Transcription

• Speaker #0

  Why does product marketing look so different in Europe and why copying the US playbooks often leads to the wrong outcomes? In this episode, I sit down with Rory, Product Marketing Director Consultant with more than 13 years experience in product marketing across top tech companies such as Google, YouTube and Puyo. Together, we unpack what truly shapes product marketing in Europe today and why this context is driving the rise of functional PMM roles. In this conversation, you will learn why Europe's fragmented market changes how you approach product marketing, why US playbooks don't translate and what to do instead, how to identify real differentiation in complex multi-country environments, what it actually means to work as a functional PMM and why you bring the most value, and how PMMs in Europe adapt their scope to business needs and maturity. If you're building or scaling product marketing in Europe, This episode will help you rethink your approach and operate with more clarity in a context that plays with different roles. Hi Rory, very happy to have you on the podcast today. How are you?

• Speaker #1

  Very happy to be here. I've listened to many episodes, so very pleased to be on with you, Carlotta. Thanks for having me.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, with pleasure. And I'm really delighted of what we are going to talk about today. And first of all, can you present yourself, tell me and tell us who you are, what you're doing today?

• Speaker #1

  I'm Rory, I run The Product Marketer, which is a London-based consultancy offering product marketing support for European businesses in the tech space. It's also the name of my weekly newsletter on Substack, which is now read by over 4,000 product marketers around the world offering practical advice for every level of PMM.

• Speaker #0

  And one question came on mind for me, have you always done product marketing or how did you come up? to be on that field?

• Speaker #1

  Pretty much all of my career which is like kind of crazy. So I've been in tech for just over 16 years and over 12 of that has been in product marketing and so it would have been around like 2013 that I got into product marketing. Didn't know what it was and so basically it was it was a job at Google. Google approached me about a role because I was working in the music space i was at amazon music and Google was getting into the music space. And so they were coming to me for my supposed expertise and knowledge. But what I didn't know about was product marketing. That was the role. It turned out to be a great place to go learn what product marketing is. Like Google is a proper product company where like product is king. And during that time, so I was there for 2013 to 2019. So much about the strategy at the time was, you know, build great products and the rest will follow. And so being a product marketer there was incredibly fortunate. So fell into it in the best kind of way. And when I left Google and YouTube across the two for six years, and when I left, I realized that product marketing was this really valuable thing that I hadn't quite kind of understood inside the massive company of Google. So speaking to businesses, especially in Europe, because I've only worked at European companies since then, realizing like, okay, everyone wants it. There's not a lot of it, especially back in 2019. There wasn't, you know, it was really early days. And I've kind of just run with that since and I've gone and tried to work out how do we do product marketing at European companies, especially smaller ones, you know, like under 1000 places where you're either setting it up or you're resetting it.

• Speaker #0

  and working everything out and how do we how do we get world-class product marketing for european businesses and this is one of the topics that we are talking today because the first time we met um you said to me like taking europe is not the same than in the us and we are kind of trying to be the same as what is going in the in the us and pmm2 because we see what is going on on the Silicon Valley and talk companies, as you said, Google, Tesla, much more. So from your point of view and what you see today in the European companies that you've been working on, what do people misunderstand the most about the European tech context and how it impacts really the product marketing role?

