's called [00:28:00] Gem E, so it. goes with like user, and it's like, it's literally like a little robot. It's
[00:28:05] very cute. big, cute little robot
[00:28:08] That's right. Yeah.
[00:28:08] It's a cute little robot. And so they have, uh, GE doing, uh, both the AI outreach and the A BM thing. Uh, so it's, it's cute. I like, I like that of, of course.
[00:28:18] but then I think in terms of like. Beyond the, the visuals and the, the brand experience. I think the message itself, at least on the homepage, I don't love, uh, it's right now. it's, uh, the go to market command center and AI agents that you can trust the go to market. Repeat that again, three
[00:28:36] times without, you know, like, Yeah.
[00:28:39] Stepping over, over word, like the go to market command center with an AI agents that you, that you can trust. So I don't know. what that means. I really don't. And like every time I see command center, I see os I see only in one platform and my eyes are just rolling over. It's
[00:28:54] Elle: God. I know. I spent, I spent too many years in telecom and I can't tell you how many, how many telecom companies I know, right? I can't tell you how many telecom companies use command center as like, and so yeah, I'm like,
[00:29:08] it's. Also sounds like military and so, I don't know.
[00:29:11] It does. It's I think you hit, you're hitting on something that actually comes up a lot in this segment and that's, and it's really hard.
[00:29:19] So that's the other thing I think it's worth calling out. Messaging is so hard. we pmms make it look easy, but it's really hard. A lot of testing, a lot of work goes into it. but this, my comment that I'm about to make comes up a lot in this segment and that's, to write human sounding messaging and command center doesn't really, to me sound super human, just 'cause that's
[00:29:41] Julien: Yeah, I, I
[00:29:43] agree. But again, I'm the data point of one French guy,
[00:29:46] so I might not even be like in their like, 'cause I'm CMO and I'm not, I'm not a growth marketer, per
[00:29:51] se. So Maybe they've tested it and maybe it works
[00:29:54] well for them. So I'm, I'm not judging, I'm just giving
[00:29:57] Elle: That makes,
[00:29:58] Julien: POV, that's
[00:29:59] Elle: yep, [00:30:00] that makes a lot of sense. Okay. So, what are you, what are you loving about their messaging?
[00:30:05] Julien: Um, I remember it's not on the website, but I remember a, um, I think it was a thought leadership Like, slash data report that they had and that I actually read, um, where they were talking about the AI adoption mi uh, mirage, uh, I.
[00:30:19] don't even know how you say
[00:30:20] this thing in
[00:30:21] Elle: yeah, yeah, yeah,
[00:30:22] yeah,
[00:30:22] Julien: word by the. Mirage. So AI adoption mirage, and, uh, I like that. I thought he was, I thought he was smart. Um, it was a good problem statement and right now there's no problem statement on the website, right? And so I kinda wish it was a little more, I'd say prominent in their messaging on the website. Um, it had legs and, uh, I just wish, you know, it was, it was there and it's not just command center with AI you can trust blah.
[00:30:51] Elle: Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like they, and maybe this is to, who knows who's controlling the website. Sometimes pmms don't get any say at
[00:31:00] all in what goes on the website,
[00:31:02] Julien: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:31:03] Elle: but, um, they clearly do have some selling the problem. Because they, they did it in that, you know, thought leadership piece that you saw. Um, so I guess we're kind of getting into it a little bit already, but, um, if you're looking at how, like something they could have considered differently or how they can, like, you know, maybe some creative ideas to, to elevate their messaging.
[00:31:26] Like what are some thoughts and ideas you have?
[00:31:29] Julien: I mean, that's gonna be no surprise to anybody. Uh, I think, uh, they need to sell the problem before they can sell the solution. Um, and so whether it's AI adoption mirror, uh, mirage or something else, like I want to hear. Uh, what's, what's the problem I'm solving for? I want to know why you, why now? What's driving the urgency?
[00:31:50] How much money I'm leaving on the table today by not doing things, things the Right. way, blah, blah, blah, blah. So really sell me the problem before you sell me the solution. That's the big piece. And [00:32:00] then, um, I would reconsider command center 'cause that doesn't work for me, but might not be their ICP again.
[00:32:08] Elle: Right. Totally. I really like that you called out the thought leadership piece because even as you're speaking, I listen, like I've only spent as much time on, you know, looking at user gems as, you know, what the last like four or five minutes that we've been talking about them.
