Product Marketing Adventures

Elle: Let's be honest.

Every PMM dreams about

shaping the product roadmap.

The truth is you can, but only

if you've built real trust

with your product partners.

That trust comes when

you show up with sharp

customer insights.

Share ownership over adoption

metrics and make it clear

that you're in this together.

If you're looking to earn a

seat at the Roadmap Table,

today's episode is your

step-by-step blueprint,

and I have the perfect pm m

expert to guide you through.

With that, it is my

pleasure to have Sheryl Li,

product marketing leader at

Confluence on the show today.

Sheryl is one of the best pmms

to help you lead the way in

shaping the product roadmap.

Let me tell you why.

Sheryl has always had a

scientific mindset, think

intellectual curiosity,

experimentation, and

pattern recognition.

That scientific mindset became

her superpower in product

marketing, especially when it

comes to shaping the roadmap.

She started out with a

deep love for science,

and I mean deep.

Her science fair project

on turning algae into

biofuel, earned her an award

and even got an asteroid

named after her by MIT.

Wow.

But instead of life in a

lab, she took her curiosity

and problem solving skills.

Into management consulting,

advising some of the

world's biggest brands.

From there, she became

a founding member of the

pricing team at Twilio.

Then went on to leave

major product launches

at Confluent Post IPO.

Today she heads up product

marketing for Confluence,

fastest growing products,

and brings a rare blend of

technical curiosity, business

savvy, and go to market

magic to everything she does.

Sheryl, it's so amazing

to have you on the show.

Sheryl: Hi

Elle: I.

Sheryl: Thank you so

much for having me.

Wow, what a throwback.

Elle: Yeah, of course.

okay, so let's dive right in.

First, tell me and get

our audience up to speed.

What is confluent?

So, we can clue in some

of the members who may

be new to the company.

Sheryl: Absolutely.

So Confluent is a data

streaming platform that

helps companies work

with real time data.

And so that's what we

call data in motion.

And you can think about this

in contrast to storing data in

a database or data warehouse

and analyzing it later.

It's built on top of

Apache Kafka, an open

source technology that

our founders created.

Kafka has become the standard

for handling such large

volumes of real-time data,

and it's being used by 80%

of the Fortune 100 companies

So to bring this to life,

uh, a good example is fraud

detection and banking.

So when you have a

transaction, realtime data

is actually being streamed,

in the backend and analyzed

instantly so that they can

flag suspicious activity.

And so for you that might mean

getting a push notification

from your bank on your phone,

you verify if that transaction

was actually made by you.

And so preventing fraud

before it actually happens.

Elle: Oh wow.

Yes.

It's good to hear the

technology that's actually

powering some of that.

I've always wondered, I'm

like, how do they know

and how do they get to me

so quickly to validate?

Right.

very interesting.

Thank you for that context.

So, for the first segment

of our show today, I want

to start with a case study

of how you and your team

took customer insights,

bringing some of your

scientific magic and truly

impacted the product roadmap.

So tell me more about this.

What was going on at

Confluence when you realized

you may need to bring in

new elements to the roadmap?

Sheryl: Yeah.

so when I first joined

Confluent, we had just

launched our cloud connectors

product and we were really

trying to grow its adoption

within our existing Confluent

Cloud customer base.

for those who are less

familiar, connectors are

prebuilt integrations that

connect Kafka with popular

data systems like your Oracle

database, snowflake data

warehouse, or your S3 buckets.

Given its widespread adoption

of, uh, with Kafka users in

the open source community

and just the critical

role connectors play into

bringing data on and off

the platform, wanted to

really un unan answer this

question of why isn't the

growth higher already?

Was it an awareness problem?

Were there product gaps?

Was there a gap with

sales and go to market.

so to do that, I kicked off

an investigation and decided

to conduct interviews with

the field folks and customers,

as that's oftentimes you

can get a lot of, uh, good

insights and answers there.

And as part of that process,

I also partnered with the PM

to drive those conversations

so that we can both hear

the feedback firsthand.

Elle: Yes.

Okay.

