Create Market Segments Like a Mural PMM
Okay, PMMs. Most of you are going to agree with this.
Great product marketers stand out early by what they do in the first few weeks of a new role.
They don’t rush to rewrite the website or ship a shiny new deck just because that’s what they’ve done before. They listen. They talk to stakeholders. They look for the same problem showing up again and again, then they trace where it’s actually hurting the business. When they find something that matters, they jump on it, get an early win, and build credibility fast.
That’s exactly what Jeremy Moskowitz did when he joined Mural. He came in as VP of Product Marketing, spotted a problem he hadn’t been hired to solve, built something surprisingly simple to fix it, and turned it into an initiative the field was enabled on.
In this episode, Jeremy breaks down how to find the problems that actually matter when you enter a new organization, how to turn an early PMM win into broader momentum, and why sometimes the best thing you can do with your tried and true PMM playbook is ignore it.
What Sales Kickoff Revealed
At sales kickoff, reps started tapping Jeremy on the shoulder with urgent requests.
They were in big RFPs and competitive deals. Customers were asking about AI innovation, feature gaps, and what was coming next. The roadmap existed, but it was scattered across different places and different versions. Reps were going directly to the product team when customers asked for roadmap clarity, which created scramble, confusion, and inconsistent customer conversations.
Jeremy recognized the gap and did what he describes as a first hack. He pulled slides from different places, checked what was still “blessed” on the roadmap, and stitched together an initial version that could help move a late-stage deal forward.
From A Roadmap Hack To A CEO-Level Narrative
After that first proof point, the work quickly expanded.
Mural’s CEO asked Jeremy to build a thematic roadmap. He worked with the Chief Product Officer to create a single-slide view of where Mural was investing and what the innovation plan looked like, with a light timeline. Then he added supporting slides aligned to the themes, so the CEO could go deeper on specific areas.
Scaling It Across The Field
When the CEO came back, the message was clear: this was working and the field needed to learn how to use it.
Jeremy enabled the field on the roadmap narrative, and the roadmap became a way to guide customer conversations based on persona and contact type, not just a feature-by-feature update.
The Early Win Playbook
Jeremy’s broader playbook for making an impact early in a new role is simple and repeatable.
Don’t be precious about your playbook. Meet people, listen for recurring issues, and figure out which “chapter” the business actually needs. Be opportunistic. If everyone agrees something is a problem and no one is taking action, step in, even if it’s outside your charter. Market your marketing. Fix the problem, then tell the organisation what changed, why it matters, and who contributed. Connect the win to a bigger business problem so it becomes momentum, not a one-off project.
He closes with a clear filter for what to work on: look for problems that connect to revenue. If it can’t connect to revenue, it’s likely an inconvenience, and there are plenty of those.
Messaging Critique: ServiceNow CRM
For our messaging critique, Jeremy picked ServiceNow CRM.
He liked the headline “Autonomous CRM for sales,” and his main critique was a bit of persona confusion as you scroll, where some sections lean into a more stereotypical sales tone while other parts return to shared outcomes that matter across the revenue org. One thing he’d explore is making extensibility and how the CRM connects to other systems more discoverable earlier in the page.
What makes a PMM stand out early isn’t a perfect playbook or a polished deck. It’s finding the problem that’s already costing the business deals, fixing it fast, and making it easy for the field to repeat. That’s how you earn trust early, and that’s how you turn one win into momentum.
LINKS
Messaging Critique (ServiceNow CRM):https://www.servicenow.com/au/solutions/crm
Connect with Jeremy:
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremymoskowitz/
Connect with Elle:
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[00:00:41] Elle: Okay, PMMs. I think most of you are going to agree with this thought. Really great product marketers stand out early on in their careers or early on in their roles by how they act when they first start in whatever new role they are starting in.
[00:00:58] So let me explain. When a PMM starts in a new job, really great PMMs listen, okay? They talk to team members and stakeholders, again, early on in that career or role, and they look for problems that keep coming up. Then they figure out where those problems are actually affecting the business. And when they find something important, they jump on it and they collect an early win and boost their reputation all for the better.
[00:01:30] So that's exactly what today's guest did. You guys, it is my pleasure to welcome Jeremy Moskowitz to the show. Jeremy has had one of those career paths that I think makes you immediately want to ask about the whole story. His career started in sales, left, to become an unpaid intern at Apollo.io, eventually converting to, the first product hire, then moved into product marketing at LinkedIn, and then joined Outreach, where he worked across product marketing, revenue [00:02:00] marketing, and portfolio product marketing.
[00:02:02] So while at Outreach, Jeremy launched its AI agent platform, which went on to generate roughly $30 million in revenue in its first year. He was also part of the team behind several of Outreach's zero to one launches and helped lead some of its first platform-wide campaigns as the company expanded from primarily serving SDRs into the AE audience.
[00:02:27] Today, Jeremy is the VP of marketing at Mural, but here's the interesting part. That's not the role that he originally joined Mural to do. He joined as VP of product marketing, and within his first few months, he spotted a problem he hadn't been hired specifically to solve, built something surprisingly simple to solve it, helped sales win the company's biggest deal of the year, got the CEO using his work with customers, and ultimately saw the initiative become something the entire sales force was certified on.
[00:03:03] So today, we are talking all about how to find the problems that actually matter when you enter a new organization, how to turn an early PMM win into broader business momentum, and why sometimes the best thing you can do with your tried and true PMM playbook is to ignore it. Jeremy, it's amazing to have you on the show.
[00:03:22] Jeremy: Excited to be here, El. Just a couple of NorCal kids talking product marketing.
[00:03:26] Elle: My favorite thing to do.
[00:03:29] Jeremy: Exactly
[00:03:30] Elle: All right, let's dive right in. So for anyone who isn't familiar with MURAL, give us a quick overview. What is MURAL exactly?
