Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons, the chief executive officer at qualitance and we have got to the third installation. And the final part of our three-part series into product and marketing integration previously, you know, we talked about data and what you measure.

We talked about the key starting point, and today we're going to kind of shift a little bit more in to people and teams, because let's be honest, it's people who get the job done. So let's learn six mantras that remind us of the vital vital ingredient for product and marketing teams. And that's collaboration because if we ain't working together, it doesn't really matter.

How good your dashboard, your spreadsheet, your [00:01:00] code, your design, your Adobe XD, your Figma files. None of that really matters if people aren't on the same page. So what I wanted to do now is I wanted to take six mantras that I think you can. Celebrate adhere to remind yourself of remind your colleagues of these matches will bring people together and remind everybody of our common language, because I believe that these six mantras truly do speak to product and marketing people alike.

And my mission here is to really bring them together. To create harmony amongst them, because what is so crazy is decades ago, the, one of the greatest business thinkers, Peter Drucker said that the only two things that really matter are product development. And marketing, they are the true innovation drivers.

[00:02:00] So I've got these six mantras that come from some of the latest cutting edge methods, practices, and frameworks, but I think they would equally inspire you today as they would Peter Drucker some 50 years ago. So let's get into the big six Manches for collaboration. Let's get into six ideas that can bring us a common language, a common set of values and beliefs in order to build product and marketing teams that are truly integrated, that can go out and do great things.

Okay. Number one, build measure, learn. You know, the reason this works for me is when I think about marketing and launching a brand new product with this great campaign is. If you do all this great testing and validation in the product development, why wouldn't you do it in the marketing as well? So when we talk about build, measure, learn as mentioned, number one, [00:03:00] I think this will speak to product and marketing people alike.

And with the. Way in which we need to fight for the attention of the user. We need to understand that the user's changing a lot right now in their behaviors that experiences build, measure, learn. I think that's like the only way a marketer can practice good marketing in 2021. So that's really our first mantra build, measure.

Learn. Hmm. I like that. Number two, test the entire funnel. Now again, equally for product and marketing people. When I was introduced. To the world of marketing and advertising people talk so much about reach frequency, impressions. Um, it's so funny how there was a real obsession of just hit the top line numbers and everything will be pretty good.

But actually when we talk about. [00:04:00] The best marketing practices in 2021, they don't test just the top of the funnel. They test the entire funnel. So test the entire funnel is our second mantra. But the most interesting thing here is if we flip this, if you're a product person, then of course you want to test the entire funnel because you need to identify what your customers like.

What they're prepared to pay for how long you can retain them. And at the bottom of the funnel, the lead generator, ironically enough is the referral. How often do our customers refer the product to new customers? I mean, that is definitely one of the most important things, because face it, if your customers come to you, Through the good words of your existing customers, new people come because existing customers love the product.

Well, they will convert [00:05:00] better. They will convert quicker. And if you get your viral coefficient, right, every customer you win. Imagine this another entire customer was recruited. Thanks to that. I mean, that's momentum, that's scalable as well. So whether your product or marketing test the entire funnel. Now, the next thing is, you know, my big thing here is I don't just, you know, noodle away on all these methods and frameworks and so forth.

I truly believe that the same attention needs to be paid towards customers. So you have to build trust for high-performance team. And I've done a lot of work with Patrick. Lencioni's five dysfunctions of a team. That's the starting point. And at the anchor. Of high-performance team is trust. They believe in each other.

They believe in that each and every member will take care of not only of their own job, but the entire mission as well. So trust is essential. So whether you're productive, [00:06:00] Or a marketing team or cross discipline multidisciplinary team trust is key, particularly if you're not as experienced with an area of practice, um, you really do need trust because you might not know if they're a good marketing person, because you're a product person.

Well, That's where trust will be essential. So vulnerability is the key to trust. Go check out, um, our work that we've done on, uh, culture and teams [email protected]. If you're interested in that, I'm a big proponent of the work of Patrick Lencioni and the five dysfunctions of a team. Now we've got three mantras so far build measure, learn, test the entire funnel and build trust for high performance teams.

I got another three for you here. Stimulate the senses. This is born out of my breakthrough. My aha moment of any idea should be put in front of a customer. Any idea can [00:07:00] be tested, can be prototyped. And I really encourage you to embrace that. So whether you want to. Work out what story to tell for the product or what's actually should be in the product.

It doesn't matter stimulate the senses. Now I'm very particular about saying the senses because when people sit in a focus group and prob Noster Kate about whether they would like something, they're just guessing. Because it's not in front of them. It's not in context. It's not the direct experience. If you truly want to know if you've got a product worth building, stimulate the senses, test it, validate it through prototyping, really essential stuff.

Now the next one is that obviously brings us all that prototyping brings us to a great practice. Uh, this is one where you demonstrate when you really live empathy for your users, walk in their shoes, see how they feel, think, and do work out the things that might relieve their pains and create their gains.

[00:08:00] It's all about empathy for your users. And lastly, rounding out the six build small teams. I continually see small teams working faster and better than big teams. You know, Jeff Bezos has the two pizza rule. If a team can't be fed by two pizzas, it's to be, and I really wholeheartedly agree, build small teams.

Let them be autonomous, give them on audacious, go and just let them go and ask yourself, what can I do to help? So there you've got six matches and what's interesting is each and every one of those build off a practice that you can go to bottom up.io and study take the course we've got build, measure, learn that's classic lean startup.

We've got a course on that tick test, the entire funnel. Well that's growth marketing that you will find on our site very soon. And there's already some great marketing courses there today. [00:09:00] Build trust for high-performance teams. That's all about people and culture stimu...