The evolution of soft skills, presentations & product management with April Thomas

165_April Thomas

Mikey: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Presentation Thinking AKA, the Storyteller Study Club. This is Mikey Meki, co-host, founder of Ghost Ranch Communications. A presentation design agency and I'm joined by my co-host, your favorite, Molly Gagan, straight Outta Inglewood, Colorado. What's going on?

Molly: Hello, Mikey and Presentation Nation.

Uh, today is another special day. As always, we have a friend of the ranch joining. Uh, Mikey. I know you know her a little better than me, but I'm super excited to get to know her

Mikey: well. April Thomas is a best friend of the ranch. April, thank you for joining us all. You're, you're in like. Somewhere around Austin, right?

April: Yes. Uh, just a [00:01:00] little bit north of Austin.

Mikey: All right. And we've known each other for like, gosh, I don't wanna like age us, but it's been a while.

April: It's been a minute.

Molly: April, you have such cool, well-rounded experience. I was creeping on your LinkedIn. You've been senior product strategist, director of product, product marketing manager.

So if anyone's listening, presentation Nation that is in or wants to be in one of these tracks, keep on listening. 'cause April has amazing experience to share and we are glad you're here.

April: Yeah, a absolutely. I'm happy to be here. Always love Ghost Ranch. But I remember back when I could say way back when, right?

Uh, it's what I was joking about Ali Rose, uh, anniversary post this week on LinkedIn. I knew her when, yeah, I think it's 10 plus years almost. Yes.

Mikey: Yeah. So you were like, that's so special. Can you tell us like. I met you when you were at Oracle and I think then you were, maybe you had just come over from product management into product marketing, but you, like a lot of people I know often get those terms confused and I myself had to, it took me years to figure it out and I think you helped [00:02:00] me figure it out, but can you tell us like your background, like what got you to Oracle, what have you done since, and then a little bit of like what, what is, what is this product management versus product marketing thing?

April: So, uh, I'm not trying to age myself, but in, in the beginning of time, uh, you know, a long time ago when I first started in kind of the tech space, there was a product management wasn't really a thing. It was like business development. Go out and figure out where we should go. And, uh, tackle the next opportunity to go find that opportunity and then we would kind of build to that opportunity.

And so, um, you know, a few years later, uh, this is about 20 years ago, right? This is right when product management started to become a thing. Uh, and people didn't really know what to call it because back then in product management, you did do product marketing, right? You did, you know, uh, back then when I was at a company called 360 Training.

We did online training, I did all the marketing. You know, I worked with a designer on what our, we, at that time we did direct mail postcards. Right? What the messaging should be for our sales teams. What is our strategy? So you [00:03:00] and, and then also you're working directly with the engineers of what does the product need to be?

I. And so over, over time as the product roles have become more sophisticated, you started to see that split between product management, um, sometimes people call it inbound outbound product management. And then product marketing has really evolved. So it's not necessarily this core marketing function. It kind of got pulled out into, hey, you can't just market things you don't understand.

So you kind of need that liaison between the product side. Marketing, you need the aptitude of both, uh, to kind of, to bring that story to life for, for each company that you're at. So, so that was kind of the evolution of things. And then before I was at Oracle, I was at a, a couple of different companies. I came into Oracle straight from product management.

I worked on a mobile app at a company called Alchemy. It was such a great opportunity. I love that company. And then Oracle kind of swooped me in off my feet. It was really focusing on that product marketing side, which was new to me, to just have that function. Um, and I was kind of joking about this with Mikey earlier, [00:04:00] right?

I, I think naturally I was a, I am a, a, a good charismatic speaker. I can bring people to my voice and, and really tell the story. Uh, but I didn't know what the other part of that was until I really got to Oracle and started working with Chris Lynch, ghost Ranch and all of those, uh, great leaders. And really understanding what the art of storytelling is in the product marketing space.

And so that's where I think about 2013 was in the sophistication of the role, not just with me but in general started to, uh, to come abreast. And it's continued to grow and expand since then. Okay.

Mikey: Okay. And you're on the Presentation Thinking podcast. Obviously we. You know, like, yeah, I was, I, I gargle in slides every morning.

Right? But it's like, like you, when you were there, like late 2013 when I was getting rope roped into this Oracle marketing cloud stuff, like their creative in-house team was stacked. They were so talented. They were like, but they were building a brand and they were doing like really sexy stuff like top of funnel.

Ran splashy stuff and [00:05:00] then all these pmms were like coming to me for the non-sexy stuff. The, the PowerPoint slides. Yeah. But that was eyeopening because I didn't realize like how much y'all live and breathe presentations. Like what are, what is, like, why are decks such a thing when it comes to like product management and product marketing?

