Podcast - Troupe

Podcast: SAID DIFFERENTLY

Catch episodes of our podcast/videocast focused on B2B messaging and go-to-market storytelling and the expert guests who help us dive in. Available on all major podcast platforms plus on YouTube!

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Ep. 19: Messaging in Regulated Industries Means Taming Complexity
There are a number of markets that a business may serve, or operate in, where regulations can impact the way you shape the story you bring to market, even as specific as the words used. Examples: Healthcare, insurance, financial services, even legal services. In this episode of Troupe's podcast SAID DIFFERENTLY, we hear from product marketing leader Hannah Pickering of HealthEquity as she talks about how she meets the challenges to build an effective messaging plan and to keep that on track amidst the explosion of AI-generated content.
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Ep. 18: Product Marketing Value Goes Up When it Shifts Left
This episode veers into more strategic territory. Product Marketing is so much more than crafting messages, managing launch plans, and developing content. Guest Tom Crist, who is a principal at product marketing consultancy Fluvio Marketing and an ambassador for the Product Marketing Alliance, talks about their team's survey finding and report about how PMMs can close the revenue gap by being brought in earlier.
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Ep. 17: Defining and Measuring the Role of Chief Storyteller
Fractional head of storytelling for OWOW Agency Elliott Rayner digs into the increased attention being given to crafting and bringing winning stories and narratives to market. Elliott has authored books and runs workshops applying his specific framework that helps to align teams from the outset so that your messaging isn't just consistently practiced, but is connected to commercial outcomes.
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Ep. 16 ·Messaging at the Early Stages
The focus is on messaging challenges and opportunities at the early stages for B2B companies. With guest Deirdre Mahon, who is VP of Marketing at startup venture studio super{set}, she and host Jennifer Sikora (advisor to Troupe) discuss their experiences and lesson learned working at and advising pre-seed companies.
Key timestamps in the episode:
02:30 = Differences in thinking about messaging at early stage vs. more established companies
05:22 = Evolving the founder’s way of telling the story
06:24 = Daily GTM feedback standups
08:10 = Preventing knee-jerk, premature messaging changes; What is the insertion point to lead to conversion; finding patterns
13:36 = The allure and distraction of wanting to do category creation, lessons learned
19:50 = Examining if it’s time to adjust messaging, looking for the outside-in signals
23:21 = Messaging strategies around “building in public” – how to stay authentic and effective
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Ep. 15 ·Why Empathy Means a Stronger Messaging Connection
We've all experienced "cold" or robotic marketing or sales messaging from a company or their representative. Many of us have even been responsible for creating and/or delivering such messaging. You know it when you experience it: It feels clinical; just-the-facts; hard to relate to; and often like a giant deposit of information. It's even worse when it is rife with word salad.
Our guest on this episode of Troupe's Said Differently program, Leilani Garrett, is on a mission to bring "radical empathy" to work cultures. She's a speaker, workshop facilitator, and published author who has harnessed her long experience as a sales executive and client services manager for some of the largest software brands in the world.
In this discussion, Leilani talks about applying empathy to the messaging that B2B companies bring to market in order to develop pipeline, sales, and growth.
Topics covered:

Ep. 14 ·You Don't Hate Slides. You Hate Bad Storytelling.
Turning your company's messaging and go-to-market story into a slide deck sounds easy enough... but for anyone tasked with that job to be done, it's anything but easy. That's the topic in this episode of Said Differently, featuring guest Mikey Mioduski who founded boutique agency GhostRanch Communications and more recently Story Camp as a smaller-scale learning retreat focused on presentation skills-building. Mikey has been focused on slide development and perfection for more than 15 years, and brings some great practical advice and perspective for anyone wrestling with building the ideal deck.
With host Jennifer Sikora, the discussion covers a LOT of ground in 30 minutes:

Ep. 13 ·Role-based Storytelling in a Funnel-focused World
What happens when you apply behavioral change model thinking to your content strategy? That's the topic with guest Scott Stransky, founder and content lead at Thrū Content, in this episode of Troupe's Said Differently program. As Scott describes, bringing in a more human-oriented framework means you get content that is focused on the buyer's mindset -- especially in terms of stage of readiness to take actions to change their situation. During this discussion, he talks with host Jennifer Sikora about:

Ep. 12 ·An Investor and Board Member's View of Messaging and GTM Story
In this second part of the extended conversation with Brett Queener -- currently a managing partner at Bonfire Ventures -- we get his perspective on the importance of GTM messaging from his position as a board member and investor in his many portfolio companies. Brett talks about:

