June 29, 2025 • 34 mins
I am always looking for ways to improve. Send me a text and let me know your thoughts! - Kevin
Ever wonder why some fast-growing companies hit a ceiling? The answer often lies in the transition from founder-led storytelling to scalable marketing systems. In this illuminating conversation with Kristen Brooks, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Octane, we unpack the critical challenges companies face when trying to scale beyond their founder's personal network and narrative.
Kristen reveals the painful truth many founders face: "The founder story is not one that everyone has the right to tell." This creates a fundamental obstacle when scaling sales teams who simply cannot authentically deliver the founder's personal journey. Drawing from her extensive experience at companies like Cisco, BrightSpot, and Bazaarvoice, Kristen shares practical frameworks for translating founder vision into repeatable go-to-market strategies.
We explore the stark differences between product-led growth and enterprise sales approaches, with fascinating insights into how messaging, channels, and customer interactions fundamentally change between these models. For PLG companies, the website becomes the primary sales channel, requiring different optimization strategies than enterprise selling with its complex buying committees.
The conversation turns to perhaps the most pressing marketing challenge today: how to effectively message AI features without sounding like everyone else. Kristen offers a refreshing perspective that cuts through the noise: "It can't be AI for AI's sake." She advocates for focusing on concrete benefits while simultaneously addressing privacy concerns that keep potential customers awake at night.
Whether you're a founder working to scale your company story, a marketer trying to implement effective systems, or a business leader navigating the PLG-to-enterprise spectrum, this episode delivers actionable frameworks you can implement immediately. Subscribe now to catch more conversations with the marketing leaders who are redefining how technology companies articulate their value in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
🎧 Tech Marketing Rewired is hosted by Kevin Kerner, founder of Mighty & True.
New episodes drop regularly with unfiltered conversations from the frontlines of B2B and tech marketing.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kevin Kerner (00:00):
Hey, what's up guys?
This is Kevin Kerner with TechMarketing Rewired.
Ever hit that moment where yourcompany's growing but the story
still seems to be stuck in yourexecutive team's heads or, even
worse, your founder?
In this latest episode, I satdown with Kristen Brooks, who's
the Senior Director of ProductMarketing at Octane and someone
I've known for a long time,since our Cisco days, to talk
about how product marketingactually scales.
(00:20):
We got into founder-ledstorytelling, pricing and
packaging, plg versus sales-ledmotions and how to message AI
features without sounding likeeveryone else.
This is a great one from a realproduct marketing professional
and something other founderslike me really need to hear.
Let's get into it.
This is Tech Marketing Rewired.
(00:44):
Welcome back to the TechMarketing Reward podcast.
Today I'm talking to KristenBrooks, senior Director of
Product Marketing at Octane.
I've known Kristen for a longtime and I know in her career
she has worked on a bunch ofreally interesting product and
marketing projects.
She has background in pricingand packaging frameworks go to
marketing strategies.
She has background in pricingand packaging frameworks go to
(01:06):
marketing strategies.
She's worked with all the majorresearch firms like Gartner,
forrester and IDC and has workedon even some AI product
positioning.
Throughout her career.
She's held positions seniorproduct and marketing positions
at Bright Spot, bizarre Voiceand Cisco, and at Cisco is where
we met each other.
Yes, most importantly, this isthe first podcast that I'm
(01:26):
talking to a product marketing,senior product marketing
professional, so I'm so excitedabout it, especially in light of
all the craziness with productsand AI, and this will be a
really good conversation.
So, kristen, welcome to thepodcast.
Kristen Brooks (01:39):
Yes, thank you so much.
I'm thrilled to be here.
There's so much changing reallyquickly, so it's a really fun
time to work in technology, be aproduct marketer.
I feel like the role kind ofchanges every day, so excited to
be here.
Kevin Kerner (01:54):
No doubt, no doubt about it.
It's crazy, and that's whatrewired is all about, and we're
like all trying to rewire ourbrains right now.
It's really nuts.
Definitely, before we get intoit, I'd love you to talk a
little bit more about yourresponsibilities at Octane and
maybe also, for those that don'tknow what Octane does, a little
bit more about the company.
Kristen Brooks (02:12):
Awesome.
Yeah, octane is really I thinkof them as a portfolio company
of several brands and primarilygeared and focused around
shipping logistics helpingpeople mail the things that they
want to mail to anyone in theworld, whether you're an
individual, like a lawyer who'ssending a lot of mail letters,
(02:33):
or you're a very largeenterprise, retailer, brand
who's shipping millions ofpackages every day.
So we help those companies growand scale and provide shipping
and logistics, no matter howthey want to use them.
So product marketing at Octanewe primarily focus on
(02:55):
go-to-market and I think it'slike two flavors that are really
interesting.
One is very product-led growthSMB bringing SMB to mid-market,
mid-market up to enterprise,like how do we scale that and
where does website lead go tomarket.
And then there's also anenterprise component which looks
very different, which is verymuch a sales-led growth motion.
(03:19):
So I think it's been a reallyfascinating place to come in and
just kind of see thedifferences.
Really fascinating place tocome in and just kind of see the
differences.
My background's in pureenterprise all the way from the
beginning, so it's been prettyfascinating to see even the
changes in the product marketingdiscipline around messaging,
how it's deployed, the channelsthat are different between SMB
(03:39):
or individuals versus enterprise.
The differences between I'm aperson I'm checking out with my
credit card online versus, oh,I'm a part of a giant buying
committee that requiresexecutive level, you know
approval, so I've loved it forthat reason.
I'm learning a ton and yeah, sofar so good, but there's a lot
going on.
Kevin Kerner (03:58):
Yeah, that diversity of like the two
differences and how you go tomarket is really super
interesting.
About Octane when I found outyou'd moved to Octane, it's
interesting you get alerts fromthe post office when they send
you something or something andit has a lot of.
I guess retailers have Octaneon the it's coming from Octane,
(04:19):
so you guys are kind of a hiddenbackbone, I guess, of supply
chain.
Kristen Brooks (04:23):
Absolutely, absolutely, they say.
When you join Octane, youbecome a shipping label nerd and
I find that's definitely, inthat case, like oh, where's this
coming from?
But it's also reallyinteresting because you can also
see where brands or productsyou love might be using someone
else.
Kevin Kerner (04:39):
So that's also very interesting.
Yeah, just what you wanted tobe was a shipping label, nerd
yeah exactly very interesting.
Yeah, just what you wanted to bewas a shipping label nerd.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, I'm the one thing.
I wanted to jump in first causeI know you've done a lot of and
this may be near and dear to myheart Cause I am a founder and
a CEO.
I know you've worked on somefounder led storytelling and
trying to take a founder.
(04:59):
This is probably like realpersonal for me, because I am a
founder and we're trying toscale the go-to-market motion.
I wonder what you've seen fromfounders, why it's such a hard
transition for companies to makefrom going from a founder that
has a vision to something that'smore scalable and repeatable.
Kristen Brooks (05:19):
Yeah, I also love this question because I
think it's yeah, it is verypersonal.
There's a very real emotionalaspect that you are working with
as someone who's trying toscale something, and I think,
(05:42):
until you see it firsthand, it'saha moments for me when I was
in this situation, working witha co-founder trying to scale.
The message is the founderstory is not one that everyone
has the right to tell and it'sreserved for the founder.
