Understand the value of Product Marketing with Hattie the PMM

 

Mikey: Welcome back to Presentation Thinking, aka The Storyteller's Study Club. This is your co host Mikey Meduski, founder of Ghost Ranch Communications, a presentation design agency. And I'm joined by my co host, your favorite, Molly Gagan, straight out of Inglewood, Colorado. How's it going?

Molly: Hello, Mikey. I'm excited for today because we have a very special guest.

I think the first of which we've had on the podcast, Hattie the PMM is a PMM creator. And we just met recently in person. I think Mikey's been following you on LinkedIn, Hattie for longer, but at the PMA conference in London, the [00:01:00] Product Marketing Alliance Conference in London, obviously we had to have you on as someone that brands themselves, Hattie the PMM, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here. And I, there's so much behind your background and your intro, but I know you've got a good setup, so give us some insight into how are you Hattie the PMM and how did you get here?

Hattie: Yeah. So hi everyone. I'm Hattie, the PMM founder of productmarketers. com, a membership community that helps product marketers secure their careers by building personal brands at their workplace and on LinkedIn.

So I've worked over 10 years in tech as a CEO, CMO, and now PMM, built a following of over 35, 000 LinkedIn followers, and I have a YouTube channel on product marketing, where I teach PMMs how to secure their careers in an ever changing industry. And as you mentioned, I've recently spoken at the PMA London Summit, and my passion is helping PMMs become the go to voices in their field and to protect [00:02:00] themselves against tech layoffs, which are completely rife right now, and also the impending doom of AI.

So, that's me.

Mikey: I love that. Thanks for being here. And Hattie, for those who aren't necessarily Product marketers themselves. Can you tell us, like, tell us just about the role, like, what attracted you to it? Why do you love it so much?

Hattie: Product marketing to me, and why I love product marketing is It's not exactly product, it's not exactly marketing, right?

It's the business strategy side, but also the element of having the consulting side. So for me, what I really like is I like solving jigsaw puzzles. And product marketing is the best way of solving a jigsaw puzzle within tech and within software. It's looking across not only the stakeholders and the teams that I work with internally to see where are their gaps or where are their intel that we can use.

To further push the adoption of specific features or to reduce churn or to build out specific [00:03:00] elements that would make us an outlier in the space and to make us like really stand out versus the competitive intel and market research side. So product marketing to me has always been the best jigsaw puzzle that can never be solved because there's always a new problem from a customer's perspective that unlocks a new problem.

So product marketing has always been a very underrated industry and a very underrated job. And that's why when, like, a couple years ago, tech layoffs were happening and product marketing was usually the first function to be let go because a lot of organizations and execs didn't understand our function, it was a case of me realizing, no.

Initially, people's take on product marketing is like, we are the overlap. So there's this Venn diagram of like, products, marketing, and sales, and whatever, and we are the overlap. And I'm like, guys, we need to stop saying that crap, because like, it means that, if we're saying you're an overlap, it means that we're saying that we're a [00:04:00] duplication of what's already happening internally, which is not the case.

Product marketing is its own standalone function. That works to look at the holistic market that we're in the products that we're serving the customer, the customer needs, but also managing all of the internal voices and stakeholders, which. is a full time gig, which is so valuable to an organization to be competitive and to be that standalone like product that you want within the market.

So, so yeah, I hope that makes sense. Yes. And I

Mikey: loved your, your session at, at PMA. I know you were on a panel, you and a fellow PMM leader, you know, talking about The state of things, the layoffs and like what brought you to having feeling like this need to advocate and push PMMs to, to brand themselves and really like kind of prove the worth of what they do.

Because you and I know how valuable it is and it is, but it is like often that under the scenes, you know, like below the waters kind of activity that they're [00:05:00] doing to glue everything together and, and help a company and a product thrive.

Molly: Yeah. And you've named something that like us at Presentation Thinking end up talking about product marketing a lot because there's so much storytelling that goes into it.

And, um, positioning and it fits in with all of those elements of really great stories and product marketers end up becoming those storytellers in various ways. It's really cool. You said this when we first talked, Hattie, and I'm curious about your interpretation of it. You said you have a Benjamin Button career of sorts.

Can you roll that back a bit? What does that mean?

Hattie: Yeah, I've said this a bunch and it makes total sense is because my career has been the opposite way around where I started off in tech as a CEO of my own tech software, which was a e commerce platform, the first of its kind in the world to host like body positive and feminist and like female empowerment brand.

So it was like the first e commerce platform of its time. And then I became [00:06:00] a CMO for a Finnish shit. B2G and B2B, the software. So B2G was business to government based out in Finland and I was working as their CMO. And then I niched down later in life to now becoming a product marketing manager and leading on that front.

So I've definitely gone the other way around. I was like Benjamin Button of my career.

Molly: That's cool. I love it. Founder to CMO to PMM. And what was that like along that path where you like, Am I crazy for this? Or, but like you were, you're clearly passionate about product marketing, but you were happy with the direction it was going?

Oh, yeah, for sure. I

Hattie: feel like, Molly, what I realized was, I didn't realize that I was actually doing product marketing like 10 plus years ago. I just realized, like I was saying, I'm just really good at putting pieces and juggle. Jigsaw pieces together, and I had realized that actually my business acumen side kicked in quite early because I studied economics at school and there is no product marketing [00:07:00] school or like degree in product marketing.