[00:03:39] Jeremy: All right. So everyone knows what it's like to work on a complicated cross-functional project. Lots of planning sessions, lot of, lots of stakeholders, communications. everyone agrees to a plan when you're in the meeting, and then you go out and it's time to execute and it just becomes frustrating.
[00:03:56] Nothing gets done. People are miscommunicated. Work has to be [00:04:00] redone 'cause people had different mental models. Well, Mural is fixing that problem. Um, we've been in the market a long time as a visual collaboration platform. You know, digital canvas, you can do-- use it for anything from sprint planning to UX research, campaign planning.
[00:04:16] and because we know that everyone has their sessions in Mural, we're using AI to transform that canvas into an organizational brain, something that remembers each of these sessions, remembers the decisions and the next steps that we're, aligned on and helping people, stay aligned, uh, so that there's less rework, decisions are clear, and teams get to outcome faster.
[00:04:38] Elle: I love that. Yeah, when we-- I feel like when I first encountered Mural, it was just this, like a virtual whiteboard, and now it's so much more sophisticated, so it makes me extra eager to share this story today. Okay. So take us back to January 2026. You joined Mural as the VP of product marketing, and I think the context here matters a lot because Mural had been through some pretty significant transition.
[00:05:07] So give us the lay of the land when you walked in. What happened at the company, and what did you think you were going to do there?
[00:05:15] Jeremy: Yeah. So, the reason I came to Mural in January of this year is that they were going through a transformation that I had seen Outreach go through, where you go through explosive growth, you know, largely supported by having one product that one ICP loves. during COVID, when there's pressure on remote work, there's, you know, even more demand for that product.
[00:05:39] Something like a virtual whiteboard to replace all of the meetings people have in-person, was kind of ripe for that market. Then we saw the market correction that you see in software in the 22s, I guess I'll call that. Early, early 20s
[00:05:54] feels like it's weird to say. and there was a transition on the leadership team and marketing was being rebuilt and [00:06:00] I, was hired by a new CEO and new CMO, who had a mandate to transform Mural.
[00:06:06] and so it was exciting for me because I'd had a great four years at Outreach, but I realized that to increase the impact of my product marketing, I had to decrease the size of the organization I was marketing in. and so I came into Mural, you know, there was one existing, product marketer there, but, um, I had a...
[00:06:26] Uh, sorry, there were two existing PMMs there and two that I knew that I had to hire. and so that context meant that I was coming into an org that had not had a lot of product marketing support recently, but had a lot of demand and appetite for it
[00:06:41] Elle: Yes, I can picture the exact environment that you're describing. I find those opportunities to be some of the most exciting for a product marketing leader, any marketing leader for that matter, right? There is-- You look around and you're like, "Oh my gosh, there's so much here that we can fix." and it's, it feels a little bit like cheating because you're like, "Oh, it's gonna be so easy for me to get some quick wins," because the bar is actually kinda low because there's so much appetite for and demand for your expertise or your team's expertise.
[00:07:13] Um, and it's helpful that you got there and you already had a little bit of that with your existing
[00:07:17] PMM, but then you can focus and distribute more obviously with, with yourself on board.
[00:07:23] Jeremy: And I was extremely fortunate that one of the PMMs on my team who was kind of the, the first hired first mover of the org, had basically from scratch built out the feature release process. Um, and the art of like product is shipping things, enabling the field, figuring out like consistent channels where we notify and enable customers on them.
[00:07:46] if I had not had the luxury of that PMM, Katie, having built that from scratch, that's probably something I would've had my focus on much earlier.
[00:07:54] Elle: Yeah. Shout out to
[00:07:56] those early PMM builders. okay, so you get there, [00:08:00] you look around, you're kind of like in rebuild mindset. You know, I guess like walk me through what you thought you were gonna initially work on based on what you described, I would think like messaging is gonna be what you're gonna go through first, right?
[00:08:15] Because you described this huge transition that the company is going through. So what happened with that?
[00:08:20] Jeremy: Yeah. So you're right. Uh, I am historically a messaging guy. You talked about the persona campaigns. I'd done, I'd done at Outreach. I walked in thinking that my PMM team was gonna be structured that way, that, um, I was, gonna be kind of r-running playbooks and very specif- like segment-specific campaigns geared to different ICPs who, you know, were on a spectrum of we know that there's a fit with them for Mural or there's some kind of nascent demand that we s- we see that we wanna, um, kind of pour gas on or test.
[00:08:55] and you know, I also noticed the website and the website does not how I would structure a website historically. And so I came in and saying like, "These are the, you know, three things that, you know, I've typically done when I've come into a new marketing role." When I've seen marketing leaders come in, they were usually the three things that they focused on.
[00:09:16] And so I was like, "Hey, this is, you know, this is what I'm gonna prioritize." And we also had somewhat of a compelling event. our sales kickoff was coming up, and it was a good forum to debut new website, new, um, and a new first call deck that would kinda have that new, new message associated with Mural.
[00:09:36] Elle: Yeah. So the stars are aligning. You're the messaging guy, you have the opportunity, you've got your tried and true PMM playbooks, so you get to SCO. And for those who don't know, SCO is sales
[00:09:47] kickoff. annual sales, gathering for that year's trainings and all of that good stuff. So what happened when you got to SCO
[00:09:56] where you first thought you'd be debuting all these big [00:10:00] initiatives
[00:10:00] Jeremy: So a couple of things happened. Um, number one, even before we get to SCO, um, very early on in my tenure, there was, a small reorg and content marketing started reporting to me. I am not historically a content marketer, but my PMM hat, and especially that period where portfolio was on my product marketing title, I worked very closely with, content and demand gen and kind of just know what that machine should look like.
[00:10:26] but I had some work to do, kind of retaining a content marketer who was in C, making sure that the existing funnel we had, didn't break, and then also hiring for two other open PMM slots that I had. And what the first thing that forced me to do was, you know, like reexamine my priorities and reexamine like what's really a, a burning need.
