riverside_some_goodness podcast _ jul 25, 2024 001_some_goodness podca
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[00:00:00] Richard: In a recent study by salesforce. com, it was reported that 86 percent of employees and executives cite the lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures. In the course of our revenue enablement work with clients across industries, we find that one common gap is between product and sales.
[00:00:20] Today, I'm excited to have an experienced product leader share his insights on bridging that gap between product and sales. Welcome to some goodness where we engage seasoned business leaders and experts to share practical guidance and tips to help new and aspiring C level leaders maximize their impact.
[00:00:38] My guest today is Darin Archer. Seasoned product marketing expert and current chief product officer for YOTTAA, a cloud platform company that provides e commerce acceleration solutions.
[00:00:49] Darin, welcome.
[00:00:52] Darin: Thanks Richard. Good to be here. Excited.
[00:00:56] Richard: Well,, it's been a pleasure working with you over the years and, , I always learn something from you.
[00:01:01] And so I'm excited to have you on our podcast today to share some goodness with our audience.
[00:01:06] Darin: I'm excited to be here as well. I think it's an important topic.
[00:01:09] Richard: Well, there's a lot we can talk about when it comes to product, product marketing, marketing sales, but today we're going to focus on that gap between product and sales.
[00:01:19] And so let's, let's start with the problem to solve when we say a gap between product and sales, what does that mean to you?
[00:01:26] Darin: Yeah. I mean, I think there's a couple of things that, that I've always seen is some of the traditional challenges. I mean, you, you have it at one point, you have a role where someone is working in a software factory to an extent and,, trying to imagine and then engineer.
[00:01:42] A solution to some market problem. And that's where a lot of the product time is spent. The product leaders or product manager, et cetera. And then on the flip side, but you have a, sales leader or account executives and other kinds of roles that are, their time is spent in market, right?
[00:01:59] Pitching prospective customers, trying to get more potential customers. And so the first thing that, that I always try to think about and remind myself of is. You know, intuition is a powerful feature of humans and it really is remarkable. And I think, you can lean on it too much, and you can also find it to be quite troublesome, right?
[00:02:21] But with that, if we can at least make the argument that there is some value in it. The first thing I always try to remind myself and others on my team and other product leaders is that just the sheer number of touch points that a salesperson has with the market is going to be more than the product person has.
[00:02:38] And I think that we have to start with kind of an acknowledgement of that. And it doesn't mean that. If the interpretation of that contact with the market isn't right, that you throw away all of the intuition there. And I think that's the first thing to acknowledge because it might be that someone comes back to you and their style is they push some solution to the problem that they found in the market and you don't agree with it.
[00:02:59] And so you push back on it right away. But I think if everyone stops and goes, okay, Hey, there's a reason why product folks talk to analysts and it's because the acknowledge that Analysts talk to a lot more companies. So you're getting a coalesced summary of all those touch points, sales has the same opportunity for product.
[00:03:16] And I think just starting there is a key as a key place to begin.
[00:03:21] Richard: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And so as we think about, we'll often look at functions in a business, and recognize that there are some silos, right. Not only in process, but a lot of times in collaboration and communication, and there are biases within those silos.
[00:03:37] And so, I think it's, pretty insightful to recognize that, each has some unique perspectives, right? As well as other resources, like you mentioned, the analysts feeding into the the product development roadmap and the product team, but I'm curious, since we are talking to you as a product leader, from a leader perspective of the product organization.
[00:03:59] Have you recognized, any trends or kind of missteps in the past that we can just say, Hey, perspective leaders or even sales leaders, as you're working with your product leaders, be aware of, this or that.
[00:04:14] Darin: I think that staying on that theme for just a moment, because it's really where I think that the crux of the challenge is out there.
[00:04:21] And it's this idea of. Finding the right balance between the outbound or inbound as sometimes the lingo might be within the product org thinking about where your team is spending their time from a product leader perspective, right? And it's that going way back in the time machine, we had things like ride alongs, right?
[00:04:42] This idea that, Hey, whoever's owning or building the product should. Should get out there in, in the market and right along with the sales rep carrying the bag and carrying the responsibility to, to get that product sold to the market. In modern times, of course, we have all these really incredible sophisticated tools that, that allow us to kind of, uh, after the fact, dive into a particular.