So there's so much

that you said there

that I wanna unpack.

first of all, what I love

about how you described

your process is that it's

so true to who you are.

It's scientific, it's

methodical in terms

of the investigation.

really emulates that curiosity

that you and most pmms.

Have, okay.

So let's say that, I'm

inspired by this story and as

a PMM in my own organization,

I want to contribute to the

product roadmap in my role

today in the same, similar

way that you and your

team were able to impact

your products roadmap.

So let's outline the steps

that A PMM would need to take.

I guess what

would step one be?

Sheryl: So at Confluent

pmms, we actually own

the entire end-to-end,

go to market motion from

messaging to launches,

and then also post-launch.

Option.

after a launch, we work

together with PM to help

drive product adoption

and the revenue metrics.

So I would say if you're

not in a position where

you officially own these

metrics, I would still really

encourage you to get curious

about it and have regular

syncs with your PM and data

science teams to track them.

And this is especially

important if your company

has consumption based

pricing that's how you

ultimately drive revenue.

Elle: Yeah.

Yes, of course.

Okay, that makes

a lot of sense.

and it's, it's interesting

that you said and brought

up whether or not pmms own

the metrics, because as

you probably know, product

marketing is so different

in every organization, and

sometimes product marketers

and product managers, their

roles and responsibilities

blend with one another,

which is why it's so

important to be hand in hand.

But from your

perspective, why is it.

Such a good best practice

for pmms to monitor product

adoption or similar metrics.

Sheryl: Yeah, so when I'm

thinking about the product

marketing function, it's

really the connective

tissue between products,

sales, and the customer.

Elle: Mm-hmm.

Sheryl: So when you do a

launch beyond just the launch

metrics, it's important

that we aren't just sending

out these products into the

universe without knowing

how it's being used.

Who's using it?

If it's being used at all.

So I really encourage my

team to feel a sense of

ownership to what product

and engineering are building

and making sure that it

actually resolves, uh,

the customer pain and then

channel that feedback back

from the customers to the

product and ENG teams.

Elle: Yes.

Yes.

And just to double click

on something you said, is

that the feeling of the

ownership and being able

to look back and understand

how the products that we're

launching are influencing

the rest of the world and

influencing in particular our

customers is so important.

And as pmms, who should

be wearing the customer

shoes every day, looking

at these insights, I

think would just add

additional color and value.

To that overall analysis.

okay.

Very helpful, thank you.

Okay, so first up is review

that product data or adoption

metrics, and then what's next?

What's the next step?

Sheryl: next step?

is thinking about.

How the product data and

adoption metrics you've seen

compare to where you need

to be or where it should

be or where you want to be.

at Confluent,

because we have this

Elle: I.

Sheryl: Source counterpart,

we were able to compare

and see like, hey, actually

the open source connectors

product has really good

adoption with Kafka users, and

that really needs to be our

North Star for our own cloud

connectors product as well.

so to be able to answer that

question, customers often

have the answers to those,

to those type of questions.

And so that's why we decided

to conduct interviews, and

really get in deeper with

the customers in terms of

how and why and are they

aware of this product.

Elle: Yes.

Okay.

So you mentioned

having some kind of

benchmark for you guys.

It was that, um, open

source database, uh, but for

potentially other pmms who.

Don't have a similar

benchmark, they'd have to

create one of their own.

so, but very good to note.

Okay, so first is analyzing

that data, the customer

adoption, product,

adoption, usage, et cetera.

Measuring that

against a benchmark.

And once you identify some

kind of, discrepancy or.

maybe that your metrics are

not where they should be.

That's a signal that it's

time to start discovering why

that's hence the investigation

aspect of that, right.

where you started to do

your customer interviews.

So how did you conduct these

interviews, I guess, like

how did you determine who you

needed to interview and, talk

through that process with us?

Sheryl: Yeah, that's

a good question.

So when you're determining

who to interview, you

have to start by defining

who you're trying to

target with this product.

in my example of Cloud

connectors, our target were

confluent Cloud customers and.

My PM and i, we sampled

accounts across different

geography and sizes for

this interview so that we

can get good coverage, of

our potential customers.

to generalize all of this,

I would recommend that

you work closely with

your PM to help define

that target account list.

