How to beat Imposter Syndrome (and more!) from PMM expert and career coach Collette Ramage

Mikey: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Presentation Thinking, the Storyteller's Study Club. This is your co host, Mikey Mioduski, founder of Ghost Ranch Communications, a presentation design agency. I'm joined by my co host, your favorite, Molly Geoghegan. Molly, what's going on?

Molly: Hey, Mikey. Presentation Nation. How's it going? Mikey, I recently took a class, you know, which was really fun.

It's always fun to go back to school. And, um, it's even more fun when your teacher is someone that you end up really enjoying and admiring for their work. And we have her here today. We have Cola Ramage, uh, who is a product marketing specialist, a consultant, and yeah, [00:01:00] like, facilitator and teacher of this amazing Workshop I did at Product Marketing Alliance.

Colette, welcome to

Collette: the podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited. It was really lovely to meet you, Molly. And so when we reached out about the podcast, I was like, I've got to get on this. So I'm really excited to be here today.

Music: Yes,

Mikey: you did the number. Molly is certified. She's core certified product marketer.

Thanks to you and the PMA. I think she'd be scared

Collette: if she wasn't

Molly: certified. I was like, take those exams. I did. I took the exam when I got back. I will say the certificate got a bit bent in my suitcase on the way back, but it's, uh, it's here. It's sitting in the office, so it's, it's available. But yes, Colette, you, Mikey, well, Mikey, you sent me to this certification course through Product Marketing Alliance.

We talk about them all the time on the podcast if you haven't heard of them. And you're a product marketer, go join immediately. And it's just an amazing place with resources and workshops and like both online and in person. And I think it's really becoming more rare. And I was excited to go to an in person certification when we went to [00:02:00] London for the PMA.

So Colette, you were the facilitator for that course. And yeah, it was, uh, it was really fun to just, uh, I mean, it was also an intense day. You know, we had, we had quite the modules to get through. You had quite the modules to get through. Yeah. Thank you for all of your work in putting that together. Take us back a bit, Colette, like, I see you as an expert now, totally, for product marketing, but how did you, like, find yourself in that position and, like, what did you study to, to get here?

Okay, I did not

Collette: study marketing. I actually started, I studied biomedical science and biochemistry at the university. I actually started life as a vaccine scientist, which is very different, but I realized stuck in a lab. It was really boring. I really enjoyed the kind of idea of this. You know, you find out new things, but it's like, goodness, you have to be quiet all day.

It wasn't really my thing. Um, and I ended up going into consulting as a biological specialist. So sort of that transition into business, looking at how pharma companies and biologics can sort of think about their science in terms of business. So I was [00:03:00] doing that interaction. And then I sort of really got interested in the strategy.

I was looking at a lot of people's sort of product niches, market areas, market analysts. And then in the UK, when I started product marketing, wasn't a thing, really. It wasn't something that somebody did. And I ended up going down a marketing track, more technical marketing, and then fell into product marketing.

Absolutely loved it because it brought this technical element. I'm very tech obsessed and I need to understand how things work with the marketing that I like, the storytelling, the creativity, the customer facing. So if you did ask me 20 years ago, it started my career. Would I be here? No way. Would I have thought I'd have been.

But I've, I've found my happy place and I'm so glad I did. So, yeah, and then really from there, I got into it, started exploring lots of education, speaking to people in the field and really started to create a specialism for myself, really. So how did I get here by mistake? But I think some of the best careers happen by mistake.

So it's been great.

Molly: And honestly, this is adding up a bit because I do recall when you [00:04:00] kicked off the research module, you said that was your favorite in all of, like, that's your favorite bit of product marketing and as a, with the science background, it's now, you know, the dots are connecting here.

Collette: Yeah, research is definitely my favorite.

And maybe it's that inquiry of finding something out first before anyone else knows it. And that probably does link to the science. For sure.

Mikey: And PMMs seem to have, they seem to be that connective glue at an organization. So having that breadth, it seems like, you know, or a background in something totally different.

We see a lot of product marketers Excel when they're like, Oh, I used to work in sales or I did this totally other different thing, but I can like, I know how to connect the dots and that's what I'm good at.

Collette: I think it's so important. Like I've done, you know, in my career, I've not been a purist. I have run commercial teams.

I have run technical pre sales teams. I have done marketing. I've done, you know, analyst work, but I think that's what makes a really good product marketer because you are liaising with all these people. And actually, how do you become impassioned with sales and connect to them? If you don't understand what they do, you don't understand their pain points.

[00:05:00] And for me. I think that's one of my USPs when I'm working with an organization is that I understand that. And I think that breadth makes a really good rounded product marketer. I was talking to somebody the other day and they said to me, what people don't understand with product marketers is you're more product than marketing.

And actually you can't just be a marketer that transitions in. You have to have something, whether it's a commercial insight or a product insight or a customer insight. And they said. It's not something that you just jump into a senior level. You have to have those skills and then you have to work up. I think Mike, you touch on a really good point there.