[00:10:48] And one thing I noticed early on was that website, which it wasn't how I would message, it was converting pretty well. So it was, you know, any, uh, funnel challenges we wanted to correct were not necessarily associated with the website. So I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna shift my attention to elsewhere where," like you said, "I have a lot of this pent-up demand."
[00:11:08] I built out that first call deck. I kind of went through, familiarized myself with the existing messaging and basically looked for opportunities to kind of update it for where the market was today, listened to call recordings. Uh, Slackbot has a great integration where whatever your CI tool is, you can integrate it and then you can just start kind of querying it yourself, saving
[00:11:30] me a
[00:11:30] lot of time and I was able to, you know, in kind of much more rapid fashion than I'm used to, get to a first call deck, April Dunford style, you know, use cases, and something that I was ready to test with a small pocket of, of reps kind of as a fast follow to SCO.
[00:11:49] I get to sales kickoff, and one, it was, it was great. It's the least amount of work I've done for a sales kickoff in my career. all the folks at Outreach listening to this will laugh [00:12:00] about... I used to have the nickname Headset Jeremy because I used to be, like, wearing a headset like a producer and, like, yanking our execs on and off stage when they had to present.
[00:12:08] Uh, so I was there just for the vibes and... But when I was-- It was also that moment I had been, like, a little bit below the radar in my first two months on the job, and reps kind of discovered who I was, and they started tapping me on the shoulder, "Oh, we have a big RFP and we need help, uh, you know, answering questions about AI innovation."
[00:12:29] Or in this other competitive deal we're in, you know, they ask us about this feature that a competitor doesn't have. Do we, do we have that? And I started recognising that product roadmap was a problem. And so I dug in, I met with some of these groups at SCO and realised that, the roadmap existed.
[00:12:47] It was in various places. it was not like one centralised customer roadmap that I was used to. There's, you know, a process or a tiering related to, you know, deals of this size. You know, uh, an SC would present it. That size you get a PMM or a product manager, this size execs, et cetera. was a pretty clear d- direct line to that gap in product marketing that had been there.
[00:13:11] sales reps were going directly to the product team, uh, when there was a product, uh, roadmap request from a customer. Uh, obviously, product managers wanna, wanna add a little bit of friction there so that they can focus on developing the roadmap. Uh, but it was kind of creating confusion and some scramble and maybe us showing up to some customer calls without the roadmap that we would want to.
[00:13:32] I also, saw opportunities with, like, how to objection handle against some certain, features on a competitive roadmap that no PMM had just kind of sat, had the opportunity to sit, think about what our roadmap was in context of that objection, and have those kind of quick, uh, one to two liners that help with that.
[00:13:51] So as I was at SCO and I was in those meetings, I was like, "Okay, there's another problem here that I could take a look at and solve."
[00:13:59] Elle: I [00:14:00] have to point something out just as you were talking. What I noticed is that you didn't download a bunch of data, shove it into Claude or some AI tool of choice, and have it tell you what you needed to go work on. You sat and listened, and you used your, what I guess the, the kids these days are calling marketing judgment. Taste, whatever you wanna call it. I'm just saying your, like, experience and expertise.
[00:14:31] Jeremy: Yeah. I mean, I-- gosh, is that a differentiator? That's gonna make me cry a little bit. But
[00:14:37] yeah.
[00:14:37] No, I mean, I mean, it was, it was about just not being rigid and, I certainly would've liked to have updated, uh, the website or gone to these sales resources. Like that kind of, that kind of stuff's about as close as I get to going to the movies these days.
[00:14:52] But, this was a need and I recognized pretty quickly because there were some, late-stage deals coming up where they needed help kind of aggregating this for audiences of users, and then eventually like a final call with the decision-maker where I had to like-- I remember sitting down with our AI PMM at sales kickoff and be like, "Hey, here's a bunch of slides I've found in different places.
[00:15:16] Like is this blessed on the roadmap? Is this blessed on the roadmap?" And it was like, "Yes, that one is, that one is. We're not doing that one anymore. By the way, here's three new other things that aren't on there." And I just kind of like first like hacked together, quote unquote, this initial roadmap that helped us like move the ball forward on these.
[00:15:36] Um, and you know, one of those you said at, uh, at the top of the call, one of those, uh, deals we brought our chief product officer in to present it to the decision-maker, and it didn't happen immediately, but within two months it led to us winning the biggest deal of the year so far.
[00:15:52] Elle: That's pretty incredible. So it started with here you joined the team, you immediately get some shakeup, you acquire a few other [00:16:00] members. you bring in your tried and true playbooks. You're gonna-- You, you see all these opportunities with, you know, potentially the website, potentially here and there, and then you thought, "Okay, well we're, let's do the first call deck."
[00:16:09] And as you're digging into that, then you start to identify this recurring need within the business of roadmap confusion. Sounds super chao- chaotic, which I personally have been in that situation as a product marketer with my sales team and, you know, kind of being the referee between PM and salespeople, and sometimes it even demands a product manager's time to go into customer meetings, which can be beneficial, but can also be not beneficial.
[00:16:40] So it can be totally chaotic. And, um, so once you did that and you started to create this, you know, we're calling it the roadmap story, I guess like what i- is that what you actually built? I mean, like talk us through a little bit more what, what you built.
[00:16:56] Jeremy: So I think we established the proof of concept t- uh, for the, that first deal. Then, within like a week or so, probably like within seven to 10 days after that meeting, our CEO was going on a trip to Europe, visit our big customers, shake hands, roadshow. And she says: Hey, can you build me a thematic roadmap?
[00:17:19] So looking at what our innovation plan was for the year, um, and kind of bucketing things into like a single slide that showed where we're investing, what our strategy was, and then, you know, kind of like light gates, light timeline associated with that. Um, so I worked with our chief product officer to deliver that.