Elle: Mm-hmm.

Sheryl: Then data

science usually can

help pull that list.

If not your pm.

Elle: Yes.

So it's good to have an

understanding of your

ideal customer profile

and make a short list of

those target accounts.

Okay.

And then follow up

question, what kind of

questions did you ask to.

These perspective, I

guess like interviewees

you could say.

Sheryl: Yeah, so as we were

scheduling the, the interviews

with customers, we did draft,

a short list of questions

that we wanted to, make

sure that we asked in every

one of these interviews.

a large part in our

situation, they were.

Discovery questions relating

to our connectors product.

So things like what

type of data systems

are in your tech stack.

That way we would be able

to know like what type of

connectors uh, they would

Elle: Uh,

Sheryl: so understanding

what they're currently

using and why.

There are also different

alternatives for this product.

So like I mentioned,

there's an open source

alternative they could

build and, and create their

own connector as well.

So we wanted to really

dig into, Uh, why they've

made their choice and how

open they are to adopting

cloud connectors based on

their current pain points.

and then the last part is

a bit more technical, and

part of the reason why I

wanted PM to sit into this

conversation is in case there

were product or technical

blockers, we wanted to have

the PM on the call to just

dig in a little bit deeper.

So we're

Elle: Uh, for why.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What's really interesting

about how you structured

your interview questions is

that they almost mirror a

positioning statement, right.

You've uncovered the exact,

that that first part of the

positioning statement of

who this is for with your

ideal customer profile.

Those are the people

that you're interviewing.

And then you try to

uncover the pain points.

That's what they're, um,

the pains or tr challenges

they're experiencing.

and then the alternatives

I. Who you know, right?

That like, unlike X, Y,

Z, you know, vendors.

So the ineffective

alternatives.

I really like that you

dug into that because

sometimes that's missed

in PMM investigation

and research work when

talking to customers.

So I think that's really

critical, that you

included that into the

interview questions.

Okay, so quick recap.

You step one.

Looked at the product

adoption metrics.

step two, you did, um, some

kind of benchmark analysis

to see where your metrics

stood against where you

think they should be created,

that North Star vision.

I guess part of step two

slash step three, did

the investigation and the

interviews with customers

with PM in the room.

I think that it's a

very important tip.

Uh, so what's next?

After you did all

of this research and

then interviewing?

I,

Sheryl: Yeah, maybe I'll

start by sharing some

of our findings from the

Elle: uh, yes.

Sheryl: so from these

calls, three key

themes really surfaced,

from, from customers.

So the first one was around

the fact that they needed

variety of connectors to,

to be able to connect to the

different data systems they

have in their tech stack.

So about the breadth of

our connector portfolio.

Now, this was a problem

that we were aware of.

Uh, since this was a new

product, um, we were rapidly

adding more connectors rapidly

to our roadmap, and it's

already there and it should

be resolved, fairly shortly.

The second thing that we

learned was that during the

configuration and and setup

of launching these cloud

connectors, there were some

unexpected friction points,

that the customers brought up.

And so with that, we've

built in additional usability

features into the product

roadmap to help make all

of that a bit easier.

Now, the third thing that we

realized, this was what really

brought us back and, and.

To the roadmap and, and really

take a look at it end to end.

It was that we've realized

that with customers, are

aware of the benefits of using

cloud connectors, but they

actually, they want to use it,

but they are not able to do so

because they're storing their

most sensitive customer data

in their Oracle databases.

Elle: Of course.

Yeah.

Sheryl: With a cloud product

and sending all that.

Sensitive data

over the internet.

That's not something that

their company's InfoSec policy

will allow them to do, and

that's just, uh, not something

they're comfortable pursuing.

that really informed us of

a pressing need, this hard

technical blocker of having

connector private networking,

was not something that we knew

was so important and forefront

in our customer's evaluation.

Elle: Wow.

Okay.

So interesting.

So there were some things

where you were able to

immediately influence the

product roadmap and get

those features created,

but some which are a bit

more technical and complex.

it's a really interesting

point because.