And so I think, breaking thatmental model that, hey, all my
(06:03):
salespeople need to tell thestory that I tell, it's required
, in order to remain authentic,to level up the story into a way
that's really about the valueof whether it's a service,
whether it's a product, to theultimate end customer, because
you and the emotions and theperson who created it from
(06:25):
scratch, that's not somethingthat anyone else can tell in a
genuine way.
So I think that that's the firstthing that kind of has to
disconnect in order for you toreally hone in on all right
agnostic of me and why I foundit and all the backstory which
is so powerful and potent.
It's like how do you take thatand place it in the right spot?
(06:51):
So I think of things likeexecutive sponsorship, right,
and like deploying that founderstory in the right place along
the customer journey, but beingvery thoughtful about it, but
really empowering the salesfolks to tell a more product
service value oriented storythat's independent of the
founder, which I think is achallenge.
I think the other thing thatwas really fascinating for me
(07:14):
was when I was learning aboutthe product and the service.
Everything I knew or was beingtold was by way of a customer
story and that was coming fromthe founder right, because he's
not only built it but he'sprospected, he's built the
relationships, he's got theRolodex right, like he has those
(07:34):
personal connections.
He's telling his founder-ledstory and it was by way of
here's what the customer wantedand here's what we delivered.
And so it was reallychallenging for us to like find
the common thread, like whatwere the things that were truly
valuable across all of theseexamples, and that becomes the
value of the solution or theservice itself, like was it, hey
(07:58):
, we can scale faster, betterthan anyone else, or we're the
most flexible solution, or weempower collaboration.
It took us a while to unwindthat from a this is a customer,
adidas and they were looking forX, and this is what we did with
them and this is how it went.
The whole story, so that was.
Another key moment for us isrecognizing that all of these
(08:24):
really important, valuableattributes were kind of hidden
within, you know, 10 to 50customer stories that we had to
kind of back into Um and then Ithink, the um.
I think like one other componenthere was the sales process
(08:46):
itself and what I've found.
Again, when you're in thatstage of founder-led and you've
probably got your like pod ofpeople who maybe been with you
since the beginning, everyone'skind of got their own little
flavor, kind of trying tostandardize.
What are the key milestoneswithin a sales process?
Right, that probably lookspretty different across each of
(09:10):
the people that you're currentlyusing to sell what and I
learned this from Gartner.
Actually, they did a big studyaround scaling sales and what
people and so they fail over andover and over again.
(09:41):
Right, because they'rerelationship people.
Right, like, yeah, they knowhow to work with a relationship,
but what does sales look likeat that particular company?
What are those key milestones?
So that was another aspect thatjust became pivotal to
marketing.
To sales, especially in anenterprise motion, it's like
what are those key things?
It doesn't have to be perfect,but what we know is consistent
(10:04):
across everybody's sales motion,and trying to standardize that
so that the salesperson doesn'thave to come up with it on their
own.
Kevin Kerner (10:12):
Lee, this is hitting me so hard.
Kristen Brooks (10:13):
As a founder.
Kevin Kerner (10:15):
You're just like digging into my soul and taking
out all the stuff that I feelit's so true, especially the
sales comment.
It's like why can't we justhire someone that just can go,
you know, tell my story out tothe world?
I think the other thing I'mthinking is it's so important
now because there's so manycompanies get created so fast
and they created, you know, youcan have a company with, you
know, 20 employees.
(10:35):
Now that becomes huge and sothat founder who started that,
or a couple founders, scaling isjust it could start to happen
very quickly.
And like what it takes to builda company now it's still real
hard, depending on the category,but let's say a tech company,
it just everything isaccelerated so fast.
So I think there'll be a lotmore founders of companies that
(10:57):
don't stay small long.
They just get a lot.
This discussion companies thatdon't stay small long, they just
get a lot this discussion isimportant because they get so
big.
What I was thinking through,that what you just went through
there's got to be some point intime when you're like, ok, this
founder needs to now begin toscale things.
What is the typical signal thatsays, ok, we got to get, we got
(11:19):
to get out of the foundergrowth thing and we got to just
go into a more repeatable system.
Kristen Brooks (11:25):
Yeah, you know, I think it's.
It's probably multi-threadedright, like either a we're not
growing Right, and you canprobably diagnose that too.
We just if, if founder is doingall the prospecting R,
rolodexing, like trying to runthe whole end to end, which I
think you see often right, andthen you're only one person or a
(11:49):
handful of people, if it'sco-founders, right, so there's a
limit to growth.
That might suggest like allright, we've got to pivot.
And I think that that's maybeprobably the first thing that
you might see.
I think the other, maybepotential indicator is, which
would be a great thing, isincreased demand, where you
can't actually service them orconvert them because you're lost
(12:13):
in again seller trying to tellfounder story which they have no
right to tell, which theycannot nail, which they cannot
deliver with conviction like aco-founder actually could.
So when you start to see this,like maybe you were winning
great closing deals and in thebeginning, and now you're seeing
like conversion tank, like tome, it goes back to those like
(12:34):
first stages.
So so maybe you know you'restill working your Rolodex and
maybe you've stood up marketingto try and draw people in the
funnel, but then something's notworking.
We go from winning to notwinning and I think that's a
clear sign of whatever messagewe're trying to deliver.
That's likely the foundermessage Lacking conviction,
lacking clarity on what are thetrue differentiation, what is
(12:57):
the true value, because we'restuck in the oh, I built this
because of X, y, z, which iscompelling, but you've got that
disconnect.
Kevin Kerner (13:05):
Do you think that I'm curious of your opinion,
like do you think that mostfounders the reflex when they
get to that point is to hire asalesperson, or do you think
they need to hire a productperson, like product marketing
person?
What advice would you give them?
What do you see and like?
What advice would you give them?
What do you see and like?
What advice would you give afounder?
Do you need to go with aproduct person or do you go with
sales?
Or do you like what's?
(13:25):
What's the step there?
Kristen Brooks (13:27):
yeah, from what I see, it's probably a
combination of sales and like ademand person or growth person.
Um, so the reason I say that isbecause I and this is just what
I see like I typically see aproduct marketer come in later,
(13:48):
because generating that scaleddemand, getting people through
the door, getting awareness,getting that piece out there is
pivotal and you can again, ifyou can, as a founder, maybe
break some of that cycle offounder story and really hone in
on these are the things we doreally well, right, and that
(14:08):
becomes the messaging.
And I think also at the sametime, like, hopefully, marketers
are good at baseline copy,baseline messaging.
They know how to test, theyknow how to optimize for
conversion.
So I think there is more of adata-led optimization where you
could hire a product marketerlater to determine all right,
(14:32):
we've cracked the nut on maybethis segment of the market, we
want to expand that.
Or even if it's on the messagingfront, right, like outsourcing
it to an agency of like okay, weknow we're, and I think it
depends maybe on the demandperson and their skill set and
like how things are performing.
But that's typically what I see.
And then I think thesalesperson yeah, for
(14:54):
scalability reasons.
If you're going to draw in alot of attention leads,
someone's got to service thoseright.
So those two together.
Kevin Kerner (15:04):
Great advice.
Great advice Because sometimes,as a founder, you really don't
know what is the next step.
You probably feel the reflex togo with sales.
I got to hire a salesperson,but the growth role is really
important and something we'rethinking about right now is like
you got to put some sort ofrepeatable growth system in
place before you get to thepoint where messaging and
(15:25):
frankly, I think as a founderyou probably have some decent
messaging ability to give to agrowth person to pull out of you
but then it gets to the pointwhere, ok, now we got to.
