Inside Olivine #16
🏙 Big company energy — what it takes to drive impact at the enterprise level
👋 Hello from Miami!
Rae here, Co-founder of Olivine based in Miami (if you’re here, let’s get coffee).
Thanks to your support, we’ve surpassed 2,000 subscribers, which feels like a big milestone for us! Favor to ask: If you’ve read more than one of these editions, could you do me a solid and follow Olivine on LinkedIn?
This month’s newsletter is all about that big company energy: what it takes to drive impact at the enterprise level. Here at Olivine, we’ve been lucky enough to work with over 50 companies ranging from pre-seed startups to Fortune 500 enterprises.
Some of the big names we’ve worked with:
ServiceNow: Cloud-based enterprise solutions • NYSE: NOW
Heartland: Payment systems • Bought by Global Payments for $4.3B
Diligent: Governance SaaS • Valued at $7B+ with 1M+ users
LinkedIn: Professional social network • NYSE: LNKD with 740M users
Kustomer (acquired by Meta): Communications • NASDAQ: META
Twilio: Communication APIs & Customer Data Platform • NYSE: TWLO
Looker (part of Google Cloud): Data analytics • Acquired for $2.6B
Zuora: Subscription Management Software • NYSE: ZUO
(Plus some we can’t mention yet. We haven’t gotten around to case studies for all of these clients — what’s the saying? Oh yeah, the cobbler has no shoes.)
Because our team shares insights with each other and we work with multiple clients each year, the velocity of learning is high, perhaps higher than with a typical in-house employee. So we pooled our learnings and even tapped into some of our trusted network to share what it’s like to get things done at big companies, despite lots of red tape.
TL;DR: 12 Lessons learned working with enterprises
Put work out, even if you get a strong reaction. Progress over perfection. Internal alignment is built incrementally.
Launches require working at three levels: company strategy, project management, and detailed IC work for messaging.
Helping others know what your team is up to is key to making an impact. But it has to be lightweight.
Rather than continuously creating more content, prioritize, improve, and delete. Simplicity beats over-information.
The closer you play to the edge with your copy and creative, the better the chance something interesting might leave the room.
Data trumps opinions. This means getting out of the office and taking your new message to the streets.
It’s never too late for product marketing fundamentals, even for public companies with long-standing products.
For big initiatives, the pain has to be felt broadly or a catalyzing event must occur (i.e., acquisition) to really drive your work.
Enterprises can learn from startups how to be scrappy IF they make space for experimenting and making mistakes.
An outsider who’s not familiar with your SOPs can positively shift perspectives and shake up complacency.
Hiring and procurement can be arduous. Be sure to understand the process so you can set expectations accordingly.
Establish a single point person for leading, approving, or doing. If everyone is in charge, no one is.
For individual contributors in big orgs
“Put work out, even if you get a strong reaction. Progress over perfection. Internal alignment is built incrementally.”
— Arielle Shnaidman, Director of Product Marketing at Olivine
I’ve worked with a number of large companies and they get big in one of two ways: they’ve either been at it for a long time building products and solutions, or they’ve taken the balance sheet growth route by making several acquisitions. What gets tricky with the latter is the more you buy, the more complex bringing everything together becomes.
You need buy-in to get things done. But getting that buy-in gets hard when everyone is busy with their own team’s priorities or siloed within their own products/solutions. Many will say “process is the way.” What that typically means: a list of checkboxes that often create more (and unproductive) opportunities for disagreement that prevent people from getting on the same page and shipping.
For the people in the back: process does not equal internal alignment.
A lot of people have different ways of talking about products, solutions, and value. That becomes more obvious once someone finally puts it to paper. A lack of alignment is best solved by putting something out there and getting a reaction. Don’t hem and haw forever collecting inputs. Sometimes people don’t pay attention until they see something they don’t like.
Not everyone is going to get their place at the table — not all products will be equally emphasized. And that’s OK. Progress over perfection. Big companies can be so afraid to get it wrong or to ruffle feathers, which gets in the way of progress and shipping.
“Launches require working at three levels: company strategy, project management, and detailed IC work for messaging.”
— Michael Greene, Product Marketing Lead at Olivine
Product Marketers are always operating at many different levels, but especially during high-value launches. In most cases, Product Marketing is in charge of
Leading the entire GTM team
Ensuring each and every GTM initiative is on time and unblocked
Informing the product team of GTM changes and the GTM team of product updates
Helping the team change course when leadership announces changes
Creating messaging and positioning
Reviewing and editing content to ensure it aligns with messaging
Competitive research and intelligence
Sales enablement content
At big companies, this translates to not just a lot of work but a lot of project management. A ton of meetings are needed to keep everyone on the same page and rowing in the same direction. It also means Product Marketers aren’t left with a lot of time to do core strategic projects like competitive intelligence, positioning, market research, etc.
The key here is to have empathy for the increased workload and the hidden costs associated with project management work that comes along with big launches. Look to free them up as much as possible and ensure they are still in a position to spend the appropriate amount of time on important strategic initiatives that will make the launch a success.