Right, exactly. It's kind of like most of the time I feel like we're winging it and therefore this is why I'm like, guys, we need to like band together and build our brands as product marketing because like no one's actually marketing product marketing, which is wild to me. So, yeah, I realized that later in life.

I was like, product marketing is such a key function within any thriving software company. And I've been very humble in the last company that I worked for an American based firm. They had a private equity firm involved and anyone who's worked with private equity knows it's It's a lifestyle choice, and yeah, it was very much like I'm learning a lot, sleeping very little.

Oh no. Yeah, it's all good. It's part of, it's part of the, part of the journey, but what I found, oh yeah, the grind was real, dude. So what I found was really interesting was they understood product marketing and it [00:08:00] felt like a dirty little secret where it's like the executives and the private equity firms who are out here, especially in Silicon Valley, especially in the U S.

You know, I'm based in England, so it was really fascinating to see that the private equity firms who valued product marketing the most kept it secret the most.

Music: Yeah, but they got it.

Hattie: They got it like that. It was wild. So that's why I'm like the people who get it keep us as their dirty little secret because they're actually leveraging the fact that a lot of people don't understand what product marketing is and they literally just think it's marketing of the product, which is absolute nonsense.

Whilst the others are like, Oh my God, bring product marketing in. They have to be in on this meeting. They're the ones who are driving what the customers are saying. What are they saying? Why are they saying it? How many have you spoken to? What are the enterprise organizations saying versus the startups and mid market?

And they are just like, bam, bam, bam, and private equity is like that, right? It's like, you know, flip, flip the thing as quickly as possible. So [00:09:00] when I saw that, guys, my eyes were so wide open that I was like, whoa, the people who get it, get it. And therefore, how do we make sure that more people within the Especially the tech field, especially when there's tech layoffs happening and PMMs are getting let go every single week for absolutely no reason apart from people don't understand why we bring the value that we bring.

How do we make sure more people know about that? So is

Mikey: that what led you to kind of jumping off on your own as a product marketing creator and consultant?

Hattie: Yeah, it was, I'll be real. So it was the end of 2023 when tech layoffs scared the absolute shit out of me. It was seeing some of my friends who I was working with be let go, who I was like, Oh my God, they're actually exceptional.

And how the hell did they just get let go? And you know, I'm a single woman. I don't have a partner. I live on my own. I was just thinking, Holy crap. Like if I got let go tomorrow, who are the five people that I can call up who would be able to enable me to get into a new job? [00:10:00] And I couldn't name one. I couldn't name one.

Music: Okay.

Hattie: And this is like at the end of 2023. So I quickly realized. Oh my God, I need to do something. Like I need to like be proactive. What am I waiting for? So that's when I started like hustling and just like posting loads of content. Yeah. And just, I was like, I need to get my name known. And that's why I was like, I need to start posting about product marketing.

I need to start explaining my thinking, my, my rationale. I need to start putting my face out there. That's why I created my. YouTube channel at the exact same time as working a full-time job. I was posting daily on LinkedIn. Yeah. I wrote 300 plus posts on LinkedIn in 2024 as a whole. So one daily basically.

Yeah. I kept it as a routine, like brushing my teeth and flossing. I was like, I need to keep this up and be consistent. And who knew that the bar was so low, guys? 'cause like, [00:11:00] yeah, the bar was so low that people were like, oh my god, Hattie like. You're amazing. I'm like, I literally am no one special. I'm just the person who just started posting

Molly: and I mean, there's a.

Gap in the authentic content, just like coming off your cuff of like, this is what I'm thinking about product marketing. This is my perspective and sharing it rather than just, uh, I think there's a lot of forced frameworks that people are trying to get that LinkedIn content just shoveled, shoveled in there.

Uh, you can definitely tell the difference with your YouTube channel and your content, which we'll link in the notes.

Mikey: I was curious, like, I mean, you went from, I don't know how many followers when you started your quest after this realization, were there any inflection points where you're like. These couple of posts or these couple of moments and interactions on LinkedIn where you saw like big gains in followers Or was it just kind of steady throughout the year?

Hattie: Oh, I saw big gains on specific posts Yeah Cuz like Molly said there was a lot of frameworks being boasted around and being like these are the templates [00:12:00] that will make your life Magical and you create a unicorn at where you work and it's just like absolute nonsense So, I think it was a mix of being refreshingly candid.

I was just like, I had a YouTube video that people on Reddit were speaking about, and I was like, oh my god, yeah, so I was like, oh god, let me just read the comments while I'm pulling out my phone, and I'm like, nah, because I'm so afraid of, like, I love Reddit, but equally I'm like, you know, you can be honest.

Like, really brutally honest on Reddit, because there's no name associated. They were so kind, because, like, There were a couple of them who were like, I'm a director of product marketing. I've watched Hattie's videos and I love it because the first thing out of her mouth that she says is frameworks are bullshit and you know, you need to be a consultant in how you act as a product marketing manager at a tech company.

And they were like, this is what we need. They were like, this is what we need. So there's been a couple [00:13:00] posts on LinkedIn where I have been refreshingly candid, you know, speaking about the fact that the Venn diagram way that we explain what product marketing is, it's just outdated. It's old. Therefore, what is the new way guys that we should speak about it?