• Speaker #1

  And there's so much to talk about here. And there'll be there'll be people that are much kind of deeper experts on it than me. But yeah, there's there's a lot of difference between the tech scene in Europe and the tech scene in the States that starts like just even from like a work culture point of view, like every European country is a little bit different to each other in terms of what it's like to work for those businesses. But you can broadly say there is a big difference between working for an American company versus working for a European one that anyone who's worked for both will like will probably be able to relate to and so so that's a starting point in general there's no one city that can claim to be the capital of tech in Europe right it could be it could be London it could be Stockholm it could be Paris it could be Berlin it could be Amsterdam you know like I mean even in Germany there's like multiple cities that could claim that and that's like there's a bunch of positives for that and I shouldn't say it's just like a case of like the States is great and Europe Europe's playing catch up and I'll get to that. But like, I think what it means is you, you have a very different landscape of like, of what's going on and what's happening and like specialities, for example, like, you know, London in particular, like really prides itself on its fintech scene. That's like a very strong one that the Nordics is like making great kind of strides in AI. So a number of other countries. But what it does mean is that you don't have that like gravitational pull that like the San Francisco and Bay Area. has you know when it comes to everyone is heading in that direction in the states it means that's where the the companies are the networking is where you know the capital is more readily accessible people that are going there regularly at the moment are like you know if you want to understand what's going on in tech you got you go there you know that creates some some challenges and some some differences um but i think and i think then you've got like what's going on in the wider world like geopolitically like you've got you've got the fact that like from a defense point of view europe's realizing we're we're a little bit more on on our own than we were a couple of years ago um and and that we need to act accordingly and you know you see countries like increasing their budgets in that area but i think i think you know when chat gbt3 came out a couple of years ago and and everything that's happened since that realization of like oh god like so much of our tech infrastructure and cloud is is base is reliant on the US and then we're in really unpredictable times. And so I think Europe is having this like a very positive like renaissance moment of okay it's time you know it's time to ramp things up it's time it's time for like yeah to think very differently and so what I'd say is like the mindset shift has changed when you speak to founders and when you speak to VCs around it's It's not like a... it's not a catch-up game i think it's a realization that europe is on a different path like what a great european uh tech company looks like will be different to what a great um us-based company looks like and that's a great thing that we should embrace and and it means that the shape of um those businesses will look differently and and what that means for product marketing is um is that like product marketing in my mind bends to the shape of the company you know you How you design your org reflects kind of the business in some ways. And I think product marketing at its best is when you're putting it on the biggest business challenges. And so kind of, yeah, if a European tech business is fundamentally different to one based in the States, then product marketing will be different. So that's kind of that's like a starting point of like kind of how I think about things. And there's like there's much to it. But hopefully you're kind of getting what I mean.

• Speaker #0

  When you worked at Google and then you went to European companies, did you feel this change of mindset, of even your day-to-day work as a product marketer? Did you really feel that it was different? Or then maybe even the European companies were trying to catch up from what was doing? How do you feel that?

• Speaker #1

  I think like that definitely from a product marketing point of view like this still is like somewhat true in in 2025 going into 2026 but it was crazy like in 2019 for example of you'll say you're a product you do product marketing and you're very likely in Europe to be kind of met with a blank face or a confused face or someone who thinks they've got a really good idea of what it is and it's totally different to what you were thinking it's going to be and so There's just way more education and misinterpretation going on our side of the pond on what product marketing is. And I think it comes from. I think you're not looking at many European companies that have grown to the scale and then stabilized at a large size, you know, thousand plus, where they've got a product marketing team that's like appropriately sized as well. That you're then allowing that product marketing team to develop best practices and what is it we do and kind of like finding a new normal. It's almost like every product marketing team I think of. speak within Europe like that on the large side they're still kind of in a some kind of growth or progress phase you know where we're adapting you know there's there's not a status quo and it's a great thing in that the job keeps on being incredibly interesting and all the directions the role is going in Europe is really positive what it means is it becomes hard to pin down what it is and especially if you're a colleague of a product marketer so you're a product person or a marketer. and you've worked with product marketing before, and then you go to another business, you go, oh, okay, so it works a bit differently here. They have a sort of slightly different remit and they work a different style. And you can imagine our colleagues and peers get quite confused here about what to expect from a product marketing team, because we haven't found a shared standard across the continent, I think.

• Speaker #0

  I think what makes it so complicated is that All the time that you go to a new team or to a new company, you have to explain again what is the scope and to adapt it as well. Because as you said, it's not the same challenges, stakes. And so it makes it more difficult to understand for the teammates, but also for ourselves to say, OK, as a PMM, what's my scope and where the world stops? And when can I expand more, maybe based on my... what I know of what I'm good at and what is lacking on a specific company.