“Helping others know what your team is up to is key to making an impact. But it has to be lightweight.”
— Saahil Patel, Product Marketing Manager at LinkedIn (formerly Olivine!)
Staying in the know and helping everyone else know what your team is up to is key to getting things done, cross-team collaboration, and making an impact. But it has to be lightweight.
Communicating your role and your team's charter to the company is key to avoiding burnout, and doing this can actually help you be known as the "golden partner." It's important to make sure your core cross-functionals know exactly what you do, and what you don't. Otherwise, you'll end up trying to do everything but actually doing nothing.
Socialize your work by leveraging internal comms channels like newsletters, Slack announcements, and microsites for the audiences that will find your work the most valuable. This helps you build trust, drive impact, and extend your influence across various functions, setting you up to be known as the "MVP."
“Rather than continuously creating more content, prioritize, improve, and delete. Simplicity beats over-information.”
— Dejan Gajsek, Co-founder at Grow + Scale
Lessons learned while working with Fortune 100 companies
Corporations have a crazy amount of tools, assets, and data at their disposal. It's the opposite problem for early-stage, nimble startups. They have too much "stuff."
When it comes to coming up with the right messaging, tool, or assets, the team might stumble and search for the right info at that exact moment (for example, a competitive intel piece on a call with a prospect). It's much better to have a small batch of killer pieces that are accessible and relevant than a whole storage of inventory no one knows how to handle.
When you can get the right message at the right time, you will gain prospects' trust and increase the probability of closing the deal.
Summary: Simple and clear beats out complex 9 times out of 10.
“The closer you play to the edge, the better the chance something interesting might leave the room.”
— Jadon Thomas, Product Marketing Manager at Olivine
Bring your own flair to the work. Playing it safe and sticking to the status quo may seem like the best approach, but it's not always the most effective. By taking risks and bringing new and innovative ideas to the table, you have a better chance of creating something truly interesting and impactful.
Invariably, it has been observed that ideas and contributions, irrespective of one's preference, tend to undergo a process of dilution while undergoing enterprise review, leading to a homogenization of messaging… And when sentences sound like that, it’s not interesting for anyone.
By bringing your own unique style and approach to your work, you can help differentiate yourself and your clients. It takes courage and confidence to bring new ideas to the table, but the rewards can be significant.
It's important to remember that there is a balance to be struck. You don't want to be so far out of the box that your ideas are dismissed entirely. But the closer you play to the edge, the better the chance something interesting might leave the room.
“Data trumps opinions. This means getting out of the office and taking your new message to the streets.”
— Robert Kaminski, Co-Founder at Fletch
Lessons learned while working at Oracle
Crafting messages with enterprise executives almost always creates a “too many cooks in the kitchen” scenario. And there is no avoiding these multi-level conversations with various stakeholders.
It’s best to approach these sessions with a focus on sharing and collecting insights — Not seeking consensus and approval.
To do this, consider breaking up the session into 2 parts:
Listen for their insights: Give your audience the opportunity to express their perspective on the approach — including any data and research they have gathered to support their perspective.
Sharing your own insights: Make your stakeholders feel like they are getting an “insider view” into the strategy. It’s best to use real data — ideally a combination of quantitative data points AND qualitative learnings.
So if you are working with a lot of stakeholders in developing strategic messaging, remember…
The best way to approach your stakeholders is not with a logical argument. Instead, bring data and insights to the table. This means getting out of the office and taking your new message to the streets. And sharing what you learned with a partnership mindset.
“It’s never too late for product marketing fundamentals, even for public companies with long-standing products.”
— Sheena Vega, Director of Product Marketing at Olivine
I’ve worked in-house at really big companies (like, 75,000 employees big!), and I’ve consulted with companies of a similar size. One thing I absolutely believe is that no company is ever too large or too mature to be “past” foundational work when it comes to personas, JTBD, or product positioning and messaging. Sure, sometimes it’s more about realignment than it is about starting from scratch, but there’s always room for it.
Change is constant and more is always revealed. This might be obvious, but sometimes after a business does a ton of work on their personas or messaging, they adopt a set-it and forget-it mindset and before they know it, their strategy and approach are stale. Sales teams are learning more about their buyers daily, there’s always new competition, and new ways to reach people emerge constantly. It doesn’t matter how big a company is or how long they’ve been around, taking some time to revisit fundamental product marketing work will only help drive more understanding and success.
“For big initiatives, the pain has to be felt broadly or a catalyzing event must occur (i.e., acquisition) to really drive your work.”
— Tom Heys, Director of Product Strategy at Monitaur
Lessons learned while working at Fitbit
In an enterprise, you have to understand organizational inertia in order to get the good work of product marketing done. If you try to kick off a major initiative like fixing your positioning, messaging, etc. without some external driver, you should expect it to not get off the ground or kicked down the road, or not approved. That's just the reality of working in a large organization with many entrenched, competing personal and professional interests.