So I think the one thing for me is. I am a product marketer, you know, I have been for over 10 years, I feel it in my blood, it's just like, it's something that I am, it's something that I'm just, you can't compartmentalize product marketing in me, it's just part of me, because I'm naturally nosy, I'm naturally wanting to become better, and all these skills are very good for a product, for a PMM.

So for me, I'm always like, I am on your team, like we are PMMs and therefore how do we as a collective try and improve how we're being perceived by the market and therefore I put out posts that speak to our pains because I felt it, I felt it to the depth of my core. So it's definitely hit and miss, but I just keep it consistent and I, yeah, I'll [00:14:00] be real.

I don't really care about the output because I feel like, so long as I remain authentically myself mm-hmm . Which turns some people off, you know, and brings some people closer towards me and, you know, I have a point of view. I know that I'm going to connect with the right people, like, like you guys. I'm so

Mikey: glad you said that the POV is everything, right?

Like in, I think it's so what you're doing is taking the best of what a PMM should be doing for their companies and applying it to your, your company, right? Your person, your brand. And you've seen, we all sort of like gloss over when we see a company that has no. Point of view either right and it's it's hard to wrangle executives into taking a bold stance or being for some people but not for everybody So I applaud you for taking that approach and it's kind of walking the walk because it seems like that's what PMM should be doing We should be advocating for A strong point of view coming out from, here's what this product does for [00:15:00] this very specific set of people, et cetera.

But that's amazing.

Hattie: Yeah, it's true. I feel like not a lot of PMMs typically want to have that bold stance. Especially if you're in software, which I've been in SAS for the longest time. It's a case of actually what is the bold stance that you can take and what is something that's crucial to your brands that you just stand behind 100 percent and have gusto and be passionate about it.

And for me, the one thing that I think is absolutely key and what I've learned through the last few years and seeing so many of my friends get laid off from their jobs and myself, I was able to survive five layoffs. So. you know, the fact that I was there and saw five happen, I was like, I am exhausted. So The biggest takeaway point was I am the product.

I am the product that I am renting out to a company for the skills that I have amassed. So therefore I was thinking, how do I gain more skills to improve myself as the product so then [00:16:00] I can earn more and leverage myself more within the market. So therefore I never have to be in the pool of hundreds or thousands of people applying to a LinkedIn job within, you know, the first hour that it drops.

And therefore I can always stand out because, and this is why I'm always like, I'm just one of you. I'm just literally just a PMM who's just been in the game for, in corporate for so long. And I've been very, very lucky that literally just one year of posting on LinkedIn consistently and building out a YouTube channel has allowed me to change my complete career where I could just quit my job and be like, I'm going to build out my own thing, my own community that will help other PMMs.

So, you know, if anything, like if there's any one thing to learn from me is just the ability to be proactive, to stand the f out and to not be reliant on a company that will literally get rid of you the minute that they want to improve their EBITDA or their profits to [00:17:00] be seen as a specific way.

Molly: Yeah, building some self reliance for the PMM core, like, and the skill set that's associated with that.

And so that you know it, even if your company doesn't recognize it and it'll be recognized somewhere else. That's awesome. I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm like empowered by it. I love it.

Mikey: Yeah, me too.

Molly: Yeah. Hattie, what kind of, I mean, you went after, I'm just curious and I've heard various takes when people go, they're like, I started this channel, I started this.

You know, account or something. Did you have kind of a, a story associated with it or are you like, I just got to get this stuff out there and let's see what happens. Kind of like throwing spaghetti on the wall. What kind of story, did you have anything in mind about like, you branded yourself as Hattie the PMM?

I'm just curious about the way that, where that branding story came from.

Hattie: Yeah. So it's a funny story. Because a lot of people who meet me are like, I thought you were a narcissist because you called yourself Hattie the PMM, like, yeah, duh, like, how dare you, who knew T H E can cause so much controversy.

People are like, where's your last

Molly: name? What's happening? I'm [00:18:00] confused.

Hattie: I know. I know. I'm like, Oh, I'm like Cher. What can I say? No. But what I found was, was really funny. It was. I called myself Hattie the PMM purely to get an extra SEO keyword onto my LinkedIn profile. So yeah, it's really quite a boring reason.

It's simple. It really is simple. And for me, because You have to like, I'll take you back. You know, this was the time when I was optimizing my LinkedIn profile to subtly, subtly tell the market that I'm very good at what I do, that I'm hireable, that you should recognize me. And I just wanted recruiters in my DMs.

That was the entire, entire strategy. So for me, I looked through my entire profile and looked for all of the keywords that I needed to mention as part of it. And one of them was PMM and, you know, having been a recruiter in the past, believe it or not, the first job that I [00:19:00] had out of university was I was a recruiter within the financial district in London.

And one of the things I learned was, I was pretty lazy as a recruiter, like, just, I'm going to speak personally, like, there's a lot of hardworking recruiters out there. But for me, I was looking for hacks of like, I just knew the JD that we were given by the client and I just wanted to match up the keywords as quickly as possible and then get them on the phone and get them booked in and then I can land my little bit of money that I could get from landing a client, whatever.

So I was like, I just need to put as many keywords on there as possible. So Hattie the PMM was the brand. Now that I've learned that it's actually a really great brand, you know, it's like clear, concise, and I, I actually personally really like it now, but everything that I do is rooted in quality and getting people to their end goal as quickly as possible.