• Speaker #1

  I think there are knock-on consequences as well from other teams going through the same thing, in that a company might not be investing in user research as well in Europe. That might not be an established team. Or it might be that product management is in the process of upskilling. And that product marketing is having to like fill gaps that like, like at certain companies. And, but, but then on the flip side, there are other European companies that are incredibly strong on those, those fronts. And, and so, and so product marketing doesn't need to lead into those areas. So you do have to sort of move like water as, as a product marketing, fill, fill the gaps where you're most valuable and make a judgment call, whether you're like a head of product marketing or the first, like you know the founder pmm which is now kind of more of a phrase you have to make a judgment call is like what is the highest impact set of things i can do for this business and that's the right thing to do for the business it's not always the most helpful for the thing to do if we think if we take a step back and go how

• Speaker #0

  are we establishing product marketing in europe do you see observe specific skills or behaviors that really stand out when you see what's the best in class like PMMs or

• Speaker #1

  pmm organizations in uh in companies in europe yes i mean i think i think the one that's like unique to europe is an ability to um go in and deeply understand the business and the product and and everything associated with that and the customer to fully run through your um uh set of like your product marketing encyclopedia of everything you know and all the tools that you have but then to go like because to then assess the situation and go right what is that what is the best like solution for this business because with the knowledge that you can't do the perfect version i think like i think like there is a there is a maturity level stateside and product marketing but also on the on the whole like you're better resourced um over there there's like there's there's more roles there's like you can do more there's more specialisms there's more people that like you know are specialists in analyst relations or competitive intelligence or you've got teams you can lean on in a European PMM has to assess the situation, go, what is the best version of this that doesn't see us going down a three-month rabbit hole when we don't have time to do something like that? So how do we find that balance between high quality and fast execution? And so I think that's really important. And then I think this is just true for any product marketer, you know, it's... it's it's it's clarity it's like that's that's what makes a good product marketer you know are you finding that the clearest way to communicate something internally or externally about the value of your product now you are you being like brutal about that like say one principle i talk about in my consultancy um work like and this was like coined by a client um like that i was working with um who described sort of used as a description of me is like radical simplicity so like to the point it feels uncomfortable to the point it feels like like loss you know that you're you're losing something good that you love about? either the product or you love about your messaging. But that knowledge that anything that doesn't need to be in that message at that point in the funnel or the journey risks adding confusion or risks diluting a more powerful message. And that sort of tough part of the job of making choices to boil something down to the simplest form is something that not everyone's got the stomach for or it can make you fairly unpopular a lot of the time.

• Speaker #0

  Do you have some advice to achieve this extreme simplicity, clarity? Yeah, because I think it's easy to understand why it's important and what it is. But then in reality, when you are in a project, it's much more difficult to actually do it and make it real.