[00:17:41] But then like a good, uh, improv artist, I yes, and-ed, knowing that there had been this need for kind of slideware associated with individual features on that roadmap. I kind of a- uh, appended that to the end of it. I aligned the slides in our different product areas to the themes on the roadmap, um, [00:18:00] and kind of rolled out a, a full-fledged roadmap that the CEO could take on tour with her.
[00:18:05] and she was presenting it with customers. and like I remember getting these, these like five-minute video, uh, updates, uh, in intervals of, Leigh Margaret, our CEO, we call her LM in case I say it that again, saying like: Hey, this is, this is so great. Like this, this bucket of the vision is landing.
[00:18:25] This one isn't as much. Like, I wonder if we called it this or that. Um, and me and my chief product officer were like, you know, either like pushing back on concepts we liked or, or other ones like, "Hey, like, let's try this." And we iterated in real time on the roadmap with customers. And it was, it was really exciting.
[00:18:43] it helped out a lot in a lot of those meetings there. And then when we came back, I ended up kind of scope creeping myself because I had-- I was ready to roll out that first call deck to everyone, and she came back and said, "This thing is working. We need to teach the field how to use it."
[00:18:58] And so we ended up, uh, enabling the entire field, on how to use that roadmap. We had different expectations for if you were an SC who is k- gonna be more technical versus a CSM or account manager and you're working with customers versus a, um, you know, an AE who, you know, may be working a new business opportunity.
[00:19:21] Elle: So good. I have to comment on how kind of unglamorous some of this was in the beginning. You know? It kind of started with you found a problem, and you kinda just kept inserting yourself into that recurring theme of a problem, and how it evolved into, and this is kind of the cherry on top. Yes, it was a roadmap, I'm calling it maybe a roadmap strategy.
[00:19:47] It, but it sounds like it evolved into your narrative, like your innovation narrative that you then enabled the field on, which kind of is messaging.
[00:19:56] Jeremy: It did. It did, and it, and actually that's a great point [00:20:00] because also we paired it with, our CEO's kind of vision talk track for these customers. And that was close to what we had for the first call narrative. There was, um... And, but it did create this, uh, flywheel where there were elements of the vision that are still, like, market level that, um, you know, wouldn't be appropriate for a first call, uh, deck.
[00:20:22] But we fed some of that stuff, the stuff that really worked, into the, the next iteration of the first call deck that we enabled sales reps on. and then we also, and this was a learning from Elena, our chief product officer, the roadmap was a great hook for discovery. And so when I, in my session where I enabled the field on it, I actually spent more time, on, um, the situations and based on different personas or contact types that they would encounter in a deal, at what elevation they would do, they would do discovery.
[00:20:57] And I spent maybe more time on that, uh, than I did on like the actual feature functionality on the roadmap, to the chagrin of like a couple of folks who maybe were expecting that technical deep dive. But I think that was, you know, that was something that our sales leaders had huge appetite for, um, and, uh, proved to be really valuable in the end.
[00:21:17] Elle: This is so good. So like, I was gonna-- Uh, you actually answered a question I was gonna ask you anyway. I was gonna ask you about how you kind of scaled this whole thing out, 'cause you mentioned that this started with winning the biggest deal of the year, and then you obviously scaled it out and enabled the entire field.
[00:21:32] But I love even the way that you thought through it in terms of persona and, you know, the different talk tracks and like all the way to discovery, not even to, you know, actual open prospect,
[00:21:47] Jeremy: Well, and like this-- and some of this is feedback from another thing that I did that was a quick win for an org that hadn't had a lot of product marketing with, um, where it could seem game-changing was I previewed it [00:22:00] for sales leaders before I rolled it out to reps. and said like, "Hey, this is what we're presenting.
[00:22:06] This is the talk track. Like, tell me, what is your feedback as a, as a sales leader? Like, is this solving the right problems? What guardrails do we need to put up for reps?" You know, it didn't get, you know, everyone will try and like wordsmith it when you get it with them, and I me- you know, depending on who it was, sometimes you accept some of those.
[00:22:25] But it really gave us the opportunity to do discovery around the process and where, you know, they needed to up-level reps and what problems it could help solve.
[00:22:33] Elle: Wow. Okay. And real quick, from the time you started in January 2026, when did you enable the field? Like how many months
[00:22:44] Jeremy: So that was April that we enabled them on the, um, on the roadmap
[00:22:51] Elle: That is a extremely fast win
[00:22:54] Jeremy: Yeah.
[00:22:55] Elle: like a brand
[00:22:56] Jeremy: Or actually, I take it back, May. Sorry. Sorry, Harry. Let's
[00:22:58] take
[00:22:58] Elle: That's still-- I think anything within the first, anything
[00:23:01] Jeremy: yeah
[00:23:01] Elle: months at, at that scale, at that scale is pretty huge.
[00:23:08] Jeremy: It-- I found a problem to solve, and I was, I was fortunate because there have been moments i-in my career at like Outreach or at LinkedIn where I worked on something that was that project that gets you visibility.
[00:23:24] in some of those situations, you're being voluntold and you kind of recognize that this is your opportunity, um, versus this is one where I'd seen that enough times that I just, I knew that that was gonna be my, be the opportunity for it. So you, you kind of ruthlessly prioritize those opportunities when you see them.
[00:23:43] Like you said, you kind of insert yourself into the problem to make sure that it gets recognized and the rest happens from there.
[00:23:51] Elle: Yeah. Okay. No, so you actually are helping segue into what I wanted to, start to transition into, which is the, the playbook. But before we [00:24:00] dig into the playbook, so possibly the most important part, which you're just bringing up, the most important part of this whole story was actually not the impact to the business, which was impressive in and of itself, but it's actually the impact to your career.
[00:24:17] So you joined as VP of product marketing in January,
[00:24:22] and then you had this huge early win for you and your team, and obviously there were some ex- there's other events that happened, but this also had an influence on your career change within the company.