Yeah.

Mikey: I'm curious too. This is the presentation thinking podcast we've hung out with, you know, Molly, we work with product marketers every day, Colette, like. What do you think is, is the role of presentations in a product marketer's career?

Collette: I think it's absolutely vital. I know everybody doesn't really like it.

They feel really stressed about it. But I think fundamentally that to me is the key connection to your customer. You're taking a really complex product, a really complex messaging. [00:06:00] You know, we're always trying to simplify as we go on. And all of a sudden, you might have eight slides to tell your story.

Okay. How do you tell that story to someone? I think it's fundamental. One of the things I always say, particularly to product marketers that work with me is, where does that presentation go? If you're working with enterprise customers, you've got a buying group of 15 people. You might talk to one person in there.

You might talk to that champion. You give them that presentation and it goes to somebody else. It is the, it is such a fundamental document that can make or break you any point in the buying cycle. And I think it's so important to get that right. And I've seen these presentations where I think it's a dissertation.

I've seen presentations that people have shown me that are 50 slides long. And I think whatever's going on here, it's not visual. It's not clean. It's somebody's first impression of you just because you've worked with that champion for maybe several meetings. Those other people might never have seen you.

So it's a first impression as well. And I think we undervalue the importance of that skill. And I think it's [00:07:00] so important. I always say to people when they do it, I get product marketers come to me all the time who are meant to go, Oh, it's presentations. I don't want to do this. And I'm like, Actually, this is so important because to me, it's taking everything you've done over months and putting it on paper.

And it's so, honestly, I can't tell you how I love doing presentations because to me it's like a test of how simple and how clear I can make a very complex message.

Molly: Do you find that presentations are among some of the common things that people come to for support with as like a career coach and a PMM specialist?

What are some of those like pain points? Cause I know, we know from our perspective as a presentation agency, they like, yeah, the info dumping is real for sure. What else are people struggling with?

Collette: I think people struggle with, they get overwhelmed with it. They don't understand that it's got to talk to a multiple audience.

And that's really interesting is people want to get all the information in and they say, wait there, this is going to go to a CPM. It's also going to go to a database engineer. It could then go to [00:08:00] procurement. So the other thing that people struggle with is how do I get this message clearly and simply to a multiple audience as well?

Some of us have the luxury of doing multiple PowerPoints and presentations and everything. For different audience members, but where people really struggle is how do I get that one message? Well, how do I show that value to maybe a technical buyer and then an economic buyer? How do I get that value into those two things?

And that's the biggest struggle I see. I think the other struggle I see is simplification. People come to me a lot and they'll say. Here's everything. I don't know how to make this simple. And my director's come to me and said they're too complex. And I think people actually don't understand that you can say 10 sentences in one image, okay?

Or you don't need to say all those words. Actually, how do you make that simple? How do I make it impactful to somebody? And I think that's where people really struggle. And I see this a lot is how do I balance this? And people think that words add more value. And actually, one of the things I think people don't realize is A word doesn't add a value because they mean different things to different people.

So how do [00:09:00] you get that across in different ways? And I think people struggle with balance. I think they struggle with design of PowerPoint. I think one of the other things that I see, and you probably see this all the time with people that come to you is I can't get it in the eight slides or the 10 slides or however many I'm given.

So I'm going to have a massive appendix, which is going to put me on. And I think that's the other thing as well, is people feel uncomfortable that I get a lot of people that come to me, particularly when they're thinking about sales enablement coaching and say, I'm not getting rid of the appendix and actually a lot of the things are saying it's safe to get rid of it because not many people will look at it anyway.

So it's those things I think I see the biggest struggle with.

Molly: Yeah, I'm not surprised to hear that. Mikey, I know you're laughing at the appendix because I've seen it, I've seen it happen in real time.

Mikey: Oh yeah, yeah. I guess like I always wonder, Colette, there's like this question I hear time and time again is the thought of Okay.

We know personalization works really well at the top of the funnel, paid ads, you know, out mail, outbound email, et cetera. Once we get down to this like high stakes, like sales [00:10:00] deck. It seems like companies want to take a one size fits most approach because they assume that like, well, we can't customize every pitch, you know?

And so they, they try to make one that works for all these personas. Have you seen anyone taking a different approach to like maybe more tailored delivery, uh, maybe it's on an industry level or regionally?

Collette: I think at the moment, localization and personalization at that is incredibly important at the moment.

I think one of the things we've seen in the economy, and we can't hide from this, we get, we're in a tough economy at the moment. Okay. And that's globally, you know, nobody can say that they're not having a tough time in product marketing. It's hard and it's rough. And I think one of the things we're going to at the moment, moving from this product led growth to the sales led growth.

And when you're looking at sales led growth, you can't have a one size fits all, okay? Because in product led growth, you're centred around the product, but now we need to be centred around the sales process, because that's how we're going to get wins this year, really, in terms of revenue. I've seen people do it really interestingly, and I have done things very interestingly.