April: And if you think about it, right, for for any product's role in any product kind of strategy or vision, it leads with what are we trying to do and how you tell that story matters, right? And what you really need is everybody in the company having this continuous story of what we're doing, why we're doing it, how we're doing it.

When you are going through a sales cycle, you don't wanna engage with your account rep and hear one story, engage with the inside sales, hear something different. Then you bring a product leader into the room and they're saying something different. You know, if you're on the other side of the table, that's disjointed messaging.

It doesn't provide confidence in the company or the product or the strategy. And I've often heard that in the, in my career, in different companies I've been at. Right. Which is [00:06:00] like. What are y'all really trying to do? And so when we think about the importance of those presentations that product marketing and or product management do, that is setting the tone for how we talk about everything that we're doing.

That is setting the why. Why we are doing this. How is it going to impact the customer? That narrative has to be continuous. Throughout really to achieve, you know, that that really top niche space in the market. And so presentations became really important, especially at Oracle. You're talking about a global operation.

You know, initially when I was at Oracle, I was on the Eloqua team.

Music: Mm-hmm.

April: That's a global product. Um, so how do I get this out to, you know. 50,000 Oracle people that need to understand what Eloqua is delivering this year and, and what, what is the value to their customers? And the range of customers is significant, right?

And you have all the different global regions. And so when we think about the importance of a good presentation deck, that first call deck, it, it, it is, is paramount for us in the pro on the product marketing team to get that [00:07:00] right, to be able to, um, have a way to distribute that message. But also, and this is kind of my internal term, I always say Fisher, price it right.

We are giving this out to everyone. We are not, they're not going to know it at the depths that we are, product management or engineering will. So that message that is articulated through that presentation has to be simplified enough to where it can be mask consumed, and you don't have to handhold every, uh, department, every region on what that messaging is and, and how to really drive it.

So this is where the presentation becomes paramount and, and the most critical part of, of some of the messaging that. That we do in product management and product marketing. Yeah,

Mikey: that scale, Molly, is just like astounding, right? When you're like, maybe if you're, you're like a 20 person, you know, kind of company and you have like one tool and you have like one or two people who sell it that might not be able, you're like, okay, whatever.

Some slides, but exactly. April, it's like the scale. How do you make sure this thing [00:08:00] stays intact, that like your bottom sellers can speak to it just as well as your top sellers. And it's, it's, mm-hmm. An insane. Like challenge.

April: Yeah, heavy weight. And then also right on the product management side. That presentation is important for all the same reasons, but for product management internally, you are selling that vision that you're building constantly to your, your internal stakeholders.

That has to be continuous. Like if, if you're going into a meeting and you're saying, this is what product has said we're doing, we're in alignment with engineering. The worst thing that can happen was engineering is in a different meetings telling a different story. Mm-hmm. And so. The outside of the, the presentation, the, the narrative.

What is our vision? What is our why? What are the things we're doing is very, very important in how we scale it, but also internally, and this is also as a product leader, how we get our teams to believe in the vision, right? I can come into a new company and say, this is where we should be. Well, why would they trust me?

Right? And so when we build a vision, building a vision's easy to. Speak about. Right? But when [00:09:00] you actually build it and put the bricks in place, it has to be repeated all the time. Right? And so those internal presentations, uh, of what, what we're doing and why we're doing it is something that is, uh, you know, if you've, if somebody is listening that's ever worked for me, they, I always think getting on my soapbox and I'm telling you the things over and over, and I'm showing you the things that we're doing and why it matters.

Because you need your teams to believe in that, um, and, and create passion around the work that they're doing.

Molly: Absolutely. I'm gonna circle back to something you said earlier, which is the inception of that 2013 era and kind of like, yeah, you guys are like the scene painters. Like Mike, you know, we talked, we have so many like theater and story references, right?

But it's like you're building the environment, you're building the set for each of these, um, places to live. And like the cohesive narrative of that instead of just a one-off thing. Do you think, I don't think it's like a coincidence that around that time where. The product marketing role became kind of solidified and certainly tech was kind of blasting off to SaaS stuff [00:10:00] going crazy.

I don't think it's a coincidence that that storytelling became more paramount around then. What do you think about like that, the inception of that storytelling buzzy, buzzy word, right. That became, um, pretty potent.

April: I, I do think, you know, I think it, so being on both sides, product management, product marketing, product management, right?

Is a product manager. Um, you, you have, you, I. Unknowingly are always storytelling, right? You're telling that user experience, this is what they're going to do, or this is what the research says we know they're gonna do and why we're doing the things, right? So innately you're already doing that, um, but you're not really articulating in a way that's really consumable by marketing typically.

So I think that organic kind of changes. Like people don't want a 50 person, a 50, you know, PowerPoint, slide deck, 50 pages of PowerPoints, and you're just monotonously reading it off. Um, they want to know what's exciting and what is it, what's in it for them, especially on the other side of the table. And so oftentimes, you know, I think it, [00:11:00] if you think about the change of business and tech, right?

