If your sales team is drowning in new product launches, Cristina has some solid advice for you.
Most of us have heard the same advice for years: enable your sellers. But when a company is launching something new almost every month, one more enablement session isn't going to cut it.
That's the problem Cristina Sainati, staff product marketing manager at Samsara, set out to solve. Samsara helps organizations that run physical operations, like transportation, construction and public services, turn data from vehicles, equipment and frontline workers into action. When a major launch was about to open up new value props and a bigger market, Cristina didn't just ask, "How do I enable sales?" She asked, "How do I make this easy to sell?"
She describes how she treated her sales reps like prospects, used AI to reach them one-on-one at scale, and got around a 70% response rate.
The Campfire Launch
Cristina uses a campfire to explain her approach. The enablement deck, messaging and marketing content are the kindling. The live launch moment lights the fire. But sometimes the fire doesn't catch.
To keep it going, you need to give it oxygen. For Cristina, that meant reaching out to reps individually with content that fit their accounts.
Selling To Your Sales Team
Her first attempt was a Slack message with the full enablement kit and a "go sell this" note. It didn't spark much conversation, so she changed her approach:
Start with a hook. She worked with the product team to find account data showing the dollars those accounts were leaving on the table. That gave each rep a real reason to act.
Keep it short. Her messages were a couple of lines. Not "how are you?" but "Did you know X?" She gave something first, then asked.
Share only what the rep needs. Instead of the whole kit, she sent a video to forward to a customer, a few questions to ask on the next call, or a short pitch deck.
The kit itself didn't change. What changed was how it got to the reps, and the feedback loop it created.
How AI Made It Possible
Cristina pulled account and product insights from Databricks, then gave Claude her target account list, the personalized data and her message templates. Claude drafted a message for each account executive and sent the drafts to Slack for her review.
She kept a human in the loop on purpose. She checked whether she'd spoken to the rep before, adjusted the tone, and added a personal touch. The whole process took about 30 minutes. Doing the same work manually would have taken a whole weekend.
She also wanted to be in the conversations herself. She wanted to learn what reps were asking, and that's not something she'd get from an AI summary.
The Results
About 70% of the reps she reached out to replied. She also tracked pipeline created in those accounts, how many opportunities progressed, and the share of reps running trials quarter over quarter. As reps talked about wins in team meetings, her product came up.
The Playbook
Figure out why a salesperson should care.
Build a target account list.
Draft your messages.
Have the conversations.
Learn, iterate and close it out. Cristina ran this as a two-week sprint.
Messaging Critique: Wispr Flow
For the messaging critique, Cristina picked Wispr Flow, a voice-to-text app for B2B tech workers. What she loved was the onboarding. It showed ROI right away with a typing speed test, added social proof with a team leaderboard, and created voice profiles that made her want to keep using it.
Her challenge to the team: speed can't be the only benefit. What if some friction is good friction? She'd like to see messaging that shows how the product helps people think better, not just move faster.
Cristina's story is proof that the best launches don't just inform your sellers, they earn their attention. Stop trying to do more enablement, and start making it easier to sell: give reps a reason to care, make it personal, and keep the human conversation going.
LINKS
Messaging Critique (Wisprflow): https://wisprflow.ai/
Connect with Cristina:
Website: https://www.samsara.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/csainati/
Connect with Elle:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/
Website: https://www.productmarketingadventures.com/
Dusted: https://dusted.io/
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[00:00:00] Elle: Cristina, it's amazing to have you on the show.
[00:00:02] Cristina: I'm excited to be here.
[00:00:03] Elle: let's dive right in. I can't imagine that anyone n- would not know this because I feel like Samsara has become just one of those really well-recognized, um, brands. But just to keep it all clear from the beginning, what is Samsara exactly?
[00:00:17] Cristina: so Samsara, um, I honestly, it wasn't on my radar before a couple years ago. Um, so if people don't know about it, that's fine, but it's an awesome company. Um, and what we do is we help organizations that are running physical operations.
[00:00:31] Um, so think transportation, constructions. I was on a call earlier with some trash truck guys, um, public services. It's the things that you don't think about that keep the world running, um, which is something that initially drew me to the company. Um, and what we do is we collect a lot of data from vehicles, equipment, frontline workers, and we put it all into one platform, and then we're using AI to really turn that, it sounds cliché, but it's true, data from insights into action.
[00:00:59] and so ultimately [00:01:00] what we're doing is helping these companies make smarter decisions. Safety is a huge value prop for us, and then just running their operations more effec- efficiently
[00:01:08] Elle: I feel like I remember coming across Samsara. So I used to spend a lot of time in the Internet of Things, like IoT space, and that's when I initially, um, got my first taste of really, uh, where Samsara was showing up in a lot of these, like, kind of, there, you mentioned the, like, trash can guys, and I, I, like, giggled a little bit, but it's so true.
[00:01:29] It's that, like, asset tracking kind of industry that exactly, as you said, it, like, makes the world go around. I need my trash picked up.
[00:01:39] Cristina: We do, and you don't think about it. You don't think
[00:01:41] Elle: Yeah.
[00:01:42] Cristina: that goes into that every day
[00:01:43] Elle: I feel like this is a very big topic right now in the product marketing space, right? This, um, challenge of launching products so fast, and it feels like almost on a weekly basis, there's something new for salespeople to learn. [00:02:00] So take me back to that moment, um, for you within Samsara, where you realized, like, "Okay, I'm gonna need to do something different because there's just too many other products to compete with to get the attention from sales."