• Speaker #1

  I don't know if I've got any... Because I'm a bit of a PMM. it's quite like famous for just like frameworks and stuff isn't it and like you know it's a framework for this whereas i'm sort of a non-framework product marketer uh because i guess it comes down to my belief that you know every business is different so like let's i've got like kind of loose ideas in in my head when i approach a new um a new project but like a new client but like you know let's let's let's do it right for that business and and do the the right treatment for that i have i have a like a few like guiding principles it's like a quote from like a the u.s president like ronald reagan um of like if you're explaining you're losing um and i just i i default to that one quite a bit of like that how like you know if you're finding yourself even remotely explaining the product in um in in kind of that messaging that shouldn't you know obviously like there's there's a how it works section of your your website or there's your explainer videos and so on that's different but if that's creeping into your your high level messaging like I think that's one thing I try and err away from. I think a trend at the moment is companies thinking that they are very complex and going, oh, well, you know, we're a very complex technology. And I think this is getting even more pronounced with AI because even technical people are being incredibly impressed by what they're now able to do and deliver in the product. And I think... Yes, it's complex, but it's only as complex as the customer needs to know about. And it's like when you go and buy any kind of product, be it a washing machine or a new mobile phone or whatever, there's a bunch of incredibly clever technology behind those products. But no one's trying to explain that to you in the process of you buying that. And if we reflect why that is, it's because someone's gone, you know, we'll park all of that. And we just need to talk about, can it do X, Y, Z use case? And here are the benefits of that thing. And or here's like one thing you can do with this product, like really well. And then everything else can get introduced like with time and stuff. And so I think with complexity, there's a temptation to explain. And there's a temptation to tell you everything that a product can do, like straight away. Let me. Like, let me show you everything amazing about it. Because, you know, you're in a business, slightly drinking the Kool-Aid, you're incredibly proud of the team and the work. And it is impressive work that's happening at so many places right now. But the hard thing, back to that product marketing being a little bit unpopular, is going, does the customer need to know about this right now before they've become a paying customer, for example? Or is it something that'd be way more valuable once they're actually settled in? understand the basics, are familiar with your dashboard or your home screen, and then introduce that idea. I think those are be it mistakes or risks that companies are taking right now. And so I think product marketing is there to try and force those difficult conversations around making choice.

• Speaker #0

  As you say, it's not about frameworks, but more about way of thinking. And that gives also a step back When we are focused on a specific project, as you say, there is also some emotion and we want to do the best way possible and sometimes we get lost in that. So that's important to have these reminders.

• Speaker #1

  It's so tough because you have product teams who are then representing designers and engineers who have spent often a lot of time on difficult things and their expectation is often, we want you to make a lot of noise about this straight away. What is your plan? How are you amplifying our work? How are you matching our energy? And you That's not always the right thing for the business or the customer. And that's a really hard one to navigate.

• Speaker #0

  We talked about how to be clearer, how to bring things simpler, even when there is some complexity. And I'm wondering, in this state today of the market where there is more and more products, AI, a lot of noise, How do we make to ensure that the product that we are selling really stands out on the market? And how do we enhance this unique positioning, if I can say so, without being the same as all other products?

• Speaker #1

  Of course. And that's something that I think, yeah, it's something B2B SaaS companies have faced for a long time. And it's just being really felt quite strongly at the moment, because it's never been easier to build products, right? And so I think, you know, I think ultimately, yeah, like product building has really taken this great leap. And it's like kind of that feels a bit unsettling. I think GTM distribution is still really hard, like because I think that whole that whole piece is is shifting. How people buy products is different. How people get their information, both on the lifestyle, like consumer side and the B2B side. That's really changed. in the last few years and i think i think people are largely immune to the the old tricks of sas and b2b so i think i think we're looking at um a next wave of activity i'm quite excited about it because like you know like i think um ai will will change a lot of that and i don't think it's as simple as you know llm's taking a chunk of seo i think it's um like like god knows i definitely can't imagine. what kind of like b2b marketing is going to look like in sort of three to five years time but i think the the companies that get good at differentiation will one um take that side of things really seriously in in terms of um unique like taking a unique approach and one that's also authentic and i and i think i think when you see like a company doing well at something like you know um something goes viral on social there's some content or like a video that you wish you'd done. There's that temptation from leadership to go like, we need to do one of those. But I think it's like actually taking a step back and going, what would we do? Like what's the thing that they achieved as a result of that? And how do we get there in our own unique way? So that's like one thing around like trying to find like your own authentic approach to distribution, because I think that's the thing. that can't like can't be like scaled as easily with ai right now i i think then product marketing again i think it becomes about to having opinions and decisions and focus on those real sweet spots of that who you're for in these like very like large when you've got a product that could solve for many different industries or personas having having opinions about okay who do we absolutely want to win like who you know who do you want to say like if if you're this kind of person or do this kind of job we are a no-brainer for you and then also like back to that being either like for a certain job to be done or the best at something because I think like it's a really diluted and like kind of boring and underwhelming message when you're trying to land we're cheaper we're faster we're better we're stronger we're uh the whole the whole daft punk song like you know like the uh basically if you're trying to like list all the ways that you you're like stronger it it stops losing all meaning and it either sounds a bit too good to be true or nothing lands and so a competitor that has a very kind of targeted message can can then win through just just obsessing over the right audience with the right the right thing for them and then just owning that part and that becoming quite defensible.