So all of my YouTube videos are just like, bam, bam, bam, this is what you do. Like no messing about, no fluff, [00:20:00] no backstory, no like, blah, blah, blah. I'm just like, whatever your goal is, I will get you there as quickly as possible. And I. I pride myself on creating free content that is as good or better than paid content.

And believe me, I paid for a lot of product marketing content, and I can say without bias, that's pretty damn good. So yes. Good. Yeah, we agree. Yeah. Which isn't a very British thing to back yourself, by the way, but , yes. So you gotta, I know it's very rough. You gotta be internal , like I'm telling you, the tech layoffs beat it out of me very quick.

I was like, I need to back myself for what the hell? So yeah, and it's just, it's just been amazing because ever since my LinkedIn posts have started to pick up momentum and engaged in conversations, whether they're in my DMs or people like I can't personally publicly comment on what you're speaking about, however, because I don't want my employer to see, however, this here, I resonate with this, etc.

It's allowed my brand in a way to become my [00:21:00] own asset, which it makes sense, but I guess until you've gone through it, you don't really know. So, so yeah, it's really cool, like seeing my name up, you know, Hattie the PMM at a product marketing conference. And I'm like, the first thing I say to all the PMMs in the room was like.

I swear I'm not a narcissist. Like, where will PMM

Molly: sit? We didn't catch that vibe at all. Andrew, it's the memorability because I remember wanting to connect with you at the conference and we were like running around. It's like, was such a busy couple of days. And Madev, shout out, shout out to Storylane Demos.

He was like, you gotta meet Hattie and I was like, oh yeah, okay, let me add her on LinkedIn just so I was like, what's her, what's her last name? And he goes, oh, she's Hattie the PMM. And I was like, oh, perfect. I didn't even need to like write it down or anything. I was like, I know I'll remember that. So you have the memorability and a funny little conversation starter too, which is fun.

So why not? I

Mikey: was curious. I know a lot of people who maybe had that same realization that, man, like my network is really insular. Like, who are these five people I could call on it? And you know, people might spend a decade at one [00:22:00] company and look up and realize, like, the only people I know work at this same company, you know, in my professional network.

Let's say they might be like a little skittish on posting on LinkedIn. What are other ways you recommend, like, they can get out there and still start expanding their network to build those, those 5, 10 people they can call in a pinch?

Hattie: So, one of the things that made me realize that building a personal brand is basically Having the ability to work with a specific amount of people, but have it on steroids, is the fact that the amount of people that I know as PMMs, especially who are let go, or people who are in the C suite of very large organizations within tech, they have usually been hired off of the back of they had worked with someone else that they had previously been aligned with, or it was like they had worked with someone else who knew someone and then they were brought in.

So, I think getting to the root of if you can understand that that's usually the playbook where it's like you've worked with someone [00:23:00] else who's built and you have built the trust in being someone who's super effective as being a PMM or any job role and therefore they have brought you in because of that reason, how do you then manufacture that on a scale of a thousand people or more than a thousand people?

How do you manufacture it on the scale so it's not just the 10, 20, 50 people that you can do on the time frame that we're on this planet for, on the hours that we are, you know, 60 minutes within an hour? How do you do it on the scale that you build trust faster in a scalable way, in a scalable fashion, in order to have the exact same impact of building the trust with people that you've worked with, but people who haven't worked with you and yet still trust you?

So how do you build that? That's like the number one question and the way that I have personally built it, especially through all, you know, over 300 posts that I've written and videos that I've recorded and conferences that I've spoken at is speaking about my personal experiences in the [00:24:00] past and why I've approached specific product marketing projects in specific ways.

Or the learnings that I've had, things that haven't worked, things that have worked, and basically reiterating the trust factor. Because all it is is trust scaled. That's literally what a personal brand is. It's trust scaled. It's networking en masse. Instead of doing one to one, you're doing one to many.

And I think that this is like the key way in order to have the mindset, the right mindset, where if someone's thinking, Oh, I really don't want to do that, or I don't feel comfortable, or there's something holding me back, which usually imposter syndrome is something that's absolutely rife within product marketers, especially because I feel like product marketing is such an interesting, interesting field.

Well, we're at the subset of so many different teams that most of the time we're being told that the work that we're doing on is not good enough, or we need to fill the gaps, or we need to do something better, or the customers are telling us something that's not right, or [00:25:00] there's bugs in the software, or a launch has failed, or whatever, whatever, usually, usually a product marketer is hired when things aren't going right, when shit is going wrong.

That's usually when we're hired. Like, I, I, yeah, I know. No, right? Like, tell me, tell me a time when the PMM was high, when things weren't going right. So, this is why I'm just like, it makes sense that we have imposter syndrome, guys. Like, it makes sense. Like, it's, it's embedded in the sort of nature, in the foundation of being a product marketing manager.

So, the fact that you have a bit of resistance to build your personal brand. Dude, it makes sense. So then it's like a case of like, how do we work past that? How do we get you to a reason, a reason why that will wake you up in the morning and get you to act? For me, it was seeing my friends get let go alongside, you know, so many others.

And for me to be like, Oh my God, I need to protect myself. Maybe for another person, it's, I have children. What if I get let go? Like, how would I be able to [00:26:00] provide for my family? Maybe it's another reason. So I think instead of thinking, okay, what are the little hacks or little ways to write or the different like elements of personal branding that you can build in?