[00:02:15] Cristina: Yeah. I mean, so I think it was, it was two things. There was like kind of the trigger was, um, we had been launching new things each month, but we were about to launch something that was gonna significantly change the value props that we could stand up on, um, and change the people we could talk to and just, and expand, expand our TAM for this product.
[00:02:35] And so this was a moment that we really wanted to get right, first of all. And then the second thing that was kind of in my head was we had recently had, um, some reviews with senior leaders, and one of the senior leaders said something around, "You have to stop focusing on enablement. Like, you're not gonna teach this sales force about more products.
[00:02:54] We have so many products. We're launching so much." Um, obviously like don't take that [00:03:00] 100% for truth, like we're gonna teach them things, but at the same time he's like, "You have to make it easier to sell." And that was really like the aha moment for me where I was like, okay, when I'm launching this new product, I'm not gonna just think about enablement again.
[00:03:13] How do we make this easy to sell was really like my north star.
[00:03:16] Elle: I love that. Yeah. So it was helpful to kind of have that leadership guidance around this is what the sales team is gonna need, and that teed up very nicely for you to think through a new challenge that beyond just educate, education for the salespeople. Now, walking, put your s- putting on your salespeople, salesperson hat for a minute, you know that they're getting inundated with your peers internally and all of the other products that are coming out. what was the first thing that you thought through when you realized, like, "Okay, I need to think about making this easier to sell"? Like, let's, like, dig a little deeper into that, and, [00:04:00] and let's talk through kind of like what that actually looked like.
[00:04:03] Cristina: the first couple things I did were the same as you always do, and hopefully everyone's doing. Um, I started working on, um, the messaging guidance. I started working on the sales enablement deck, the marketing, um, content, et cetera, um, and really building those, like, foundational pieces. And so the thing that I wanted to bring to you, Ali, was, um, this idea of, like, building a campfire, which is really what inspired me here.
[00:04:28] Um, it's kind of cheesy, but like, tho- there's those, like, initial pieces, the enablement deck, the messaging, the marketing, et cetera, that you're gonna build, and those are, like, kind of like the, the kindling or the, the piece- the pieces of wood for your campfire, right? You build your teepee, you build all those materials.
[00:04:43] Um, and then the second thing that everyone always does, I'm hoping you all do this, is just have that launch moment. It's at a live enablement session. There's maybe a press release or something external that tells the market you're here, you're ready. Um, and that, and me- for, like, going back to the campfire [00:05:00] analogy, it's like you're lighting the fire, right?
[00:05:03] Elle: I love that analogy
[00:05:05] Cristina: um, yeah. And so this, like, this all happened in the fall when we were camping, and I was like, "Okay, you light the fire. Nothing happens sometimes." Like, you get a little spark, cool, but like, it doesn't catch on. And, um, you have to kind of like give the fire oxygen, right? You have to blow on it. For any good
[00:05:22] Elle: it fuel
[00:05:23] Cristina: you know that, yeah.
[00:05:24] Um, and so that's where like, you know, what, what that sales leader said, what the challenge we were having and that kind of realization for me happened is like, how do we activate this really? How do we give the launch more fuel? And that's where I kind of came up with the idea and, and it wasn't just me, a lot of PMMs at times are doing similar things right now, but how do we like reach out to our sales reps individually and activate them with this content?
[00:05:49] Elle: I love that. So you were thinking a little bit more critically around your core PMM, um, assets that you would bring to the table, and you're not gonna stop doing that. [00:06:00] You're gonna continue to do that piece. But it's, okay, let's help this catch fire and actually bring some fuel to the table. Um, and I love that you introduced some human connection here of like, okay, let's actually talk to the salespeople and figure things out a little bit, um, more on that kind of like one-on-one basis.
[00:06:21] So how did you do that piece? Like When you were building out the, I'm gonna call it like an internal integrated campaign where you're kind of treating your salespeople like your prospects, did you plan that out first and then get their feedback on it? Or did you get the idea from them?
[00:06:43] Cristina: Yeah. I mean, it was, it was more organic. And I, I don't wanna say that I didn't talk to the salespeople before. Like, I think every
[00:06:50] Elle: Of course. Yeah
[00:06:52] Cristina: beforehand. You also-- I mean, one of the early things I learned in my career was finding a handful of influential sales reps that you [00:07:00] can get to, like, have some early wins and start amp of like, let them go be your influencers.
[00:07:04] So we're all, we're still doing all of that. I think what changed, um, is AI, surprise, um, and the ability to have these conversations, these one-on-one conversations at scale, and scale here I'm talking about like 100 to 150, 200 conversations with sales reps. Um, and so what changed was like after we gave them that information, which like bless all the salespeople that go through the enablement sessions, 'cause while they're getting more engaging, I still don't love sitting through those personally.
[00:07:33] Like, I was never a good student. I don't want you to just talk to me with information. Um, so whatever. We still give them all that information. You have to like teach them. Um, but I think the, the change that was enabled with, with Claude in particular was the ability to, draft personalized messages to, to all these reps and send that to them, um, and then have a [00:08:00] conversation when they responded.
[00:08:01] Um, and so I think that, that outreach was what, what changed about how I've approached launches. It's not just the live group session, it's let me also reach out to you personally, and share with you my perspective on how you could use this information based on your, what I know about your account, based on what I know about you, um, and let's talk about it.
