We caught up with Elizabeth Brigham, Head of Product Marketing (Software) at Morningstar, a couple of weeks after Elizabeth scooped the Product Marketing Leader of the Year title at the annual Product Marketing Awards to chat about her journey into the world of product marketing.
Enough from us, over to Bryony the editor at PMA and Elizabeth.
Full transcript below:
Bryony Pearce - PMA 0:00
So if you could just start off by telling everyone a little bit about yourself, so your name, who you work for where, you're located and that kind of thing.
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar 0:07
Sure, yeah. My name is Elizabeth Brigham. I'm the Head of Product Marketing for the software division of Morningstar Inc which is headquartered in Chicago. So I am based in Chicago but we do have 27 global offices as well.
Bryony Pearce - PMA 0:23
Awesome. And then what was it that made you want to become a product marketing manager in the first place?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar 0:30
Oh, wow. Yeah, that's a great question. So, I got into product marketing in 2012, so I've almost been in the realm for eight years now. I was in product management prior to that and so a lot of the similar roles just called product management instead of product marketing, you know, going back 10-11 years or so. I fundamentally love being able to deeply understand the people whom we're serving, whether it's with a solution or with a service or specific product, I always tell my team that empathy is currency. And so being able to incorporate and infuse the sort of humanity and human aspect into everything that we do, and lead with those deeper understandings of what challenges people are trying to solve, and then putting together a solution for those problems. I'm big into puzzles and solving problems as well in general, and so I think the combination of those two things is really what drove me to product marketing as a function.
Bryony Pearce - PMA 1:50
And then if you can just sort of talk us through your career path before you started at Morningstar?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar 1:55
Sure. So after undergrad I went into a Management Development Programme where a company who at the time were a 115-year-old industrial supply distribution company, they effectively had a well-oiled machine, and so far as taking liberal arts majors, putting them through sort of business bootcamp, as it were, and then getting people ready to go do an MBA. So after that, I did my MBA at University of Michigan, from 2007-2009 at the Ross School of Business. There was the first time I really got to see the sort of intersection of technology and marketing and psychology all come together. Apple actually came to campus before the release of the App Store, and put forth a case study or case competition rather, for us to participate in. And so a group of students and I put together a prototype and business case for an app that effectively would have been sort of a travel book in your pocket, all of us studied abroad, and saw some opportunity there. So we ended up winning the case competition and that was really my first kind of foray into technology and what that would bring. While at Michigan, in between my first and second years, I worked for Disney.com, as well, so that was another opportunity for me to see how storytelling, and sort of Disney-level storytelling, comes to life in a digital environment. And then, you know, business models around that at the time, they were primarily an ad sales driven business for Disney.com. So then I moved over to Disney Parks when I went back full time and I managed a number of websites for Disney Parks, like Disneyparks.com, the Disney Parks Moms Panel and some other things as well as spend about seven months at Disneyland Paris. So I was part of the magic band team and that overall project, so it was just about a billion dollar investment in the digital transformation of the guest experience, both online as well as in the park. So it was a phenomenal time to be at Disney Parks and see that transformation and to be part of that core team.
From there, I moved up to Portland, Oregon, as you know, people don't always talk about but when you're married and you have, you know, two people in the household working full time, you need to have that balance. So my husband finished his MBA, we moved up to Portland for his job, I went to work for a company called Jive Software and that's where I really got into high tech product marketing and made that transition. So we had a communication and collaboration suite of tools, kind of social intranets as well as customer communities, and I lead product marketing primarily for those customer communities across every single industry vertical, you know, spent 80% of my time on the road pitching alongside our account executives, did a lot of sales enablement and training, and I wore a lot of hats as that company was was public but a little bit smaller at the time. And then after that we moved back to Chicago and I went to work for a company, a startup called Timshel, wherein we built all of the backend technology, kind of the marketing automation APIs for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. And so yeah, in the depths and in the throes of all the things that went on with the 2016 election, many of which are sort of continuing in the National Register as it were right now.