[00:24:35] Jeremy: So it did. so a couple of months ago, uh, I worked with an amazing CMO who decided to leave the business, um, uh, on kind of mutual terms. And when our CEO was looking for a new hire, you know, she j- she came to me and said, "I'd like you to, step into a VP of marketing role, a broader marketing role instead."
[00:25:02] I mean, I obviously said yes. I- you're gonna see me... I'm, I'm very awkward at self-promoting, which is gonna be, uh, contradictory to one of my points in the playbook in the future. But, uh, it's been a cool... I'm about three months in. It's been, it's been a great experience.
[00:25:19] it's given me opportunity to now extend this, this, uh, same philosophy to other sides of the business. And, uh, I spent a year on the revenue marketing team at Outreach, so I'm flexing some of those demand gen muscles again. but that kind of, that, that exposure and that visibility and kind of early, building credibility with the rest of the C-suite helped me kind of, uh, be positioned for that next step.
[00:25:44] Elle: I love this because I feel like for this particular episode, it's really like we're getting two case studies in one. Like on one hand, we're getting the case study on like, you know, how to do this really innovative or [00:26:00] like, um, you know, building your vision narrative through the roadmaps and enabling the team.
[00:26:06] But then on the other hand, we're getting this like career playbook, which, which is the one that I wanna focus on, 'cause I think that's, that's one that I haven't really covered on this podcast before. And it's, feels like sometimes the best kept secret to building positive reputation for yourself early on in any role, whether, you know, you're more a lower level, level or more senior.
[00:26:26] So let's turn this into a playbook. Let's pretend that you are my career coach and, you know, I'm a PMM at a different company. Obviously, I'm not assuming to get some like VP of, of marketing type of promotion, right? There's other events that transpired. But the playbook that I want to emphasize on is making yourself or making myself be visible and having a big win for my reputation, whether that's me as an individual contributor or like me as a team leader.
[00:26:57] So if that's my goal, what is step one for this playbook?
[00:27:02] Jeremy: So step one is for the playbook, don't be precious about your playbook. if you go in very prescriptive, no, like just looking to run back what you did at the last one, you might get lucky and it's a business with that same set of problems. but more often than not, you may be trying to move the needle on something where the needle doesn't need to be moved.
[00:27:25] and this is something I learned from my days at LinkedIn. you know, first time on the job as a PMM, go meet everyone. Uh, meet-- Uh, I joined LinkedIn, I was at the middle of this highly cross-functional launch, and I was working with product, marketing, sales, CS, data science, engineering, PR.
[00:27:46] I-- So many stakeholders, some of them I ended up working more closely with, some of them I didn't, but I got to get a sense of like where there were issues, and, um, you know, figure out what were high visibility problems that I [00:28:00] should be focusing my attention on. and then, uh, and like do the same everywhere you go.
[00:28:05] If you do go, just meet that, um, uh, meet people, try and form relationships, try and understand, you know, like what's going well, what's not. you know, they say like, um, you know, one's an opinion, two's a pattern, three is, is a trend. Like you start to see the trends of, of issues that, are worth your time.
[00:28:25] Elle: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. So not necessarily throw away your playbooks, but don't necessarily run them right away. You got to go learn the business before you start executing
[00:28:38] Jeremy: Or like if we wanna, if we wanna use the metaphor, it's like know which chapter of your playbook you would start on. Sometimes you're starting at the beginning, sometimes you're starting
[00:28:45] Elle: True. Yeah. Yeah. Great point. Okay, so what's step two?
[00:28:49] Jeremy: Be opportunistic. Be opportunistic. If you recognize that there's a problem, everyone agrees it's a problem and no one is taking action on it, be the one to do it. It, it might not be in your PMM charter and, you know, yes, like I know definition of a PMM, you know, I feel like sometimes PMMs don't even know what a PMM is anymore in this economy.
[00:29:11] it's true, but you know, sometimes it's worth it to go out of your charter if it's gonna help you get stuff done and help the business get stuff done. It kind of earns you the credibility to be kind of stricter in that charter later on and, and like really focus on PMM as strategist is like sometimes you just got to make a couple of decks and if you make a couple of decks it'll solve a problem and, you know, it buys you the credibility to operate strategically or focus on those other aspects.
[00:29:40] Elle: Yeah. And then would you also suggest that and maybe I don't wanna reveal too much of your playbook later, but like if you pick a problem that maybe falls, what- whether, whether or not it falls outside of product marketing, but like do you do a kind of like tell them what you're gonna do, do it, and [00:30:00] then tell them what you did and tell them again?
[00:30:01] Like do you do a lot of that, and is that part of your later playbook? I'm sorry if I just
[00:30:05] jumped ahead.
[00:30:06] Jeremy: I uh, I can't remember when I, when I said this to you. Yes, I did say that to you in this chapter.
[00:30:11] Uh, no, it's all good. It's a good reminder. Like, you gotta be out-- You, you also have to like, what I say is like market your marketing.
[00:30:18] and You have to, like I say, market your marketing. it's one thing to actually like, to actually fix the problem. It's another thing to fix the problem, tell the organization that you fixed it, how you fixed it, why you fixed it, tag the people who, um, who contributed to it. Kind of be that sa- shameless self-promoter, but also do it magnanimously where you're sharing credit with other people.
[00:30:41] uh, that's a way where, being opportunistic about the problem will, will kind of stick in the organizational memory.
[00:30:48] Elle: Yeah, I love that. I also want to point out because lately in some other marketing communities I've been in, I see some, Debbie Downers that are like, "Oh, marketing always has to market their marketing." Every good organization does that. It's just not marketing their marketing.
[00:31:06] they're all-- Everyone's going on tour internally for the work they're doing.
[00:31:09] Jeremy: And so he- here's the thing, like public service announcement. Your demand gen team is suppressing your digital creative from your company. So they're not-- They're literally not seeing your marketing. So it's a physical... Unless you're buying billboards on the 580, we-- Like you-- It's a non-negotiable. I love doing it to the point of being annoying.