[00:32:24] Julien: yeah,
[00:32:24] Elle: Um, but it already is.
[00:32:28] Immediately resonating with me and it's intriguing and makes me want to learn more.
[00:32:34] Julien: yeah,
[00:32:34] Elle: as a, just as a marketer? Just as a marketer, right?
[00:32:37] Like All you need is a little, a little teaser, a little word you haven't seen before, right? Like mirage, I don't know. I haven't seen that
[00:32:44] Julien: word a whole lot in tech, and so I'm like, oh, that's intriguing. I'm gonna
[00:32:48] Elle: It is. It is. It is. Yeah. So I think maybe they have something there that's working really well. It's just maybe not reflection on the website yet,
[00:32:58] Julien: Exactly, and I'll, I'll also say like, their app kicks, but like it's great. So we're criticizing, we're like
[00:33:06] nerding out you and I on
[00:33:08] Elle: we're totally Yes, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. I should make that clear too. This is not critiquing tools itself, it's literally just the messaging. Okay. So let's compare this to a like much larger company, zoom info. I can't imagine anyone, like not knowing anyone in the B2B world anyway, not knowing what ZoomInfo is, but like maybe just give a brief, brief summary
[00:33:31] Julien: yeah, it's one of the only, rev tech companies that had, uh, A successful IPO. Honestly, when you think about it, um, no one else has had that big of an IPO. They've been around for, I don't even know, 20 years or something. They're massive public companies. I said. Started as a contact database and then expanding the products to help.
[00:33:52] Uh, this is in quotes, that's what they see on the website to help go to market teams, find, qualify, and reach the [00:34:00] Right, companies and buyers. Um, so it still is very much a data play, but they built a bunch of apps on top of that strong data set.
[00:34:08] Elle: right, right, right. right. Yeah. So much larger company, probably slightly different approach, requiring a slightly different target audience. Um, so who would they be targeting that would be different than, or maybe expand beyond just the marketers?
[00:34:23] Julien: Yeah.
[00:34:24] that's the, I guess the cha their challenge and opportunity at the same time, uh, everybody in the good market, uh, or would be talking to them, um. Sales, marketing, rev ops, uh, I believe there's a CS maybe component to the platform. I'm not even sure. So it literally is, you know, a big platform or like Uber platform made of multiple sub platforms for, you know, anybody in good market.
[00:34:48] Elle: Yeah. Okay. And just for anyone who's following along, I think the, we're looking at what, whatever messaging they have on their website. Um, so it's just zoominfo.com. if anyone wants to look along with us, so talk through their messaging a bit. Like what is it and what's working? What's working well?
[00:35:05] Julien: Yeah, Uh, it's gold. So the, the header, I mean the, the hero is, uh, on their, on their homepage is the go to market intelligence platform. The go to market intelligence platform. I think what's working well is also what's not working.
[00:35:21] Like always like these big companies, right? What's working well is that it is so, vague.
[00:35:27] It actually applies to everyone and everybody, and it's just a testament to the confidence that they have. It's like they don't really need to say much. It's like you were ZoomInfo were the good market intelligence platform. Drop that mic. Like, it's so simple. Right? And I think that works in their case.
[00:35:47] They don't not, they don't have to be fancy, they don't have to be all sophisticated. They don't have to find, uh, weird words like mirage that a French person cannot pronounce. Like it can be very like plain lingo. Uh, and I [00:36:00] think that's a testament to their size and their kinda like self-confidence in a way so
[00:36:04] that, that works.
[00:36:06] Uh, but
[00:36:07] Elle: totally agree. I.
[00:36:08] Julien: you agree, right?
[00:36:09] Elle: Yeah, yeah. But, but, but tell us more about what doesn't work, and I bet that'll resonate with me given that I've worked at big enterprises that have
[00:36:16] Julien: Yeah, I think what doesn't work is exactly what, Yeah.
[00:36:19] it's kind of what we just said. it's like, it's too it's, it doesn't say anything. It is too vague, Right.
[00:36:24] Like, the, the sub, at least as of today is, uh, ZoomInfo gives you high quality AI powered B2B data and sales intelligence. It's not finished. That helps your go to market teams, find in-market buyers, build pipeline and close deals faster.