But that was, you know, I was leading all of marketing there, we were about a 40 person team and my role was effectively to take what we had built for the campaign, which is what I said, you know, marketing automation APIs to sort of build this microservices infrastructure and take that to 1.2 million non-profits in the US, sort of build up, you know, how are we going to market? We know we have something that's tested at the highest levels of, you know, speed and performance and pressure testing, as it were. How do we make something viable for this market of people that are doing fantastic in the social impact work every single day. Unfortunately, that startup ran out of funding in December 2016, so then I started doing a little bit of consulting, really looking around Chicago, better understanding what was going on in the tech scene there, and I found out that product marketing was really fairly nascent as a discipline. I had a number of consulting gigs and different clients that I was able to kind of build up a little bit more about what product marketing is and does and the value that we bring. And then that led me to Morningstar about two and a half years ago, where I have been fortunate to build out the product marketing discipline for software nearly from scratch, and over that two and a half years we've tripled the size of the team, more than tripled the size of our scope and what we're responsible for, and have been a great sort of internal voice and advocate for what product marketing is and does and the value that we brought to the company.
Bryony Pearce - PMA 7:22
It sounds like you've had lots of exciting projects and travel in your time.
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar 7:29
Yeah lots, you know, no career is a straight line, right. But always in that sort of intrepreneurial-entrepreneurial type of vein, I'm very drawn for like as I was saying, you know, solving problems and building things from scratch, whether it's new products and processes or building up teams with great people.
Bryony Pearce - PMA 7:48
Awesome. And if there is such a thing, what does a standard day in your role look like?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar 7:56
That's interesting. Unfortunately, it's lots of meetings. So maybe unfortunately or fortunately, however you decide to slice it. I mean, we have a product portfolio that is nearly 10, you know, discrete products depending on how you slice it and I'm involved in kind of strategic discussions across the company across multiple business units, but then at all layers of the company, as well. So I tend to have 10 to 14, you know, 30-minute meetings back-to-back-to-back almost every single day. Yeah, it's you know, when I'm being honest with everybody, right, it's a lot of context switching, I have to make sure that I'm on top of my game with respect to understanding data, you know, what do we have all the programmes that are in flight? What are a variety of different product roadmaps that are coming to the fore? How are we supporting that? Then I could have a mix of meetings around just, you know, team structure. Typically, in order to just organise my week I do like to have all of my one-on-ones with my team on Mondays, or any sort of, you know, career development type conversations, so that we can kind of hit the ground running at the beginning of the week and I have a little bit more of an overview of, hey, where are some of the roadblocks? What do I need to prioritise my time for the rest of the week to hit those? And then I attempt to block my calendar on Friday, it doesn't always work, to have more thinking time, office hours type time, you know, on the spot conversations with people, but for the most part, it's a lot of meetings.
Bryony Pearce - PMA 9:43
And how many people are in your team?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar 9:45
Yeah, so we are eight now. I do actually have an open role on my team, so quick plug for that, as a Senior Product Marketing Manager role to kind of round out the team. But yeah, I've got a team of all women, which is fantastic, for the first time in my career. And that's quite rare, I think, in tech, in general. So I'm very, very proud of what we've been able to build as a team.
Bryony Pearce - PMA 10:17
In terms of teams outside of product market, like sales, product, operations, marketing and that kind of thing, which departments would you say you interact with most and what's your set-up with them like?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar 10:28
Yeah, that's a great question. I frequently evangelise the quad and what I mean by that is product marketing, product management, sales and service and then marketing I sort of loop in together as well with with product marketing, because product marketing does sit within the marketing organisation. So maybe it's five, five groups instead of the quad of four. But yeah, I see a lot of our work and I think we're slightly unique insofar as my team does do all the demand gen work as well. So that's why I say we're kind of one in the same right, product marketing and marketing, we sort of bleed those lines together. We work very closely with our partners on the website team, or digital team, to build out any sort of new product websites for a product launch that we may be taking to market. We have dedicated editorial staff as well as visual designers, who are helping us on everything as the, you know, seemingly small as a social card on Twitter to completely overhauling websites to creating massive booths for live events and other things like that. We have a small but growing and mighty sales enablement team. They sit under sales, they don't sit under me, but we interact with them nearly every single day. So whether it's on ongoing training, a product launch, right now we're talking about sales kickoff, you know, for January and getting ready for that. And then I do find it incredibly important that, and this sounds cliche at this point now, but that product marketing, and sales and product and that sort of triumvirate that we're all kind of connected at the hip. So the way that I've organised my team mirrors the sort of organisational structure of product management, as well as sales, so that we can have that one-to-one relationship. So as I was saying, you know, throughout any given day, I'm in multiple meetings with sales leadership, or some of the team leads talking about what's working, what are you hearing from a competitive perspective, is our messaging resonating? Sometimes it's a little bit more in the weeds on lead gen, and how are things coming forward and what our conversion rates look like, you know, from sales accepted lead into opportunity kind of runs the gamut. With our product partners, it tends to be much more, you know, roadmap focused, pricing and packaging type conversations, all those pieces. So, hopefully that answers your question, but there's all a connection of satellites and different orbits, right, that we have a variety of these different groups.