[00:31:32] Elle: Yeah. And it's not annoying, actually. I think it, uh, turns out being helpful. Okay, so what is step three? Was that step three or do we
[00:31:40] Jeremy: Connect the win to a bigger business problem. Um, yeah. So don't l- let a successful project remain, uh, in isolation. This is where that feedback loop, uh, between or the flywheel between the roadmap and the CEO vision and that first call deck came into place. One fed another. [00:32:00] We were able to, uh, you know, I had launched the Honda Civic version of the first call deck after, after the roadmap.
[00:32:07] It was going well, but then the vision evolved, the roadmap evolved, the messaging evolved. Um, I was able, uh, I'd grown the team out at that point, and so I had a couple of PMMs kind of up-level that, uh, that first call deck, and they just shipped the new version of it to the field. It's 10 times better than what I did before, and, um, the reps are getting really good results using that same talk track, uh, on calls, at events, uh, et cetera.
[00:32:32] Elle: I love that. Okay, so we talked about, I'm just trying to like recap for a minute here. We talked about, um, step one was not basically reverting back to your, your first playbooks, right? Um, it's more of like doing that listening tour. And then step two was to be opportunistic, and when you start to see that trend, then to jump on that trend.
[00:32:55] And part of that was to market your marketing. Somewhere in there is market your
[00:32:59] Jeremy: Yes. Yeah.
[00:32:59] Elle: And then
[00:33:00] Jeremy: We can just make step three market your marketing
[00:33:03] Elle: Yeah. Right. Right. And then what will be step four, that connecting to the bigger business problem, which is, might be one of the most important parts, and it's part of, I think, marketing your marketing is connecting some of those, all that work you're doing to that bigger, big business problem.
[00:33:21] Is there anything else to this playbook or am I, am I set to go try to make an, an impact-
[00:33:28] Jeremy: I think that's it. PMM is really a relation-- a relationship game, and this playbook is all about basically being like a good, a good teammate. Like
[00:33:39] Elle: I was literally thinking that. This is about being a good teammate. Yeah
[00:33:42] Jeremy: you're listening in to the problems that people actually have instead of just doing what you want to do.
[00:33:48] you're kind of giving people the roadmap. You're showing them that you're working on it, keeping them updated, giving credit to others. And then you're also you're showing the outcomes of what you did, [00:34:00] using that to launch the next thing that's going to be connected to that bigger business problem that you solved.
[00:34:05] That's just what, you know, we expect out of a
[00:34:07] Elle: Yeah.
[00:34:07] Jeremy: teammate.
[00:34:08] Elle: Totally. Yeah. Being in product marketing is team sports. That should be on, ooh, hiring question.
[00:34:16] Jeremy: Uh,
[00:34:16] Elle: sports did you play
[00:34:18] growing up?
[00:34:21] Or what's your favorite team
[00:34:22] Jeremy: like that, that, yeah,
[00:34:23] Elle: Just Kidding. Kidding. It's a ta- taking it too far. Let's test them.
[00:34:30] Jeremy: As a, yeah, as a guy, uh, as a, as a certain type of bro, I don't think I should screen my candidates by what team sports did you play. But, but I like it. I like, I like, I appreciate the sentiment.
[00:34:45] Elle: Spirit of
[00:34:46] it, okay? Spirit. Calm down, everyone.
[00:34:48] Jeremy: I
[00:34:48] Elle: gonna be biased.
[00:34:49] Calm down. Okay. All right. Last question for you on this topic. what advice do you have, like one piece of advice do you have if you want someone to walk away from this conversation with just like one big takeaway about how to make a big impact early on, um, when they first join a company in a product marketing role?
[00:35:11] What's the big takeaway?
[00:35:14] Jeremy: Find a problem usually connected to revenue, and that's gonna be the right one to solve. it can be a degree or two away from the actual problem. there is a straight line into, into, like, existing deals, but That wasn't the pain point the reps were talking about at first.
[00:35:32] They were just talking about, "Oh my God, I have this b- this big call, hair on fire. I don't know if I have the slides in place." there was a, there was a small painful benefit that I was eventually able to connect to revenue, and that's why that was impact
[00:35:45] Elle: Mm. That's a really good tip. And sometimes it may not come directly from your sales stakeholders
[00:35:52] Jeremy: it could be, it could be, it could be from CSS.
[00:35:55] Elle: stakeholder? Yeah.
[00:35:57] Jeremy: Exactly. It,
[00:35:59] Yeah.[00:36:00]
[00:36:00] it usually just, um, you know, it's how you know if you actually need to, update the website. There likely might be a lead problem, like not, uh, that's usually a sign that the site's not converting or we're not converting the right type of traffic.
[00:36:13] you know, all problems should at least uh, connect to revenue, otherwise they're inconveniences, which there's plenty of in, in a, in a working environment. So, uh, look for problems that eventually connect to revenue, and you'll be solving the right ones.
[00:36:28] Elle: Yeah. So good. I love that tip. This was such a great case study. Again, I feel like we got bonus case studies in this one, so thank you so much. This was a very generous conversation. Um, but now I would like to switch gears a little bit into the second segment of our show, which is the messaging critique.