It's like, what is your reason why? And then the next layer that I would think about is, do you want to build your personal brands in public or in private? Because there are some organizations. that have NDAs or things in your contract, or maybe you have a f ing terrible manager who's just like, I don't like, you need to be working in this company.

I can't be seeing you posting on LinkedIn. Like, are you actually working if you're posting on LinkedIn, etc, etc. So then it becomes a case of, do you do it? in public or do you do it in private under the sort of like curtains? Which means that maybe it's a case of you attending networking events where no one would know you would attend apart from the people who are actually at the event.

Therefore, you don't need to post about it whatsoever. However, you are building your personal brand. Or is it you are DMing [00:27:00] people on LinkedIn? So you're setting up one to ones with people remotely in order to say hello and recognize, you know, you'll push yourself out there and be like, hey, like, let's meet and make sure that you're learning about new people, how they're working and just meeting new people on a regular weekly cadence.

Or maybe it's a case of you commenting on other people's posts and then maybe DMing them about it or actually commenting on their posts. So there's so many different ways to go around it and this is why I think a lot of people look at me and they're like, Hattie, I don't, I don't, like what you're doing, I don't want to do it.

And I'm like, that's great. Like, you know, you know something about yourself, which is awesome. And therefore, how do we use that, then utilize it to, to build your personal brand in a way that authentically aligns with you. What authentically aligns with me is I like to talk, you know, I do improv comedy on the side.

I sing, you know, I'm a bit out there, you know, whatever. So it aligns with me. However, for some people, it is a case of if you show up [00:28:00] on a weekly cadence of like going and attending networking events in your city or in nearby towns, Or if you do it remotely, or if you like send out DMs, or if you, I don't know, write a post on Medium that maybe your, your colleagues will never see.

These are the ways that will still benefit you whilst also keeping yourself safe in your job. Because at the end of the day, all I want for PMMs is to secure their careers and make sure that they have a livelihood, the security of a salary. And then making sure that at the exact same time, they do not get used by a company that is willing to let them go whenever they choose.

So personal brands can be built in any, any way. I hope that makes sense. It was a very long

Molly: answer. Oh, I loved it. We could just, we could just cut that now, Mikey. That was perfect. Yeah, exactly.

Mikey: That's golden.

Molly: We've never had such a concise, beautiful, like rendition of personal branding. I think that applies to anyone beyond just PMMs, you know, that's so, so helpful.

Which kind of leads me [00:29:00] to what you're up to now, Hattie. With a recent launch of the PMM community, talk to us about what's going on with that and what you hope to that people can. Get from there when they sign up. Yeah.

Hattie: So I've been so, so grateful that over the last year and a bit, I've built up an audience of other PMMs, like who knew I was just trying to attract recruiters.

However, yeah, the topics I was speaking about was so resonant with product marketing managers that I was posting purely product marketing topics for at least six months. So speaking about positioning, messaging. What's a release versus a launch, you know, all of these different topics that just stirred up a lot of conversation.

So, off the back of that, there are a lot of DMs that I received from PMMs who were like, How are you getting so many followers? Like, how are you getting so many recruiters in your DMs? Because I would show it and I would be very honest about it. Because whatever benefited me, I wanted to benefit [00:30:00] others, right?

So, it was a case of receiving so many and over hundreds, like, of DMs being like, how have you built your personal brand? So I was like, you know, I'll teach you, like, it's cool. Like, I will share everything. I don't believe in gatekeeping. I believe in if you have a superpower that comes innately and easily for you, it's kind of your duty to share it with others.

So, that's my belief. So, I put together a community, which is productmarketers. com, which helps PMMs build and secure their careers through the use of personal branding, not only externally, like I mentioned, at networking events on LinkedIn, you know, in one to one DMs, but also internally at your workplace.

How do you build authority within a workplace? How do you make sure executives know who you are? What about if you're part of an organization who's just been acquired into a larger organization? How do you then cement yourself so then you're not cut when they look at who is overlapping where? You know, all of these [00:31:00] different elements of like, how do you build up your personal brand within an organization, especially a tech organization is absolutely key.

So that's why I think the mirroring and the balancing of the two is super, super valuable because that's what I did in my own job in the last job that I was at. Well, I had recognized the private equity firm came in, new executives, managers were being changed a lot. So I was like, well, how do I make sure that the new manager recognizes that I'm a key go to person within this organization?

How do I build myself up? So it's a holistic look at how do you build your personal brand within the company and also externally to set yourself up for maximum success. So I'm super excited that I'm like quit my job and I'm building out a community for PMMs. who, yeah, it just, it's a really, really huge, passionate project of mine to a point where I, I sound like I'm shouting at people to get their shit together and to build their careers.

But equally, I'm like, I think this is [00:32:00] so needed guys. Like I literally feel it to my bones that I'm like, this is needed because. If you're not building yourself as a product, if you're not securing your career, who is like, who literally is? And the fact that AI is going to come into play, which obviously I don't want to create any fear mongering, but the fact that AI is here and it's going to come into play even more where I can totally assume.

that private equity firms will be looking at cost saving even further, and how do we then use AI to do product marketing tactical stuff, then how do we build ourselves up as the person, as the product with the skill set that will always be future proofed, which will always have a job, which will always be wanted by the market, so therefore you attract the opportunities as opposed to you trying to chase it.

