Building With Buyers

Yi Lin Pei is 3x PMM leader turned coach, advisor, and founder of Courageous Careers where she’s helped 400+ product marketers navigate their career.

We discuss:

Product ships on a weekly basis. At the same time, marketers can pump out endless content. But the customer’s ability to absorb product change doesn’t work like that. How to navigate this disconnect and why your checklist launches don't work anymore.

Here's the LinkedIn post we mention that talks about the GTM Launch Canvas: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/yilinpei_productmarketing-productmanagement-launch-share-7429939301456703488-9Giz/

Jump in:

03:06 Traveling to Scotland

07:15 Checklist launches and their pitfalls

11:11 Reevaluating launch strategies with first principles thinking

12:32 Implementing phased product launches and public beta testing

15:28 The value of building in public and transparent launches

17:12 The GTM Launch Canvas

19:12 The book 'Loved' and its influence

20:03 The effectiveness of a one-page go-to-market canvas

23:00 Unlearning cookie-cutter launch templates

24:37 First principles thinking in product marketing

27:55 Aligning messaging themes with customer and market needs

30:33 Innovative marketing tactics like physical events and street campaigns

32:21 The importance of brand and storytelling in B2B launches

33:11 Building a product marketing team: vision, structure, and traits

36:06 The evolving role of the "superPMM" and future skills

40:25 The importance of strategic thinking and mini GMs in marketing

44:38 Using insights from business analysis to drive product success

46:24 The real role of product marketing in business strategy

Subscribe to Building With Buyers on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show.

Yi Lin on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/yilinpei

Yi Lin's newsletter: www.courageous-careers.com/newsletter

Anna on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠One Insight⁠⁠⁠

Building With Buyers is a show for marketing leaders on how to grow companies without losing sight of the buyer. Too many teams end up stuck in the office, staring at whiteboards and spreadsheets, chasing revenue while the buyer experience becomes an afterthought. This show is about proving you can have both — real growth and a buyer experience that actually surprises and delights. Hosted by me! Anna Furmanov.

The PMM role is under real pressure right now.
VPs of Marketing and CMOs are being asked to do more with less: fewer headcount approvals, leaner teams, tighter budgets. And PMM is often the first place that gets squeezed.
Instead of hiring a full-time PMM, companies ask the existing team to absorb the work. Or they bring in a fractional. Or they just... don't do it, and wonder later why GTM feels off.
At the same time, the scope of what PMMs are expected to own has exploded.
Positioning, messaging, sales enablement, competitive intelligence, content strategy, analyst relations, product launches...and more.
And now there's AI on top of it, which hasn't lowered the pressure to produce more, faster.
So here's my take: we're at a real inflection point for this role. And in this episode, I explain where I believe we're headed.

Here's the LinkedIn post where I talked about it first.

Jump in:

02:26 - Marketing teams are under pressure to do more with less

03:38 - The PMM scope has expanded beyond what it was 5 years ago

04:09 - Introducing the "superPMM"

04:39 - Using ahaPMM to speed up customer research synthesis

05:22 - Building messaging infrastructure with MojoPMM

06:07 - Faster creative and landing page production using Claude, Figma, and Vector

06:31 - Why AI still needs human judgment07:32 - Execution is democratized, but judgment is not

08:17 - Why this topic is getting so much engagement

Subscribe to Building With Buyers on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show.

Anna on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Website (getting a facelift, stay tuned): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠One Insight⁠⁠

Finally doing a solo episode! 'Bout time.

I talked to 18 CMOs / Mktg VPs for 9 hours about what is super intense for them right now and then I analyzed what I heard and packaged it up for you. Here's the report. Let me know if you have any questions as you review + please share with your team and your marketing leader friends.