Now we have to implement somereal product marketing system.
So now you're in this, you'rein this mode where, okay, a
product marketer needs to bebrought in.
What's the first?
I'm really curious, becauseyou've done this so much what's
(15:47):
the first system you typicallyimplement, or the first few
systems you typically implementas a product marketer, when
you're entering this type ofenvironment?
Kristen Brooks (15:55):
Yeah, I don't know if I'd call this a system
or not, but I think of it like aframework.
I do the kind of state ofproduct marketing where I've got
my set list of things that Iknow need to be true and I take
inventory of, like how well arethey, based on what in my mind
would be best in class for thatparticular business, and I just
(16:17):
do a full audit.
So we're talking about how goodis the messaging, how good is
the messaging?
How good is the pitch?
How good is the salesenablement?
Listen to calls right.
Sit with sales, like how wellare they driving message what is
even like the sales acumenaround, like who we need to go
and serve the pricing right?
Does everyone know the pricing?
I think you'd be surprised,right?
(16:38):
And then, like Everyone knowthe pricing, I think you'd be
surprised.
Yeah, no, I don't know Right,and then like are there and I
think especially in Founder,like what's tribal knowledge and
what's actually documented,where someone can come in and
pick it up and like take it andrun with it, and that becomes a
super easy thing for a newperson to look at with fresh
(16:58):
eyes.
Right Of like, am I having tohave 50 conversations with Kevin
to understand this business?
That's going to tell me.
Probably most things are tribalknowledge.
But I think getting to thatbaseline of like what's your
starting point and then,depending on the business and
what they need and where theyare in terms of their life cycle
(17:19):
and what they need, that shoulddetermine focus.
Sometimes there's really lowhanging fruit, like at one of
the prior companies I workedwith.
There was inconsistency inpricing and we found out during
an RKO where we were doing alittle fun Jeopardy game and we
had two different answers forpricing, and that was to me like
(17:40):
okay, like that's just, that'sbaseline, like let's go get that
fixed.
it was a relatively easy fix forus to go do, so I think it's
like looking at it holisticallyaligned with you know, what does
the business ultimately need togo do and prioritizing that way
yeah yeah yeah, so yeah, that's.
Kevin Kerner (17:58):
I think that's really good.
Uh, people tend to overengineer it too.
Like you can come in and sayhere's all the systems we need
to put in place without doingthat audit up front.
You know you still have tobuild some structure, but also
be agile in the way you do thisstuff, because every company you
might enter is completelydifferent.
Where do you look for the earlywins in the work that you do on
(18:22):
the product side?
Kristen Brooks (18:25):
Yeah, I think it depends on, again, the things
that you want to execute against.
So, like in the pricing andpackaging example, like to me it
was scaling and documenting aprice book and almost going back
to the sales team andvalidating that everyone could
(18:45):
say what they knew the price ofthe packages were right, Like
that was a win to me.
If we're talking messagingright, I would start to listen
to gone calls.
I would start to see likeadoption and then what I love to
.
I think a really importantcomponent to product marketing
in general and I don't know ifthis is widely used, I don't
think it is but really lookingat funnel performance to tell
(19:09):
you what to do as a productmarketer.
So, even if there are thingslike a key component to whether
you're just beginning as aproduct marketer and coming into
a new company or eventhroughout the lifetime that
you're serving as a productmarketer, To me 60 to 70% of the
work that we do should befocused and informed by funnel
(19:32):
performance.
So I know I'm shifting a littleaway from quick wins, but I
think this is really importantand where I see product
marketing either having a clearimpact or maybe not being able
to measure that.
So, for example, if we wouldlook at marketing qualified lead
sales, accepted lead sales,qualified lead sales, qualified
(19:53):
opportunity and then opportunityfunnel throughout, If you can
rationalize what's happeningacross each of those stages and
define each of those stagesagain, it can be a scrappy sales
process where it's like this isjust generally what we know.
Then you can start to diagnosewhat activity, based on the
(20:14):
conversion between each stage,is not working and then it just
becomes such a clear picture oflike all right, I see marketing
qualified to sales accepted isreally low.
Let's say it's 10%.
Then I know I can hone in onwe're not identifying the right
ICP.
What we're delivering is notthe people who sales thinks is
(20:40):
worth working.
So that becomes a very focusedconversation where you don't
even have to talk about thepitch deck, the messaging like,
really any of that that thesalesperson is doing, because
you know your problems right uphere.
So either we don't know whowe're talking to the highest
level messaging isn't resonating, or it's resonating to the
wrong person.
What between sit like where'sthe difference between what
(21:01):
marketing things is qualifiedand sales thinks is qualified
right, Like there's some veryfocused conversation you could
have there.
So again, I think that this isjust such a smarter way to work
when you look at full funnel andyou can break down those
conversion rates and have someunderstanding of what's
happening, and then it justtakes the guessing guesswork out
(21:22):
of like, where do you focus?
Kevin Kerner (21:24):
Yeah, it's awesome .
It also connects it to revenueor the funnel.
And so that's the best place togo, especially if you're trying
to make it work but you're alsotrying to get the ELT or
executive team, to reallyunderstand the effect of product
marketing.
It's like connecting itdirectly to the funnel.
It's a good thing.
Kristen Brooks (21:40):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Kevin Kerner (21:41):
I want to shift gears a little bit.
Kristen Brooks (22:20):
Yeah, exactly, just talk a bit about that, like
what's the signatory?
If you want to think of that inenterprise words, right, like
they're coming to a site,they're transacting, right.
So the idea of the webexperience becomes much more
significant because that's wherethey are going through their
(22:43):
entire customer journey, reallyLike consideration, evaluation.
All of those things arehappening in the dot-com
experience mostly and I thinkthat's been just such a
significant change.
There's a lot more quick A-Btesting, conversion rate
(23:03):
optimization, activities likereplacing words, calls to action
, very quick motions.
That is like trying to finetune the dial of transacting on
the site.
So I think that's justfascinating.
There's also from a channel mixstrategy, more TV, more
promotions, discounts, couponing, like that type of motion Also
(23:26):
where, like pricing changes canreally move up or down.
There's also a big likecommunity aspect, right, where
these individuals are talking onReddit and they're talking in
these forums and like just thesocial media, it becomes a much
more community-based, I think,conversation than what you see
in enterprise.
So that's just been fascinatingfrom an even channel and
(23:49):
marketer despite productmarketer, where I've seen some
differences in the experience,and I think there's also a
component there where you'vereally got to think about web as
a proxy for upsell, cross-sellright, and it becomes about more
of the automation, pendo,notifications, onboarding like
(24:11):
translating person andhand-holding to a digital
experience which is wild to see.
Where, on the enterprise side,right Like I think, yes, you
have important web moments,people need to generally feel
like you have something for me,you service people like me, you
have case studies that help medecide that I'm going to
(24:33):
shortlist you, right, like wherethe analyst relations become
very important of, oh, they havea reputation, they feel like
enterprise, they feel big enoughfor me.
So I think you've got a littlemore emotions happening, less
quick decision making, more likeyes, I'm going to trade my time
to go explore this further.
(24:56):
So I think messaging isimportant and significant and
there is a very real, especiallyB2B there's so much saturation
in messaging, right, and so Ithink you do have to be super
clear on what do you do for whoand make sure you're really tied
into that component and thebuying committee and making sure
(25:17):
you have a place for people tofeel welcome and that you have
something for them.