[00:08:20] And I think what was really cool about that too, was like the feedback loop that started
[00:08:24] Elle: Okay, so I want to dive a little bit deeper into that, that you just, you just talked through. You said that you would actually talk with the salespeople around how to actually make it easier to sell. Unpack that a little more. Like, what does that look like, and especially how did you do it at scale?
[00:08:44] Cristina: and I'll go back to, to like the first iteration. The first time I did do this, I was just thinking like, um, let's just send all this content one-on-one to them into their personal space, you know? Um, and so that first Slack I sent to, to a handful of reps was [00:09:00] just my enablement kit basically.
[00:09:01] And so there were all these links and I was just like, "Hey, I think you should go sell this. Here's the content. Here's an account where it might fit." and that didn't generate a ton of conversation, and so I pretty quickly changed the tack in terms of how I was engaging them. Um, and so, um, I did a couple things.
[00:09:17] First, I worked with the product team to figure out like what is, what data do we have about these accounts, um, that can help create a hook for the salesperson? Like why should this salesperson sell this to this account right now? Um, and we were lucky for this product to have some data, um, that showed like the dollars those accounts were leaving on the table, which is a really compelling reason, um, for the salesperson to act and something that they can just like bring right to the customer as well. so the first thing is like thinking about that hook, and then I think the second thing is, again, this isn't, this isn't that live enablement motion. There's a time and a place for that dump of information. This is a conversation. And so the other thing that I did is when I started to reach out to them was, um, just [00:10:00] start with like lim- I limit myself to just a couple lines.
[00:10:03] It's not how are you doing, but it's like, "Hey, did you know X?" That's it. I'm not pitching you anything. I'm just asking you if you knew this thing. Um, and kind of like sparking their interest and getting them to have that conversation from there, was, was really cool 'cause then like one, get them engaged.
[00:10:19] Two, bring up my ask. Three, kind of start to g- be able to give them the materials I thought they needed ra- other than like the whole, you know, the whole thing that I built. Like let's just give you this video, you can forward it to your customer, or here's a couple questions you could ask them when you go on next, or just here's a pitch deck, bring it to your next call, whatever that is.
[00:10:38] Elle: let me summarize what I think I, I heard and my understanding of what you just described. you thought a little bit more critically about the salespeople and, the data that they, about them that they care about, and then you use that to craft essentially content to the salespeople [00:11:00] to get their interest in selling your product,
[00:11:04] Cristina: Yes. We, we are selling ourselves to the salespeople now. What has this world come to?
[00:11:09] Elle: That's what it sounds... It's, it is, it's like marketing to your salespeople, which
[00:11:16] Cristina: You know what? Both my parents were in sales. They would be so proud 'cause they're like, "Oh, you went into tech, you went into marketing. I don't really know what you do." I'm like, "No, guys, I'm still in sales."
[00:11:24] Elle: Yes, yes. Um, it's clever though. It's clever the way that you thought about, like, okay, not even ... And you did have, I will say, c- so I'm coming, I'm referencing to, like, the, the outreach that you did. Ha ha, it's like a sales term. Um, the outreach that you did internally to your salespeople. When you would s- you wouldn't s- you said you didn't start with, like, "Hi, how are you?"
[00:11:46] It was more like, "Hey, did you know X?" Like, that does, like, work a little better because you are a known person for them, like you're, you're a colleague, right? But like, it, but it's a reason to respond to you. You
[00:11:59] Cristina: I'm giving [00:12:00] them something before I ask too. Here, here is a nugget,
[00:12:04] Elle: Yes.
[00:12:04] Cristina: me ask you something
[00:12:06] Elle: Right, right, right, right, right, exactly. Okay, so you had these compelling reasons for a salesperson.
[00:12:13] It's just so perfect because it's, like, exactly what we do to our c- actual prospects and customers.
[00:12:19] Cristina: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:20] Elle: But you had these compelling reasons for a salesperson to have interest in what you have to say. now talk to me a little bit about, like, what happened from there. Like, you would put together, it sounds like you mentioned, like, kits.
[00:12:34] Like, tell me about the kits. Like, what did that include? What did that look like, and how did you distribute those to salespeople?
[00:12:40] Cristina: Yeah. So, I mean, the kit was like, it was your standard, um, I would say your standard like launch kit. Again, it was like, the sales playbook. So who are we targeting? what are their problems? How do you message to them, et cetera. Um, pricing, that kind of like just standard sales playbook. there's the pitch deck, there's [00:13:00] objective handling and trap setting questions.
[00:13:01] So all of those pieces are things that I would've created otherwise. I think what was different was instead of giving them one doc and telling them to sift through it, um, it's that you're able to like, they're, they respond. First of all, I was really blown away by the response rate. Um, I think we got like 70% of the people that I reached out to responded to me, which like everyone knows how noisy Slacks or whatever messaging app you're using can get.
[00:13:26] Like that is like a constant joke and headache. Uh, but they're like, "Yeah. Oh, this was helpful. Like, tell me more." so I think the response rate was just like really encouraging and just, you know, lit up my day to be able to have those conversations. but yeah, that kit, like the kit didn't change. It was being able to, as they responded and told me a little bit about when's the last time they talked to that customer, or maybe they have a call coming up or they haven't been able to get a reach to them, then I could send them the right material for that instance versus them having to go find it.
