The Overview #79 - Building Momentum

? Hey there. This is The Overview, a weekly roundup of noteworthy B2B SaaS stuff. You’ll find interesting thoughts, articles, and more from around the internet.

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In this post:

Brush up on your sales knowledge

I believe that product marketers should be able to take take a lead from outreach to close, and have a really good chance of winning the deal. Sales uses all of our skills – customer empathy, messaging and positioning, copywriting, strategy, product knowledge, market insight – just in different ways.

And having a measurable impact on sales and revenue is where most product marketing results come from – how are you going to have a big impact without understanding the sales process?

So this January, brush up on your sales knowledge with the Founder’s Guide to B2B Sales to learn the lingo, understand what reps, managers, and VPs are looking for, and give your work the best opportunity to make impact this year.

Ain’t it the truth… but is it a joke?

I spent a sizable chunk of my product marketing career being a ‘deck monkey’, creating slides for sales reps to use, repurposing existing content, crafting talk tracks for different events and teams and customers. It wasn’t satisfying, it wasn’t engaging, and did I really have an impact? No.

Maybe, as it’s the new year, it’s a time to reassess what you’re doing. If you’re stuck in the weeds of decks and busywork, can you find more strategic projects to work on? Or can you take the initiative to run a project and show what you’re really made of?

And if it comes to it, there are tons of product marketing roles on offer – we’re in high demand.

Are you spending your time wisely?

Seriously – now is the time for change!

Traditionally, most product marketers right now will be planning their big projects, the big rocks they’re going to move for this year. Revenue, NPS, launches.

And yet, on top of all that glamorous stuff, you’re still going to be doing a ton of day-to-day, business-as-usual work.

Here’s an interesting thought experiment:

What, if accomplished, would remove the most dissatisfaction and stress on a daily basis?

Maybe it’s finally taking the time to define a product launch process that you can set-and-forget with product teams. Or work with sales to get a hold of the collateral that’s in use, and hold an amnesty for unauthorised decks. Or crystallise a customer feedback loop where the current lack of insight gives you the chills.

Let’s not spend time dissatisfied and stressed this year.

Swipe File: Nail a Niche Before Going Big

???? When you become a free Building Momentum subscriber, you get access to my exclusive product marketing swipe file! Click here to find out more.

Be the thing for someone. Niches for riches. I push this all the time – maybe hearing it from someone else will help too.

Check out this podcast from Lessons of Greatness on why to get big, you have to start small. 8 interesting minutes to give you some extra ammunition when having this difficult discussion with your boss.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought – find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

P.S. If you’ve found value in Building Momentum, could you buy me a coffee? Here’s my tip jar – any support is gratefully appreciated!

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