Sometimes I've broken down by persona. I was on a [00:11:00] difficult product years ago and it was in data protection and I'm used to working with very technical audiences and there was, you know, there was, you know, data protection officers, head of legal, and then you have this really technical buyer. Okay. And I was like, these people don't even talk the same language.

And actually I did very specific pitches to those people where their pain points, what their needs were. And that product went from. I'll be honest, a failed product to market to being really successful because all of a sudden we were talking to those buyers. We were talking in a language that was important to him because there was no way a one voice worked.

And actually what happened in that organization started doing a lot more of these personalized presentations. And actually we start to see quicker conversion in the funnel and better conversion. And actually. When they were converting, we didn't have a high fall through rate because all of a sudden people saying, actually, I'm invested in you.

So that was really good. And actually we found that through in a lot of competitive displacement and actually really sucks. You know, one product was 16 years old and actually saw one of its biggest years of [00:12:00] growth at 16 years old. Why? Because we personalize. And the other way that I've seen it done is by market segment is brilliant as well.

So, you know, actually, if I'm going to sell you a software product in healthcare. You're not going to talk the same language as somebody in finance, it doesn't work. So I think that's the other things you have to understand the nuances, because when you're positioning a messaging in product marketing, we do it by persona, we do it by market segment.

So why, and I never understand as people go, oh, well, we'll just do this really quickly. At the end, we'll do a PowerPoint for one size fits all, because that's just undone everything you've done at the top. As a product marketer, so I've seen people do it like this. The other interesting thing that I've seen people do it by is they do it by buying type.

So not just persona, but you might have a similar persona, but you might sit in different departments. So actually you sit in customer success and you sit in. Demand generation, you might need the same similar tool, but actually your needs of that product are very different. So that's been quite interesting.

And one of the things I'm seeing at the moment, probably because we're in the [00:13:00] sales led growth, is that localization. You think about Europe, there is 44 countries in Europe. Okay. They've got different regulation. different subtleties in the way that they buy, different behaviors, different needs. So when people, I love it when you go to someone and say, this is the EU deck.

Well, it's not really because the way we buy in the UK isn't the same as you're going to buy in Germany. Okay. And if you think about the Nordics, they're very sustainability led in the way that they buy. Product. Okay. For instance, if you go to France, you need French speaking. If you look at Microsoft Azure, for instance, when they sold that, they had to make Microsoft Azure Deutschland because they couldn't sell as strong in Germany, so they had to have that localization and I think we really undervalued the need of that specificity at the point itself, which is a very important deck because that deck is going to say, go ahead or get out.

So I think you do need that. And at the moment, I think this year to be successful, you're going to need a lot more of that as product marketers. Can you, can you go into that?

Mikey: Yeah, this [00:14:00] last year, the last couple of years, tons of layoffs. It's been tough in tech. What's at stake right now with, with product marketing?

What other pressures and trends are you seeing?

Collette: I think what we're seeing with product marketers is we, you know, as people reduce headcount, what we're seeing is product marketers taking a lot more work on. Okay. So we might be losing product marketers. We might be losing internal support in the business.

So I think for product marketers, we're trying to squeeze a lot more out of them. I probably think is a nice way of saying it, you know, And one of the other things that we're starting to see with product marketers is activation in certain markets. So we know, for instance, Europe is a much more strategic, it's slower market.

So what you might see as well, and I'm definitely seeing this in some of the organizations I work with is, okay, let's power up the U S because we know we can move that market quicker. It's a quicker buying cycle. It's a more aggressive buying cycle. The problem in that is for product marketers, particularly if you're used to Europe, you can do a bit of messaging and positioning in Europe and you can sit back six months, you can get all your presentations, you can get your enablement.

In the US it's iterate, [00:15:00] iterate, iterate. So you've got to keep that continual cycle of change. So I think as you go into that sales pitch, you've got to be more specific. You've got to be more bespoke. So when it comes to your enablement, you're going to have to keep moving a lot quicker than you would normally.

So I think there's going to be pressures on the organization to get that change and get that insight. So I think as product marketers, you know, some people say to me, I'll change our product sales enablement every three to six months. You might have to change quicker. You've got to take what's going on because I think the market at the moment, we're seeing a lot of change.

We're seeing buyers be more active. We've definitely seen lifts in enterprise at the moment. So I actually think we have to look at the customers we have and say, how do we convert them? And that means I think a lot more bespoken, a lot more speaking and understanding to that customer to move them through the pipeline.

So I think there's going to be that pressure on product marketers. So I think speed is going to be a big thing at the moment.

Molly: Kind of with that, like creating these enablement assets on the regular. And wanting to build specific assets for the specific [00:16:00] audience, as you said, how do you emphasize and what do you think some of the best ways to get to know that customer are?

I remember with the course, we talked through so many, you know, customer interview approaches and different ways to gather that research. How do you like emphasize to people that it's still worth taking the time to do that because that's where you're going to get like the most authentic. And useful information.