[00:36:44] You know, it's like literally, um, the ultimate test. It's So much, it's such a mouthful. It's jargon after word after jargon, word. Also, you could replace ZoomInfo by pretty much any other player in the same space. It would work with user gems, it would work with the polo and clay and whatever, you know, with clay.
[00:37:08] So it's so, it's so generic. It lacks specificity, it lacks uniqueness. It doesn't have a hook. It doesn't have the villain in the problem statement. So yeah, it's the, that's the other side of that coin.
[00:37:20] It's. You know, it works for them, but only because they're big and they don't actually need fancy stuff.
[00:37:27] Elle: Right, exactly. They're kind of like riding on the halo effect of their established brand, and the their size and this, they have so many products too. So what advice do you have for the PMM there? Um, how can they, I guess, take it to the next level or maybe elevate elevated a little bit or, or what experiments could they run to to see how they can improve?
[00:37:49] Julien: Yeah. Well first I, I can relate, Uh, can, I can sympathize, but also it's probably not 1:00 PM it's probably like 25 pmms or something.
[00:37:59] I'm [00:38:00] actually friends with the guy who used to run. Friends with a guy who used to run pm m and brand at ZoomInfo. ZoomInfo is not there anymore. so I it's, it's just hard 'cause you're an established player, you're a public company, you cannot do crazy stuff.
[00:38:13] Um, you have multiple buyer personas,
[00:38:16] Elle: Yes.
[00:38:17] Julien: like it's
[00:38:18] Elle: multiple stakeholders. I think that's a big one too. And they all want their hand in the messaging. It's
[00:38:24] Julien: Exactly, so
[00:38:25] so it just dilutes the whole thing. 'cause you wanna please everybody. But at least what I would hope I would, they would consider would be just less, hey, less jargon. Like I actually did a little like word cloud of their homepage. And I'm gonna read the top 10 words I
[00:38:43] found in that word
[00:38:44] cloud. Yes,
[00:38:45] You ready, Eddie? All right, let's do it. Go to market. Top one, data, AI pipeline, sales intent platform, connect, intelligence, automate, those are the 10. Is there anything that doesn't sound cliche in there? Absolutely not. So just like add one little thing or like, I don't know, but it's just, it's,
[00:39:11] Elle: They're all the classic SaaS B2B tech buzzwords.
[00:39:16] Julien: Yeah. Yeah. Sadly. Yeah.
[00:39:19] Elle: Oh, sorry, ZoomInfo. we,
[00:39:21] we we know that
[00:39:23] there's, I was gonna say we, you're obviously, yeah.
[00:39:27] Julien: yeah.
[00:39:28] Elle: I think what something that I would do some experiments on if I were. A PMM leader at ZoomInfo would be to lean back into maybe values of the company and like the, like big, big, big picture, you know, mission that we as a company are setting out to solve and trying to do some like narrative building around that.
[00:39:49] Maybe like run some focus groups or something and, and I think maybe that's what where I would try to do some experimenting on,
[00:39:56] uh, but
[00:39:58] but yeah, apparently
[00:39:59] Julien: You [00:40:00] know that,
[00:40:00] Elle: need to though.
[00:40:01] Julien: that, that's the thing. you don't need to be fancy if you're like so well established. Right. So, um, yeah. I think in, in, in some ways it kind of also helps us in PMM and in marketing, like, remember that. Messaging is one thing, and it's one lever, but it's not everything. You can be successful with sake messaging,
[00:40:23] so it's
[00:40:24] just, uh, yeah, it's a bit of a humbling moment for all of us, but messaging is,
[00:40:29] Elle: for sure.
[00:40:30] Julien: it's important, but it's not all the things, you know,
[00:40:33] Elle: Yes. So we just looked at two vendors in the same, or at least like similar like big picture of like market category and one very, very large company who's crushing it and one small company who's also crushing it. So what's kind of the takeaway? I think for a pm m who's, or pmms who are, I guess like thinking about like positioning and messaging in like a big in, in a market.
[00:40:56] you know, based on what you saw today.
[00:40:59] Across both of
[00:41:00] Julien: At least I would say that's kinda what we just talked about, right? Uh, avoid the, the jargon. Um, define your villain, uh, and your story arc, your obstacles, your hero, your outcomes, the end state, the bliss, and all of that stuff. Um, and, um, probably measure back to the initial topic you and I just discussed.
[00:41:24] Just like iterate, measure step six is like never ending feedback loop. Do some testing. I'm sure a lot of them are doing that.