• Speaker #0

  I see what you mean and also what I like is that I think that we being close to products and seeing all what is happening we saw the differentiation a lot from the product prism like how do my product is different is as specific features that the other companies does not have and sometimes we forget that. differentiation is also about as you said the distribution the brand uniqueness and how do we make um create empathy and create uh um like people and customers willing to use a product because of the brand and the feeling that it uh it gives more than the product itself which is important but not only well

• Speaker #1

  i think that's exactly it and like there are absolutely no moats uh you can build when it comes to product features. I think there are... moats that you can you can kind of build like based on the infrastructure that you're like your your cta engineering team have decided to like build your tech around that become quite a strong like long-term strategic play that's really hard to communicate via product marketing i think the other like product focused like moat you can build and differentiation is like the ux the ui because the bar is still pretty low Thank you. when it comes to software experience in B2B. There's always exceptions, but if you think about it compared to how it feels to use Spotify or something, there's a long way to go. So the brands that nail that invest in that. And that takes a long time. It requires that idea to be at the heart of your business about a great software UX experience. That can be a moat, I think. Because, you know, like when two products are the same and one just feels a lot better to use, you know, that's the product I want to use. Kind of a bit of a kind of classic Apple Mac kind of from back in the day kind of comparison. I think that is product differentiation and almost, you know, to your point, an extension of brand philosophy. But on features like, oh, competitor X has Y, that's always been hard to like compete. compete against because there's nothing stopping a sales team right saying you've got it even if you don't um but but but now with the fact that product velocity is um like yeah so much faster than it was yeah that that that becomes like yeah much

• Speaker #0

  less meaningful do you have um some belief or um hot tech if i can say so about product marketing the product marketing role or the function today that even

• Speaker #1

  whether most people would disagree with or that you don't see too much on the market today and that you want to speak up there's one that i'd like i'd recommend like reading just i won't go into it again because it's um but but you know a couple of weeks ago i threw out the like what is gtm conversation and um product marketing talks about owning gtm but actually there are entire teams called gtm teams and we have no involvement in those or like you know we work with them but we're definitely not in them and that's quite a spiky topic because i think um yeah like i i think product marketing almost needs to sort of take a step back from gtm and except we don't own own that and move away from that rhetoric um so i i definitely recommend like anyone who's interested in that topic having a read um of that of that post i think for a new take yeah i'd be interested in your thoughts on this like maybe product marketing shouldn't actually be that involved you in launch week for a new product but before much more uh in anticipation before to some degree um but actually like increasingly less so in that i think what i'd like to see is product marketing not acting as the project manager for a product launch like as in i think the the role of the product marketer should be to be part of the team that conceives a new product idea and maybe you know the product marketer's gone and found found the insights and made the recommendation about what we should build that's like an amazing case but it doesn't have to be that doesn't have to be formalized because i think great ideas should come from from anywhere i think product management design and engineering have and user research all have equal claim and right to becoming a game i think we should be doing doing this and putting this on our roadmap But the very least product marketing should be bringing insights to the party and then being involved in that decision and probably like costing up, probably like bringing the commercial lens as well of like, okay, this is a good idea commercially. And then being the team that's like thinking about the story that you're going to tell about this product before anything gets built. Because like you've got to kind of kick the tires on it and go, does this product fit with everything else we're going to be doing in six months time? Is this a story that's actually going to, you know, a customer is going to care about this? doing that all kind of all that evaluation and validation and then you know you're leaning back a bit um but you're you're you're keeping in sync with the product team as it develops and if things are going off course um leaning in there and then i think you're