[00:36:49] So this is where, um, as product marketing experts, Jeremy, you and I get to analyze real world messaging, and the fun part is you get to pick the company or campaign that we are going to talk about today. Uh, just some quick ground rules. Yeah, just some quick ground rules before we get started. So first, um, you're going to obviously reveal the company, and then you're gonna tell me, um, what you're really, uh
[00:37:16] We'll briefly talk through like what is their messaging, and then you're gonna tell me what you're loving about it, something that's working really well, um, what you wish the PMM would've considered differently, and then we'll iterate on how the PMM can take it to the next level. So without further ado, please reveal the company that we will be discussing today
[00:37:35] Jeremy: So I picked a small little startup known as ServiceNow. Um,
[00:37:41] Elle: Just a tiny little
[00:37:42] startup. company. Um, and, and so I chose ServiceNow, me being the, uh, you know, former sales guy and sales tech marketer I am, I chose their sales solution, uh, ServiceNow CRM. And I thought this was interesting because I wanted to [00:38:00] look at what happens when, you know, tech giants of the world decide to focus on a specific persona, and maybe a specific persona that is not the same persona who they typically, uh, would, um, market to
[00:38:14] Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. Okay. So, um, ServiceNow CRM or sales CRM, uh, what exactly-- what-- so they're, they-- what exactly is it? I mean, it's a CRM,
[00:38:25] but
[00:38:26] Jeremy: it's, it's their-- So it's, it's their CRM. It's-- I, I think the, um, the value prop of it is Is it's connected to agents, and agents specifically, um, are helping in a lot of the, like, quote-to-cash of it all. So automating a lot of the internal busy work, um, associated with managing CRM, uh, that, um, uh, that keeps sales reps away from external activities with customers.
[00:38:55] Um, which was, was interesting. It's a space I'm familiar with with my Terminus outreach, but they're, um, they're applying it to a slightly different, um, different audience, which is nice.
[00:39:07] Elle: Okay. So I'm seeing thank you for sharing their, um, the page up now. So for those of you who are just listening on audio,
[00:39:16] I see that the big headline says, "Autonomous CRM for sales."
[00:39:21] And then below that it says, "Free your teams by automating the busy work from lead to quote to fulfillment order so sellers spend more time closing and less time clicking."
[00:39:32] Jeremy: So this headline is so interesting because I feel like it's the type of thing that only ServiceNow can get away with. Um, I, I've noticed having collaborated with product managers on web messaging several times that they like to describe AI products as autonomous. And I initially-- like I read this at first and I was like, "Ugh, an autonomous CRM that actually is a digital nightmare as a salesperson."[00:40:00]
[00:40:00] But I th- then I just started thinking about ServiceNow and their brand, and autonomous is their brand. They were kind of forefront leaders in, um, in AI and
[00:40:15] AI agents. And so it makes me think of, okay So it's a CRM from ServiceNow. Autonomous is their brand, and so it actually makes me believe it a little bit more that they're gonna automate the busy work than everyone else who is, um, making that same claim
[00:40:30] Elle: I was gonna say the same thing. Like, on one hand, I at first would wonder or I would write it off as, "Oh, that's an overpromise." But I don't. I don't because it's ServiceNow. They have kind of that halo effect of that broader narrative that they've been driving for a long time
[00:40:46] Jeremy: Exactly. Exactly right
[00:40:49] Elle: Um, okay. So what's something-- So that's obviously what's working really well. What's something that you wish the PMM would've considered differently?
[00:40:56] Jeremy: So I think we have a little bit of persona in, uh, confusion. They very rightly with like, "Free your teams from automating busywork from lead to quote to fulfilled order, so sellers spend much less, spend more time closing, less time clicking." That's a very smart headline. shout out to the Fletch PMM guys.
[00:41:16] It's focusing on the champion. It's focusing on the person who's doing the web research and is maybe not the decision-maker themselves, maybe not the end user, but is that person that's gonna initiate an evaluation and kind of steer, uh, um, uh, steer a buying decision through. That's the right person to target with a web landing page.
[00:41:37] You get into this next section, "Automate the grind, accelerate the close." This is a little bit more of that like, you know, kind of, I hate to say it, bro-y, "Wolf of Wall Street" sales AE
[00:41:53] Elle: yes.
[00:41:54] They're stereotyping Yeah. bros a little bit,
[00:41:58] Jeremy: Yeah, [00:42:00] exactly. tech sales ladies,
[00:42:01] Elle: but it's, it's Um, men,
[00:42:04] Jeremy: yes. Yeah. Um, and, and so that felt a little bit of confusion, but it-- they sucked me in again.
[00:42:13] Um, this use case, um, switcher, kind of brings it back to that champion where it's these, um, value statements associated with accelerating pipeline or forecasting confidently seem to be at the right elevation. Uh, and it's act- these are actually good, value statements because they're kind of a shared benefit between every member of the sales org, whether you're, uh, a rep or rev ops or a CRO.
[00:42:40] you know, fast, like more pipeline, a trustworthy forecast, faster quoting. These are all things that, um, you know, everyone in the revenue org i- is, uh, struggles with and is incentivized to find a solution for.
[00:42:54] Elle: I also really just shout out to the experience
[00:42:58] of this. It's really cool. It's a very cool experience because I'm not overwhelmed by the value props, but there are a lot here
[00:43:06] Jeremy: Yep. Um, yeah, I love a, love a switcher on a, uh, on a five use case, uh, slide, uh, a five use case carousel
[00:43:16] Elle: Totally. And then these ones too, I mean, th- and this is als- uh, so we've got, um, we went through the promises and now we're getting into some, like, tangible use case language. And this is where you also kind of see the, um, the impact of LLMs, right?
[00:43:32] Jeremy: Like, this is, like straightforward, this is less outcome-based. It's just the, "Hey, what do you do with it?" Like, and you could see someone, you know, searching for these terms or asking, uh, their AI agent of choice of like, "What's the best tools to configure price and quote?" Uh, and so grounding their use cases, um, in these tangible language, uh, I think is, you know, just really clear and easy to understand and also probably [00:44:00] helps them on AI search.
[00:44:01] Elle: Yeah. I'm looking at like proof points that they-- I like. So overall, just as you're scrolling through this page, it's a, it's actually a really nice like storytelling. Like it starts off with like the brand halo, kind of like as you pointed out, like communicating to the right persona who would be the person, um, kind of selecting the tool and then going, jumping into the shared, outcomes and then into the use cases.