So you can translate it to those assets

Collette: later on. I think it's a really good point, Molly. I think you have to talk to your customers this year because we're seeing so much behavioral change with customers and buying behavior change and organizations are still making lots of decisions. So for me. You have to talk to a customer, pick up the phone, understand who your customer are, have a chat with them, do some interviews.

Win loss interview is really important at the moment because you need to understand what that loss is. Is there something we can change for the next customer coming in? And again, if we're winning, why are we winning? It's understanding what's going on with those competitors as well is really important.

How do I displace them or how do I win against them? Where are my strengths? [00:17:00] Where are my weaknesses? And they will change over the year because the way that the market's changing. And of course your competitors are also going to be in the situation where they are reacting. So the people who will win.

This year are those that are talking to their customers all the time. They understand their customers. You don't need a formal interview program. You can have a chat with them at the point of sale, get involved. The other thing that you have to do is engage with the sales team. And I know there's a lot of product marketers who I get asked this question.

Um, that's at least three times a week. Oh, I don't have to talk sales. They might get upset. Oh, I don't want to talk to their customers, but actually it's really important. And what you've got to say to that sales person is actually I'm doing this so we can get a better conversion rate. You're going to win more.

So actually, can you brief me on what happened in that sale? Can I listen into that sales call? Is there any chance I can talk to that customer? It's going to be fundamental. And I think the other thing that's fundamental this year in terms of that research is the upsell and cross sell. We will see higher churn.

I think we are seeing growing churn in organizations because people are making cost savings. So I [00:18:00] think the thing is, is to say, not only talk to those sales propositions that you don't know, but the customers you do know, start having that customer program, understanding where their needs on. So actually you say, actually, I don't want you to churn, but B, what are the other opportunities we've got in the business?

Because it's much easier to sell to an existing base than a new base. So those are things to think about as well. I talk to people every, I mean, you can tell I like talking, but I will talk to customers every week. I will just pick up the phone. How are things going? How are you, what's going on in market?

And so it's a start of building a relationship, but once you have those close group of customers, they're so easy to talk to. So I'd say to any product marketers, don't be scared, but go out, talk to that sales team, talk to the customer.

Molly: That kind of blew my mind, Mikey, because we don't have like a huge, like interview set up at Ghost Ranch.

And I was like, Oh, it's going to take a while to ramp up, but. Yeah, it was like, it doesn't have to be this formal process. It can just be building rapport and having those consistent questions so that people do feel comfortable to tell you like, I liked this, I didn't like this, [00:19:00] this really worked for me, you know, this was a turn off, that kind of thing.

So it's really, it's not, you can just get a lot of information with just a little bit of rapport each time. Do

Mikey: you do things that don't scale, right? Molly, like I have this, my mentor, this CEO, I distinctly remember him emailing customers, like the CEO of this company would just email probably hundreds of customers a week to be like, Hey, how's it going?

You know, what can we do better? And, uh, we just assume that, no, we have to think of something that's going to automate and how do we get this with some tool, but I love it. Pick up a phone, you know, tell me what's going on.

Collette: And people are working at home, they're really bored. So they want to talk to you.

Like this is the thing somebody said to me, nobody ever talks to me anymore. They want an email or a questionnaire. So that's the thing is, people are really open to it. And I find that actually that's what they really enjoy at the moment.

Molly: Yeah, and I'd rather just maybe like, yeah, instead of typing out all my thoughts, I'd rather just chat to you for five, even five or eight minutes, you know, it's going to take just that amount of time to type it out.

Mikey: And doing things like offline on a Zoom, like something that's [00:20:00] not being recorded. They're going to let you know how they really feel, you know, and, and kind of speak the truth a bit.

Molly: Mikey, I know you've asked, you've asked this a couple of people like, and Colette, with your experience, I know you've had the actual experience of being on sales, but what is the, some of the best way to get that buy in with sales teams so that they can, yeah, like building internal rapport so that you can get some of their information as well.

And it's a, you know, two way street. So you don't have that information hiding in one department and you're missing out on some vital stuff you could use as a PM.

Collette: And I've seen this over a lot of years, so, um, yeah, I mean, for me, one of the things that I see a lot is people go to sales when they want something and that, you know, these people are busy.

If you think about a sales development rep, they do 60 calls a day on average. That's a serious amount of work. I know I found this out through all the business review and I was like, how many? And then I talked to some people and they said, yeah, that's about normal. Okay. So that's a lot of work that these people have got.

So when you go to them and you want something, and I've seen this with product marketers I've worked with is you sit there and go, well, of course I'm going to help [00:21:00] you because you've got no relationship. So, you know, so for me, one of the big things that I do is when I go into a business, actually I seek out the sales team straight away, ask them what's working.

What's not sort of stop, start, continue. What would you like? How can I help you? Aside from that, you know, that relationship building, I'll pop down. There's nothing that a box of donuts can't get you. Okay. Let me be clear right now. It's not about at the time, it's about me building that relationship because they're my ear to the ground.