And the channel mix is different, right, you're working with a
group of people.
There's the dynamics of howthat group interacts and plays
with each other and what theyreally care about and I think
that's what I find likeenterprise sales sometimes
(25:39):
struggling with is you want toscale the.
This is the story for everybody.
But when you've got like a CTO,a CIO, a CMO procurement in the
room like, you really have totake that as highest level
messaging.
But then how do you speak toeach of those individuals within
a room, right, when they're allpresent and make it relevant?
(26:01):
So I'd say like messaging morebecomes like the back half,
right and where the salesenablement and empowering a
person to tell that story versusthe web, wow, what a difference
.
Kevin Kerner (26:13):
Yeah, it's incredible and I think there's
more.
I don't know if you feel this,but I think there's more.
Maybe it's because all thesesmall AI based companies are
launching very quickly andgetting big.
I think there's more trendtowards PLG than there ever has
been right now.
There's a ton of it, andthere's some companies that do
it really well, even founder-ledsort of PLG motions where the
founder is the voice and the webis the experience and it just
(26:37):
makes you want to buy becauseyou know the founder and you see
him and it's areally interesting time that I
haven't seen before.
It builds trust when you cantalk about the founders out
there talking about the product.
Super interesting, and that'sprobably just driven by all the
AI companies.
So one last thing, because Iknow you've done this at scale
the AI messaging thing.
So everyone's trying to jam AIinto their messaging.
(26:59):
Right now, Everything's AI,which is, you know, it's true,
Like everything is AI.
But how do you approach?
What are your thoughts oneffectively messaging an AI
feature or product in a timewhen it's just you know?
Kristen Brooks (27:15):
Yeah, there's a couple of, I think, personal
philosophies or boundaries orways of thinking that I've
adopted, the first being itcan't be AI for AI's sake.
Like I learned about a termcalled AI washing you probably
know it where it's like.
People say that they can do itand it's by AI, but then these
(27:35):
companies get sued andimmediately I had to like that's
not gonna be me.
I can't be that.
Kevin Kerner (27:41):
A bunch of people on keyboards in the background
doing the work, yeah yeah.
Kristen Brooks (27:53):
So I love to think of it as, like what is
powered by AI versus leadingwith AI.
And then what's the ultimatebenefit?
It's typically what I've seenis like a productivity story, a
cost-saving story, an efficiencystory and efficiency story, and
so that's what I've led with islike but why AI?
Trying to extrapolate that andreally hit on some of these
macros that we see, liketightening of wallets, tariffs
(28:15):
is a big one in our world.
Right With shipping of?
Like we will help you, we willuse, you know.
This is an example.
I'm not saying that this is true, but AI powered, you know,
customs navigation or somethinglike that.
Right, where it's like, here'sa very real, practical thing
that we know is going to be, isgoing to be a headache for you,
is a headache for you that wecan scale through AI, and I
(28:40):
think for me, the othercomponent of an AI story is the
protection and privacy.
I feel like you've got to talkabout both.
Here's all the great thingsthat we're going to do for you
saving money.
Talking to the balance sheet,total cost of ownership Maybe
(29:01):
it's not a direct one-to-onethis feature is going to save
you X, but when you look at theentirety of the solution service
, how AI helps accelerate thatin an XYZ way, and also here's
how we're protecting you, makingit safe.
Especially when you talk aboutscaled AI solution, that scares
a lot of people right Of like ohmy God, we're going to adopt
this thing and it's going to getvery out of control, even
(29:22):
though the tactics of that andthe actual implementation is
probably just the unknown right,like what if and so if we can
help people sleep at night bysaying we've thought this
through, so you don't have to, Ithink that's probably to me.
Where the story becomes reallypowerful is we can get you
(29:44):
productivity, and also we'rethinking about the long-term and
how you might track and measureand make sure you're safe.
Kevin Kerner (29:53):
Yeah, that's really good advice, Because I
think, as salespeople, on thesales side, you just want to say
AI, but you don't really thinkabout the necessarily a good
product person does this, butyou don't necessarily think
about the safety thing top ofmind that a customer might be
thinking about like, oh, is thisstuff safe?
So it's really sage advice, anddoesn't?
It just always goes back tomessaging, like effectively
(30:16):
messaging the benefits back tothe customer, versus just saying
, hey, we have AI, you know thiscool AI that does something.
It's really good advice.
Um, okay, so, um, this is and Icould talk to you forever.
I feel like this is a littleselfish for me because I'm
learning so much that I canapply.
I'm like, oh man, I'll have toget you offline on this stuff,
(30:37):
but uh, but, uh, um, I do thisthing that I warned you about
this is ai roulette.
So so I put a question insideof perplexity and I'm gonna push
, send, send here and then I'mgoing to see what it gives us.
Ok, here we go.
And it's basically I just putin.
Your profile said give me aquestion that we wouldn't expect
.
Kristen Brooks (30:56):
OK.
Kevin Kerner (30:57):
And try not to make it be respectful of us.
Ok, here we go.
Ok, this is interesting.
Okay, product marketers areoften expected to be the
ultimate translators, bridgingproduct sales and customer needs
.
What's one harsh truth aboutthis role you wish more founders
or execs understood before theylaunch a product.
(31:19):
And how has how has learningthat lesson shaped the way you
approach your work?
One harsh truth about this roleyou wish founders or execs
understood before they launchedthe product.
Kristen Brooks (31:34):
I think it is just because you're excited
about what you built does notmean your customer is going to
be excited about what you built,but it's so great Everyone
wants this.
How could they not want it?
Exactly, exactly, and yeah, Ithink that there's just such an
(31:55):
important component.
One thing we didn't talk aboutand I just want to do a little
plug for is the importance ofgetting as close as possible to
the customer, as close aspossible to the customer right,
and not only from a customerinput perspective, but also the
conversation you need to havewith the customer right as a
seller.
I took a two year stint as aclient success leader and it's
(32:16):
the best thing that I've donefor my career as a marketer,
because it made me a bettermarketer.
I know what it is to like sitin the hot seat right With big
clients where they've gotobjections they don't believe
you, like you're really havingto show up in a different way,
and so I think it is like Imostly have worked with more
(32:37):
executives, a few founders.
Founders are better at gettingwith the customer right and like
establishing thoserelationships, but I think as
you scale and as you grow likethat, it just becomes
disconnected.
So, whether you're a productperson, an executive, like
sitting with the customer andlike driving that diligence and
(32:57):
doing some testing andvalidating and being unafraid to
bring the customer along inyour half-baked journey, I think
is great.
Customers want to feel likethey have influence over your
roadmap and the future ofbuilding something significant
together, and I think we feelthis obligation to say, like
here it is, it's perfect inevery way, do you love it?
(33:19):
But people want to be a part ofsomething, and I think that's
true whether you're in foundermode or skilled.
So things like client advisoryboards at any level, really now
that I'm saying it, become supercool.
Kevin Kerner (33:33):
Yeah, great answer .
Oh my gosh, that's really good.
And again, I'll say it againlike perplexity does a much
better job with questions than Ido.
I should just let AI run thisthing.
Kristen Brooks (33:44):
I thought this was great.
I had a lot of fun.
Kevin Kerner (33:46):
Krista, it's been great catching up with you again
.
It makes me I'm just so amazedLike we knew each other.
We worked together, I don'tknow, probably 15 years ago or
so.