[00:44:32] And then it goes into, of course, a download of some kind, an e-book. And then it, and then it goes into proof points. You've got some quotes from, and some outcomes or results from current
[00:44:46] customers, um, which is just a nice,
[00:44:49] Jeremy: And they're, cherry on top
[00:44:51] And they're all like lower numbers, which is really interesting. It's about getting time, this order under a minute, zero delays in processing orders. Um, it was like one platform for quote to cash even. And in the, in the world of 10X everything,
[00:45:08] Elle: Yes, 100%, 99.99... Yeah,
[00:45:12] right
[00:45:13] Jeremy: They're, talking about getting like uh, 40% decrease in quote processing time. It's, uh, they're standing, they're-- These are all outcomes everyone wants, but it's by getting the numbers smaller
[00:45:23] Elle: I like that. Yeah. Good call out. Okay, is there anything else to this story?
[00:45:29] Jeremy: Mm. And, you know, w- like, like any good marketer does, they close it with their tagline and with the CTA. Like, I think, "Let's put AI to work." I think I've seen those in the Idris Elba commercials and on billboards. and, uh, contact us. So they take you through the whole story and then prime you to sign up.
[00:45:48] Uh, it's just, it's a really well done landing page.
[00:45:51] Elle: Yeah. The-- You took the words out of myself, out of my mouth. I was about to say like, "Well, well done, ServiceNow."
[00:45:58] Jeremy: Who knows? Yeah, they know, they know a [00:46:00] thing over or two over there.
[00:46:01] Elle: Yeah. I guess I'll ask you one thing. If you were to take over this page and this product and this narrative today, what's like one thing that you might explore, maybe not necessarily to do differently, but maybe even just to evolve the story or to, you know, to kind of make it, make it bigger if
[00:46:18] Jeremy: I have a question about extensibility. So the advantage of CRM as a system of record is its ability to connect to other systems. Um, and I think I do see a tab, below the fold on this, on the search here. Uh, but it's-- I think that is the one story that as I'm doing that initial scroll, I'd like to be a little bit more discoverable early on.
[00:46:40] Elle: I get that. Yeah. So yeah, absolutely. So it kind of adds even more to the story Good critique. I li- I like that a lot. Okay, well done ServiceNow. We are very impressed. only a few notes, but they are minor. Okay. Well, Jeremy, one thing I like to make space for on this podcast is a moment of gratitude, um, because in product marketing, none of us get to where we are in our careers alone.
[00:47:10] We are always learning from each other, building off each other, and we are better for it. Um, so before we wrap up, I just wanna say a genuine thank you for your, obviously an, a super busy marketing executive, so taking your time to come on the podcast and share your experience, um, I'm so grateful, so thank you so much
[00:47:26] Jeremy: Oh my God, this is my, this is my pleasure. Like this, I, I've been a fan from you from afar. I reached out to you proactively because you did a, you did a messaging critique of Outreach while I was working there, and I was like, "I agree with you." Um,
[00:47:41] Elle: That one's also a good one, yeah. It was with Yi Lin if anyone wants to go give that a listen.
[00:47:46] Jeremy: Yeah. Um, but, um, yeah, no, I love, I love talking shop and this is my first opportunity to do it and like, uh, on one of the cool guy pro- PMM podcasts out there, so this was fun for me. [00:48:00] Of course
[00:48:02] Elle: and before we wrap up, let's, um, I'd love to turn around on you and give you the opportunity to shout out some PMMs. Who do we have to thank for shaping your expertise and getting you where you are today in your career?
[00:48:14] Jeremy: so I love, I love doing this. I actually have a deck, uh, whenever I transition a company, I present to my teams. It's called my coaching tree, that, that's the PMMs who influenced me throughout my career. Um, and so like, got to give big shout-outs to Neha Mamdani and Renata Bell from, uh, LinkedIn. They basically taught me product marketing, uh, kind of built up my confidence.
[00:48:39] I had such imposter syndrome going from small ponds to being a, a, a big pond like, uh, LinkedIn. Renata just like literally like gave me opportunities that made me hap- that like upleveled my career. you know, Jordan Green and Evan Klein and Andrea Tucker from Outreach, um, were really impactful. Um, and Kristina Bottis, the CMO who I worked with, uh, at MURAL, all, all like really transformational people in the, in the course of my career, and I wouldn't be here without them.
[00:49:08] Elle: I love that. I'm so inspired by your coaching tree. That's your now we are all little, um, leaflings
[00:49:17] Jeremy: Yeah, exactly.
[00:49:19] Elle: on the coaching tree receiving some of the, um, some of the coaching back. So everything's full source, full circle.
[00:49:27] Um, all right, my last question for you, I promise. Uh, where else can we access your expertise?
[00:49:32] Is it best to find you on LinkedIn?
[00:49:34] Jeremy: Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn, uh, linkedin.com/jgmoscoe. I've occasionally done the-- and I need to get back into it, I'm sorry, Alex, the Sharebird AMAs. I've been on-- I've got a couple of those hanging out there. I got new busy as I was, um, adjusting to the new gig. Um, but yeah, if you-- I will, you know, if you like occasional rants about messaging, if, if I do my thing right, I'll squeeze some kind [00:50:00] of reference to '90s rap in there.
[00:50:01] Uh, I'm on, uh, uh, I'm on LinkedIn/jgmoscoe
[00:50:05] Elle: Yeah, like every good millennial should
[00:50:07] Jeremy: Exactly. Exactly right.
[00:50:10] Elle: So good. Well, thank you again, Jeremy. This was so fun.
[00:50:14] Jeremy: My pleasure. Thank you, Al
[00:50:15] Elle: And hey, PMM listeners, if you like this episode, please share it with a PMM friend, and I would be so grateful if you would leave a review. It helps tremendously with our reach. Thank you so much for coming on this adventure with us today. I hope this episode leaves you with inspiration to take in the next step of your own journey.
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