Jump in:

00:00 - Intro to the research
00:33 - The motivation behind exploring in-depth insights
01:14 - The "Aha Moment" skill for finding truths
01:57 - The scoring system
02:45 - The mess AI leaves behind
03:11 - What's going well
05:09 - The surprising top needs
06:02 - Governance over AI
06:27 - The debate: buy or build
07:07 - Internal marketing is even more important today
07:53 - The challenge of product builds outpacing marketing playbooks
08:13 - Leadership burnout
08:41 - Visibility concerns from AI search and zero click
09:02 - The bottleneck of editing content produced by AI
10:04 - Creating a clear AI governance system to help avoid chaos
11:35 - Product survival in an AI future
12:38 - Example of a company moving towards in-house tool development
13:32 - The importance of differentiation, distinction, positioning, story, brand
14:06 - Winning through relationships, outcomes, and showing up at the right moments (memorable)
15:01 - The case for powerful storytelling and brand
15:38 - Organizational shifts - the org chart is changing
16:11 - The impact of AI on headcount and organizational structures
16:33 - CEOs' perspectives on AI replacing marketing jobs and the potential fallout
17:19 - Leveraging AI to scale teams
20:23 - The overall mood is that two things are true

Subscribe to Building With Buyers on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show.

marketing leaders intense needs report: https://marketing-needs-synthesis.vercel.app/

Anna on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠One Insight⁠⁠⁠

Rob Snyder is founder and advisor to b2b startups, Fellow at Harvard Innovation Labs, and Operating Partner at Grix VC. He wrote a book called The Power of PULL which I recommend to folks that are building 0 to 1 (and beyond).

We discuss:

Quick explanation of PULL;

Anything less than "Hell Yes!" is a no, but this is not what we learn in sales;

The Rule of One and focus on one person when you’re creating your PULL hypothesis;

Are aesthetics even meaningful;

Why selling and delivering needs to be a startups primary form of research (wait what about customers);

What happens when you had PULL, scaled it, and now growth is stalling;

One thing you're working on that you don't fully know how to solve yet.

Jump in:

02:14 Understanding the Concept of PULL

08:58 The Importance of Hell Yes Customers

12:38 The Rule of One in Customer Understanding

17:07 Aesthetic Differentiation: Meaningless or Meaningful?

22:49 Customer Conversations versus Sales Conversations

28:44 Navigating Sales Challenges and Growth Stalls

33:05 Understanding Demand vs. Supply in Startups

39:42 Rob’s Current Struggles

Subscribe to Building With Buyers on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show.

Rob on LinkedIn: ⁠www.linkedin.com/in/rsnyder1

Rob's website: ⁠robsnyder.org⁠

Anna on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠One Insight⁠⁠

Maitri Sheth is Senior PMM at Hubspot, previously PMM at Gong.

We discuss:

From B2C to B2B marketing, me too! How has b2c shaped your approach to b2b product marketing;

Previously Gong, now Hubspot. What did you do in your first 90 days;

One PMM workflow that you’re excited about;

Do you feel like you have a good grasp on how AI workflows tap into meaningful business results;

Marketing is using creativity to solve business problems. Share how you infuse creativity into your work;

Hubspot is 12k+ ppl! How do you get the rest of the org to adopt the same story;

How do you approach writing with AI in your role.

Jump in:

03:04 The Importance of Listening in PMM

06:06 B2C thinking in B2B

09:06 First 90 Days at HubSpot

12:00 Understanding Customer Needs

14:46 Pattern Recognition & Beyond Patterns

17:59 The Value of Direct Customer Engagement

21:08 Streamlining PMM Workflows with AI

24:03 Navigating Rapid Product Engineering Releases

26:45 Evaluating AI Tools and Their Impact on Business Results

32:56 the problems with "Blank Slate"

35:13 The Role of AI in Productivity

38:43 Creativity in Marketing

41:30 Balancing AI and Human Creativity

51:19 Effective Messaging Across 12,000 people

Subscribe to Building With Buyers on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, tell me what you're listening to, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show.

Maitri on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/maitri5

Hubspot: www.hubspot.com

Anna on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠One Insight⁠⁠

Natalie Marcotullio & Mark Kilens invited me on their podcast GTM News Desk.