[00:05:04] Discovery call or negotiation call with a customer, et cetera. But this, the problem I think facing our product leaders is just trying to decide okay, do I allocate right time for my product managers to spend with the field organization, which I would argue it's just important to. Engage your customer success folks and others that are, working with the customer post sale or do I have them, heads down, working on the roadmap, working with engineering, trying to get the sprints, plan, trying to get one iteration of working software out the door after another.
[00:05:39] You're the gravitational pull is, of course, to the road map, right? And so you can get really focused there. And I, what I've seen is the challenges is some organizations, companies that been in others I've just, collaborate with or have peers that, sometimes they try to put two different people on it, right?
[00:05:55] They have an outbound PM and an inbound PM. And I just think a lot of that is, is ridiculous. Quite frankly, because I think as soon as you divided, all you did was amplify the problem because you just put a product manager in the sales camp or something, right? They're no closer to the product.
[00:06:09] And really what we have to go back to is what is that balance? What's that mix between executing against the roadmap, but also sensing and learning and feeling what the market pulse is. And so, I've started always with some basics of at least think that out in your head, plan that out and, and put it down from an MBO perspective, if you have any kind of structure to how you're measuring your product managers or other product leaders.
[00:06:36] You know, whether it's quarterly or annually, like I always start with, okay, what expectations do I want to set for that goal of ride alongs, if you will. And, and I put out, usually put out a quantified number. I said I want you to be able to, at least if you come finish through a period of time and you're like, Oh, it's just roadmap, executed against and all this.
[00:06:57] I want to know at least there's a minimum, like how many customers did you talk to? How many prospects did you help a sales rep with or ride along with, right? Because I think if we don't have those touch points, then a lot of this stuff falls down. So that's where I usually start is you got to think about this balance and then you got to start to programmatically plan that out and make sure that something's there so that when you do get to all the things like enablement on new features or capabilities that you released or enablement on a new product launch, et cetera.
[00:07:26] You've got two things going there. One, your product folks are a little bit more in tune with the market and the prospects and customers because systematically design that. And then two, by design, the other benefit of that is you have some relationships built, right? Because if that product manager did occasionally jump in and help a sales rep with a discovery call or a tough prospect That wanted to talk to the product person about a particular feature capability.
[00:07:51] Those, those touch points over time, then when you do get to a bigger product launch planning or some pivot in messaging or positioning, you've got some good camaraderie there. And then you don't have that big gulf, that big Canyon that can exist between product and in sales go to market.
[00:08:08] Richard: That's great. So let me try to recap here. The big idea here is for the product leader as they think about their team and their resources, their product managers, for example thinking through the appropriate time strategy. How much time spent, internally versus how much time spent with sales spent with, as you mentioned, customer success is a important stakeholder and then even customers.
[00:08:32] And so we might think of, a pie chart and say, Hey, here's the appropriate balance for us. So we're not over rotating in one area or another. And we're not stuck in our silos.
[00:08:42] Darin: Yeah, and what I'd add to that, cause I could already hear some past friends, colleagues in both product and sales side, raising challenges with that.
[00:08:51] And I think I'd shared with you in a past life that you know, at one point I was working a product that was very new. It was first of its kind of thing in market. It was going to be, create changing how the market perceives some various features and capabilities.
[00:09:05] And so I felt I needed to be out a lot more to test my ideas, to just see if they got any traction with potential companies, et cetera. And I've been in the environment where I, was reprimanded from that, from product leaders. And it was like, no, you need to stop spending so much time with the sales team and get back into the factory and focus on your roadmap.
[00:09:23] And to me, it was kind of like, well, how do you do that? You know, like you have to balance it and it's not always a perfect. Well, I'll spend this much time now and this much time, here and there it's more, I think it changes depending on where the life cycle of a product is the maturity of it, the maturity of the market.
[00:09:39] Are you introducing something brand new that the market doesn't know about from an innovation perspective or is it old hat and you just have a better version of the mousetrap, right? All the, those change how you would lean in here. But the other piece that I think is really important is.
[00:09:54] not only being strategic about like how much you're gonna invest in it, but with whom. So the other challenge and trap is the echo chamber, right? You will, but we all are good at birds of a feather flock together, right? Finding people that either agree with us or like our ideas or things like that.
[00:10:11] And so it's very easy as a product person to get into an echo chamber and then go, Oh yeah, I, I've got, all the reps think this is great. And, and I've got six customers that are just like, woo, woo, this is amazing. And then one of the first questions I'll ask is great. What industry segments are those six in what size of companies are those six?