[00:41:31] Elle: Totally, I'm sure. And, and we also didn't look at like specific product pages, which I think pmms probably have more control over. So,
[00:41:41] um, it could be that those ones are also like, way stronger than actually their homepage, which sometimes happens.
[00:41:48] Um,
[00:41:49] Julien: messaging is,
[00:41:51] uh, the notoriously hard.
[00:41:53] Elle: It's
[00:41:53] so hard.
[00:41:54] Julien: ever. so yeah.
[00:41:56] Elle: Well shout out to User Gems and ZoomInfo.
[00:41:59] [00:42:00] Pmms, we feel for you, it's, it's tough out there doing messaging, but you guys have found a recipe that works for you. But let us know if you like these ideas. I'm curious if, um, if you have been working on some of this already and where we might be able to learn more. alright, so Julian, one thing that I like to do.
[00:42:19] On this podcast is, uh, make some space for gratitude. So with that, um, I wanna bring us to my gratitude moment and, uh, because in product marketing, none of us get here alone. We're all learning from each other and building on each other's frameworks and playbooks, like I'm sure like hundreds of listeners are gonna do with.
[00:42:34] the playbook that you shared today. Uh, so before we wrap up, I wanna say a genuine thank you to you for taking so much of your precious time to help prepare for this episode and obviously record and share your expertise. So thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Um, and I'd love to turn it around to you who are maybe some pmms who have helped shaped your career and really brought you to where you are today.
[00:42:58] Julien: Yeah, I guess I'm gonna pick, uh, maybe two, three people. Two of them are, uh, mentors. I wouldn't be where I'm at, where I am today without them. But then when, when you do gratitude, oftentimes you took a look at like those mentors and more senior people. But actually wanna express gratitude towards people who have been on my team.
[00:43:19] Um, and, uh, 'cause like, I, I wouldn't be a leader today.
[00:43:22] without them in a way. Right? So the first one is, uh, Andy Savage. Uh, he was my CMO at my first company, my first, uh, tech company that is, um, back in the days 2000, don't even remember, 2012,
[00:43:36] 13.
[00:43:37] Elle: your ear early PM
[00:43:38] Julien: Yeah, it was my, like, I had no idea how to spell PMM. I was a, I was an se back then, I was coming from Paris and I had no idea what was going on and so he took me under his wings and, uh, yeah, he's a great dude.
[00:43:50] Uh, although it's been a while, we haven't talked. So Andy Savage is one. The other one is, uh, Stephanie bmi, who really took a bet on me when she [00:44:00] hired me at Salesforce back in 2015. So it's been 10 years, uh, this year. Um, then she moved up the ranks and became, uh, one of the most amazing CMOs I've worked with at Salesforce.
[00:44:12] so she's, uh, she's the best. These are mentors. And then, As I said, people who were on my team, like direct reports, I, I've been blessed to be, Destination companies. And so attracting world class pmms have been easier for me. Uh, so I feel very privileged. and some of these people I've worked with multiple times now, they would, you know, follow me or I would follow them.
[00:44:36] so Ryan Bo is, is a, has become a friend. She was my first PMM hire at Gong. And then she joined at, she joined my team at Clary Victoria. Anova was my, also my first PMMI hired at Gong same day as Ryan. She's now with open ai. She needs
[00:44:52] PMM there. Uh, so yeah, we have, uh, we have those, uh, you know, I'm, I'm grateful for these people who helped me be a better manager, a better, uh, CMO and, uh, who stayed friends with me this whole time.
[00:45:06] Grateful for that.
[00:45:07] Elle: I love that. You are so lucky. You've had some incredible mentors and teams and it says something when you work with someone who. Wants to follow you to your next company and vice versa, so you're so lucky to have had that. Okay, my last question for you, where else can we access your expertise? Is it best to just reach out on LinkedIn?
[00:45:27] Julien: yeah. reach out on link, reach out on LinkedIn?
[00:45:30] Uh, I, I am pretty active there. I post, uh, about once a day. Sometimes it's funny, quirky, silly little dad jokes, and sometimes it's a little more profound and framework and I hope you can find joy in learnings in some of that stuff.
[00:45:42] Elle: Awesome. Thank you so much Julian, and thank you PMM listeners for coming on this adventure with us today. I hope this episode leaves you with inspiration to take with you on the next step in your own journey.
[00:45:54]