• Speaker #0

  as part as you approach your your product launch you're you're getting involved on the positioning and the naming um you're getting more in pricing very likely you're writing the value prop um for it for internally and then you know you're handing it off to all those channel experts designers like marketing designers copywriters um whoever's running the website email social you're giving them that that core steer and then letting them be the experts um at what they do but i think importantly i think a trend hopefully is that you're going to see more project management or more of integrated marketing taking on that like running the campaign because i don't think as we look at the sort of the trends of like what makes a like what like what product marketing is going to be on the hook for i don't think that plays well to a pmm's like future skill set um and i think it just adds a lot of noise to the role when that that you could be doing something much more effective with your time And then there's someone else who is a very skilled project manager and coordinator and communicator on that front running that part.

• Speaker #1

  I see what you mean, because it can indeed be frustrating for PMMs who they are meant to do, like, as you said, the positioning, messaging, define what would be the value prop, etc. But at the end, become more project managers of defining who does what and when the launch should be. and cannot focus so much on the core expertise of product marketing. And so I think this is the moment when it's complicated also to make understand the role in the teams and not being I'm just a product manager and defining what are the milestones and defining who does what. But I am indeed creating value and creating the specific assets that will be used then for the marketing experts.

• Speaker #0

  The trouble is you'll be at some companies where You'll try telling that to the CMO or the founder and they'll say, well, what the hell do you mean? That's what I hired you for, to come run my launches. That's a whole conversation, you know, to have. And, you know, some PMMs get a lot of their energy from that and like kind of want that, that dual role. But what I'd say is, yeah, like I think if you're in that scenario, which a lot of like founding PMMs find themselves in, I think now it's like viewing the AI products as that supporting team of channel experts. to you know so that you're you're not spending all your time on writing the emails and writing the web copy and and all of that you're at least you've got a sparring partner with that to do the v1 and then you're you're kind of getting over the line but i think what that does do is like frees up a lot of um time for pmms in a good way based on that uh what are for you the biggest challenge and also the opportunities for the pmms for the coming years there's this like big productivity challenge question coming for for PMMs in that, like, if you imagine that all this automation and AI generative content is going to free up so much of our time, I think, what are you going to do with all that spare time? You could be looking at like 40%, 50% of your time is freed up in theory, like for all that, all that busy work of joining meetings you didn't need to go to that now you can like read thorough notes on or read transcripts, like automate transcripts of all that time kind of doing non-PMM work of like content creation. I think fills up a lot of hours for people. Well, it's time you spend like crafting very diplomatic, nuanced internal comms to not upset anyone and manage stakeholders in the right way. That that's, that's, that's all so much easier now to do. And then what are you going to do with that free time? Because PMMs that I speak to, like one of the biggest frustrations is like, if I could only have a bit more time, I would, you know, we'd go reset the positioning and the whole like core company product. or I could have been involved in that new product discovery that we were like going into a new vertical or a new market and I could have like got more hands on in the strategy there. And I think, yeah, we're at this kind of crossroads where some PMMs are going to go, great, I've got 30, 40, 50% of my time back. I'm going to start doing that kind of work, showing people what good upstream strategic product marketing can look like. I think others, because you're... you're in the hamster wheel and you're in that mindset you you'll find other work that's like busy and you'll find another fire to jump on basically and i don't i don't think you should i think you should really fight that temptation um and go show that impact because it's what the person who hired you wants you to do really you know like when you're thinking about i think it's like the biggest risk for a product market is like career like performance reviews is doing non-product marketing work. Because even though at the time, when you jump on non-product marketing work, everyone loves the team player and everyone goes, oh my God, thank you. Like that would have been a disaster. When it then gets to that. six month or 12 month review, you're, you're going to find like, oh, I didn't actually do a lot of the remit. And it's very hard for someone to measure you on being a product marketer, when that's not been like, that's not represented more than 50% of your work or what whatever's ended up happening. So I think I think I'd encourage people to think that way. There's a reason I'm doing a product marketing job. And that should mean that I need and only you, you're the person. who cares about your career the most in the world and you're the person that has control of your career and can take control of it and is in the driving seat and you need to then set those boundaries and be very firm about you know I'm a product marketer I'm very opinionated about what it is I'm going to say no to that busy work that feels good because it's like something's broken or a team needs this which feels good in the moment but that is not going to contribute to your career development, but also your learning development, that you're not learning how to do product marketing yet, you're learning how to do generalist marketing or maybe like supporting product or so on.