Potentially surprising as

well and a good, another

good reason why to have PM

in the room with you when

you're doing these interviews.

So what do you do in that

scenario where you get a

pretty surprising piece

of feedback that's pretty

serious and a technical

blocker for your product?

What do, what do you

do in that scenario?

Sheryl: Well, first of all,

in the interview, since

PM was in the room, they

were actually able to dig

deeper into the specific

requirements that would.

Enable, our customers to

use our cloud connectors.

And so with that and the

themes that we've surfaced

from these calls, we were able

to gather, these meaningful

qualitative insights.

And we wanted to do a readout

to share our our findings.

And so with this presentation,

we also included customer

quotes and little soundbites

from the call just

to bring that

All to life since our

audience

weren't in the calls with us.

And then the,

The other key Part of this

readout was to make the

recommendation to move

up the timelines for this

private networking features,

as that's really the key

feature that would unlock

our customers, uh, to be

able to use this product.

However, whenever you're

doing that, you're really

making trade offs, so we

wanted to be able to size

this opportunity with a

business case to be able

to anticipate the questions

that we might receive.

Elle: Oh, very smart.

Okay, so you, created this

business case, essentially

the readout for some

internal stakeholders

to, make the proposal and

recommendation to move up.

These really, I don't wanna

say monstrous, because I'm,

maybe I'm not, I don't know

if I'm technical enough to

call it quite that, but.

We'll say pretty lofty

road blockers for your

customers that maybe

weren't on the roadmap,

but just not for a while.

So, this business case

can help justify why you

would need to move that up.

And as part of the business

case, you sized the

opportunity and I guess the

business value and benefit to

doing, uh, taking that action.

Sheryl: Yeah.

no, that's exactly right.

So with a business case,

you're basically making a

financial model based on a

set of reasonable assumptions.

And then looking at

what that upside is.

If you did, uh, release

this feature and all these

customers were able to

use, cloud connectors.

Elle: And who was the

audience for the readout

for this business case?

I.

Sheryl: in our case, we

did the presentation to our

C-Suite executives, and the

reason why we needed, needed,

at the highest leadership

level was because we needed.

across the organization.

And that's because private

networking features were

owned by, not by the Connect

product team, but by a

separate, uh, networking team.

And so meeting this customer

need required shifting

resources, for the next

two years essentially.

so we were in a fortunate

position at Confluent as PMM

is a strategic function here.

And so we already had.

syncs and direct access

to that leadership level.

However, if you are not

in that position, I would

recommend going through an

exec sponsor If you don't

already have a CF table, I.

Elle: Yeah, great tip.

Who would be a good executive

sponsor in your opinion?

Sheryl: Yes.

So since this is about

the product roadmap, I.

think you should find

a PM leader who really

Elle: I.

Sheryl: about the outcome of

product adoption and revenue.

Elle: Yeah,

Sheryl: them looped into

the whole investigation

also makes that easy, since

they also want to do what's

best for their product.

Elle: yeah.

Yet another reason to be

hand in hand with your

product counterparts.

tip.

Okay, so once you got the

green light, how did you

kind of tie up loose ends?

Sheryl: Hmm.

in real life, if you

know anything about

cloud networking, which

I think you do al,

Elle: I do working at Cisco.

That is our bread and butter.

Sheryl: It's a super hard

problem to solve, and

not one that you know

has an easy solution.

So these networking features

actually got released over

many quarters, and as they

were released by cloud,

by region, we had to make

sure that we then go back

and activate the field

and notify the customers

who gave that feedback.

We also made comms, out

to all of new confluent

cloud customers that

we've acquired over this,

long period of time.

And it's important to

go and circle back.

Otherwise, that business

case would just stay as

a model in Excel, right?

You're making assumptions

that you are unlocking

and unblocking customers

the quarters, in order

to see that upside.

Elle: Yeah, it's,

Sheryl: you know, due to

product and our go-to-market

efforts, we have, grown

our product adoption

metrics for connectors

significantly since then.

Elle: brilliant.

And I just wanna note

that it was thoughtful.