[00:13:57] so yeah. I mean, [00:14:00] maybe a better, um, content management system could solve that, but I haven't seen one yet that does. And like it's also really great learning for me to be like, what's getting traction? When I sent them something, were they like, "Hell yeah," or were they, did they go silent after that? Um, so it's just like a really good human feedback loop that I haven't seen happen anywhere else.
[00:14:20] Elle: Yeah. And is it pretty common practice at Samsara to give, like when you're launching a product, is it, is it standard to, in these, you know, sales kits or enablement kits or whatever, what have you, um, is it pretty standard to say, "Hey, these are the accounts in your territory that you should look into," and, like, maybe even the dollars and cents behind it?
[00:14:42] Like, you mentioned, like, leaving money on the table. Is that common practice, like, within the company or is that
[00:14:48] Cristina: so very fast. Yeah. I mean, so we have a very strong sales strategy, sales pipe team that will do more organized efforts around that with target account lists. Um, but I think, [00:15:00] again, just the access that we have as PMMs to data now, to the sales data, to the product data, et cetera, has made that expectation rise, too, when we're doing our own outreach.
[00:15:11] So yeah, that's a great point. having those target account lists, knowing where we have personalized data, and then serving that up to the rep and the kind of like doing their research for them a little bit, or at least starting it, is like table stakes now, which is kind of crazy and exciting.
[00:15:24] Elle: is so crazy. I remember, so when I was at Twilio, I put together a very similar campaign, and then it was just internal, so like externally you would no idea that we did this, but it, we called it, like, the hidden revenue campaign. And what we did is me and our, like, business director, like, we were just in spreadsheets, and we looked through every single account, and we tried to identify, like, what industry they're in.
[00:15:52] Okay, what use case do they have? Okay, and like, how much do we think this is worth? And like, we put together these, like, sales [00:16:00] kits for our salespeople, and it would include, like, all the things, right? We had our target use cases. We had custom-tailored, like, m- we called them, like, mini pitches, and it'd be like a three to five slide deck that
[00:16:12] Cristina: Yeah.
[00:16:13] Elle: could, like, use.
[00:16:14] You know, something short, like, not like the monster beast pitch, you know?
[00:16:18] Cristina: We've all tried this before in the past, right? Yeah. And you get really into it. Maybe you spend some time on the weekend doing it and like, ugh, takes so long.
[00:16:28] Elle: I did not do the, like, I loved your approach with the hooks and the, like, treating your salespeople like prospects and, like, I wish I would've done that. I didn't do that exactly.
[00:16:39] I did at least, like, hit up, like, all the regional teams, and I would do, like, regional meetings, but, but I can't, I feel like you can't do that anymore because there's s- there's such an overwhelming number of PMMs who are trying to get in front of salespeople that it just becomes noise. anyway, bringing me back to my point, what I wanted to ask you, way back when, when I did that, this was pre-AI or, like, [00:17:00] just before AI was more mainstream.
[00:17:02] So we were doing all this work manually, and I imagine that now we have some nice tools to make it a little bit easier. So walk me through, like, your tools and, like, the workflow that you used to help you accomplish all of this.
[00:17:18] Cristina: we use Databricks, um, for a lot of, for getting a lot of information out of the product. Um, and shout out to them, like their, the ability to query with natural language there, like I don't know, I think it just released in the last, I don't know, five months, but it is super cool. kind of grateful I never actually learned how to do the queries 'cause now I can
[00:17:37] Elle: I know,
[00:17:37] Cristina: to it. Um,
[00:17:39] Elle: God.
[00:17:41] Cristina: joke's on you. Um, but so yeah, we, we pulled a lot of the product, um, and account specific insights from Databricks. Um, and that was a partnership with my product team, um, and sales strategy as well. And then, um, I used Claude. So I had like the, the [00:18:00] account, the target account list, the personalized data that we had on each of those, and then I, um, drafted, you know, the different message variations that I wanted to test out.
[00:18:10] Um, used Google Docs to draft those and then fed those three things into Claude and I said, "Claude, like you look at the accounts, you draft these messages to each AE," and then it would, um, send the drafts to Slack. And I think that's really important that you just sent the draft to Slack. Um, for me, maybe you could probably automate this, but like I'm old school.
[00:18:29] Like I wanted to make sure that, hey, did I have a conversation with this AE before? Um, and that would like make me change a couple things.
[00:18:36] Elle: Right
[00:18:37] Cristina: yeah, and just like humanize it a little bit. Or maybe I saw that person in person two weeks ago. I wanna make sure I
[00:18:43] Elle: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Exactly. So that it doesn't feel like, hey, I automated this, and I am not actually reaching out to you. This is the machine that's
[00:18:52] Cristina: Yeah,
[00:18:53] Elle: my behalf.
[00:18:53] Cristina: quickly.
[00:18:54] Elle: you can. Yes. Yes. Okay. Smart. And
[00:18:58] Cristina: yeah,
[00:18:59] Elle: so is that it to [00:19:00] your, to your... Did you reach out? Was it email or s- you said Slack
[00:19:03] Cristina: so I, yeah, I reached out for Slack and like I think, um, you know, we were talking about this earlier, like that process would've taken the whole weekend, um, before even to just do the outreach after you had all the messages drafted. But this took me 30 minutes.
[00:19:15] Like once you got the d- the, you know, the account list, the targeted data, and your message, your message templates, like actually building those messages, it's 30 minutes of like quick reviews, making some comments here or there, putting maybe an emoji in, um
[00:19:31] Elle: Oh, I spent weeks in spreadsheets just to get the data to make it helpful or usable to sales. So I could imagine, like, doing that analysis and putting all the resources together in, like, y- you know, 30 minutes is crazy cool. Like,
[00:19:49] Cristina: Yeah.