[00:10:32] What geographies are those six in? Right. So one of the things I also try to plan out is a. Multidimensional list that I have to think about. And it's usually those big dimensions though of, hey, when I am engaging the market and, you know, ride-alongs, or whatever the case may be am I systematically covering the different industry segments that my company covers?
[00:10:53] Am I covering the different sizes of companies, the segments that, that my company covers? Are there any specific. Psychographic features of our ideal customer profile. And am I making sure I'm talking to someone in each of those buckets? And then finally, the most important one is, and I think too, particularly to my American colleagues that often forget this is the international component, the geographic thing.
[00:11:15] Hey, is all my feedback come from my us customers or where it best, my Canadian friends, right? Or am I really systematically going, Hey, This idea or this problem exists and it exists in Europe and exists in Asia, it exists in whatever markets I'm covering. So those are, Some of the other elements that I think that we have to think about, and I think it's important in sales leadership side as well for that, to just understand where feedback is coming from.
[00:11:40] Cause I think some people call me in hot and heavy with feedback. And that first Rob is, Hey, is this representative of the market? Or is this representative of one really loud voice, right? Right.
[00:11:51] Richard: Right? No, that's great. And so what you've highlighted is there's a couple of dimensions of breaking down this silo and bridging that gap.
[00:12:00] One is balancing our time spent across important stakeholders outside of product. And then the other is balance our time across, the different characteristics or attributes of our market and deals, right? You know, geography, size scope, et cetera. Really great perspective. And I can appreciate that, Sales leaders should be also looking for this from their product team and product leader.
[00:12:24] And so if they're over here saying, Hey I don't see them involved in this or that, or participating in these ways, maybe I should start asking, right? And start inviting that collaboration. Well, I know another thing that you and I have, had some passionate discussions about in the past that helps to bridge the gap is this idea of sales enablement.
[00:12:47] Right. And so my question for you is enablement can mean a lot of things, of course, and you know, now there's, sales enablement as a function, right, marketing gets involved in enablement. But oftentimes I find it's unclear how does product or how should product and the product team get involved.
[00:13:05] What are some of your thoughts there?
[00:13:07] Darin: My first question is, does it mean training? Is that what it is? Always, no matter how long I do this, as soon as someone even uses the word enablement, I feel like a kid in like elementary or middle school that is nervously trying to find confidence in their, understanding of a word a teacher just threw out there.
[00:13:26] It really has, I think that level of power still. It is not become as ingrained and well kind of matured, I think is a lot of other functions. On the same token I think that there's the process of training that we've had for a long time that has applied to all kinds of roles to from, field engineers or call center reps, et cetera.
[00:13:50] And I think a lot of that style training has, but what we still continue to hang on instead of thinking about enablement more strategically really, first challenge. So for me, there's this like continuum of. Well, where does it fall on the line between just the formal training, right.
[00:14:09] Versus also that kind of collaborative sense and learning of what, what's working and what's not. And I think where the product side often gets it wrong and in what they feel like their engagement should be it's like, well, let's go get a really amazing pitch deck built.
[00:14:24] And that's, and that is, I think from the product side, that's the extent of enablement, right? Well, we, we produced and created the most visually appealing, stunning, artistic, this could go in MoMA pitch deck. You're good, right? All right.
[00:14:42] And so I think that's the first step is just understanding that for me, I think what I've learned with, with you over the years and some of the methodologies that you've helped employ is that, that that's like one little piece, maybe. You may have sales reps that may or not even use it, right?
[00:15:00] How are they going to sell in the mode where they're talking to someone at a ball game? How are they going to sell in a mode where they've got 30 seconds with someone at a conference booth? How are they going to pitch someone when you know, they are going up that that elevator, et cetera. Right. And so I think the other big thing for me is just understanding that I think we have to start from an enablement and perspective with What are the, customers you're targeting, you know, the traditional stuff, your ICP, what you think your positioning and messaging is.
[00:15:27] But more importantly, I think it's starting from the market input first, which is, well, what are the questions and objections that they have, or that you anticipate them having, and then build your engagement with the market from there. And your enablement should really be driven by that. I don't think a lot of methodologies for sales enablement start from that kind of mindset.
[00:15:48] Or folks that are in this game really start from that kind of mindset. I think we start from the pitch deck mindset, right? And I think that's been the thing that I would say, for those on my team, I know I'm not great at this yet still, but this is the thing I've learned from you, Rich is that, Hey, you know, and I think this goes to one of your tactics, the whiteboard kind of thing.