• Speaker #1

  For sure, I think it's one of the most difficult things is to say no to specific topics and to really set boundaries of what product marketing actually means in the company I am in working for and to what extent I should support help other teams while there is support and collaborate and for me it's not the same and i think it's like how to step up also and say okay i am not doing this for you but maybe there is another way to work on it that brings value for product and as a product marketer and it's this shift of mindset and understanding how what it underlies um below all that that can add added value and also make more credible. the product marketer, because we really are clear about what the role, what the value we bring in and where we are the most impactful. And we know that. And I think it's important to share it and to say when there is no impact or low impact. If I do it as a PMM versus another team that should be more reliable on that. I also wanted to have some of your insights on your job today as a consultant. Because as you said at the beginning, you started at Google and in companies and you decided to shift towards more fractional work. And consultant, can you tell us more about why did you make this choice? And what was the most surprising when you started your consultancy?

• Speaker #0

  So there were a bunch of different reasons about why. I wanted to kind of set something up. I think I've always wanted to like do my own thing at some point in my career. Didn't quite know like what shape that would take or like how that would even work. And then I think from speaking with enough companies, realizing like, ah, there's, there's a bunch of businesses out there that I, that I would love to work for or with that all have a product marketing need, especially on the small and medium size, probably. can't justify or don't need a full-time senior director in-house but do have a very pronounced product marketing problem like as if we feel that we don't understand our customer anymore or we've never done positioning or the messaging and differentiation across the business is so inconsistent that everyone's just telling their own story so that was the theory going in that there would be lots of businesses with that and yeah it's kind of it's kind of played out and I'm I've got to say it's so much fun. We've talked quite a bit about setting boundaries in this conversation. And you really can as a consultant. And both for the success of the project, I've come in to do this big, big thing for you. I'll tend to come in for a three to six month project and it will be a big reset that has almost always company-wide implications that the CEO will need to sign off. A lot of the time happens is someone will message you saying, hey, I hear you've just joined your product marketing. Here's like 10 bits of collateral. Can you tidy these up? And you sort of have to politely say, sorry, no, that's not part of the project scope. And my stakeholder would probably be quite confused and frustrated if I started getting involved in that. But like an indirect consequence that I maybe didn't plan for, but I've ended up really enjoying is you end up like one by one. showing these clients what product marketing can be at their business. And a lot of the time you're dealing with companies that have never had it or they've had it and it's not worked out super well and they felt a little burned or a bit cynical about the impact of product marketing. And I come in and what I try and do is bring that clarity, bring that radical simplicity to these business on. okay have we got a clear answer who your customer is um what what your product is what like what we actually call it what is it like what's the value it brings what's the differentiation how do we turn that into like a powerful message that isn't diluted and then we'll so then i'll deliver i'm collateral for them be it you know either we'll work on a new website or new sales collateral or something they're getting to see the product marketing can be much more strategic than maybe they were aware but then also the they're having their assumptions challenged on the consultancy side as well because i'm not you know a lot of consultancies just turn up and go hey you should like go launch in latam and then and then wander off and don't help you at all um and um but actually you know some consultant coming in and then also delivering the recommendations for them so i love that i mean it's part of my the way i work like i almost always try and like lock in buy in from the founders or the ceo at least like like key members of c-suite um And I find that makes the projects like way more effective. It's more enjoyable for me, but it also means like, okay, the product is actually going to, it's going to land. We're going to roll it out across the business. People are going to listen because I think sometimes good product marketing can happen in silo and then no one ever hears it, sees it. And it's like, it's the rollout that doesn't happen. So, so yeah, so that's, I've shifted. I've sort of done a mix. I've done some fractional product marketing consultancy work. I've shifted more to like the value-based or like the project-based version where there is a big outcome that we're trying to achieve. And for me, I love that. It's a really nice way to work and has a natural endpoint like you can feel quite satisfied with. But I think fractional is also really in demand and like very needed right now. And I think that also this is a good market for... for general freelance PMMs who are more looking for like one-off pieces or yeah and I'm very happy to chat with anyone in Europe who's thinking about making that move it's this is another one of those things to go full circle where consultancy for PMM is quite established in the States but again very early days in Europe and again I chat to quite a few potential clients who are like what on earth would product marketing consultancy look like how is it going to work and so you have to kind of