Before that era, it was still very much kind of cut and drive. Like, here's, we've always done it this way, so here's the things we're doing and we're gonna spend this much time on this feature. And, and then there was a shift. Right? And I think it has to do with generational changes, right? This is when you start to see millennials come in more and more and saying like, I don't wanna, I don't wanna sit through a presentation of two hours of just slide.

Yeah. Make it exciting for me, and I think part of that millennial, um, even now, the Gen Z, right? And I'm a Gen Xer, so I would even say it started with us. Um, but we wanted something different. We wanted to be able to consume differently. And I think you have to look at the factors of how people consume information.

That shift was significant, right? We went mm-hmm. A lot of paper to now vastly digital. And so you can't go in the way that you did 25, 30 years ago and expect to be exciting. Mm-hmm. You know, just don't respond to that. And so that, that art of storytelling really came out of that, [00:12:00] of let's tell this great story of what we're doing and what we're investing and why, you know, you should partner with us, why you should buy from us.

I think that showed early on a huge pivot in success and it got people excited and I, I think from the product management side, what makes storytelling exciting is if you don't tell a story, you get caught up in the the list, right? I always say it's the list of feature functions and it's a knife fight.

Every, every competitor you're up against, um, it's always called this knife fight, right? Of like, oh, I got this feature, I have this feature. And you're not even telling the story of the value that you're offering your customer. And that's the worst place to be, is stuck in that knife fight. 'cause nobody wins, right?

It's just a constant back and forth, back and forth. But when you take that away, you bring it up into a storytelling, you're bringing that person on the other side of the table. Into a narrative that they are a part of. They're, they can feel like, oh, you're about to change something significantly for me in my email marketing, uh, platform, or my banking platform, or healthcare, or whatever [00:13:00] it is.

And that's what excites those key decision makers, right? Mm-hmm. You're gonna change something for their customers. Um, and instead of getting caught up on, you know. What does the font look like? Those things are very important. Not, not, you know, nullifying that at all, but also saying like the, the art of the storytelling became popular because we wanted people to envision what we were building and be excited about it for their customers.

And that's only being done through storytelling Now. And

Mikey: April, was there like a moment in your career, where did you used to be guilty of? Like the knife fight, info, dumping and like, was there a point when, was there someone in particular who, who showed you the light or like a training that you went through?

Molly: Kill the feature creature?

April: Yeah, so I think when I was like at Alchemy, the company I was at right before Oracle. I started to really feel that. Um, and we had a very unique product. And, but then really honestly then, uh, I hope Chris Lynch was, LA was listening to this and gets a laugh at it, but it was Chris Lynch, um, who was our head of product marketing at Oracle at that time.

[00:14:00] Um, and at the time with ko we were going up against Marketo and it was just this feature knife fight and it just, you know, we talked to the sales, uh, specialist and it. It was just the same thing over and over, but a different feature. Mm-hmm. It was the same argument, you know, well, we lost this because we didn't have this, and you just start to go, that's, that's not why we lost that.

I mean, unless it was something massive, right? Mm-hmm. But it's, it's the way that we were communicating and, and what we learned about some of our competitors. And I think, uh, Caroline that worked for Chris at the time that did competitive intelligence at Oracle, she was wonderful. Really started to put out that.

One of the biggest differentiators between our biggest competitor at that time, they told the same story everywhere. You saw it on social media, you saw it in their presentations, you saw it at their conference, you saw it from their salespeople. You heard the same story over and over and over. Even if they didn't have that feature functionality, everything was believable because it was a consistent message.

And that was kind of an epiphany for me of like, I kind of became obsessed about watching our competitors and seeing who was [00:15:00] really telling. And that was probably for me, like 2014 was probably about the time I started to realize like, this me, the messaging has to be consistent. Mm-hmm. It has to be popped down and we have to drive that from product marketing.

Um, and that I think is such a big game changer in a competitive space, especially in software. Is are you telling the same story? Are you selling the same vision? From a touchpoint.

Molly: Oh, I've never, I don't think we've really talked about this too much, Mikey, about like the evolution of storytelling in this space.

Yeah. With product marketing, and it is so fascinating to me because we have harped on these like stats and the science of storytelling. Like of course we know people will remember information 22 times more likely than they when a story is incorporated than just like telling them a stat or a feature or something like that.

But. Hearing the natural, yeah, the natural evolution of like, people, consumers wanted something different as there was a big rise in like a new market, um, to a lot of crowdedness, like people filling up the space fast. So it makes so much [00:16:00] sense. And then I would say like, you know, a decade plus on into that, from that time now we're having to like communicate the stories and the communication piece is more important than ever, which.