[00:16:08] It forces you immediately whether or not you're going to use that specific element. It forces you to step back from the pitch deck start point and just go, Hey, enablement means a lot more than you got a pitch deck. Let's sit down now and do that.
[00:16:21] Richard: Yeah. We want to equip the team to have insightful strategic business level conversations, not just pitch the product.
[00:16:29] And what I see across industries, especially in the tech industry, because, you know, we tend to be enamored with our tech solutions because it's cool and it's sexy. And it is that especially kind of coming out of product, those positioning and the selling and positioning decks, the pitch decks, they tend to be self focused, right?
[00:16:48] It's all about us and our capabilities and what we can do. And that's great. If the client or prospect has decided to do something different, but we really need to back it up and say, let's start with the customer's world or the process prospects world, you know, why should they even do something different in the first place?
[00:17:04] No one: Yeah.
[00:17:05] Richard: And I've found that there's a lot of insight we can get from the product team in terms of the current approach that they're likely working with, because our product has been designed. To overcome, you know, the, the risks, the flaws, the limitations of their current approach. So let's help educate the team.
[00:17:22] What are they doing now? That's not working. Why is it flawed? And then, okay, that drives a need to do something different, an awareness that you need to do something different. Yeah. And now we can talk about how we enable that different, that better future state.
[00:17:37] Darin: I mean, that's, that's the core of it. And a lot of our starting point templates, little methods that we carry in our brains and hard drives.
[00:17:46] I think from the product marketing side of the fence, we still start with that. I've got a messaging brief. I've got a, you know, here's the tagline. Here's the boilerplate. Here's the 200 character phrase. Meanwhile, you've got someone that is going to have to go face the wild and engage with people that are going to.
[00:18:03] Stop them throw random questions at them. And so I think you, you have to just acknowledge that if you want to really do well at enablement. And, and I think, let's step back and forget the definition of enablement, right? I think it's, well, what's the definition of success. And to me, like we, we know, when we think about KPIs, such as conversion rates and thinking about our funnel and how many, prospects are getting from leads to marketing, qualified leads to sales, qualified, or accepted leads and on through that journey.
[00:18:35] So we have great ways to measure. The success of how we have enabled our field team, but I don't think we necessarily always bring those back to the enablement process and go, okay. Cause for example, I think one of the other learnings that I've had collaborated with you over the years is that you can get really good in some of your enablement, but then you're only covering maybe a part of the customer journey.
[00:18:59] Richard: That's right.
[00:18:59] Darin: Didn't cover them. Well, what happens when the, when they're through the first dog and pony show and they're enamored with you and they're in love and this sounds great. You're going to solve all their problems. And then the next phase, they bring in some other persona that's got to do the tire kicking real hard.
[00:19:13] Oh, you didn't have that phase really thought through or enabled and, Oh, who's going to answer those technical questions or things like that. And so that's why I say I think . The definition is so hard still, but if you can get it framed as that as a continuum and it's more of a journey, then I think you can fill in these gaps better.
[00:19:32] Richard: That's great. Yeah, totally agree. Thinking about that overall customer journey, uh, the story we're telling and those interaction points along the way. And where can we glean some insights from product to be that much smarter, more compelling, more relevant to the different stakeholders as you were highlighting there?
[00:19:51] So we've talked about a lot of great ideas here. Time flies by. We're out of time, but just in the spirit of breaking down those silos, bridging that gap. Hopefully this Gives our audience a little bit of perspectives on, from a product standpoint, how can we guide the appropriate balance of time strategy with different stakeholders and being involved in providing insight to the selling team, and then from a sales perspective, sales leaders, what can you expect from marketing and make sure you're getting those insights, enablement process.
[00:20:23] Well, thank you for your time. As we wrap up here, I want to pivot a little bit, right? I appreciate you sharing some, some great product leader goodness with us today. But in the spirit of goodness, I always like to try to close with something fun and not related to our discussion.
[00:20:39] It could be a book, a gadget, a hobby, a location, a conversation. For
[00:20:44] Darin: me right now, I'm enjoying, getting back out and doing some outdoor activities, but, uh, the big item is softball. So I'm discovering the little kids, rookie softball. And, uh, you know, it's, it's been, it's been nice because it's it's reminds me.
[00:20:59] Of just, fun times from childhood, fun times from now, and a little taste of Americana that is always, always some good Kool Aid.
[00:21:07] Richard: That's so great. And it reminds me of summertime and snow cones and being outside. I love that. So that's a great way to end makes me smile. So thank you again for your time today.
[00:21:16] Appreciate being here, Richard.