[00:19:50] Elle: So you had, you, you used your own personal touch for some of these one-on-ones.
[00:19:55] You kept it warm. You kept the relationship in. can you speak to a [00:20:00] little bit about, like, why you wanted to avoid audi- automating the outreach entirely? I mean, you already mentioned that you wanted to, like, keep the, um... You know, you may have had some preexisting conversation with them, but I guess, like, speak to...
[00:20:14] What I'm trying to ask is, like, speak to the reason why it's important to maintain some of that human touch versus having AI completely handle the whole process.
[00:20:24] Cristina: Yeah. I mean, I think there's a couple core reasons, probably a lot you could come up with, but like, first of all, I don't think I would've gotten the response rate if there was an automated message.
[00:20:35] Elle: Yeah, you mentioned like 74%
[00:20:37] Cristina: a daily basis. Yeah. All the things you
[00:20:39] Elle: a huge
[00:20:40] Cristina: basis.
[00:20:41] Yeah. And so I think, I think there's that. I think, so first of all, just like if the goal here is to engage people, I think you need, you need to do that yourself. I also think that I was getting something out of the conversation, and so I had to stay engaged. Like, yeah, maybe they could have responded [00:21:00] and I would've gotten learnings and maybe my AI could have gone back and forth with them and dug in, but then eventually I'd have to like read a report of the feedback maybe and like iterate on the things.
[00:21:09] And I don't know, my brain just totally is not connected to that process at that point, and so then the computer's just doing it all. and so I selfishly wanted to learn, so I wanted to be in the conversations.
[00:21:20] Elle: I think that's like the most important part is like wanting to be part of the conversation for the sake of you learning so that you become a better PMM specifically for your product. Like being more in touch with the business and with the sellers is gonna give you that insight that you're just not gonna get from an AI summary, you know?
[00:21:40] Um, or asking AI to summarize it for you. Um,
[00:21:45] Cristina: Yeah. You don't even read the summaries.
[00:21:48] Elle: I know.
[00:21:50] Cristina: you have to be-- You have to summarize it yourself. You have to do some of the work.
[00:21:54] Elle: I know, I
[00:21:55] Cristina: Which is so unf- I mean, that's like, that's the hardest part of our jobs right now, right? Is figuring out [00:22:00] which part of the work do we hold close to ourselves and which part do we outsource, and it's not always what's the fastest thing.
[00:22:07] Or like, what's-- It's not always gonna be the thing that takes the most time is the thing you should outsource. Like, some of the things I think take time because they need to take time because you need to process them
[00:22:16] Elle: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, so you mentioned, I think it was like 70% or 74% or something like that response rate from salespeople, so they actually were consuming your content. They were interested, so you're, like, giving them reasons to engage was working. Was there anything else from, like, a results standpoint that you felt like, "Oh, wow, we really nailed that"?
[00:22:39] Cristina: Yeah. So I mean, the other things that we were looking at was how much pipeline within these accounts, how much pipeline did we create? Um, so that was, thank God for my sales strategy person, um, able to track that so you could track how many opportunities were created, how many opportunities progressed. Um, and then the other metric that, um, we didn't track at past companies I've been at, but, I'm, [00:23:00] it's probably more common than I realize, is looking to see, um, how many-- like what percent of reps actually, um, had a trial during each quarter over quarter.
[00:23:11] And so I could see like the, these reps that I reach out to and have this conversation with, they successfully pitched it, they got their customer interested enough in a trial, and the reps were moving through the trial too, which like takes confidence on both sides and engagement on both sides. So I think is a really nice metric to look at as well.
[00:23:27] Elle: That's awesome. Oh, congrats. That's really cool. I bet that felt really validating to, like, see pipeline coming through and everything.
[00:23:35] Cristina: Yeah, and then they talk to each other, they're in team meetings, and they talk about how they won certain deals and your product's coming up because you like took that extra moment to help them actually act on that deal, um,
[00:23:46] Elle: I was about to say, yeah, not to mention the, like, emotion from the salesperson. Like, it feels good to close business, and they know they closed business with your product. So it's, it's you're building that trust so [00:24:00] that in the future now they know who you are and they trust you, and they're gonna want more from you.
[00:24:05] Um, so that's great. what I want to do now is a little bit of, like, for fun role playing where you're my, you're my career coach or you're my product marketing coach, and I am in a similar situation where I'm totally different industry, different industry, different whatever, and I'm basically competing with, you know, a dozen other PMMs for my, the attention for my sales force, and I want to try to see some of the same, um, outcomes that you had, some of the same results.
[00:24:40] What does the playbook look like for this?
[00:24:42] even get started for this? Like, what's step one?
[00:24:44] Cristina: step one is like, I mean, side step before step one is I love the PMM team at Samsara, and I think one of the things that's really great is that we're not competing with each other on who's gonna get the most attention. [00:25:00] Um, I think there's a lot of solution sales going on, and a lot of us are pushing for more bundled messaging.
[00:25:06] Um, and so that's a great way to get attention, 'cause at the end of the day, sales cares about making money, and the more products you can help them sell, the better you're off. So like, but I think, yeah, step one is like trying to figure out how you're gonna make the salesperson care about this. Um, we, we've probably spent a lot of time thinking about why the customer cares.