We discuss:

How do you build messaging that actually sticks across every team that touches it?

How do you know when an "insight" is genuinely worth acting on or when it's just a pattern dressed up in fancy words?

What does it take to teach AI to think like you, not just write like one version of you?

Mojo Founder Eric Holland and I reveal what's really broken about how B2B companies develop and distribute their messaging. We dig into why most customer research is pulled from the most biased data available and how to document your decision-making, not just your knowledge, so AI can actually replicate your judgment. We also provide answers to why chasing every new AI workflow is making most marketers worse, not better. Eric and I challenge the idea that volume of insights equals quality of insights, arguing that a single finding that changes how your whole company goes to market is worth more than a hundred tagged Gong quotes.

Jump in:

(00:00) We need a higher standard for b2b research

(00:35) What CMOs are actually talking about at conferences right now

(04:40) How shame and fear became the default AI adoption strategy

(08:41) The difference between AI-exhausted and AI-excited teams

(12:44) Four Tendencies and what it means for AI adoption

(16:31) Why B2B messaging is broken even at well-funded startups

(19:14) What separates Mojo from just pointing Claude at your Notion

(27:26) What good writing actually feels like and whether AI can get there

(32:17) The solar plexus test and how to know when your copy is working

(34:05) Why nuance and emotion are the real gap in AI writing

(39:27) Why most insight tools are just pattern-matching machines

(44:19) How to check if your researcher is actually any good

(47:30) The danger of everyone using the same workflows to find the same "insights"

(50:01) What B2B marketing gets wrong that B2C figured out long ago

(53:21) Go deep on one thing for a quarter

(55:22) Why you should only build what you already know in your sleep

Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-holland-not-a-marketer/ 

Connect with Anna: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov/ 

Mojo: https://mojopmm.com/

Mojo + Moxie: https://mojo-and-moxie.com/

Natalie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalie-marcotullio/

Mark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markkilens/

Hi, we need to talk. This is important.

One of the worst things that AI is doing to PMMs right now: making pattern recognition look like insight. I've been surprised how many tools give you dozens of "insights" without anything to back it up other than pattern recognition and quotes. Just because something came up multiple times doesn't make it an insight! Please hear me out, we must do better.

00:00 The disconnect between interesting information and decision insights

02:48 Defining decision insights

05:16 Emotional insights in B2C

07:48 The limits of current research tools

10:07 Introducing Aha PMM

12:55 Why decision insights matter today

Subscribe to Building With Buyers on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, tell me what you're listening to, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show.

Aha PMM ⁠blog article⁠

Anna on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠One Insight⁠⁠

Eric Holland is a recovering product marketer who quit his job to focus on custom messaging assistants + interactive demos.

Founder @Mojo PMM: Burn your boring messaging doc. Mojo is your custom messaging assistant that creates bold, persona-specific messaging for anything you need, that your whole team wants to use. I recently joined Eric at Mojo PMM as their first ever Messaging Whisperer.

Co-Founder @DemoDash: 100+ interactive demos shipped for Navattic customers (that’s actually how we met).

Also co-hosts the We’re Not Marketers podcast.

We talk about messaging & AI, specifically:

Can AI help you write copy?

Should AI help you write copy?

Marketing teams are moving faster with AI, but not necessarily making better decisions. What’s broken?

What we're building and why.

Subscribe to Building With Buyers on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, message me what you're listening to, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show.

Eric on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/eric-holland-not-a-marketer

Mojo PMM: mojopmm.com

Anna on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠One Insight⁠

In the last episode (270), Caitlin Sullivan (AI + Customer Research expert) asked me "what would have to change for you to feel that AI is trustworthy?" It's a really good question and I answer it in this short episode.

Subscribe to Building With Buyers on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, message me what you're listening to, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show.

Anna on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠furmanovmarketing.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠One Insight⁠