Bryony Pearce - PMA 13:22
awesome. And then in an absolute dream world, is there anything about those relationships you think could be better?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar 13:29
Oh, the trick question. Um, you know, it's interesting, I would say that I would love for my team to be much more client facing, and so we've been working with our sales counterparts and our product teams. We don't really have a fully built out sales engineering staff that you might see at other tech companies, or that I had seen, you know, in the past, we're looking at potentially growing that. A lot of our product management team is on calls, you know, all the time and supporting the sales teams that way and so my team hasn't had as many of those experiences. We've certainly made really good forays into that, but just haven't kind of solidified it. So I'd say that's my next vision. Because as I was talking about at the top of the call, you know, I really believe empathy is currency. So the extent to which my team can be, you know, in lockstep with our clients, hearing what questions they're asking here and what concerns or objections that they have, that's going to be very important.
Bryony Pearce - PMA 14:41
And then what would you say the top three skills are that have helped you get where you are today?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar 14:53
You know, that's tough. One I would say is relationship building, hands down. That's the first thing I do when I go into any new company, I try to meet as many people as possible, I try to prioritise my time, obviously, with those with whom I would be working most closely, but understanding them at a very deep level, because without that trust, initially going in, you're not going to be able to move quickly, you're not going to be able to, you know, get things done. So hands down, it's that working on my relationship building skills. Secondly, and I'm sitting amidst the very tall oak trees here at my alma mater so I'm getting a little nostalgic, which is Davidson College. So I'm, you know, liberal arts background and I think the ability to look across a seemingly disparate set of things, whether that's data, whether it's groups of people, whether it's products, see connections that others might not have seen previously, and then building something and being able to articulate you know, what that solution could potentially be, as you generate some of those new ideas. That's been another big piece that again, I ascribe back to my liberal arts background, where you had to take classes across every single discipline, you had to see things that otherwise, you know, you wouldn't equate biology with a music class, but there are connections there. So that was important. And I think the third thing too, it sounds pretty basic, I guess, but showing up and caring about my team, about what we're trying to accomplish, being present there listening to people, but really, you know, holding myself accountable for delivering. And also speaking up and saying when I don't know the answer to something but I'm going to go find it out, right. So showing up. There's a lot packed into that but yeah, those would be the three things.
Bryony Pearce - PMA 17:03
Okay. Awesome. Thank you. And then at Morningstar, would you say there's a lot of crossover between what you do and what a product manager does?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar 17:13
There is to a certain extent. So we have two different kind of flavours or focus areas for product management. One is more what we call commercial product owners, and then there's more technical product managers. And I would say with the former, that's where we have a lot more natural, overlap's the wrong word, but sort of just natural collaboration, mostly because they are looking at, again, kind of one to three-year time horizon, where is the business going, they understand the competitive set, they have had, you know, a lot of experiences, as I just mentioned previously, with our clients. But at the end the day, their ultimate deliverable is, you know, working with those more technical product managers to drive the roadmap. Whereas for us, our deliverables manifest in more sales enablement type of material, you know, your pitch decks, your playbooks, your sales FAQs, actually giving that training. And then of course, as I mentioned before, you know, our team has all the the demand gen aspects of it right now, too, so there's definitely overlap and collaboration, but I wouldn't say we're duplicating efforts so to speak.