They are the first person to hear if there's a problem. So for me, it's really important to have that relationship with them. Well, the other things that I do that work really well for me, I have a PMM office hour. So one hour a week, I have a zoom call open that they can come in and ask questions. I have on, I mean, I love to hate slack.

I have a slack channel called ask the PMM so they can come and ask. So if they're out and about, they can drop that there. Think about that though. If they're not, I've been into some organizations where they don't use slack. So you need to say what's the best channel for them to use. And then I do a sales drop in once a fortnight where people can [00:22:00] come share what's happened.

So anyone from sales can come. It's an open forum and we share what's happened. And then I tend to do sort of readouts once a month of like, okay, we've updated this on the personas or this is what we're seeing on the field, or this is what we're hearing there. And they bring their problems. And what I do is make sure that I've got some sales management on side so they come.

So everybody comes, it's a no judgment forum. For me, it's good for me because I'm hearing what's happening on the ground and I can react. It's good for them as well because sometimes they'll say, Mmm, this is happening or I don't like this or this isn't working. And actually, that's what I believe has made me really successful.

And the reason I've done that is because when I was running commercial teams, my teams were saying to me, We're not getting anything, we're not getting what we need, you know, we feel there's this empty void. But I think like anything with product marketing, a good product marketer is a good person with teams.

They're good, soft skills. And also one of the things I always say to product marketers, remember that when it comes to a salesperson, they want to spend time with you where they think it will help them close a sale. Because if you think generally [00:23:00] 50 percent of their salary is on commission. So they're not going to be with you if they can't say, okay, this is going to lead to a good outcome for me.

And so I think that's the other thing I use with sales teams is saying, actually, I'm here to help you be successful, and I'm going to give you what you need. And the other thing that I do to buy them in is when something's happened with a piece of sales enablement, whether they've sold that sale or they've seen good sales growth.

I will then reference that so they can say, Oh, trust her. Okay. This has worked really, really well. So actually they use this battle card or we use this presentation and it worked really well. This is what the sales process looked like. And then they'll go, well, I'm going to use that because that's really successful for me.

So that's another good thing to bring sales team in for me is. show the quality of the work you're producing, which ultimately leads them to success.

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Molly: Colette, this is so useful. I'm trying so hard not to interrupt you because every little snippet is good advice for people to be gone the path to, uh, becoming a great PMM.

When we first talked, I, there was something that we definitely resonated with that. I don't think we've really talked about on the podcast much, Mikey, but. You mentioned that as you've gone through this consulting journey for yourself, there's a lot of like imposter syndrome in the PMM world, and I'm just curious on your take on that.

Like, where does that come from? And is that kind of like, I see you kind of filling that gap with your coaching. Is that, is that, does that feel true to you?

Collette: I think, yeah. I think what happens when you come into PMM and particularly when you're new [00:25:00] to PMM, is you see these senior pmms and they've got all these skills and they've got everything and you go, I'm not that.

Mm-hmm . It took us years to get there. Okay. This wasn't something that happened overnight. When you think about the list of skills you've got as a, you know, A PMM, you talking research, pricing, OKRs, personas. Yeah. There's so much initially netted you in sales enablement. You sometimes you might not, you might have to wait three years for an opportunity for that to come up in certain product areas.

Okay. And then on top of the hard skills, you've got the soft skills, you've got the collaboration, the communication, difficult conversations, definitely conflict. Okay. You know.

Molly: Yeah.

Collette: And you've got to, I think it's like Mike said earlier, how do you work with sales? How do you understand that? Because this is big, this is big, you know, working with these commercial teams and then product teams and everything else is really hard.

And I think what people do is. We're in a world now where you're seeing these people in product marketing, and we've grown this discipline massively in the past few years. And I think people come in and go, well, I'm not the completed thing, but you wouldn't go into that job. If [00:26:00] you're completed, you'd be in a much more senior level.

And so I think what's happened is there's some elements, I think, where some people do have imposter syndrome. And I think it's that thing of saying, I feel really vulnerable, but there's also that element of saying, well, I feel like I'm an imposter, but I haven't got the skillset, but actually it's a big learning journey.

You know. Some people, it takes 10 years to get where they need to get to. It's not a quick skillset because of the complexity. And so I think a lot of people come, you know, I coach a lot of people and I talked to a lot of other coaches as well. And they'll say to me, you know, there's something really going on here.

And I said, it's because we don't, there's two things in product marketing. We don't talk about what goes wrong. Okay. And it goes wrong. I'll tell you now, when I do a product that goes 100 percent right, I will open the biggest bottle of champagne you've ever seen. There's always something that goes wrong because we're in search of perfection as product marketers and we never really fully get there.

So we never talk about the things that go wrong. So when things go wrong, people feel devastated. And I think they get that feel of imposter syndrome. And I think the other thing is, is they look at it and I sketch a lot of people going, [00:27:00] well, I've never been involved in pricing or I haven't done this. And is it because, you know, I'm an imposter, isn't it?