[00:25:25] That's our messaging doc if you did it right. Um, but I think it's taking a minute to think like, why should they c- why should they give you a minute to
[00:25:32] Elle: Got it. Okay. And that would require me to do a little bit of research on my salespeople to begin with, and it sounds like you, and maybe I'm getting into a little bit of, like, the next step, but giving my salespeople a compelling reason to care, almost like I said this earlier, but, like, building out, like, a, a mini persona doc on my salesperson related to particular, like, my product's influence on the business, and frankly, [00:26:00] like, their career at the company and how my product can help them, whether it's, you know, retirement quota or retire quota faster, whatever it is.
[00:26:08] So that's step one. What would step two then be? Like, once I build that out
[00:26:13] and I feel confident in that, what do I do next?
[00:26:15] Cristina: Yeah. So it's, it's figuring out that hook, whether it's from personalized account info or how much it's gonna add to their deal, or how it's gonna help them rope in another product or open a cold prospect, whatever it is, figuring out that why they should give you a minute to think about this.
[00:26:30] that's step one. I think step two is like working with whatever data you have or whatever team you have to pull that target account list. Um, who are the accounts that make the most sense? 'Cause you don't wanna s- you don't wanna tell someone to go after an account, um, with your personalized message that's not gonna be interested.
[00:26:47] Like you really have to be careful about that. That's, that's your word. Um, and so figuring out that target account list, um, is step two. I think step three would be drafting the messages. Like there's not a lot of steps [00:27:00] here, which is great. Um, so you're already into drafting your messages to your AEs. and then, and then you put it all in Claude and and let it do its magic and draft, draft those Slack
[00:27:10] Elle: So good. Question, question. Where, so you mentioned the, like, personalized sales kits, and the kit...
[00:27:18] Cristina: Oh yeah, that happens before all this. I feel like
[00:27:21] Elle: That's like table stakes, though. that's like you have it at every launch, right? You have the, like,
[00:27:26] Cristina: Mm-hmm.
[00:27:26] Elle: all the assets that's part of any launch. So w- that's after that. Then this is, like, the step one is, like, reasons, compelling reasons to care, building out the target account list, um, building out the messaging, putting it all in Claude to actually write them all out, then, like, then your personalized touch for each one.
[00:27:50] Cristina: And then, it's like then's the fun part. Like thank God that only took 30 minutes because then's the fun part. It's the conversations. Um, and so it's the seeing who responded, seeing what they're [00:28:00] asking. Are they a- are they... You can kind of gauge the sentiment on the product there too, based on the questions they're asking, like, and, and also how well that live enablement and if they have any idea what you're talking about.
[00:28:10] Um, but yeah, then it's the conversation. It's when you're getting the material out there. It's when maybe you're creating new material. Like for this one, I created a video after a couple reps were asking for something that was like easy to forward. Um, and so it's the iterating, learning, and distribution
[00:28:25] Elle: Okay, so quick question. you had like, I don't know, I'm guessing a couple hundred Slack conversations going now. How did you keep track of all of that? Like, is there, is there any automation into that? Like, like, I g-
[00:28:41] Cristina: Oh my God, they're probably
[00:28:43] Elle: I
[00:28:45] Cristina: I feel so old. I'm not quite there. I mean, I just like made a group on Slack, so, and I pinned it to the top, right? And every time that lit up, I was like, "Ooh, I got a bite. I got a bite." Yeah, and like I went and talked to them, and
[00:28:57] Elle: I'm sure there's a way you can build some kind of [00:29:00] like tracking agent metric, 'cause it's just a lot of conversations to
[00:29:05] Cristina: Yeah. Yeah, and like this isn't a forever, like, you know, this was like a two-week sprint. Af- if, if the conversation is not happening after two weeks, then you close that out and you clean up your Slack.
[00:29:18] Elle: Okay, and then last conversation or last question that I have for you is around, like, tracking, like, results and, like, metrics for this. and then I guess, like, recirculating those results with your stakeholders, your leaders. What did that look like?
[00:29:34] Cristina: so there's like the initial early indicators we talked about, which is just like, are they responding? Am I getting engagement from the, from the reps? then there's, you know, the pipeline from this specific group that you reached out to. Like one to 200 reps is not that much in a company Samsara's size, and so it's just a, it's a cohort.
[00:29:53] but that's again, another early indicator, like did we see deals progress here? Um, and then finally it's okay, how did the launch [00:30:00] actually go? Um, do we meet our, our goals there? Um, and so there's like, there's some tiering to how you can look at the impact you've had. and at Samsara, we, we review those kind of metrics, um, pretty frequently with our leadership, with our cross-functional teams.
[00:30:15] Um, and so just inserting that into those things. But, I wanna be clear, like ultimately what people care about is like, did you meet your goals, your revenue goals? Um, and so it'd be awesome if the reps engaged with you in Slack, but un- unless it translates to you meeting your goals, it doesn't really matter.
[00:30:34] And so that's always what we're gonna be
[00:30:35] Elle: Of course
[00:30:36] Cristina: internally.
[00:30:37] Elle: But you've got your funnel. You know what I mean? Like, you had your like, "Okay, I reached out to these many salespeople, and like these are the ones who convert- converted."
[00:30:45] Cristina: exactly.