Bryony Pearce - PMA 18:34
And would you say it's quite important for those lines to be quite defined to an extent?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar 18:41
I do. It's interesting. I mean, I think there's probably opportunity in some organisations to, you know, collapse some of those groups or, you know, it just I think it depends on the complexity of the product you're building and so far as how many you need. So, that, yeah, I don't know, it's kind of a tough question to answer, you know, but to a certain extent Product Marketing, Product Management, I mean, maybe if we blew up the names of everything, right, and just said, like, you understand the market and the buyers and the competitive set, and you know, over here, you figure out what to go build, I mean effectively that's what it is. I don't know, I'm sure people have put forth better names, but I feel like some people unnecessarily get tripped up by that distinction, you know, and at the end of the day, hey, it's a skill set that is definitely needed. So regardless of what we call it, you have to have it to be successful, at least in a tech organisation, in my perspective,
Bryony Pearce - PMA 19:55
Yeah, that makes sense. And then what does the process of introducing and influencing new products or features look like?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar 20:04
Yeah, on my team, you know, because I would say over the last two and a half years we've gotten a lot more closely tied with the product management group, we have participated in a lot more market research with them, you know, kind of side by side, before anything gets built. We've had the ability to influence, okay, what questions are we even asking during that research? And so I think we're evolving that, but certainly, we have had an earlier seat at the table, so to speak, in the last, you know, 18 months, kind of on the backs of proving the value that we bring to the organisation. It just so happened when I came into the organisation we had, we were kind of at the end of a very large development cycle, and so I had products that were kind of ready to go and immediately needed to be launched, so the extent to which we've had other products in development, we've had an earlier seat in a lot of those discussions. I think moving forward where we've had more influence has been in packaging and pricing rather than, you know, the sort of roadmap. So saying, hey, I know we went to market with this particular thing, it resonated in some segments but not all, so why don't we think about moving to that sort of good, better best model or, you know, having some other versions that would be available and more appropriate for a particular market segment based on the research that we've done, if that makes sense?
Bryony Pearce - PMA 21:37
Yeah, absolutely. And would you say that level of influence is quite similar to other companies you've worked at before Morningstar?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar 21:46
Oh yeah, I would say so. I mean the one exception really, for me, was when I worked at Jive. So we had many more, I would say, technical product managers and product marketing sort of function as that commercial product owner role that I mentioned before. So I had a bit more influence over what we were planning to build in some respects. I actually helped, I worked on a project to build a suite of mobile apps from scratch and in effect kind of worked as more of that commercial product owner doing all the upfront research, really building out the specs based on what we had heard and a lot of that qualitative and quantitative research, and then worked with much more technically oriented, you know, product managers to figure that out, and then build out, you know, the full go to market strategy. It was more of I would say, tiger team, skunk works, you know, type of group, so maybe that's a bit of an anomaly looking at the broader picture but yeah, I think it's fairly fluid and really dependent on the culture of the company.
Bryony Pearce - PMA 22:58
Yeah, for sure. And then what, if anything, do you think needs to change about product marketing?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar 23:06
Hmm. You know, I would say, again, the hang up of what we call ourselves versus just getting on with it and getting the work done. You know, because there is a lot of value that we bring to the table, what what I've seen now working in companies that are startups all the way up to, you know, some of the largest brands in the world with Disney, and especially kind of in the startup space, many companies feel that market research will take them too long. You know, they see them like, oh my god, we're going to go spin our wheels for six months and we're not going to get an MVP out the door and I fundamentally disagree with that. I think you can do quick and dirty market research and talk to 15 of your friends and get to a point of diminishing returns like in the period of less than two weeks, right? Because I've done it. Where you have some really good insights to help you drive that. And so, the more that we can evangelise that research is not something that needs to take forever, we very much have a scientific approach to how we look at the market and do the things that we do, and that we can be just as fast and nimble as some of the other departments. I think it's just more on the education front that we need to help people, you know, again, get out of the forget what we're called, but let's just educate you on the importance of some of the core skill sets that we have, and ultimately the value it can bring to the business. You know, I had a few years ago, I'd done some research and wrote about this a bit, and I think people have seen this before, but something like you know, 80-90% of startups fail and one of the top reasons that they do is product market fit. Fundamentally, that is something that product marketers come in and help with, right, assessing the market, what are the problems that we're trying to solve, for whom, what's compelling, what's their willingness to pay for a solution for this, how acute is their problem set, etc.
Bryony Pearce - PMA 25:43
Sounds good. And then, if there were any new or aspiring product marketers listening right now, what would your advice to them be?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar 25:53
Oh, yeah. Wow. You know, typically, maybe I'm a little bit bias in this, I think there's kind of two paths. One is that a lot of the core skill sets of a product marketer you can get through an MBA programme, so that's kind of one route depending on where they are in their careers. But today, honestly, there are so many classes online that you don't necessarily need to take, you know, two years out of your career to go get an MBA, you can get a lot of those classes online. But ultimately, you know, again, honing the skills around research, understanding the market, being able to use data to drive a point home and to build a business case, I think those are all important skills.