We, I know we wanna talk about soft skills, and I'm curious, April, what you think about what kind of gap and what is so important about being able to communicate a story and decks in general and just communicate what is, what is going on right now for you in the soft skills

April: world? Yeah. I think there's such a, there's such a lack, a soft, soft skills, and this isn't a knock at anybody, right?

Any generation or whatever. Every generation has their shifts. Um, especially with the explosion of technology, right? How do you, uh, incorporate different aspects of those things, but yeah, totally. I think that one of the biggest pieces with soft skills is the ability to communicate clearly and do it in a way where I.

More people than an expert in the room could understand. And I think as technology has gotten so much [00:17:00] more sophisticated, um, if you think about the world of the cloud ai, everything under the sun that's coming about, you know, it feels really overwhelming to look at and say, well, and I could tell you I've been in the room, in the boardroom with executives, um.

That are, are brilliant, right? But then you start talking technical jargon and you can just see the glaze over it, right? You can just see their faces completely change and you've lost them. Uh, there might be one or two key, like a CTO in the room that's with it, and it, it's nothing about their intelligence level, right?

It's, um, this is overwhelming. So the artist storytelling has really, and soft skills has changed of, we, we can't go in without a really good story. And so we have this next generation of people coming into the, the workforce that that wasn't a key focus for them in their education of how to communicate effectively with people.

I think it's been a really, as a, as a leader, as somebody that manages people, it's been a really interesting transition over the last 10 years, [00:18:00] watching the people come into my orgs at different companies and seeing how I. This is a real lack for them. Whether it is simply, um, advocating for something that they need internally, uh, from a product or engineering standpoint of, or explaining simply why we need to upgrade something or do something.

Those, those soft skills of being able to articulate that in a clear way that's understandable. What's the value? Why do I care about upgrading these things to the cloud? You know? That is, has been missed. Right? We have this generation coming outta college and I, I, I think I told Mikey the story. I had an intern last summer.

She's brilliant. She's like a double major, I mean way smarter than I was at her age, right? And she blew me out of the water. And um, at the beginning of our internship, I said, you are going to speak to executives at financial institutions. You're gonna speak to our executives here. You're going to just call people.

And I think that was terrifying. I know that was terrifying for her 'cause she told me. But forcing that uncomfortableness of like [00:19:00] communicating effectively, um, and getting to a point where we, we did some presentations together and showing her how to like, cut to the point and, and like, what are the key things you're really trying to do?

That's a soft skill, right? Communicating is a soft skill and people don't think that. But in engineering, I will tell you that is a soft skill. And um, at the end of her internship, she said that was the best thing that, you know. That she could have learned from, from all of us, um, last summer was learning how to communicate, you know?

Um, and so when we think about soft skills and the people, I want to grow the people. It doesn't mean you have to be the loudest person in the room. You know, there's often that misnomer that, oh, soft skills and communication are the people that speak up the most. That's not true at all, right? It's being able to, when it is your turn or when you want it to be, your turn to be able to effectively communicate.

And I think there's a really big gap with that, with presentations. And I see it a lot on product and engineering. Mm-hmm. Where they have very important message to tell. They either can't vocalize it or cannot pre, so then they default to presenting it and [00:20:00] they kind of go back to where we were 25 years ago in a very, you know, list form of a presentation, not a storyline.

And, and that kills so, so many things right away because people don't. Really care. Right? If they can't understand it, they can't care about it. I think communication has become a core thing, um, that I look for in any employee. They don't have to be great at it, but they have to be willing to wanna work on it.

Molly: And now, a message from our sponsors,

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We're bringing in three premium workshops. There's gonna be opportunities to get up on a stage yourself. There's theory, there's practice, and best of all, comradery. It's gonna be intimate and [00:21:00] it's gonna be awesome. We'd love for you to check out story camp.com and we hope to see you in Park City,

April. We've connected at some like breakout rooms and like I think we share the same sentiment about like, I. The power of a breakout and at a big scale, at an enterprise user conference, like an Oracle, you know, like Open World or Salesforce, Dreamforce, whoever's putting that thing on has the weight of the world on them because they have to, like, I.

They have to like fill a hundred rooms or 200 rooms or whatever with people from their company who can speak about this killer feature or, you know, like it's, and it, it, correct me if I'm wrong, but is it largely product people, right?

April: Yeah, that's, yeah. So if you think about, you know, um, so I'm not at Q2 anymore.

I've been on a little bit of a sabbatical the last six, seven months. But one of the big things, um, at our user conferences, it's a user conference. So although Q2 services, um, [00:22:00] hundreds of financial institutions, the users, the people in the financial institution doing, um, working in the software every day are the ones that attend that conference.

And so all those, I mean. All those breakouts are really critical to their career path, right? How they function in that software. It was the same with Eloqua, right? Mm-hmm. How the, the users utilized and understood the new features and could really maximize the use of that, uh, was critical not just to the company, but to their career path.