[00:30:46] Yeah
[00:30:47] Elle: I love it. It's so good. I love how clever this, um, conversation is. Um, my last question for you on this topic is what's one piece of advice, if you want, wanted me to walk away [00:31:00] with one thing to never, never forget if I was gonna try to replicate a similar approach in, in my business, like what's one thing that you would want me to walk away with?
[00:31:09] Cristina: I mean, I think the thing that stuck with me is stop trying to do more enablement, just make it easier to sell, 'cause that can apply... You can do that in a whole bunch of ways. That could be your mantra for the whole year.
[00:31:21] Elle: So good. Yes, and that is something too that I wish that I had that advice when I was back at Twilio doing that thing. I think I, you know, I had the gist of it, but there was so much more that I think I could have done, looking back, to make it so much more impactful, like the way that you did, having the one-on-one conversations, like to send out the personalized email or, or sorry, Slack that
[00:31:48] Cristina: No one reads email
[00:31:49] Elle: I know, right? Oh, God, I'm dating
[00:31:51] Cristina: That would've not worked.
[00:31:52] Elle: out of the podcast so people don't think you
[00:31:54] Cristina: Yeah
[00:31:58] Elle: get out of here with your
[00:31:59] Cristina: If you [00:32:00] send me an email, like no.
[00:32:03] Elle: thank you for sharing this story. Um, it's a really exciting way to kind of transform your, or rethink how PMM should be doing enablement and actually see some success with their product launches.
[00:32:17] Cristina: I was just gonna say I hope it's helpful, and like I feel like this strategy is gonna go out of date so fast, but hopefully the idea of the human connection and treating your salespeople like the customer, um, I think it can apply to a lot
[00:32:30] Elle: It's so good. So good. All right, so now it's time for the next segment of our show, which is the messaging critique. This is the part where we, as product marketing experts, get to analyze real-world messaging, and the fun part is, Kristina, as my guest, you get to pick the company that we will be critiquing. we're gonna talk through three things.
[00:32:50] You're, we're gonna talk a little bit, once you reveal the company, we're gonna talk about obviously what they do, the target audience, and all that. and then you're gonna talk through what stand out, or what stood out to you about their messaging [00:33:00] in a really positive way, and then something you wish the PMMs would've considered differently, and then we'll just iterate on how they can take it to the next level.
[00:33:07] So, um, without further ado, please reveal the company that we'll be looking at today
[00:33:12] Cristina: Okay, so the company that I can't stop talking about right now is Whisperflow
[00:33:16] Elle: talk to us about Whisperflow. I know they have been kind of like an up-and-coming, one of those, like, sexy AI startups. just to get the audience up to speed, tell us what they do and who their target audience is
[00:33:28] Cristina: it's voice to text. that's the simplest way to say it. Um, it's a, it's an app that you would download on your phone or your computer, and you click a button and it lets you speak to it, and then it turns it into text. Like, they're starting narrow. It's, it's pretty clearly a B2B play.
[00:33:44] we have enterprise licenses. All their content is someone sitting behind a computer like a modern tech worker does. yeah, so voice to text for B2B tech
[00:33:54] Elle: I love it. I've seen ... The way that I've seen them most often had been like, yeah, like integrations [00:34:00] with, you know, other apps or software tools. so what stood out to you about their messaging?
[00:34:06] Cristina: it wasn't necessarily their messaging, although I do have thoughts there, but the thing that I just get giddy about is their onboarding was like really effective. Um, and the reason that I was excited about that is like, who cares about voice-to-text? Like, who cares about typing? No one. It's not a problem I think about or had thought about.
[00:34:26] and when I went through Whisperflow's onboarding, I was like all of a sudden obsessed with it, which I think is a really-- They did a good job. it was pretty simple. Like they kind of just like, they went through the playbook. Like they had, ROI right away. One of the first things they did was said like, "Do you wanna try typing and see how fast you type?
[00:34:43] We'll tell you how fast we can like voice-to-text you." Um, and so like right away, they're giving you a tool to show ROI. I didn't do it. I took their word for it. Um, but very cool, very fun. Um, then they throw in some social proof. So I don't know about other people, but ours [00:35:00] has like a leaderboard. You can see other people in the company who are using it, who's at the top, like who's voicing the most.
[00:35:06] Um, and so like I obviously looked through to see who else on my team was using it, uh, which was just like another little fun thing. and then the third thing was they create these like voice profiles, which again, have never cared about this ever in my life. Don't think I should be caring about it, but I was like, "Ooh, I need to use this for X many days so I can see what my voice profile is."
[00:35:29] they just did a great job, uh, with getting me engaged and getting me to care about this problem that I did not know I had 10
[00:35:35] Elle: Wow. I do love that. That is a really clever way to, as you pointed out, just engage with your customers. So talk to me more now about what they should consider differently as they take some of these lessons about their onboarding process and maybe apply it more to their overall, like, narrative and story.
[00:35:57] Cristina: I was looking at their website this morning, and I do admire [00:36:00] how, like, clear it is and how narrow they have focused. Like it's B2B tech workers, it's voice-to-text, and their message is just like, "Typing's slow, talking is faster." Again, not a problem I knew I had, but like, yeah, that's true. and, and then the other sort of message that I saw on there was, they're kind of like removing the barrier and, and letting you be human, which is humans talk.
[00:36:25] Um, which I thought was an interesting, you know, saying like, "Let technology help you be more human." Um, which is always maybe, uh, you love it, but also, I don't know, it like puts me a little bit on edge. Um, and, and so when I'm thinking about like what they could do better or what I would like maybe want to see next is like, and we talked about this a little bit earlier, but like what if speed is not the goal here?