And I'm like, But I've been here for 20 years and I've only done pricing five times, you know, it's so, and I think that's the other thing is actually fostering that mentorship and that coaching to upskill people as well. So I think it's there, but I think it's more about saying, how do we help people on their journey to feel a complete product marketer?

And, you know, it's not like other disciplines. And this is where that conversation is like, actually we're more product than we are marketing is because one of the things is, is. For product marketing, you can't, for some things you need hands on experience and you might not get it in your organization. So you might have to move or you might have to go and do certification somewhere.

You might have to train somewhere else. So I think that's where this builds in as well. But I would say to anyone, if you feel you've got imposter syndrome, I think the first thing to look at is say, Is this a skill gap I'm concerned about or is this something bigger? And when I coach people, that's the first thing that we explore.

And some people are like, okay, it's an imposter syndrome, it's a skill gap. [00:28:00] And then we say, how do we build that? If it's imposter syndrome, that's a much bigger thing we have to deal with. But I think it's really important for people to look at that. And also for some people. This is where coaching and mentoring comes in really strong in this area is it went wrong.

Okay. We're going to help you get through that because we've all had it. Okay. And that's, that's, that's healthy because I think the best product marketers learn from what goes wrong and they can learn from that and become better. And I've seen some product marketers who've had their first big mistake and it might be five years into their career and they're devastated.

And I'm like, well, it's going to happen at some point that this is life.

Mikey: So much better to, to learn on the job, especially with, with a coach, right? Like, I think that is such a cool paradigm shift from thinking, ah, before I do this job, I better go get my MBA, right? But quite an insight by you to see that, no, like just with a little bit of mentorship and a coach on the side.

Stick to your job. We'll learn together. I'll coach you through these, these tough, you know, kind of situations and you're going to get [00:29:00] better for it. When did you think like, Oh, Hey, I think, uh, I want to coach, like, what was this transition like for you?

Collette: Well, I think it's been, I'd always had teams and I am very, I've always seen myself to be a really strong people manager.

I think that, you know, my job isn't to make the person a hundred percent perfect for where I work, but to make them, where am I taking you on the next step in your career? And actually people who would work for me are like, You know, actually, you don't realize how good that is that you're helping me on my career, not helping me be the perfect person for this organization.

I've always had that attitude that you should be the best for your next role. My job is to get you on your pathway. And if that pathway isn't with me forever, then that's good because if I look back at you and see your career accelerating, I've done a good job. And I think there was a time in my career where I sat there and I just thought.

I really enjoy this. I started doing a lot more mentoring. I then started doing some coaching at the Judge Business School at Cambridge University and it just lit a fire in me. There was [00:30:00] something really exciting where I was like, I love being that person that can help someone on their journey, that can help someone in their career and help people maybe answer some of those difficult questions for themselves.

And I think that for me was something that I really investigated. And then I thought, actually, I want to do more of this. And I actually went to see a coach myself and I was like, I need to figure out what's going on here. Cause I don't know where, which direction I'm going in slightly thought it was midlife crisis, but it wasn't.

And She asked me a question and she said, and really bluntly and said, if you could look in 12 months, what would you want to do? And I did not know the answer was going to come out of my mouth. And I said, I want to coach people. And then I was like, what? That gut thing. And she got that out of me. And then all of a sudden I really started to explore that space.

And I was like, I think this is really what I want to do. It's such a good transition for me.

Molly: Yeah, it's a culmination. I know you've been like, yeah, served as head of product marketing, even in sales, as you said, and then of course, having a science background, I think, obviously, like speaking back to that imposter syndrome, [00:31:00] product marketers don't necessarily study explicitly product marketing in school.

And so it's always something you kind of fall into. So it's no wonder that I think imposter syndrome sneaks its way in because there's some inevitably some field like, Oh, I don't have that much experience with research or OKRs or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. But I love that your experience is so holistic and then has landed you in this career coach spot.

And it's, it's just so obvious that you enjoy what you do. And, um, yeah, I'm, I'm curious, how did you find yourself facilitating the PMA course as well? What's your relationship with them? And I forget, did you help kind of create some of the modules? I remember you said those were some of your slides. Some of the, some of them you were like, I don't like that graphic.

And I do like this graphic.

Collette: Yeah, so yeah, so I do, but what we do generally as a PMA instructor is you bring some of your own expertise in and that is the value that it's not just this. This is the course they've created, so they may have a framework of their course and then all the, so you know, it's like a lot of which instructor going to get because you're going to get.

my experience. And you get the war stories. And so it's really nice that I [00:32:00] can personalize my experience and share that because that I think is what makes it really valuable is it's not just here's some theory. It's here's how we've used this in practice. Here's how things have gone wrong. Here's how things have gone right.

So yeah, there's some stuff that I use, which is all my experience, which I really love, but I've been involved in the PMA. And since 2019, I had a conversation with Rich King, who is their founder, and he's a great guy, but he has about 50 things going on his head at the one time. And we were just talking about product marketing.