To circle back with

the customers that you

interviewed, to give them

just some communication

around how they're taking

a part in influencing and

shaping the roadmap too.

I could imagine as a customer

how that could go a long way

in terms of feeling valued.

in my experience, sometimes

customers will even

choose a vendor because

they get to take part.

In shaping the roadmap

for the products that

they use every day.

so very helpful.

So last question for you,

Sheryl, on this topic.

What piece of advice do

you have for a product

marketer who is trying to

shape the product roadmap?

Sheryl: Yeah, I would really

advise that you build a

strong relationship with

product management and

realistically, it takes

time to build that trust.

And what I encourage my

team to do is to have

regular things with them,

to learn about their product

vision, their roadmap, get

to know them personally.

And when you're

working with pm.

Especially for such a

technical product that we

have at Confluent, don't

be afraid to ask questions.

And I, I.

think that really shows

your genuine curiosity

into the technology and

willingness to learn.

I've always found that

PMs are really patient in

educating you, and they

find that as a signal of

trust as well for you.

And then finally, when you're

working through your first

launch together with your pm,

they will be able to see the

value that PMM brings into

making all the hard work,

for them and their ENG teams

and bringing that to market.

Elle: so with that.

I would like to move on

to the next segment of our

show, the messaging critique.

alright, so in this segment

of the show, this is where

Sheryl, you and I, as product

marketing experts get to

analyze real world messaging.

it's so fun because you,

Sheryl, my guest, get

to pick the company.

But before we get started, I

want to lay out some ground

rules for our listeners who

may not be familiar with

this segment of the show.

So first, I want to

hear something that

you're loving about the

messaging, what's working.

What's not working?

And then, uh, second, maybe

share something that you wish

the PMM would've considered

or done differently.

And thirdly, how could

this PMM iterate on the

messaging or storytelling?

Like, what's a

creative campaign or

asset they could do?

It's just fun brainstorming.

and maybe a plug for that PMM

who could be listening to,

take it to the next level.

okay, so with that,

Sheryl, tell me what is

a product or company that

has caught your attention?

Good, bad, or

somewhere in between.

Sheryl: Oh, I'm so excited

for this segment and I

Elle: It's so fun.

Sheryl: I have two

Elle: I love it.

Sheryl: so when you originally

came to me with this, and

you mentioned about loving

the messaging, I couldn't

help but think of Apple

Elle: I,

Sheryl: and specifically

Elle: of course.

Sheryl: with their launch of

the Dynamic Island feature.

Elle: Okay.

I have to admit, I had

never heard of this before,

and I don't know if maybe

that's because I'm not

a big enough Apple fan,

which I, thought I was,

but tell me more about it.

Sheryl: Yeah, well

you may not know it.

by that name, but Dynamic

Island is essentially that

pill shaped cutout you

have on top of your iPhone.

And that replaced the notch on

iPhone 14 versions or later.

what I really love about this

release is the creativity

behind what the marketing

and the software teams had

done for what's essentially

a hardware limitation.

So functionally.

the cutout houses, the

front facing camera for your

phone and face ID sensors.

But instead of letting

that become static dead

space with software, it

has transformed into a

dynamic and an interactive

part of the screen.

Elle: Got it.

Okay.

And I have to say, how

did you stumble upon this?

Like, is it obvious or have I

been living under a rock that,

it's called Dynamic Island?

Sheryl: So sometimes I

would watch, the keynote

for developer conferences

at other companies.

And so that's how I came

across the awesome launch

video in which they

released Dynamic Island?

at the time.

I.

think it's a few years

ago by now, but you can

still find on YouTube.

it's only 40 seconds long.

Super sleek.

There's no narration.

Only the most vibe, the

music, and it shows you

exactly how dynamic Island

smoothly transitions from

providing incoming call

notifications to tracking your

Lyft ride and playing music.

I just find it such a

refreshing change from

some of our B2B marketing

roles in which we have

to use big, clunky words

to describe something.

Elle: Yeah,

Sheryl: this 42nd video

was just like the perfect

example of show don't tell.

Elle: I am really

impressed that there's no.