Ep. 11 ·Lessons Learned from Salesforce's Early GTM Story
As more companies bring AI solutions to the market, what can we learn from the past when other major technology shifts happened? Looking back on the time when solutions moved from on-premise hosting to cloud-based/SaaS "on demand' is a great lesson -- and we talked to one of the leaders from that era of GTM story shift. In this first part of an extended conversation with Brett Queener -- currently a managing partner with Bonfire Ventures -- we hear from his time as a top marketing and revenue executive at Salesforce who was there during their "no software" campaigning. He recalls how they approached a highly competitive situation vs. the CRM leader at the time, Siebel. Brett shares his top take-aways from that period and how that shaped the way he advises companies today as a board member.
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Ep. 10 ·A Leadership Path for Product Marketing
We speak with senior product marketing executive Ali Hanyaloglu about how product marketers can find a leadership path landing in the C-suite, if that's the goal. A multi-recognized Top 100 product marketing influencer by the Product Marketing Alliance, Ali brings to the discussion his lived experience moving from the sales organization into a PMM role -- and ultimately to vice president seniority.
The episode covers key topics:

Ep. 9 ·Market Positioning vs. Messaging - and the AI Factor
Positioning is the foundation of how buyers understand you and the problem you solve for them. Unfortunately, it's often confused with branding, messaging, product-market fit, or even copywriting. And for B2B companies, there's a growing need to bring AI into your positioning story as well. In this episode of Troupe's SAID DIFFERENTLY show, positioning expert Katey Mokelke of Firebrick Consulting talks about what she's learned doing more than 100 positioning engagements for B2B tech organizations -- and advice she gives in these areas:

Ep. 8 ·Earned Media's Outsized Role in the AEO/GEO/SEO Era
There's a renewed focus on press and media relations as AI-driven search and answer engines increasingly help us all research, compare, and shortlist new products and services. In this episode of Said Differently, the Q&A show about B2B messaging and positioning sponsored by Troupe, we talk to Evan Boyer who is founder/CEO of Leaders PR after a lengthy career serving B2B and B2C clients from start-ups to scale-ups to global brands. Our discussion covers these pressing topics:

Ep. 7 ·Using AI for Messaging Help - Opportunities and Risks
This episode focuses on AI being applied to help companies refine their storytelling and messaging strategy, featuring the experiences of 2 guests: Alison Murdock, who is CEO of the agency 1021 Creative and founder of Trusted CMO, alongside Julie Bryce, who is working as a consultant for Trusted CMO and is a former CMO and Chief Commercial Officer in the B2B tech space.
The conversation They discuss where it can be an exceptional partner in those efforts and where you need to manage risks. Can it also build a stronger alliance between marketing and sales, especially when you're able to truly measure messaging impact with a solution like Troupe? See what they think in this lively conversation.
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Ep. 6 ·Product Marketing Must Bring the Subject Expertise
Constantine Limberakis - founder of Liberis Consulting and a former industry analyst - talks about the importance of Marketing, and specifically Product Marketing, having credible knowledge of the market, buyer personas, and category they are targeting. Does it mean they need to be subject matter experts? Not necessarily... but he speaks with host Jennifer Sikora about the huge payoffs when you comfortably understand your solution so that you can strategize, ideate, produce, and measure effectively.
Topics in the discussion include:

Ep. 5 ·Finding Both Product-Market Fit and Message-Market Fit
To survive, every company must find product-market fit. To sustain growth, they must ensure message-market fit is making that possible. In this episode of SAID DIFFERENTLY (the show focused on B2B messaging success), our guest Chad Butz -- a VP of Product Marketing -- emphasizes the importance of evolving your go-to-market messaging at different stages of your company's life. He and host Jennifer Sikora focus on key topics:

Ep. 4 ·Building Product Launch Stories That Stick
In this episode, our guest Maureen West discusses the art and science of managing product launches -- big and small -- to ensure successful communication in the market. Maureen and host Jennifer Sikora dive into a number of topics related to product launches including:

Ep. 3 ·Trust Drives Messaging Alignment for Sales and Marketing
What causes Sales and Marketing to get out-of-step on the message that is delivered to the market? And what problems does that cause for the business? In this episode of Said Differently, Scott Heimgartner -- who is a long-time, in-house B2B tech product marketing leader and later a principal consultant for Liberis Consulting -- joins us to talk about why trust is one of the major root causes of this misalignment, why he believes Product Marketing needs to own the problem-solving when this happens (and own prevention), and steps to take to bring these GTM teams to a more unified storytelling place.
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Ep. 2 ·Is Product Marketing Ready to be Measured?
It has long been a challenge to determine exactly what metrics Product Marketing should "own." Win rates are one, but also somewhat debated and controversial. Deliverables-based metrics, such as number of analyst mentions and 'managing product launches,' aren't really measuring outcomes as much as work. In this episode of Said Differently, Pendo co-founder and CEO/founder of the 24 and Up startup studio Eric Boduch joins us to share his perspectives on how the measurement of Product Marketing is on the cusp of evolving and maturing -- and how this means only good things for PMMs and their future path to CMO seats.
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Ep. 1 ·The CEO's Stake in Messaging Success
We welcome former CMO of Visier and Pendo, Jake Sorofman, who has also spent time as a Gartner analyst, to talk about the importance of messaging and why the CEO should care deeply about this. Jake considers great messaging second only to having great products. He offers suggestions on how Marketing leadership should navigate messaging prioritization with the CEO.