It's just incredible theexperience you bring and how
much you've shown how muchproduct marketing being a good
and great marketer, but being agreat product marketing
(34:08):
executive it's a.
It's an amazing skillset.
It's really is a specificskillset that you have, so it's
just delightful for me to see.
Yeah, it's really awesome.
I'll ask you if you, if peoplewant to contact you to get more,
just to get in touch with you,ask questions about this stuff,
what's the best way for them toreach you?
Kristen Brooks (34:28):
I think LinkedIn is great.
We can always start there.
Kristen Brooks, I've got arainbow-colored background in my
photo Work at Octane, so Ithink that's perfect.
Kevin Kerner (34:39):
Oh, Kristen, it's so great catching up with you
and I need to talk to you on theside about our own founder.
Kristen Brooks (34:45):
I love it, let's do it.
Kevin Kerner (34:48):
Okay, cool, so good to see you.
Kristen Brooks (34:50):
You too.
Thanks so much, Kevin Bye.
Hey, what's up guys?
This is Kevin Kerner with TechMarketing Rewired.
Ever hit that moment where yourcompany's growing but the story
still seems to be stuck in yourexecutive team's heads or, even
worse, your founder?
In this latest episode, I satdown with Kristen Brooks, who's
the Senior Director of ProductMarketing at Octane and someone
I've known for a long time,since our Cisco days, to talk
about how product marketingactually scales.
(00:20):
We got into founder-ledstorytelling, pricing and
packaging, plg versus sales-ledmotions and how to message AI
features without sounding likeeveryone else.
This is a great one from a realproduct marketing professional
and something other founderslike me really need to hear.
Let's get into it.
This is Tech Marketing Rewired.
(00:44):
Welcome back to the TechMarketing Reward podcast.
Today I'm talking to KristenBrooks, senior Director of
Product Marketing at Octane.
I've known Kristen for a longtime and I know in her career
she has worked on a bunch ofreally interesting product and
marketing projects.
She has background in pricingand packaging frameworks go to
marketing strategies.
She has background in pricingand packaging frameworks go to
(01:06):
marketing strategies.
She's worked with all the majorresearch firms like Gartner,
forrester and IDC and has workedon even some AI product
positioning.
Throughout her career.
She's held positions seniorproduct and marketing positions
at Bright Spot, bizarre Voiceand Cisco, and at Cisco is where
we met each other.
Yes, most importantly, this isthe first podcast that I'm
(01:26):
talking to a product marketing,senior product marketing
professional, so I'm so excitedabout it, especially in light of
all the craziness with productsand AI, and this will be a
really good conversation.
So, kristen, welcome to thepodcast.
Kristen Brooks (01:39):
Yes, thank you so much.
I'm thrilled to be here.
There's so much changing reallyquickly, so it's a really fun
time to work in technology, be aproduct marketer.
I feel like the role kind ofchanges every day, so excited to
be here.
Kevin Kerner (01:54):
No doubt, no doubt about it.
It's crazy, and that's whatrewired is all about, and we're
like all trying to rewire ourbrains right now.
It's really nuts.
Definitely, before we get intoit, I'd love you to talk a
little bit more about yourresponsibilities at Octane and
maybe also, for those that don'tknow what Octane does, a little
bit more about the company.
Kristen Brooks (02:12):
Awesome.
Yeah, octane is really I thinkof them as a portfolio company
of several brands and primarilygeared and focused around
shipping logistics helpingpeople mail the things that they
want to mail to anyone in theworld, whether you're an
individual, like a lawyer who'ssending a lot of mail letters,
(02:33):
or you're a very largeenterprise, retailer, brand
who's shipping millions ofpackages every day.
So we help those companies growand scale and provide shipping
and logistics, no matter howthey want to use them.
So product marketing at Octanewe primarily focus on
(02:55):
go-to-market and I think it'slike two flavors that are really
interesting.
One is very product-led growthSMB bringing SMB to mid-market,
mid-market up to enterprise,like how do we scale that and
where does website lead go tomarket.
And then there's also anenterprise component which looks
very different, which is verymuch a sales-led growth motion.
(03:19):
So I think it's been a reallyfascinating place to come in and
just kind of see thedifferences.
Really fascinating place tocome in and just kind of see the
differences.
My background's in pureenterprise all the way from the
beginning, so it's been prettyfascinating to see even the
changes in the product marketingdiscipline around messaging,
how it's deployed, the channelsthat are different between SMB
(03:39):
or individuals versus enterprise.
The differences between I'm aperson I'm checking out with my
credit card online versus, oh,I'm a part of a giant buying
committee that requiresexecutive level, you know
approval, so I've loved it forthat reason.
I'm learning a ton and yeah, sofar so good, but there's a lot
going on.
Kevin Kerner (03:58):
Yeah, that diversity of like the two
differences and how you go tomarket is really super
interesting.
About Octane when I found outyou'd moved to Octane, it's
interesting you get alerts fromthe post office when they send
you something or something andit has a lot of.
I guess retailers have Octaneon the it's coming from Octane,
(04:19):
so you guys are kind of a hiddenbackbone, I guess, of supply
chain.
Kristen Brooks (04:23):
Absolutely, absolutely, they say.
When you join Octane, youbecome a shipping label nerd and
I find that's definitely, inthat case, like oh, where's this
coming from?
But it's also reallyinteresting because you can also
see where brands or productsyou love might be using someone
else.
Kevin Kerner (04:39):
So that's also very interesting.
Yeah, just what you wanted tobe was a shipping label, nerd
yeah exactly very interesting.
Yeah, just what you wanted to bewas a shipping label nerd.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, I'm the one thing.
I wanted to jump in first causeI know you've done a lot of and
this may be near and dear to myheart Cause I am a founder and
a CEO.
I know you've worked on somefounder led storytelling and
trying to take a founder.
(04:59):
This is probably like realpersonal for me, because I am a
founder and we're trying toscale the go-to-market motion.
I wonder what you've seen fromfounders, why it's such a hard
transition for companies to makefrom going from a founder that
has a vision to something that'smore scalable and repeatable.
Kristen Brooks (05:19):
Yeah, I also love this question because I
think it's yeah, it is verypersonal.
There's a very real emotionalaspect that you are working with
as someone who's trying toscale something, and I think,
(05:42):
until you see it firsthand, it'saha moments for me when I was
in this situation, working witha co-founder trying to scale.
The message is the founderstory is not one that everyone
has the right to tell and it'sreserved for the founder.
And so I think, breaking thatmental model that, hey, all my
(06:03):
salespeople need to tell thestory that I tell, it's required
, in order to remain authentic,to level up the story into a way
that's really about the valueof whether it's a service,
whether it's a product, to theultimate end customer, because
you and the emotions and theperson who created it from
(06:25):
scratch, that's not somethingthat anyone else can tell in a
genuine way.
So I think that that's the firstthing that kind of has to
disconnect in order for you toreally hone in on all right
agnostic of me and why I foundit and all the backstory which
is so powerful and potent.
It's like how do you take thatand place it in the right spot?
(06:51):
So I think of things likeexecutive sponsorship, right,
and like deploying that founderstory in the right place along
the customer journey, but beingvery thoughtful about it, but
really empowering the salesfolks to tell a more product
service value oriented storythat's independent of the
founder, which I think is achallenge.
I think the other thing thatwas really fascinating for me
(07:14):
was when I was learning aboutthe product and the service.