Like narration, voice or

words, the show don't tell

is very strong storytelling.

Just for our listeners, I will

track down that 42nd video and

I'll put it in the show notes.

I'm intrigued.

I definitely

wanted take a look.

okay.

And there was another company

you wanted to chat about.

Sheryl: Yes.

So the other company that's

caught my eye is called Dust.

They are a Sequoia

backed startup in the

AG agentic AI space.

And what their product

does is, in their own

words, a. AI operating

system for enterprises.

So a horizontal solution

that will be able to serve

all business units of a

company to help use AI agents

and boost productivity.

And of course, this is all

powered by LLMs and grounded

by internal data sources.

Elle: Yeah.

Okay.

So I just pulled

up their website.

So for the listeners,

that's Dust, it's D UT tt.

I'm scrolling and they,

they've listed out a

couple example use cases.

One of them is for pmms, which

I really like, and they have

examples like write on brand

content in minutes, create

consistent launch messaging.

So I'm really

intrigued by that.

But tell me, what do

you love about the

messaging of this product?

Sheryl: Yeah, so I, I think

the product is super cool,

first of all, and like you

said, as A-P-M-M-I would

be able to build an AI

agent to quickly synthesize

customer insights from

gong calls or run a query.

I. data warehouse

to self-serve.

Some of That analysis

I talked about earlier

Using natural language.

So I could just describe

my criteria instead of

having to learn sql.

And

Elle: it.

Sheryl: Overall for

dust, their messaging

is, is really well done.

Uh, the website copy is tight

and I can quickly get a sense

of what I'm able to do with

dust and its value props.

And for a horizontal solution

like this, I really like

that they've included a

solution pages where I can

get more tailored messaging

based off the business

function I'm coming from and

also use case suggestions.

Elle: Awesome.

Okay.

Yes.

It's always such a win

when you can like very

quickly understand

what a company does.

And I gotta say, in the

world of AI we're in,

everyone is just jamming

AI into as a buzzword into.

Like every single header and

subheader I can think of, it's

pretty impressive that you can

be clear and concise and still

show your differentiation.

So hats off to the dust team.

That's very cool.

I'm impressed.

okay, so what's something

though that maybe you wish

the PMM would've considered?

Sheryl: Yeah, so I've actually

met the dust team before

and they run super lean,

maybe because they use dust,

but they don't actually

have dedicated pmms yet

Elle: Oh wow.

I'm even more impressed then.

Sheryl: Exactly.

something we've discussed is

the challenge of identifying

the right and consistent

buyer persona, uh, for a

horizontal solution like this.

within the organization has

the pain around this lack

of productivity, but also

the budget influence to

be able to champion this?

And once a company implements

dust, how will it be used?

Like, is everyone expected

to build their own agents

or will it really be,

concentrated in a handful

of super users who build

reusable agents that everyone

else then, uh, just use?

And the other thing that's.

Comes to mind is how

is dust different

from all the other AI

Elle: Mm-hmm.

Sheryl: Enterprise

search agent products?

Uh, for example, like Glean.

so getting a better

understanding on their primary

buyer persona will help inform

the messaging on the homepage.

Elle: Right.

Yeah.

So this sounds

like a really great

segmentation opportunity.

And then from there.

They could hone in on

particular pain points

they're trying to solve for

their priority target market.

They could understand how

they're trying to solve

those pains and how that's

different from all those other

AI powered agents like lean.

I could totally see that

being a good next step.

okay, cool.

So lastly, if you were the

PMM here, what would you do

to take it to the next level?

Like do you have any

super creative ideas for

our friends over at Dust?

Sheryl: just brainstorming

out loud here, maybe some

sort of creative campaign

that will target a few

key business functions.

To start,

I'm

Elle: Ooh.

Sheryl: Marketing,

uh, engineering.

And based on the performance

of that campaign, the team

will be able to get a clear.

understanding of which

functions has that most pain

and ROI balance, uh, for a

tool like this and be able

to start there as an entry

into the organization and

build out like a repeatable

go-to-market motion.

I.

Elle: Yes.

Okay.

I love that.