And so those breakouts, you're, you're right, right? It becomes overwhelming 'cause you're trying to fill all the space with what's important, but. You also have to understand that user is, that is something that will impact your company immediately, right? Those breakouts, when you're saying this is available now, if that user spends 45 minutes with you and leaves and goes back that next Monday to work and logs in and they're able to start utilizing those features, that functionality that you talked about, that is a win, right?

That's. That's a maximizing the [00:23:00] ROI for the customer, uh, for the company. Right. That's exactly what it's the whole thing you want, right? Is maximizing the investment that you've put into that feature functionality gathering that stickiness. And so we oftentimes think about the breakouts as something that was just like nice to have, but I really feel like it's a critical function, especially when we, when you're talking about the user-based, um, breakouts that are really for, you know.

The, the people that are using the product, and that's why you typically have product management or product marketing doing those sessions, uh, because they're closest to the product. They want, they want to be front, front and center for that user feedback. In those sessions as well, I.

Mikey: Have you ever been like, sort of the panel picker who's like deciding which PM or pm m is gonna lead a session and like what do you, what are some considerations that you're weighing when you're Yeah.

Trying to decide who's gonna go.

April: So I, one thing I really liked that we did at Oracle, and I've kind of stuck with it since my time there, was, I liked having kind of a more of a product marketer and it, um, an inbound product manager or like more [00:24:00] of a technical or an engineer. I think the one that the, the dynamics typically end up working.

Really well. Um, it's giving both sides the chance to kind of, to do what you want. And I think from a, um, a leadership standpoint, right, what you pull out of that, when you put those kind of people together is a really great story, right? Because you're not missing the really key things that that PM or that engineer wants you to know.

Um, but you're able to really pull that into the right storytelling approach. Um, and so I, I really like that approach. Um, I've been doing the panel picks for a really long time. Sometimes I look for, uh, you know. I definitely look for stage presence. I also look for someone that, that understands the product and the user.

The user.

Music: Yeah.

April: And I want it to be mutually beneficial, right? I don't wanna put somebody up there that's going to field questions and never take that feedback, um, and do something with it. And so that's really critical feedback and we want those people, that investment of our [00:25:00] employee to be able to take that feedback and, and move forward with it in a positive, uh, way or any way that they really need to.

Molly: Yeah. Yeah. Was there, uh, someone or something that helped you shape like you're such a good communicator, helped you shape your communication and storytelling skills?

April: So, actually funny story, my stepdad was, uh, an attorney and he was very big on us. Um. We could have whatever opinion we wanted, if we wanted to argue about whatever, you know, where we're going to dinner.

We actually had a podium in our den, um, and we had to Oh my gosh. Yeah. For real. And we had to stand up in front of the podium and make our case. Yeah. And I remember hating it when I was little. I just thought this was the stupidest thing I've ever done, but it, and he would provide feedback, right? Yeah.

And funny because, um, you know, my oldest brother is, both my brothers were in the military. My oldest brother was a head football coach for like 20 years. My middle brother was a [00:26:00] marine, uh, tactical expert and speaks all over has. Spoken and trained all over the world. And so all of us are very good public speakers because mm-hmm.

My stepdad made us, um, stand up and get comfortable talking in front of a podium. Yes. And I think, you know, it wasn't always, it wasn't always easy, but. I think over the years, kind of the skillsets and, and I do feel like such a big catalyst, um, is, and, and this is not me just trying to promote Ghost Wrench, but the difference in storytelling, right?

So I can get up and I can tell you whatever I need to, but really being able to tell a beautiful story end to end and have that closure. Like once we, I kind of went through that work, early work with Mikey and Allie. Um, and Chris Lynche and team, it, it really kind of transitioned how I approach my presentations and speaking and um, and I think that really helped elevate it as well.

But the initial start was my stepdad making us, um, present our case at a podium in our day. Take, take the podium.

Molly: Make the case iteration. Yeah, iteration from [00:27:00] an early age. I don't think we've heard that yet, Mikey. That is awesome. No, that's amazing.

Mikey: Did you end up, like, did you, did he like coax you into doing debate club and any stuff like that?

April: No, he was just really cool. It was, so there's like two things he was really adamant about and so this is like the eighties, the late eighties we did typing in the summer we had to do typing and I am like a super speed typer and people are like, how do you take notes and never look at the keyboard? Like, and I was, well, you know, those are the two things my stepdad was really adamant about.

I don't know why, but like, but also those were fantastic, uh, things that he made us work on and just getting comfortable. Oh yeah, it was also really interesting getting comfortable taking feedback. Disagreeing, agreeing to disagree? Uh, yes.

Music: Oh yeah.