And he said, actually, do you want to come on as an expert in residence? And they were just doing a lot of their core courses. So I got involved with core with them, did a bit of mentoring with them, and I've been involved in the journey. And it's been a fantastic journey because I remember. It just being this little slight community where product marketers got together and now you look at it and you're like, you know, it's world leading certification.

It's got all these workshops. It's got, you know, we never had a home as product marketers. We have nowhere to go. People were like, we were product managers, ugly sisters [00:33:00] really. And they're like, Oh, you're not product managers. And now all of a sudden what they've done is given us a platform and a voice and actually.

Really helped to grow that community. And I think being part of that and watching that growth has been amazing for me. And like, when you come to the course, Molly, I look at all these product marketers coming in and getting certified. And I know this music, but I love what you made. We'll go afterwards.

What are you doing? Where are you going? What's going on in your careers? And you will bring different stories. So. I'm slightly addicted to, um, maybe because I just love watching those careers and where they've gone. And I think, what does the next chapter bring? Because all those people we've taken through from 2019, they're now coming, some of them coming into their leadership roles.

We have people who are CMOs come into and do the core course like you did Molly and say. I just want to refresh myself. So for me, it's really exciting. And you know, I've got all these top product marketers who are like, yeah, I'll answer this on the Slack channel. I'll tell you this. And you're thinking, goodness, this is, you know, for people and product inventing, it's really good.

Yeah. So, um, yeah, [00:34:00] I've been involved since 2019. I'll probably still be here in like 2039. I

Mikey: mean, that's like right when they kind of started maybe 2018, 2019, but just to look back at how fast it's grown. Yeah. I thought they said. Am I wrong? 90 to 100, 000 members or something crazy like that across the world.

Molly: I remember you looked that up a while ago, Mike. In such a

Mikey: short amount of time, I mean, clearly tapped a nerve to where it's like, we need a place to all gather and commiserate and learn from each other. Yeah, that's so cool, Colette, that you get as much from teaching as they get from learning from you.

Molly: And just to, yeah, just to keep, I mean, um, PMA is not paying us for this, but they love, they'll love this. But I mean, I walked in there, it's like, I wouldn't, I think Ghost Ranch is in such a unique space in the B2B tech kind of world. And it's cool. I would have probably never met those product marketers.

So it's cool to meet people from all different like factions of product marketing. And now we're just like friends on LinkedIn, I saw them at the conference, you know, so it's cool to have that exposure that I wouldn't have otherwise like [00:35:00] met those, those types of people. It's cool.

Collette: Yeah, and I think that really helps, Molly, when we talk about that thing earlier about actually this imposter syndrome is now you have a group of people you think they're your circle of safety.

Yeah,

Molly: yeah.

Collette: And you can talk to and they know you and that I think is very valuable.

Molly: And be like, hey, have you ever done this or struggled with this or something? And that was, yeah, totally. And we had, you kind of had it in small groups kind of, which I always love when you get to kind of like talk to the same people over and over again.

So that, that helped, you know, it was good, good facilitation. Which brings us to, I suppose, how does it feel for you, I mean, this is presentation thinking, we obviously talk about presenting, storytelling, it goes so hand in hand with that. You mentioned earlier you love building presentations, what's it like to kind of, what's the difference in like, being a teacher facilitating a presentation versus like, I'm up there giving a little keynote, 15 minute, 20 minute keynote.

Collette: I think the difference when you're teaching is there's a really hard balance between getting the right amount of content, knowing that people are going to revisit those slides in six, nine months, and getting the right balance, but also not too [00:36:00] much where people switch off or they are going, oh, I can just read the words and I don't have to do anything.

Yeah. And so it's a really important balance and it's that thing again, I think like when you're a product marketer, you have to say you're going to take this away and you're going to forget what I said to you in six months time. I mean, I'd like to think everyone remembered me word by word, but that's not what happens.

So when you're thinking about teaching as well, the other thing you're thinking about is different learning styles. And that's really important. Not everybody thinks the same, you know, and this is, this is key as well, not making complexity, you know, I've worked with people where actually we've got people in the room where they've got, you know, quite difficult learning needs or they might have dyslexia.

So I can't put complexity there. So I also need to think about simplicity as well for that learner. I need to also think, and you raised this point Malia in your course, English isn't always everybody's first language. So the other thing I have to think about is how do I get this over in a way where it's not their first language, but they understand it.

And so when you're teaching, you have to think about all these needs and requirements, but you also have to think about, I've got to get through this [00:37:00] in a certain set amount of time as well. You can not overrun when you're teaching with people, people don't like it. They want their coffee breaks. They want the cake.

So there's that versus when it's when it's in a product marketing sense, when I'm working with a customer and I'm working with sales enablement is you have to think about all those other things, but you have to think about where are we as a brand. Who are we as an organization? What if this gets out of somebody's hand and it goes somewhere else?