It's like a BM style,

land, and expand

kind of opportunity.

that could be a really

strategic way to

partner with sales too.

you know, I might also

suggest as part of the

segmentation exercise, doing

that like ideal customer

profile exercise too.

So when they create that

ideal customer profile

they wanna target, they

can establish super strong

personas across the buy team.

And I think that could

really, pair nicely with your.

sort of land and expand,

sort of, I'm putting

words in your mouth now.

Sheryl: No, that's exactly it.

Elle: very cool.

Solid messaging critique.

Sheryl, also, I now want

to use their tool because

it's just looks really cool.

Shout out to Apple as always.

Yeah, the goat and

marketing and messaging

and then of course to the.

Yeah, of course.

To the dust pmms out there.

You've got some fans.

Great job with the messaging.

Uh, okay, Sheryl, before

we go, I just wanna have

a gratitude moment and say

thank you so much for your

willingness to share your

knowledge and expertise

with the product marketing

community today and me.

How lucky am I that I just

got like a mini coaching

session on shaping the

product roadmap, so cool.

Sheryl: No.

Uh, thank you so

much for having me.

Um, it.

Been really fun to be able to

come on and, and share, uh,

some of the projects we've

been working on at Confluent.

But one thing that

I don't know if you

still remember, but.

At the beginning you

were mentioning how I

didn't have like, uh, a

traditional background

Elle: Right,

Sheryl: marketing,

Elle: right.

Sheryl: Were one of

the first pmms that I

reached out to at Twilio

Elle: I remember,

Sheryl: to make that switch.

And you to kind of.

Take me under your

weighing and give me

little assignments, and you

really taught me kind of

the importance of having

customer proof points to

strengthen your messaging.

Elle: oh, thanks for that.

Shout out.

Sheryl: yeah, you honestly

have shaped, uh, my

career as PMM as well.

Elle: Aw, I'm so

touched to hear that.

yeah, whenever I get a chance

to meet amazing pmms like

yourself, I do get curious.

I'm like, how did they

get to be so amazing?

not trying to toot

my own horn, but I,

I got to help this one.

Sheryl: A hundred percent.

And I think it would be

really cool if we did

a podcast episode that

switches, the interviewer

and the interviewee, and you

could be the guest to your

Elle: Oh, so fun.

Sheryl: Your expertise in this

Elle: Oh, that's so

sweet and so fun.

Yeah, I should definitely

consider that sometime.

any other shout outs to

pmms who have shaped how you

got to where you are today?

Sheryl: Yeah.

definitely.

So the first one

is Nick Bryan.

He was my manager for

many years Confluence,

and honestly, he's taught

me everything I know.

And, he is a great product

marketer, perfect blend of

creativity and messaging,

technical, aptitude and

also analytical powerhouse.

And, under his leadership,

I was able to grow a lot.

And now that I have my own

team, I still hear his voice

in my head about how to

get crisp, clear messaging.

Um, so he's been.

A huge influence

to my PMM career.

another colleague,

uh, Greg Murphy.

Uh, we did, a launch together,

and that was my first,

official launch as a PMM.

And, he just has such a

high bar for excellence.

He, and it's just so

great at communicating

through written words.

And so he always strived

me to, be better,

Elle: Yeah.

Sheryl: then get better again.

Elle: I love those PMM

friends who help us really

understand like, this is

what excellence look like.

And honestly, that is why

I wanted to create this

podcast and why I thought of

you to be such a great guest

for the show because you

strive for that excellence

and obviously have had

such great mentorship.

So.

Those mentors are such,

they're the secret sauce to

how we get to where we are.

And, now you're gonna

be able to shape that

for our PMM community.

So thank you so much.

And for people who are

listening and thinking,

I need to have more

Sheryl in my life, like,

how can they find you

Sheryl: Uh, I think

on LinkedIn is

probably the best bet.

Yeah, I would love

Elle: great.

Sheryl: Connect and,

and share ideas.

Elle: I love it.

Thank you so much, Sheryl,

and thank you to our

listeners for coming on this

adventure with us today.

I hope this episode leaves you

with inspiration in taking the

next step in your own journey.