April: The art of feedback. Yes. And you know, there's, there's times where it's a hard pill to swallow, especially in a presentation setting.

Music: Yeah.

April: And so being able to, to take that and kind of, uh, grow from it, and then also. For my siblings and I, it was like the dynamics of win or lose. Like who's do we wanna eat? Mexican [00:28:00] food or Chinese food and what are the points? And so I think also, you know, just the lawyer in him always making sure that we had.

We couldn't never be kind of aloof with our statements. Just like, just because right. It was like always the why. And so I always joke about that, that I was kind of like bred into being a product person because my stepdad was like, but why? You know? And um, I hated it growing up, but I'm, I'm like that with my children too.

I'm like, mm-hmm. But why? Good. Yeah,

Molly: yeah, yeah. Tell me more about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Being able to interrogate your own ideas too. Yeah. I'm like, what's behind them? Yeah. So what did you mostly want to eat for dinner? Um, obviously it was Mexican food, so yes. Excellent, excellent. Just had That's right answer.

Mikey: Yeah.

Molly: Wrote that one up.

Mikey: April. We are, I think you kind of touched on it there, but like. We're on the Presentation Thinking podcast and like, it's not often you hear those two words, you know, we know about like design thinking, but what does that mean to you? Is like presentation [00:29:00] thinking. Your, your, your interpretation of that.

April: Yeah, it's really, um. So if I put my product management A on, right, we're gonna, if I say we're gonna talk about our roadmap or our features or whatever. And when you think about presentation thinking initially, it's like, let's put, let's put a demo in there and let's highlight the features and like availability.

Um. And when I think about it now, right? My evolution of it is really explaining the value and why people should be excited. Um, you know, probably in the last five years I never presented a roadmap. I would always tell a story of, you know, here's like, in my previous role at Q2, it was. You know, here, here's where we've been with banking.

As we merge into more digital, the digital banking space, here's where we're going, kind of the now, next, later, and then here's the future, right? Mm-hmm. And so without ever getting into the weeds and it's so effective, and to, to my own horn a little bit, I've had so many people come and say, I just love the [00:30:00] way that you talk about all the things we can do, and.

Like we're gonna be able to do because it, it's exciting and we don't get caught up in that list of, mm-hmm. I mean, those are all important and those will be done other places. But I think when you think about for product management, product marketing, especially customer facing presentations, it's really about sharing the vision of what you're building and then getting people excited by that buy-in of it, and then understanding like, here's how we're growing and how we're gonna stick with you.

So. When I think about that, that presentation, you know, kind of core of where it's at now, it's about setting the tone of who we are, what we're doing, and why do I want you to be excited about it.

Music: Mm-hmm. And

April: I think that that is, I. When I look at all the people that I've had work for me, with me alongside me, I think that is such a, a necessary art that [00:31:00] is, is growing.

Right. Um, but it is a great segue into, uh. Kind of the next evolution of leaders that we would like to see in, in product, um, as a whole. Right. Yeah.

Mikey: That's awesome

April: to tell that story is so important.

Mikey: Yeah. And I've seen you really lean into like encouraging that next generation, like taking your, the people you manage and pouring in the love.

Like you don't have to hug the stage. Right. Like I've seen you like pass it off to them and Really Yeah. Like throw yourself into helping them.

April: I love it. That's get, get the

Mikey: reps right because like where, where are they gonna get the practice if they don't get the opportunity?

April: Yeah. I would tell my team, if you wanna work on, you know, whatever you wanna work on, I will assist you.

And then I had one individual, he was like, I wanna work on presentations. I haven't ever publicly spoke and um, I will never forget this. It's so funny. We did a couple iterations, um, and really it was. He was very good communicator. Just needed help with the storyline and really summarizing those slides, right, not making it so [00:32:00] big.

And, um, I laughed so hard 'cause we went to this conference. We went to the Pendo conference and um, he was, uh, we were co-presenting and, um. He didn't need me. He did not need me on that stage. I was so, I was like the proud mom in that moment. Uhhuh watching him like just like the comfort and then how good it was and then just seeing the audience feedback of him.

It kind of caught me off guard a couple of times where I almost like missed my, what I was supposed to say because I was just watching him. And so I think that leadership often says, well just go take a class and it'll be fine.

Music: Mm-hmm.

April: Really, with this next generation, you know, I, I think one, as a leader you should.

Be the model that you're building. And so if I want to provide that kind of assistance or that handholding to a point that, you know, not, we're not talking about babying, but like on things like presentations and speaking, you have to be involved. You have to give them that guidance because otherwise what They don't know, what they don't know.

So being able to give that guidance out to [00:33:00] them, um, that was so cool. And he's done some great speaking things. Other teams, I'm always trying to give them reps, like you said, the more you do it, the better.

Music: Yep, yep.