Bryony Pearce - PMA
Could you just talk us through what winning the Product Marketing Leader of the Year award meant to you?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar
Yeah, it was an incredible honour. One, it's been so great to be part of this crew kind of from the beginning, from that first invitation to the Slack channel. And, you know, getting the World Series and the summits together and all that, I was incredibly humbled to read the nomination that my team gave that cut across not just my immediate team, but also our partners and sales and others in marketing and product. That was, that was really incredible. So I feel like I've tried to do my best to be a steward and an advocate for the discipline for many, many years, so I very much appreciate the award.
Bryony Pearce - PMA
And what were your thoughts on the summit as a whole in San Francisco?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar
Yeah, so one, it just felt like for the first time I was in a room with all of my kin, so to speak, you know, I've been doing Product Marketing formally for about eight years now at this point, I feel like I've been doing it for much longer, but it just didn't have that sort of title. And so the consistency in the questions that people were asking, the content that was being put forth, and so far as those are all the same questions we're asking each other every single day, and so it really did feel like a meeting of the minds of hey, these are really great business problems and business questions to be addressing and then that there was a support group, you know, for that to have, hey, we, we don't always have it all right, but there are definitely other people out there from whom we can learn and innovate together, so I thought it was fantastic to have that group together.
Bryony Pearce - PMA
I guess sometimes in a way it's just nice to know someone has the same pain as you isn't it, just to know you're not the only one struggling with something.
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar
Right, yeah exactly the support group, ability to vent, but then also to, you know, come up with new things to do together was great.
Bryony Pearce - PMA
Awesome. And then what would you say your greatest achievement at Morningstar has been to-date?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar
Wow. That's a big question. I mean, I always kind of point to coming into something where we had product marketing in name but not necessarily in discipline. So being able to have the trust of senior leadership to be able to create something from scratch and to really employ this sort of test, learn innovative model and very much almost like a startup type of environment in a 6000 employee company has been really gratifying. So just being able to lay the foundation and then also, not just from a process or you know, building out this incredible team perspective, but also to see the real business results come through, where we have continued to drive, you know, over 200% return on investment of anything that we're doing in marketing, where we have enabled to help influence and bring the voice of our clients into the product development process, where we've been able to create a new kind of go to market or launch type of plan, not only for the US, but also globally and sort of expand that out. So it's been great to have a seat at the table, I think, but then also to more deeply understand our clients and be able to drive real business value as well.
Bryony Pearce - PMA
And in terms of laying the foundation, was that kind of new to you? Or have you had to do that in previous companies or in the past have you walked in somewhere that already has this product marketing function established?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar
Yeah, kind of a mixed bag of both. So my career has been this kind of series of Intrapreneurship-entrepreneurship, almost like military missions so to speak, of you know, setting up new processes, new teams, launching or building products from scratch, and so I think a lot of what I did here, I had honed those skills in the startup I was at before. When I was at Jive, there was already a product marketing function there, but being able to kind of learn, you know, going back eight years ago, kind of cut my teeth there. But even when I was at Disney prior to Jive, you know, I was in product management, quote, unquote, but a lot of the same types of skill sets and responsibilities and being able to build a business from scratch there inside a $12 billion business of Disney Parks at the time, you know, a lot of this type of, again, Intrapreneurship skill sets I've been honing over the past, you know, 10, even 15 years. So it's been a natural progression, but definitely an opportunity to lead one of the largest teams I've ever lead and kind of build that out from scratch.
Bryony Pearce - PMA
Awesome. And then do you think you could attribute your current kind of success in the product marketing industry down to an individual or series of people or events? Or would you say it's more of a combination of a whole load of things?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar
Oh, man. I'm so grateful across my entire life for having access to really good educators and teachers. Even going back to college and undergrad I always tell people, especially in the sort of post-recession environment, people are questioning liberal arts degrees. And you know, when I was at Davidson, I had one professor who was kind of like my second dad, and another retired Dean of Students who was kind of like my grandfather, you know, he was a wise owl who was guiding me. And then I had the opportunity to also build something from scratch there and so far as producing concerts and building a completely new kind of concert committee, and so having their support and driving me through I think gave me the confidence to try new things to leverage, I was an English major, so you know, reading all this fiction and all this literature effectively helps you understand characters, what their motivations are, if you put a certain character in a situation, how are they going to react? And so that kind of foundation from a liberal arts perspective, I think, sometimes people don't talk about it as much anymore, but the ability to kind of synthesise lots of data put together a cogent argument, being able to articulate yourself clearly, and understand many different types of people and personalities at that level, I would say is the fundamental kind of core of what's helped me through my career. And then, along the way, having some really good mentors at every single company that I've worked for to kind of push that through in a particular business construct.