What's this saying? This is a really important thing in this competitive environment at the moment. If I give this to somebody who has never, and you will get that salesperson, I'll be honest, who will pull out that deck and go, uh, five minutes before, I don't know what's going on. Can somebody use this?

where they do not have the understanding. So if I put that deck open and I've got five minutes because I'm slightly rushed off my feet or I'm running late or haven't read it, can I do this with conviction? And that's the other thing you have to think, because when you're producing product marketing, it's fine for me to say I'm producing this and oh, it's all this information.

I've got it [00:38:00] all in my head, but the person who's using it hasn't. So that's the other thing you have to think about when you're producing those slides is what guidance I'm giving to someone. How am I going to make them successful? And actually, where are the points of failure here as well? So I've seen people do diagrams on slides and I've talked to sales teams and they said, we don't know what it means.

Like it's really complicated. It's not simple. And I think, well, if you don't know what it means and you work in the company, what's somebody else going to do? Actually, those things are really important is you're producing for somebody who doesn't know what's in your head.

Mikey: How do you, what, how have you seen the best possible outcome for getting that out of a PMM's team's head into sales?

Is it a series of trainings, like recordings in person

Collette: frameworks?

Mikey: Yeah. Like.

Collette: Yeah.

Mikey: What works? What, what fails?

Collette: I think recordings in theory work, in reality, they don't work because nobody really watches them. You like what they do and you will record them and I record them and say, you can go back and watch it.

But I think for me, I like to [00:39:00] do live things because I think people will learn. They ask questions. I run little quizzes in the middle of them, have little prizes. so that people pay attention. You also have to think about when you're training somebody, people only take something in a short amount of time.

So, you know, once you start getting past that 20 minutes of training time, the window of 20 to 45 minutes becomes problematic. Okay. Because people are drifting off, getting an email, getting a text message, thinking about the next customer call. So I tend to do it live, and when I do it, I tend to work with global teams.

So I will have, it's the worst 48 hours in my quarter generally, but I will brief West Coast America at one time, East Coast in another, Australia in another, Europe in another. The reason why is I want to show to people, actually this is important enough that I'm staying awake now. Okay. And I'm, you know, 11 o'clock at night, I'm getting up and I'm going, brush your hair, make sure you look at that.

You know, but it's, what's really good with that is people will turn up and they'll listen. And you'd say, okay, here's the presentation. This is what it means in terms of outcomes for you. [00:40:00] Here's some cluster insight. I'm going to take you through this, any questions and people will listen. Cause if you say this is going to help you move those prospects forward, fundamentally win more sales.

All of a sudden I'm going to listen. So that's my preferred method. And I prefer to do it in small groups. I have been to organizations where they do these massive sales briefings. I've like hundreds of people and the sales team are just looking going, what's happening here. The other thing that I can do with people is I do say, do you want me to do one to one?

Do you want me to take you through anything? If it's a new presentation, I will also maybe sit in a sales call. So if they need help, they will say, Oh, Colette. So if they're feeling slightly uncomfortable, they'll bring me in. And that's generally how I like to work. And I think also that builds for me, really good relationship with the sales team because they're sitting there going, you're prepared for what I'm in, so we're prepared to do this for you.

That's, that's my dream scenario. The worst thing you can do is just fly a deck over to someone and go, go and use it. And I've seen that done many times in many,

Molly: many places. Yeah, totally. You're embodying what we love to hear, which is when people are like, I care about the delivery and where this is [00:41:00] going and who it's going to and at what time.

I feel like been. By modeling that, like if you're giving a cross time zone presentation, you're like, well, this clearly means something to this person. So I guess I should pay attention. That's helpful for sure. What is your, um, I know you said, yeah, like building presentations. What's your, what's your feelings about like PowerPoint, Google slides?

What do you like to build in? And do you often end up in those platforms when you're helping people work through stuff? You're like, no, actually this is, this is, we can, we can work through this together. Or do you find that there's sometimes there may be a designer in house that you work with? What's your experience been like there?

So I'm

Collette: going to get shoot down by a lot of people that I hate the PowerPoint with a passion. I actually

Molly: think

Collette: you're in the majority and we're in the minority. Yeah. A PowerPoint for me is very limiting because where PowerPoint is useful is when you know what you're doing with it. And it takes an actually advanced use for PowerPoint to be done well.

So actually for me, I don't have time to spend three days trying to make a decent PowerPoint. I want specialists. So I will use designers. I will [00:42:00] use agents. It's not just my organization won't be spending three days trying to build up an image that still looks rubbish at the end. No, I prefer Google Slides because I think a big thing for me is the collaboration in Google Slides so I can work with people.

I work with global teams. So some people are on awake at the same time as me. So if people can comment, they can add things in. I find Google Slides a little bit more flexible for me. But what I will say to you is I will get a presentation in the best way that I can. And then I tend to share it with two sets of people, content people to say, does it make sense?

Okay. Can you make, I want you to now tell me what this says, because I know what it says. I wrote it,