April: And I think oftentimes as leaders, sometimes you feel compelled, well, like, well, this room is a lot of important people.

I should talk, but. I want my people to have those moments to talk. 'cause they're gonna have to be able to talk in a room full of executives at some point. Mm-hmm. This is their bread and butter. This is the thing that they've sweated over for the last six months. They've earned the right to talk about it.

Let me give them a little support and confidence and belief so that they can go tell their story and, uh, I think that's what. What's gonna make the next generation, uh, of really great product managers and product man, uh, product of marketers right, is you have to let people have the reps and you have to invest in that.

Yeah. Also, with engineering, that's often overlooked. I mentored a lot of engineers in the last few years who mm-hmm. Really wanted to be able to communicate better. And, um, so spending time with them and advocating for [00:34:00] them to just either present to me or present to smaller groups. And then just do the, just do the iterations and explaining to them what good presentations look like.

I often send out Ghost Ranch stuff. Yeah. Um, and, you know, I'm always like pushing the power of three, uh, thing. Like we don't, you know, people remember things in threes and fives, like, let's not

Mikey: Yep.

April: With it. And so I think just some of those, those good practices and really the way I see our world in tech transforming and we're already there, right, is the presentation is kind of the base of almost every role, right?

At some point you're gonna have to say, here's what I've done. I. Here's why it matters, and here's the impact to the business. It doesn't matter what division of a company you're in, you're you're having to do that. And the better you do that, the better off you are in, in your role and in that company. And it's better for your career.

It's better for the company. Um, and so we're at such a critical point for that, of being able to articulate and tell the story of here's what we've been doing. Here's why it matters and here's the impact. [00:35:00] Yeah.

Music: Soft skills, pay bills. Molly? Yes. I was gonna, I've been trying to say,

Molly: uh, Mikey's new phrase is, uh, soft skills, pay bills.

Oh, they absolutely do. Yeah. And April, you are enabling the next generation of these product marketers and managers to be better communicators and storytellers, and that is gonna be so key I think, moving forward in a continually crowded and evolving tech space, ever evolving space,

April: I always say the best success is your people's success.

Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I, I think that's a red flag for when leaders don't, your leader don't believe in that. Because if if my people are doing great, then, then I'm doing something right. Right. Yeah. I'm giving them the space to grow and support. Um, and yeah, soft skills do pay the bills, I'm telling you.

I love it.

Mikey: All right, Molly. I think we're in the Texas style spice cabinet. April. Yeah. Let's

April: get into the room. This is our

Mikey: rapid fire wrap up around. Good boy. It's. PowerPoint or Google Slides,

April: PowerPoint.

Mikey: All right. [00:36:00] Nice with you. Score

Molly: one for the PowerPoint. Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Um, and, uh, okay. Any favorite resources you'd recommend for anyone kind of Yeah.

Coming up in this, um, yeah. Product marketing and product management space. Any, anything that's helped you in the past could be a book podcast.

April: You know, I, I, I love Marty Kagan. Um, he's, he is great. He's kinda like the godfather of product, uh, so always, uh, Silicon Valley Group. He has a, a website. I think whenever, like professionally I feel like I'm off track.

I can go read through his posts or one of his books and I feel like it's kind of my North star. It's like sending me back to, and even if like the company I'm at isn't maybe aligned with the way I'm thinking about things. I have a strong belief in my core product F foundations and that Marty Kagan and, and all that, that him and his Silicon Valley group do are, is really phenomenal.

And I always kind of point back to that when in, I send [00:37:00] people articles all the time. I like to mentor people. It's one of my favorite things. And so that's one of my first resources. I think there's a lot of good certifications and things out there that kind of give you foundation, but I also feel like sometimes that can be a misnomer because.

It's fluid, right? Mm-hmm. I've been at a lot of different companies in different roles over the last 20 years, and nobody has done product or product marketing the same.

Music: Mm-hmm.

April: And so if you have kind of. This like core of how to get things through mostly agile. You know, storytelling is kind of a key component.

So those are, those are some of the big things. And I also think one thing is networking, talking to other people, seeing what other people are doing.

Music: Mm-hmm.

April: You know, sometimes you go to a conference and I laugh 'cause like Mikey and I, we met up last year at a conference and. You know, we talked for like hours and Andrea, uh, another colleague of ours was there, and I felt so rejuvenated by that.

And I think that's really important is hearing what other people are doing.

Music: Mm-hmm.

April: Changing ideas. You can, um, put [00:38:00] blinders on really easily. Right. And being open to what, what's changing. And I think that's just such an important, uh, piece. But the Silicon Valley group always is kind of a, is a good like check back.

Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Molly, we

Mikey: also, April and I held baby Wallabies at that aforementioned conference.

April: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Life changing just because Allie and I held a baby,

Molly: held a sloth years ago. Oh my

Music: gosh.