Everything I knew or was beingtold was by way of a customer
story and that was coming fromthe founder right, because he's
not only built it but he'sprospected, he's built the
relationships, he's got theRolodex right, like he has those
(07:34):
personal connections.
He's telling his founder-ledstory and it was by way of
here's what the customer wantedand here's what we delivered.
And so it was reallychallenging for us to like find
the common thread, like whatwere the things that were truly
valuable across all of theseexamples, and that becomes the
value of the solution or theservice itself, like was it, hey
(07:58):
, we can scale faster, betterthan anyone else, or we're the
most flexible solution, or weempower collaboration.
It took us a while to unwindthat from a this is a customer,
adidas and they were looking forX, and this is what we did with
them and this is how it went.
The whole story, so that was.
Another key moment for us isrecognizing that all of these
(08:24):
really important, valuableattributes were kind of hidden
within, you know, 10 to 50customer stories that we had to
kind of back into Um and then Ithink, the um.
I think like one other componenthere was the sales process
(08:46):
itself and what I've found.
Again, when you're in thatstage of founder-led and you've
probably got your like pod ofpeople who maybe been with you
since the beginning, everyone'skind of got their own little
flavor, kind of trying tostandardize.
What are the key milestoneswithin a sales process?
Right, that probably lookspretty different across each of
(09:10):
the people that you're currentlyusing to sell what and I
learned this from Gartner.
Actually, they did a big studyaround scaling sales and what
people and so they fail over andover and over again.
(09:41):
Right, because they'rerelationship people.
Right, like, yeah, they knowhow to work with a relationship,
but what does sales look likeat that particular company?
What are those key milestones?
So that was another aspect thatjust became pivotal to
marketing.
To sales, especially in anenterprise motion, it's like
what are those key things?
It doesn't have to be perfect,but what we know is consistent
(10:04):
across everybody's sales motion,and trying to standardize that
so that the salesperson doesn'thave to come up with it on their
own.
Kevin Kerner (10:12):
Lee, this is hitting me so hard.
Kristen Brooks (10:13):
As a founder.
Kevin Kerner (10:15):
You're just like digging into my soul and taking
out all the stuff that I feelit's so true, especially the
sales comment.
It's like why can't we justhire someone that just can go,
you know, tell my story out tothe world?
I think the other thing I'mthinking is it's so important
now because there's so manycompanies get created so fast
and they created, you know, youcan have a company with, you
know, 20 employees.
(10:35):
Now that becomes huge and sothat founder who started that,
or a couple founders, scaling isjust it could start to happen
very quickly.
And like what it takes to builda company now it's still real
hard, depending on the category,but let's say a tech company,
it just everything isaccelerated so fast.
So I think there'll be a lotmore founders of companies that
(10:57):
don't stay small long.
They just get a lot.
This discussion companies thatdon't stay small long, they just
get a lot this discussion isimportant because they get so
big.
What I was thinking through,that what you just went through
there's got to be some point intime when you're like, ok, this
founder needs to now begin toscale things.
What is the typical signal thatsays, ok, we got to get, we got
(11:19):
to get out of the foundergrowth thing and we got to just
go into a more repeatable system.
Kristen Brooks (11:25):
Yeah, you know, I think it's.
It's probably multi-threadedright, like either a we're not
growing Right, and you canprobably diagnose that too.
We just if, if founder is doingall the prospecting R,
rolodexing, like trying to runthe whole end to end, which I
think you see often right, andthen you're only one person or a
(11:49):
handful of people, if it'sco-founders, right, so there's a
limit to growth.
That might suggest like allright, we've got to pivot.
And I think that that's maybeprobably the first thing that
you might see.
I think the other, maybepotential indicator is, which
would be a great thing, isincreased demand, where you
can't actually service them orconvert them because you're lost
(12:13):
in again seller trying to tellfounder story which they have no
right to tell, which theycannot nail, which they cannot
deliver with conviction like aco-founder actually could.
So when you start to see this,like maybe you were winning
great closing deals and in thebeginning, and now you're seeing
like conversion tank, like tome, it goes back to those like
(12:34):
first stages.
So so maybe you know you'restill working your Rolodex and
maybe you've stood up marketingto try and draw people in the
funnel, but then something's notworking.
We go from winning to notwinning and I think that's a
clear sign of whatever messagewe're trying to deliver.
That's likely the foundermessage Lacking conviction,
lacking clarity on what are thetrue differentiation, what is
(12:57):
the true value, because we'restuck in the oh, I built this
because of X, y, z, which iscompelling, but you've got that
disconnect.
Kevin Kerner (13:05):
Do you think that I'm curious of your opinion,
like do you think that mostfounders the reflex when they
get to that point is to hire asalesperson, or do you think
they need to hire a productperson, like product marketing
person?
What advice would you give them?
What do you see and like?
What advice would you give them?
What do you see and like?
What advice would you give afounder?
Do you need to go with aproduct person or do you go with
sales?
Or do you like what's?
(13:25):
What's the step there?
Kristen Brooks (13:27):
yeah, from what I see, it's probably a
combination of sales and like ademand person or growth person.
Um, so the reason I say that isbecause I and this is just what
I see like I typically see aproduct marketer come in later,
(13:48):
because generating that scaleddemand, getting people through
the door, getting awareness,getting that piece out there is
pivotal and you can again, ifyou can, as a founder, maybe
break some of that cycle offounder story and really hone in
on these are the things we doreally well, right, and that
(14:08):
becomes the messaging.
And I think also at the sametime, like, hopefully, marketers
are good at baseline copy,baseline messaging.
They know how to test, theyknow how to optimize for
conversion.
So I think there is more of adata-led optimization where you
could hire a product marketerlater to determine all right,
(14:32):
we've cracked the nut on maybethis segment of the market, we
want to expand that.
Or even if it's on the messagingfront, right, like outsourcing
it to an agency of like okay, weknow we're, and I think it
depends maybe on the demandperson and their skill set and
like how things are performing.
But that's typically what I see.
And then I think thesalesperson yeah, for
(14:54):
scalability reasons.
If you're going to draw in alot of attention leads,
someone's got to service thoseright.
So those two together.
Kevin Kerner (15:04):
Great advice.
Great advice Because sometimes,as a founder, you really don't
know what is the next step.
You probably feel the reflex togo with sales.
I got to hire a salesperson,but the growth role is really
important and something we'rethinking about right now is like
you got to put some sort ofrepeatable growth system in
place before you get to thepoint where messaging and
(15:25):
frankly, I think as a founderyou probably have some decent
messaging ability to give to agrowth person to pull out of you
but then it gets to the pointwhere, ok, now we got to.
Now we have to implement somereal product marketing system.
So now you're in this, you'rein this mode where, okay, a
product marketer needs to bebrought in.
What's the first?
I'm really curious, becauseyou've done this so much what's
(15:47):
the first system you typicallyimplement, or the first few
systems you typically implementas a product marketer, when
you're entering this type ofenvironment?
Kristen Brooks (15:55):
Yeah, I don't know if I'd call this a system
or not, but I think of it like aframework.
I do the kind of state ofproduct marketing where I've got
my set list of things that Iknow need to be true and I take
inventory of, like how well arethey, based on what in my mind
would be best in class for thatparticular business, and I just
(16:17):
do a full audit.
So we're talking about how goodis the messaging, how good is
the messaging?
How good is the pitch?
How good is the salesenablement?
Listen to calls right.
Sit with sales, like how wellare they driving message what is
even like the sales acumenaround, like who we need to go
and serve the pricing right?