Bryony Pearce - PMA
And then final question to do with the awards, do you have any words of wisdom for any kind of aspiring people wanting to win this award next year?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar
Oh my. Well, I just like to say if you're a leader, you know, I feel like leadership falls somewhere on the spectrum between complacency and chaos. And I was thinking, again, going back to my English major I've been reading recently some T. S. Eliot poetry and one of the poems, Love Song J. Alfred Prufrock talks about, there's this line that says, do I dare disturb the universe? And in a minute, there's time for decisions and revisions that a minute will reverse. And I think those two pieces really sort of encapsulate leadership and so thinking about how are you taking care of your team. How are you making sure that they show up in rooms when they're not physically present and their ideas are being recognised and the work that we're doing, but also that you can prove with data that you're really bringing a lot of business value to whatever organisation or community or client group or whatever you're, you're kind of focused on. I think that combination of the sort of humanity and the data, and those two things coming together to tell a really good story is something important that I think will help drive Product Marketing forward. We have to show the business value that we're bringing, it can't just be this sort of gut feel 'oh we were part of, you know, such and such sales deal'. Like no, it's kind of the show, don't tell. So I'd say for any aspiring, you know, person who wants to win this award is do right by your team, make data a core part of who you are and what you do, and, you know, move confidently in the direction of your dreams, I guess, right? Like really pushing for innovation and driving the business.
Bryony Pearce - PMA
Okay, great. Thank you. So you've recently been shortlisted as a top 50 influencer by PMA, so just a couple of questions to go alongside our report for that. What would you say your favourite aspect of being a product marketing manager is?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar
Hmm. You know, I think that there are a couple of things. One, I have an amazing team. And every day my job is to coach and to help them be their best, and so I love that. I think the second piece is that because Product Marketing, even though in the name it says product, what we really do is understand our clients and understand the people out in the market who can be potentially users of our product, and so we have a much higher level kind of lens, especially in organisations like Morningstar, where we have multiple products, multiple buyers, multiple markets and every single global region around the world in which we're operating. We have a purview that cuts across the core of the business strategy, and so I think that is something that is differentiated, let's say, from being in product management, where maybe you're just kind of thinking about one particular product or maybe even a suite of products, but you're so focused on the roadmap, whereas we have a much broader, I would say like strategic perspective, in a lot of ways, and so far as, what should we be building, how should we be positioning and how are we competitively positioned, how do we package, how do we price and how do we ultimately go to market.
Bryony Pearce - PMA
Okay, awesome. Second question, if a C suite executive was listening to this right now and they didn't, say they didn't see the need for a product marketing manager in there company, what would your advice to them be?
Elizabeth Brigham - Morningstar
That's a fantastic question. I would say, depending on the size of the company, but one thing that really stands out to me and I've written about before is, you know, there's quotations out there anywhere between 80 and 90% of new businesses fail, whether that's a startup or whether that's a, you know, new product line or new business you're choosing to launch with an existing company. And, some of those reports when they go back and they ask CEOs or others within the C suite, well, why do you think you failed? The number one answer that comes back is product market fit. And the way that I kind of break that down is saying, well, you've got a product and a lot of people might think like, this is the cool new shiny thing and a lot of times what I've seen, especially in smaller, more nascent companies, as you know, the founder or the person who built it had that problem and then tries to go find a market, whereas Product Marketing actually assesses the market assesses, you know, what sort of core competencies that organisation already have, and then pulls that empathy and that understanding of the market into what should we go build, because we fundamentally understand there's an acute pain point going on here for which people are willing to pay for a solution, and that is truly the value that a product marketing manager brings to the table. In fact, it's taking down the risk or lowering the risk of investing a lot of money, whether it's in people or product development or acquiring something new, and de-risking that investment, and so I think that would be a fairly compelling argument to any C suite executive, especially at smaller companies, but even in larger, more established companies who are thinking about how to allocate their assets maybe for the coming year.
Bryony Pearce - PMA
Okay, awesome. Well, thank you very much for your time answering those.