Molly: So I, you know, they, I've heard they're kinda stinky like, 'cause they're so, like, so they're dirty 'cause they're just, Jill Ally made 'em dirty.

April: Holly and I were squealing. Yeah.

Music: Filthy slot.

April: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we did hold the baby while like if you can bring baby

Molly: animals into it too. Yeah, sure. That's the best networking that that helps people break the ice immediately. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Mikey: All right. Last one I wanna ask. The the one, everyone's waiting for April.

Yes. Your next big, huge keynote. What's gonna be your walkout song?

April: Oh man, this is [00:39:00] hard because this really sets the tone, you know? I know. Oh, yeah. And, um, stakes, high stakes. Yeah. I mean, take your time. Take your time. It's just because I'm feeling it. I love Welcome to the Jungle

because it catches people off guard. Yeah. Makes people pay attention. And they're like, wait, what? Um, and I love it. Like in a setting of like banking or something. Ah, yeah, yeah.

Mikey: Unexpected, you know,

April: like. I think your walkup song should be definitely, I don't have like a key one, but like, that's the one I'm feeling right now.

If you said April, you gotta go on stage tomorrow, that would definitely be the one. Um, I like to shake things up a little bit and I think it relaxes the audience, you know? Yeah. Mm-hmm. As we go into it, and it's like, if it's like the ding, ding, ding, ding, ding music, you know, everybody's like, oh, here we go.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Everybody be like, here we go. You're about to get, [00:40:00] you know what? I'm about to tell, I'm about to blow my mind with

Molly: whatever story I'm about. It's all you. I love the idea of something not exactly fitting the like industry or space uhhuh. You're like, okay, yeah, you're sit banking. Like people might not expect guns n roses, but like that's cool to, it's important to kind of give people something unexpected and surprise people part of the storytelling.

April: I, I totally agree. And so yeah, that would be my walkup song tomorrow, but also so fun. You just, you know, you gotta go with the flow and see what's up.

Mikey: Exactly. Beautiful. I love it. I love it. All right. Well, April, thank you so much. Do you have any, any parting words for, uh, for presentation Nation

Molly: Presentation Thinkers?

We're still working on a, a name for our listeners.

April: Oh, I know, that's a good one. Uh, I like presentation. Presentation Nation. Yeah. I would definitely go by a couple of things. Less is more. Your slides don't need support. Your talk track, the every single thing that you're saying, right? And one thing I always tell everybody that's ever worked for me when you're presenting, [00:41:00] nobody probably knows more about this than you.

So don't stop. Like when you mess up. Nobody knows. You know? Mm-hmm. And, you know, I'm, I'm, I misquoted something one time and the people that worked for me were like, I can't believe you said that. And I was like, well, I wasn't gonna correct myself, you know, there in the moment in front of everybody. Uh, but it's one of the things you have to remember and also that, uh.

This is really, you know, the soft skills, the presentation, it's the future. You know, it's one of the core things I look for. And I know a lot of the other leaders I work alongside and have worked alongside with, look for, um, you can be the smartest person in the room, but if you cannot articulate what you're doing, that is a problem.

And so I think that the soft skills. Is how you pay your bills. I think that's gonna be my new pet line, but yeah, that's good.

Mikey: Yeah.

Molly: I love

April: it.

Mikey: Awesome.

Molly: Thank you so much, April. This is, uh, this is great, and where can people find you and, and what's, what's on the docket next for you?

April: So I've been taking a little bit of a break, [00:42:00] enjoying life, um, and really kind of going through the space of what's my next play, what's my next, uh, what's my next role?

You can find me on LinkedIn. Um mm-hmm. Share sharing insights and also the women in product community. I'm pretty active in. So, um, I'm on the C in Austin. There's a lot of meetups in the product marketing, product management space, but really I am looking for kind of my next thing. I want it to be very intentional of where I'm at, uh, with, I think I'm leaning more towards on the product marketing side.

I really just enjoy, I. The storytelling pieces of it, right, of, of sharing that vision and the strategy. And so in my time of my sabbatical, that's kind of where I've ended up. I think my heart is at. So, but yes, please reach out to me on LinkedIn. I love to chat, uh, with people coming up in product. There's, um, so many bright people coming.

That just don't have an outlet or somebody to chat with. And I, I absolutely adore doing that, so as a That's so cool.

Mikey: Of you're, you heard it. They're lucky. Yeah. And, uh, dms are open wherever you land. They are, they're [00:43:00] brilliant for hiring you. So, yeah. Yeah. We're, we're so happy to have you in our, our, our circle and can't thank you enough for coming in talking shop April.

April: You bet. Yeah. Someone to put. Appreciate it. Thanks for having. All

Mikey: right. Thanks everybody, and until we meet again next week, keep on.