• Speaker #1

  walk them through it and and be be quite confident in how you're going to deliver that is there any flip side on the main main challenges that you might have as a consultant or functioner that you didn't have when you don't have when you are in house a lot of the last like like

• Speaker #0

  five plus years i've been in leadership roles and that's pretty different you know you're you're guiding teams to you're trying to unlock great work from you like from great talent and and then also doing all the air cover and upwards management and trying to trying to keep your chief the chief product officer you know away from the team or whatever it is like whatever or probably ahead of sales um keeping them away like that that sort of thing um but less of the maybe the practical work and so for me i'm i'm enjoying like going back to like you know the you the hands-on like deep thinking product marketing work I'd say I think yeah like it's a bit but it's a bit of a bit of a sort of new world for me um that like I'm sort of establishing myself in and I think for the time being I'm I'm a I'm on my own I run it myself and I think one of my favorite bits of being a PMM was the collaborative um nature of it of like working with other product marketers you get a kick out of product marketing as much as um as I do And so maybe that's something I miss. And maybe it's like, you know, if things keep going well, I'll maybe look to have a couple of other people join the product marketer so I can have a bit more fun with it.

• Speaker #1

  Let's see how it goes.

• Speaker #0

  Exactly, exactly. Let's take it as it comes. Like for right now, it's like, I think my experience is in product marketing. I'm less experienced as a consultant. And so that's like kind of the fun working out bit for me is like, okay, how do we, how do we make the consulting model work for again? European tech businesses? How do we find a repeatable system that leaves happy customers? And then once I feel good that that is very repeatable, I think then you can look at scale.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, exactly. Step by step and not trying to anticipate too much as well, since the market is also changing a lot and it's having... an idea of where we want to go, but staying in the present and do first what we need to do to go to the direction that we would like.

• Speaker #0

  These are very unpredictable times we live in and one of my sort of themes at the moment is I think there's less value in long-term thinking, as you say.

• Speaker #1

  Thank you very much Rory for your time, it was a great pleasure to speak with you and to get a more better understanding on what's product marketing in Europe and the specificities and the big opportunities also that we have that yeah product marketing is still not new I would say but there are so much to do yet and I think it's also one of the strengths of the function is that there is it's

• Speaker #0

  not yet too much defined so that there is opportunities to make it the way we want and and to really enjoy it absolutely couldn't have said it better and thanks and thanks for having me on

• Speaker #1

  Have a good day. Bye. See you. Merci d'avoir écouté cet épisode jusqu'au bout. Si l'épisode t'a plu, n'hésite pas à le partager sur LinkedIn en me taguant. Tu peux aussi me soutenir en laissant un avis 5 étoiles sur Apple Podcasts et me laisser un commentaire. Ton aide est précieuse pour m'aider à faire connaître Product Marketing Stories et aussi m'encourager à créer davantage de contenu. Alors merci.