And I also have a wild hypothesis, which I've never ever told anyone, so I'll share it here. Let's do it. Ooh, premiering of the pod. So, yeah, premiering of the pod. So, [00:33:00] Cost of acquisition will always go up. I think that's granted. I think that's fact. I don't think cost of acquisition. So CAC will ever reduce versus like what is currently at right now.

It's only going to get more expensive. So one of my theories was when I was building my personal brand as a full time employee, as a PMM was how do I build an audience that I could potentially leverage? For an organization to then tap into, because here's the thing, when people think about personal branding, they typically think a founder, a founder with a personal brand, so they can attract clients off of their personal brand.

Now, what about if it's an employee, an employee generated content employee who builds up. An audience that they can then take to a new organization who wants to tap into that audience because the cost of acquisition to acquire that audience is so skyrocketed high in order to tap into through PPC or ads or whatever [00:34:00] that they could then just hire the person internally and tap into their market and tap into that audience.

So I actually tested this out. Oh. Yeah, I tested this out, so I actually, when I was, am I allowed to say this?

Molly: You can, you can go for it and then if you need to change we can always, we can always go back in.

Hattie: I think I'm allowed to say this, I think I'm allowed to say this. So, when I was previously employed at my last company, there were a lot of recruiters in my DMs and one of them had reached out and I was like, no.

It was actually a completely different company, whatever. So I approached a new company, like a brand, brand new one. It was a competitive Intel company who I know needed PMMs as their customers. Like they target PMMs. And they market heavily and they sponsor other people and their conferences heavily. So I actually approached the CMO over LinkedIn.

I had a conversation with her and I said, [00:35:00] what about if you hire me and therefore you could tap into my product marketing audience instead of me being like a consultant or whatever, because I, I like the fact that, you know, I had medical insurance. I like the fact that I had a stable salary. I liked all of that, you know, I have no, nothing against it.

And she was like, that was the first time I've ever heard this, but I am so intrigued, like, let's make this happen. Ultimately, you know, I didn't go with it, but I just want to see if it could work. I really did. And I was, I was open to it if they were going to, you know, if it worked out. But luckily I had a lot more opportunities come my way.

So I was like, no, no, no. I need to build up my community, but I think that's the way that we're going. It's a huge hypothesis. I've never heard anyone speak about it, but I generally feel like there's a gap. There's a route for employees, especially within tech. To build an audience through their personal brand of their ICP, of an ICP that they love.

It could be developers, so they could be like a beta clear dev [00:36:00] rel for developers, a PMM who speaks with developers. It could be a fintech PMM, where all you're doing is speaking to fintech banks and organizations and whatever. And therefore you take the audience that you can then leverage for a new job at a higher rate, at a higher pay than anyone else.

And therefore you are then the product that comes with an audience that's already warm that the organization can tap into.

Molly: I love it.

Mikey: I think you're 100 percent right.

Molly: Mikey, that's validating people follow people.

Mikey: Yeah. Had we, we've noticed like, nobody gives a crap when our company Ghost Ranch posts something, we have like 2000 followers.

And I think the algorithm. Favors people because people trust people, not companies. Right. And so I think you're a thousand percent right about, and not to mention just like more hireable, I'd say double, triple the salary for someone who's got 10, followers more than most companies will ever have, unless you're Nvidia or [00:37:00] something, but.

I think it's, it's the trend. I'm seeing these like celebrity CMOs. I think of like Kyle Lacey goes to jellyfish and people are like, Oh, what's jellyfish? You know, it's like these people such as yourself, if it's CMO, if it's a product marketing leader, you name it, any other career I'm so with you on the value of that audience and a company being able to tap into that is.

An evangelist is someone people actually trust already. You're way ahead of the ball here.

Molly: The connection is like with the person and the story rather than the company. And you'll follow that person around wherever they go, which is cool. Yeah,

Hattie: exactly. Like when you think about a salesperson who's a really good salesperson, usually what they will do is they'll build up a pool of their audience and then take that to another organization.

And they will usually be very picky on what organization they join because they'll be like, well, I have, I have a pool of people that I've sold to in the past who match this company and therefore I will pitch myself for that company. So this is why I feel like [00:38:00] building up the skills of negotiation, of sales, of communication, of building out your personal brand.

And this is why I'm packaging it into my community to teach PMMs how to do this. It's because that's how you build yourself as a product who's always hireable, who's always in demand, who always attracts the right people. And therefore, if you're thinking about it, and this is what I said at the, at the PMA London summit, where we met.

If you consider that your career is going to be 10, 20, 30 years out, all you're doing is you're becoming way valuable later in life. Therefore, you're probably going to earn the most amount of money later in life. Now, how do we speed that up so you can get the audience, how you can get the trust, how you can build up all the skill sets that's required?

quicker than waiting the 20, 30 years. Because if I think about, you know, the best people that I know who are in like C suite, who are further down the line, they are so funny. They are so humble. They know how to communicate. They know how to [00:39:00] make friends out of anyone. And how do we instill these skill sets, like we're downloading it into ourselves, the soft skills, Molly, like the soft skills, how do we download that into you as quickly as possible so we can get you to the salary range, like you said, Mikey, the 200s, the 300ks per year as quickly as possible.