Does everyone know the pricing?
I think you'd be surprised,right?
(16:38):
And then, like Everyone knowthe pricing, I think you'd be
surprised.
Yeah, no, I don't know Right,and then like are there and I
think especially in Founder,like what's tribal knowledge and
what's actually documented,where someone can come in and
pick it up and like take it andrun with it, and that becomes a
super easy thing for a newperson to look at with fresh
(16:58):
eyes.
Right Of like, am I having tohave 50 conversations with Kevin
to understand this business?
That's going to tell me.
Probably most things are tribalknowledge.
But I think getting to thatbaseline of like what's your
starting point and then,depending on the business and
what they need and where theyare in terms of their life cycle
(17:19):
and what they need, that shoulddetermine focus.
Sometimes there's really lowhanging fruit, like at one of
the prior companies I workedwith.
There was inconsistency inpricing and we found out during
an RKO where we were doing alittle fun Jeopardy game and we
had two different answers forpricing, and that was to me like
(17:40):
okay, like that's just, that'sbaseline, like let's go get that
fixed.
it was a relatively easy fix forus to go do, so I think it's
like looking at it holisticallyaligned with you know, what does
the business ultimately need togo do and prioritizing that way
yeah yeah yeah, so yeah, that's.
Kevin Kerner (17:58):
I think that's really good.
Uh, people tend to overengineer it too.
Like you can come in and sayhere's all the systems we need
to put in place without doingthat audit up front.
You know you still have tobuild some structure, but also
be agile in the way you do thisstuff, because every company you
might enter is completelydifferent.
Where do you look for the earlywins in the work that you do on
(18:22):
the product side?
Kristen Brooks (18:25):
Yeah, I think it depends on, again, the things
that you want to execute against.
So, like in the pricing andpackaging example, like to me it
was scaling and documenting aprice book and almost going back
to the sales team andvalidating that everyone could
(18:45):
say what they knew the price ofthe packages were right, Like
that was a win to me.
If we're talking messagingright, I would start to listen
to gone calls.
I would start to see likeadoption and then what I love to
.
I think a really importantcomponent to product marketing
in general and I don't know ifthis is widely used, I don't
think it is but really lookingat funnel performance to tell
(19:09):
you what to do as a productmarketer.
So, even if there are thingslike a key component to whether
you're just beginning as aproduct marketer and coming into
a new company or eventhroughout the lifetime that
you're serving as a productmarketer, To me 60 to 70% of the
work that we do should befocused and informed by funnel
(19:32):
performance.
So I know I'm shifting a littleaway from quick wins, but I
think this is really importantand where I see product
marketing either having a clearimpact or maybe not being able
to measure that.
So, for example, if we wouldlook at marketing qualified lead
sales, accepted lead sales,qualified lead sales, qualified
(19:53):
opportunity and then opportunityfunnel throughout, If you can
rationalize what's happeningacross each of those stages and
define each of those stagesagain, it can be a scrappy sales
process where it's like this isjust generally what we know.
Then you can start to diagnosewhat activity, based on the
(20:14):
conversion between each stage,is not working and then it just
becomes such a clear picture oflike all right, I see marketing
qualified to sales accepted isreally low.
Let's say it's 10%.
Then I know I can hone in onwe're not identifying the right
ICP.
What we're delivering is notthe people who sales thinks is
(20:40):
worth working.
So that becomes a very focusedconversation where you don't
even have to talk about thepitch deck, the messaging like,
really any of that that thesalesperson is doing, because
you know your problems right uphere.
So either we don't know whowe're talking to the highest
level messaging isn't resonating, or it's resonating to the
wrong person.
What between sit like where'sthe difference between what
(21:01):
marketing things is qualifiedand sales thinks is qualified
right, Like there's some veryfocused conversation you could
have there.
So again, I think that this isjust such a smarter way to work
when you look at full funnel andyou can break down those
conversion rates and have someunderstanding of what's
happening, and then it justtakes the guessing guesswork out
(21:22):
of like, where do you focus?
Kevin Kerner (21:24):
Yeah, it's awesome .
It also connects it to revenueor the funnel.
And so that's the best place togo, especially if you're trying
to make it work but you're alsotrying to get the ELT or
executive team, to reallyunderstand the effect of product
marketing.
It's like connecting itdirectly to the funnel.
It's a good thing.
Kristen Brooks (21:40):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Kevin Kerner (21:41):
I want to shift gears a little bit.
Kristen Brooks (22:20):
Yeah, exactly, just talk a bit about that, like
what's the signatory?
If you want to think of that inenterprise words, right, like
they're coming to a site,they're transacting, right.
So the idea of the webexperience becomes much more
significant because that's wherethey are going through their
(22:43):
entire customer journey, reallyLike consideration, evaluation.
All of those things arehappening in the dot-com
experience mostly and I thinkthat's been just such a
significant change.
There's a lot more quick A-Btesting, conversion rate
(23:03):
optimization, activities likereplacing words, calls to action
, very quick motions.
That is like trying to finetune the dial of transacting on
the site.
So I think that's justfascinating.
There's also from a channel mixstrategy, more TV, more
promotions, discounts, couponing, like that type of motion Also
(23:26):
where, like pricing changes canreally move up or down.
There's also a big likecommunity aspect, right, where
these individuals are talking onReddit and they're talking in
these forums and like just thesocial media, it becomes a much
more community-based, I think,conversation than what you see
in enterprise.
So that's just been fascinatingfrom an even channel and
(23:49):
marketer despite productmarketer, where I've seen some
differences in the experience,and I think there's also a
component there where you'vereally got to think about web as
a proxy for upsell, cross-sellright, and it becomes about more
of the automation, pendo,notifications, onboarding like
(24:11):
translating person andhand-holding to a digital
experience which is wild to see.
Where, on the enterprise side,right Like I think, yes, you
have important web moments,people need to generally feel
like you have something for me,you service people like me, you
have case studies that help medecide that I'm going to
(24:33):
shortlist you, right, like wherethe analyst relations become
very important of, oh, they havea reputation, they feel like
enterprise, they feel big enoughfor me.
So I think you've got a littlemore emotions happening, less
quick decision making, more likeyes, I'm going to trade my time
to go explore this further.
(24:56):
So I think messaging isimportant and significant and
there is a very real, especiallyB2B there's so much saturation
in messaging, right, and so Ithink you do have to be super
clear on what do you do for whoand make sure you're really tied
into that component and thebuying committee and making sure
(25:17):
you have a place for people tofeel welcome and that you have
something for them.
And the channel mix is different, right, you're working with a
group of people.
There's the dynamics of howthat group interacts and plays
with each other and what theyreally care about and I think
that's what I find likeenterprise sales sometimes
(25:39):
struggling with is you want toscale the.
This is the story for everybody.
But when you've got like a CTO,a CIO, a CMO procurement in the
room like, you really have totake that as highest level
messaging.
But then how do you speak toeach of those individuals within
a room, right, when they're allpresent and make it relevant?
(26:01):
So I'd say like messaging morebecomes like the back half,
right and where the salesenablement and empowering a
person to tell that story versusthe web, wow, what a difference
.
Kevin Kerner (26:13):
Yeah, it's incredible and I think there's
more.
I don't know if you feel this,but I think there's more.
Maybe it's because all thesesmall AI based companies are
launching very quickly andgetting big.
I think there's more trendtowards PLG than there ever has
been right now.