[00:36:49] in tech we're so obsessed with speed, and with AI it's making everything feel speedier. I mean, we've already talked about that in this podcast, some of the benefits. but especially when you're [00:37:00] communicating and working through ideas, you know, some of their case studies were saying like, "Oh, I could give Claude or, or ChatGPT what I'm using so much more context 'cause I could just like talk to it for longer."
[00:37:12] but I don't know. I'm just like, I guess what I would wanna see come through in their messaging and, and their ethos a little bit more is like, what if some of that friction is good friction? and it just makes, I guess it just makes me a little bit wary, uh, if we start voice-to-texting everything.
[00:37:26] I had a better idea of how this could come through in their messaging, but I just think, I guess, I guess my feedback is other than speed, what else are they helping me do? Or how are they helping me think better, um, not just, you know, do things
[00:37:39] Elle: Yeah. Yeah, and maybe that will come out in the, in the voice... What do they call it? The voice profile? Your
[00:37:47] Cristina: Maybe.
[00:37:48] Elle: Maybe. I'm eager to see what it is now. What?
[00:37:52] Cristina: Yeah.
[00:37:54] Elle: So they have really clever engagement with their current customers and maybe trying to finding ... [00:38:00] Maybe chal- maybe the, the challenge or next step would be to, like, run some experiments on what that could look like in terms of bringing some of that engagement up and front and center to the narrative, to continue on this, like, human aspect of it a little bit.
[00:38:17] Cristina: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:38:18] Elle: and one of those
[00:38:20] Cristina: Yeah, there's definitely something there with the wanting to be more human. I don't know if you heard, there's like a new trend with fashion brands to like backlash against AI. Like there's one fashion brand that like hired a, wood carver or wood chopper, I don't remember, to like open up their store.
[00:38:36] Another one like,
[00:38:38] Elle: I love it. I love
[00:38:39] Cristina: But there's l- there's definitely obviously a backlash as any good trend has. Um, and so leaning into the human aspect makes sense. But yeah, maybe pulling that
[00:38:47] out
[00:38:47] Elle: really, I am really intrigued by that. I would love to see some, like, artistic... I could even see some, like, like maybe doing some collaborations with, like, like artists or [00:39:00] vocalists or like n- not with AI. I don't know what it is. I don't know. We'd have to, like, we could probably do another podcast episode, like brainstorming on this.
[00:39:08] but it'd be like a fun campaign that they might be able to put together.
[00:39:13] last question for you on this to- topic, and we're kind of like started talking about it already, but like what's kind of one more thing that you would challenge them to do to take their messaging, their n- their narrative or like their engagement that they have, like to the next level?
[00:39:28] Cristina: Yeah. I mean, I think it's that, it's that critique that like they're so narrowly focused on speed right now and like what else can they offer me? What other benefits are there to this new way of engaging? Um, sell me on something else.
[00:39:42] Elle: Yeah, I agree. All right, Whisperflow, you've got some fans. Um, we're very impressed with the onboarding, and we have an idea for you. Check it out. Let us know what you think. all right, uh, Kristina, so one thing I like to make space for on this podcast is a moment of gratitude, uh, because in product marketing, none of us get to where [00:40:00] we are alone.
[00:40:00] We're always learning from each other and building on e- from each other. so I just wanted to give you a genuine thank you for taking the time to prepare for this conversation and to come on and share your expertise. Um, I'm so grateful, so thank you so much.
[00:40:14] Cristina: Thank you for having me. Um, and thank you for the podcast. It's, I mean, I love listening to other people's stories, and it's been a great resource for me too to get to know other people virtually
[00:40:23] Elle: it. Thanks for saying so. So do you hear that PMM guests? Thank you so much for sharing on the show. Um, okay, one last question for you. Who do we have to thank who's helped shape you into being such an amazing PMM? You've must have had mentors, peers that you've worked with along the way.
[00:40:39] Like, I'd love to hear some shout-outs to a couple PMMs that have really shaped who you are
[00:40:43] Cristina: the two people that have really shaped me as a PMM in particular, I think the first one is Kathy Q. She was the first person that, I don't know, gave me some really big opportunities in PMM and helped me see the importance of always... The c- the answer is always in the customer.
[00:40:58] Going back to the customer, talking [00:41:00] to them, understanding them, um, is really, like, what she taught me. Um, and then the other one is, um, this woman, Leah Robertson, um, who I got to lead a PMM team with, uh, over at Guild, and she just taught me a lot about how to look at not just the PMM problems, but the business problems and the people dynamics within the business, and I think, um, that's a really important skill for a
[00:41:23] Elle: Ugh, those are probably the two biggest ones for me as a PMM, being close to customers and being close to the business. So
[00:41:32] I... Really, truly, and they've created another power PMM, so amazing. Well, thank you Kathy and Leah. We appreciate you. Okay, last, last question for you, I swear. Um, so I know, I already know that you're on Dusted, um, the GitHub for marketers, but where else can we access your expertise?
[00:41:51] Is it best to find you on LinkedIn?
[00:41:53] Cristina: LinkedIn is the place. But yeah, I am so excited about Dusted. I mean, similar to this podcast, I'm gonna be, um, hopefully [00:42:00] posting things there, but also just like excited to read other people's ideas too
[00:42:03] Elle: Awesome. Thank you so much. yes, 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 us 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