And maybe it's not in your jurisdiction. Maybe it's not, for example, for me, maybe it's not a UK company that would value that. Maybe it's an American firm. And therefore it widens the pool as to how you're hired and where you're hired and all of the opportunities. But the fact of the matter is a personal brand previously was considered just for founders, but it is considered for everyone who's an employee, especially within tech.

Yeah.

Molly: Oh my gosh. I love this adding. There's gonna be too many pull quotes to pull from. Okay, shifting gears slightly because we heard you speak at Product Marketing Alliance and this is Presentation Thinking, so it wouldn't be our podcast without asking a little bit about your POV and experience with [00:40:00] presentations and speaking, giving presentations, how has that been for you?

Oh

Hattie: my god, guys, this is why I came over to your stands because I saw the presentation slides and I was like, what is this? This looks amazing. And the pain, the pain that I have from creating so many different presentations and slides on sales. Yeah, the sales enablement slides. Oh my God. It was just the most painful experience.

Even to this day, I'm just like, ever since I quit my job, I'm like, I don't want to look at PowerPoint ever f ing again. That's what we're here for. Exactly, yeah. I just, I think anything that makes it simpler, and this is why you guys at Ghost Ranch are doing an amazing job, makes it simpler for the PMM in order to reduce the friction to then just provide the value to the sales team or whatever team requires the presentation as quickly as possible.

I think that's key. So for me, I just hated the process in the [00:41:00] past. But there is so much value in how you present and the storytelling and basically everything that you guys are pushing in regards to how do we as a PMM tell the story in the way that it wants to be consumed by the customer that we're gain, like we're trying to gain the trust out of, because sometimes we come at it as a, as a way of like, this is our story that we want to push.

But sometimes it's a case of listening to the customer and actually what the pain points they're facing. And therefore, how do we use that as context? To tell them a story that they just want to hear. So one thing that I tell people is sometimes you might want to wrap the broccoli with bacon. Mm-hmm.

Because sometimes, you know, the, the, the child doesn't want to eat the broccoli, but my God will they want to eat the bacon. Yeah. So how do you then, you know, give them what they want in what they actually need? Mm-hmm . Yeah, and I think presentations that allow us to beautifully, beautifully and simply [00:42:00] convey a story that creates cut through is the number one, the number one priority that I've always had in my life.

But I just hated PowerPoint, hated Google Slides, I hated the entire process of it. I'd rather not.

Molly: Yeah, good to know. Some people really are just in the camp of like, I need to have someone else do that for me and it is, it is rough. How do you feel when you're up on stage giving a presentation? Any nerves or anything like that that you have to work through or any advice you'd give to folks who are doing it for the first time?

Hattie: I recommend doing improv comedy, honestly. So taking improv comedy classes. I was hoping that would come up again. Yes. Yeah. So for me, improv comedy classes. are a very good way of me practicing speaking and communicating and removing the pressure that was on my brain to be like, I need to think before I speak.

Now I just speak and hopefully think afterwards. Here's the thing, and here's the thing that I would tell anyone. For me, why I did improv comedy lessons, was firstly to prove [00:43:00] my ex boyfriend that I was funnier than him. But secondly, great excuse. Oh yeah, number one. But secondly, it was to get the reps in without being on stage.

Because God only knows, I do not want to be practicing when I'm on stage, when a huge conference like the PMA, who put me in front of their 400, 500 PMMs. I don't want to be practicing right then and there. I want to get the reps in. I want to get the practicing in. But I want to get in on an authentic way that makes me sweat.

And the way that like I could actually simulate that experience was through improv comedy. So actually doing the classes but also performing it. And this is, again, something that I learned, which is a huge skill from a lot of C suite people. So the guy who runs Dollar Shave Club, he actually spoke about how he did improv comedy lessons in order to create that viral video that everyone has seen.

Ever since I saw that, I was like, I am signing up. Because here I am. I'm just here to learn from what [00:44:00] has been successful for other people, implement it into my life like I'm a downloadable little piece of software, and improve my skills and make myself more valuable with time so then I can earn more, protect myself, and keep living my good life.

And for me, if you want to get onto conferences and if you want to be asked, so for example, again, my personal brand was the only reason that the PMA asked me to be involved, to be a speaker. And they made space for me because they had seen my name pop up so many times. And now I'm becoming a very well known, you know, figureheads within especially product marketing, which I'm like, Oh, this is great.

I'm so grateful. Yeah. Build your personal brand on, on like any platform that you enjoy and especially where your ICP is so then they can find you. I would personally recommend LinkedIn because it's the most professional and less chaotic versus the other ones. And then practice the skill of communication so then when the time comes where they ask you to present that you're [00:45:00] ready.

So for example, on this podcast right now, I feel like I'm, I'm quite eloquent. Maybe some people might disagree. Yeah. Yeah. But I have put the reps in, but also when people are like, yeah, but I communicate every day. I talk with my friends. I'm like, I'm like, you need to simulate. you sweating, like you need to simulate you having that panic, you need to simulate the fear.

The only way you can simulate the fear is getting up on stage. And if you really want to get up on stage and do improv comedy, because you're making it all up on the spot, my friend. And therefore, when you're doing a talk that you've already planned, and you're not really making up, but you're making up the quick little jokes that come, you know, the little riffs.