There's a ton of it, andthere's some companies that do
it really well, even founder-ledsort of PLG motions where the
founder is the voice and the webis the experience and it just
(26:37):
makes you want to buy becauseyou know the founder and you see
him and it's areally interesting time that I
haven't seen before.
It builds trust when you cantalk about the founders out
there talking about the product.
Super interesting, and that'sprobably just driven by all the
AI companies.
So one last thing, because Iknow you've done this at scale
the AI messaging thing.
So everyone's trying to jam AIinto their messaging.
(26:59):
Right now, Everything's AI,which is, you know, it's true,
Like everything is AI.
But how do you approach?
What are your thoughts oneffectively messaging an AI
feature or product in a timewhen it's just you know?
Kristen Brooks (27:15):
Yeah, there's a couple of, I think, personal
philosophies or boundaries orways of thinking that I've
adopted, the first being itcan't be AI for AI's sake.
Like I learned about a termcalled AI washing you probably
know it where it's like.
People say that they can do itand it's by AI, but then these
(27:35):
companies get sued andimmediately I had to like that's
not gonna be me.
I can't be that.
Kevin Kerner (27:41):
A bunch of people on keyboards in the background
doing the work, yeah yeah.
Kristen Brooks (27:53):
So I love to think of it as, like what is
powered by AI versus leadingwith AI.
And then what's the ultimatebenefit?
It's typically what I've seenis like a productivity story, a
cost-saving story, an efficiencystory and efficiency story, and
so that's what I've led with islike but why AI?
Trying to extrapolate that andreally hit on some of these
macros that we see, liketightening of wallets, tariffs
(28:15):
is a big one in our world.
Right With shipping of?
Like we will help you, we willuse, you know.
This is an example.
I'm not saying that this is true, but AI powered, you know,
customs navigation or somethinglike that.
Right, where it's like, here'sa very real, practical thing
that we know is going to be, isgoing to be a headache for you,
is a headache for you that wecan scale through AI, and I
(28:40):
think for me, the othercomponent of an AI story is the
protection and privacy.
I feel like you've got to talkabout both.
Here's all the great thingsthat we're going to do for you
saving money.
Talking to the balance sheet,total cost of ownership Maybe
(29:01):
it's not a direct one-to-onethis feature is going to save
you X, but when you look at theentirety of the solution service
, how AI helps accelerate thatin an XYZ way, and also here's
how we're protecting you, makingit safe.
Especially when you talk aboutscaled AI solution, that scares
a lot of people right Of like ohmy God, we're going to adopt
this thing and it's going to getvery out of control, even
(29:22):
though the tactics of that andthe actual implementation is
probably just the unknown right,like what if and so if we can
help people sleep at night bysaying we've thought this
through, so you don't have to, Ithink that's probably to me.
Where the story becomes reallypowerful is we can get you
(29:44):
productivity, and also we'rethinking about the long-term and
how you might track and measureand make sure you're safe.
Kevin Kerner (29:53):
Yeah, that's really good advice, Because I
think, as salespeople, on thesales side, you just want to say
AI, but you don't really thinkabout the necessarily a good
product person does this, butyou don't necessarily think
about the safety thing top ofmind that a customer might be
thinking about like, oh, is thisstuff safe?
So it's really sage advice, anddoesn't?
It just always goes back tomessaging, like effectively
(30:16):
messaging the benefits back tothe customer, versus just saying
, hey, we have AI, you know thiscool AI that does something.
It's really good advice.
Um, okay, so, um, this is and Icould talk to you forever.
I feel like this is a littleselfish for me because I'm
learning so much that I canapply.
I'm like, oh man, I'll have toget you offline on this stuff,
(30:37):
but uh, but, uh, um, I do thisthing that I warned you about
this is ai roulette.
So so I put a question insideof perplexity and I'm gonna push
, send, send here and then I'mgoing to see what it gives us.
Ok, here we go.
And it's basically I just putin.
Your profile said give me aquestion that we wouldn't expect
.
Kristen Brooks (30:56):
OK.
Kevin Kerner (30:57):
And try not to make it be respectful of us.
Ok, here we go.
Ok, this is interesting.
Okay, product marketers areoften expected to be the
ultimate translators, bridgingproduct sales and customer needs
.
What's one harsh truth aboutthis role you wish more founders
or execs understood before theylaunch a product.
(31:19):
And how has how has learningthat lesson shaped the way you
approach your work?
One harsh truth about this roleyou wish founders or execs
understood before they launchedthe product.
Kristen Brooks (31:34):
I think it is just because you're excited
about what you built does notmean your customer is going to
be excited about what you built,but it's so great Everyone
wants this.
How could they not want it?
Exactly, exactly, and yeah, Ithink that there's just such an
(31:55):
important component.
One thing we didn't talk aboutand I just want to do a little
plug for is the importance ofgetting as close as possible to
the customer, as close aspossible to the customer right,
and not only from a customerinput perspective, but also the
conversation you need to havewith the customer right as a
seller.
I took a two year stint as aclient success leader and it's
(32:16):
the best thing that I've donefor my career as a marketer,
because it made me a bettermarketer.
I know what it is to like sitin the hot seat right With big
clients where they've gotobjections they don't believe
you, like you're really havingto show up in a different way,
and so I think it is like Imostly have worked with more
(32:37):
executives, a few founders.
Founders are better at gettingwith the customer right and like
establishing thoserelationships, but I think as
you scale and as you grow likethat, it just becomes
disconnected.
So, whether you're a productperson, an executive, like
sitting with the customer andlike driving that diligence and
(32:57):
doing some testing andvalidating and being unafraid to
bring the customer along inyour half-baked journey, I think
is great.
Customers want to feel likethey have influence over your
roadmap and the future ofbuilding something significant
together, and I think we feelthis obligation to say, like
here it is, it's perfect inevery way, do you love it?
(33:19):
But people want to be a part ofsomething, and I think that's
true whether you're in foundermode or skilled.
So things like client advisoryboards at any level, really now
that I'm saying it, become supercool.
Kevin Kerner (33:33):
Yeah, great answer .
Oh my gosh, that's really good.
And again, I'll say it againlike perplexity does a much
better job with questions than Ido.
I should just let AI run thisthing.
Kristen Brooks (33:44):
I thought this was great.
I had a lot of fun.
Kevin Kerner (33:46):
Krista, it's been great catching up with you again
.
It makes me I'm just so amazedLike we knew each other.
We worked together, I don'tknow, probably 15 years ago or
so.
It's just incredible theexperience you bring and how
much you've shown how muchproduct marketing being a good
and great marketer, but being agreat product marketing
(34:08):
executive it's a.
It's an amazing skillset.
It's really is a specificskillset that you have, so it's
just delightful for me to see.
Yeah, it's really awesome.
I'll ask you if you, if peoplewant to contact you to get more,
just to get in touch with you,ask questions about this stuff,
what's the best way for them toreach you?
Kristen Brooks (34:28):
I think LinkedIn is great.
We can always start there.
Kristen Brooks, I've got arainbow-colored background in my
photo Work at Octane, so Ithink that's perfect.
Kevin Kerner (34:39):
Oh, Kristen, it's so great catching up with you
and I need to talk to you on theside about our own founder.
Kristen Brooks (34:45):
I love it, let's do it.
Kevin Kerner (34:48):
Okay, cool, so good to see you.
Kristen Brooks (34:50):
You too.
Thanks so much, Kevin Bye.
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