Yeah. My God. My God. Like, chef's kiss, you will kill it. Like, you'll kill it. How can you go wrong?

Mikey: So Hattie, not even just like, a one time workshop, but you stay with it. Are you actively doing improv?

Molly: I'm actively doing it. We've heard that in the past and I just, it's so good to hear. I think you have that double whammy thing of improv helps with the stage [00:46:00] and that naturalness, that's just the presence and the delivery.

And then you've also written a bunch because you've written so many posts. So having those reps and knowing your content in such a way that you're so familiar and so close to it, I think that really, that really helps people always say, like writing something down as well, like gets it in your head one way.

improv, acting that out. I love, I, I, you're someone that really puts your, like, practices what you preach. We're like, well, if I'm going to have,

Music: yeah,

Molly: playing this perspective, I'm going to go ahead and try it out. So a great piece of advice for anyone wanting to get a little more confident on stage or wanting to speak more.

Mikey, I think it's time that we open up the spice cabinet.

Mikey: All right.

Molly: This is

Mikey: our

Molly: rapid fire round.

Mikey: First of all, where can people find you? I think I know.

Hattie: Yeah, I think we know the answer. People can find me as Hattie the PMM on LinkedIn and on YouTube. I do have a Twitter, but I would recommend not following me there because I just shitpost and speak about random stuff.

But I'm

Molly: definitely on,

Hattie: I'm

Molly: definitely on LinkedIn, [00:47:00] so. Okay, amazing. And we've already heard that improv is a great method for, you know, improving stop skills. presence on stage, et cetera. What resources or books, podcasts, or people to follow would you recommend folks wanting to improve their PMM skills?

Hattie: Yeah, so one book that I think most people wouldn't think I would recommend because there's a lot of tactical books out there, especially on pro marketing. But one thing that I've realized is a huge and crucial pain point within a lot of PMMs is the imposter syndrome side and the fact that they are very hard on themselves.

Like we as PMMs are typically very, very hard on ourselves. One book that really unlocked so much for me that has allowed me to be my authentic self and to really not care what people have to think or say about me. I just feel like I am who I am and that's it is the book Self Compassion by Kristen Neff.

It's extraordinary. I feel like everyone, regardless of your [00:48:00] job title, should read it. And especially if you're a man, because I feel like sometimes I think I have a lot more in common with men than I do women because I'm very hard on myself. I just, I'm so career driven. I'm just like, yeah, I just hang out with dudes a lot.

So what the book does, it allows you to breathe and allows you to be way more kinder to yourself and create a kinder voice, a kinder inner voice. So I'd highly recommend that book because it has allowed me to be a lot more compassionate to myself. But also when I conduct customer interviews. I was compassionate and empathetic towards them and their needs.

And therefore I could really justify and fight for them when it came to feature reviews or roadmapping strategy sessions or whatever. So the compassion piece, the soft skills. Yeah, it's killer. It's huge. Because look, anyone can learn about positioning a messenger and whatever. Like there's a lot of books on it.

It's, it's very easy to find. But usually what I find is, is the people's inner crap, like the traumas [00:49:00] and the, and the stuff that we've come out of from our childhood and our, you know, failed marriages and all this crap that comes with us, that taints us with time. And it's like, no, you just have to be compassionate to yourself and what your life has, has given you as a journey.

Yeah. Without getting too boo boo. And the podcast that is absolutely my favorite right now is We're Not Marketers. And that's by Gab, Zach, and Eric, and they are free product marketing managers. They're all consultants right now. And why I love it is I think they were the first guys on the scene who really started to delve deep into why product marketers are not marketers and also giving fresh and new takes, which I thought was very bold.

So I love that podcast. I think every PMM shows listen to that podcast.

Molly: Amazing. Yeah. We love the little PMM pod community. It's good. Aside from yourself, of course, are there any other PMM leaders or just actually in the space too that you get inspired to follow? Any, any followers you'd recommend? Ooh, there's so

Hattie: [00:50:00] many.

So Eric, Zach and Gab from We're Not Marketers, Jason Oakley, Tamara Grominski, Emma Stratton, Yi Lin Pei. There's, yeah, I just feel like there's so many heavy hitters. Yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of PMMs. So there's Hope Chawland, who was also the person who was on stage with me at the PMA London Summit.

Yeah, she's amazing. and I feel like I'm really excited about the PMM scene within the UK and Europe. I think there's been a lot of focus, no offense guys, a lot of focus in the Americas. Now it's gonna spread the love. I know we need to spread love and I feel like we're starting to catch up and we're starting to make a name for ourselves.

So I feel like I'm excited to see so many more PMM influencers and content creators come out of Europe and really bolster how product marketing has. It has this nuance [00:51:00] and contextual differences and cultural differences across the world. So yeah, I'm excited to see more PMMs create their, their personal brands and really stand out across the world.

It's true. Do

Mikey: it. All right, Hattie, the moment we've all been waiting for. You're taking the stage again at a conference near you. What walkout song?

Hattie: Oh. 100% the song from Karate Kid, which is You Are the Best by Esposito,

goes like, mess,

Molly: did I ever keep you down? That was in. I have a movie, not Karate Kid that I watched a couple weeks ago, but it has been in my head the last few weeks, so it's really funny that you, you put that down because we haven