Instead, you should be up on the bow of the Titanic, scanning the horizon for those moments that will force the organization to turn. Those icebergs might be an acquisition of another company, the loss of a flagship customer, legal action, or other momentous business impact. If the pain isn't acute and widespread across the organization, just keep biding your time, focusing on execution and incremental improvements.
“Enterprises can learn from startups on how to be scrappy IF they make space for experimenting and making mistakes.”
— Raechel Lambert, Co-Founder of Olivine
Startups are constantly under pressure from a lack of resources. But this is a feature, not a bug. Being forced to ruthlessly prioritize, experiment with new tactics, and have an always-learning mindset unlocks the most growth (for the business and the people working there).
At big, established companies, it’s tempting to go the safe route, reusing the same playbooks and processes until everything is on autopilot. Sometimes big companies aren’t even aware of scrappy approaches that are successful at startups. Things like
Plain text emails from product managers to invite folks to a public beta, which tend to convert way higher than glossy marketing emails
Empowering employees to speak openly (within reason) about the company, product, and culture on social media, podcasts, and conference talks
Sales outbound via Twitter DMs, either manual or automated with Phantom Buster
The key is to create a culture of experimenting where it’s safe to try new tactics. And if mistakes are made, learn from them without adding more processes and rigidity.
“An outsider who’s not familiar with your SOPs can positively shift perspectives and shake up complacency.”
— Brittany Smail, Product Marketing Manager at Olivine
As companies grow, official processes and unwritten rules can become so familiar that employees stop noticing them, let alone questioning them. Outsiders have the benefit of naivety—they bring a fresh perspective that isn’t clouded by internal conditioning. New eyes notice outdated or too-rigid systems and can suggest novel ways of approaching problems or collaborating across departments that give your team renewed energy.
Good contractors are proactive—by inclination and necessity. They’re not afraid to ask dumb questions, call out entrenched dysfunction, and try creative new ideas. The later stage a company is, the more it can usually benefit from some newcomer energy.
“Hiring or procurement can be arduous. Be sure to understand the process so you can set expectations accordingly.”
— Daniel Canton, VP of Operations at Olivine
New leaders in big enterprises often don’t realize how long and arduous the hiring or procurement process can be — sometimes as long as 6 months to approve and onboard a new vendor. This can lead to them setting unrealistic expectations with the talent they are trying to hire. It's important for everyone to understand what’s involved and how long it takes so you can set and meet deadlines accordingly.
“Establish a single point person for leading, approving, or doing. If everyone is in charge, no one is.”
— Alex Orlinski, Co-founder & Managing Partner at Anthrofin
Whether you're a leader looking to hire an agency/contractor OR someone aiming to work with a big organization, establish a single point person for leading, approving, or doing. If everyone is in charge, no one is.
When there are many stakeholders, it feels like a unanimous consensus must be reached at every single checkpoint. This is incredibly slow, so a best practice is to establish who the tiebreaker will be at the very beginning. That will not only make decisions go faster, but it will also avoid confusion or political power plays when leadership is unclear.
Since 2016, Olivine has been focussed on product marketing and along the way we’ve helped our clients launch new products, overhaul long-entrenched positioning & messaging, unify multiple acquisitions into a single platform pitch, lead strategic workshops at team offsites, and develop product-centric go-to-market campaigns.
Interested in learning how we help enterprise companies grow? Reach out here.
Top tweet
This thread explaining “high agency” only gets better the more you read. High agency is the following three things merged into one mega trait:
Resourcefulness (the ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties)
Skepticism toward "best practices" (best practices being professional procedures that are accepted as most effective)
Locus of control (the degree to which people believe that they have control over the outcome of events in their lives)
In my opinion, the most successful people aren’t from a certain background, school, or company. They have high agency and have used that agency to achieve self-actualization (being fulfilled and doing all they are capable of).
Fresh finds:
Tool I love
Zapier. I know everyone is all about GPT right now, but I was out to dinner in NYC with Jason Bradwell and he blew my mind with how he’s using Zapier to automate tasks (including triggering things for ChatGPT to do). Automation ideas here, here, and here.
Shallow dive
51 Tips for Surviving in a Big Company by Jeremy Connell-Waite, a communications designer at IBM. LinkedIn Article, 5 min.
Deep dive
Huberman Lab on leveraging dopamine to overcome procrastination and optimize effort. Podcast Episode, 1 hr 34 min.
Inside Olivine
Content gems
The B2B Messaging Course is available free on our website and on YouTube. Wherever you watch, be sure to get the workbook.
Going “full-stack marketer” — how I launched a brand in one week to win a hackathon
Client happenings
Twilio launched Segment Unify, a consumer-scale real-time identity resolution solution that enables highly personalized customer engagement.
Ask the Expert: How crypto can shape the future of the financial system with Jhanny Rumpf, Product Director at Bakkt
Vultr announces the availability of NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPU and partnerships with Domino Data Lab and Anaconda to accelerate data science at scale
Job openings
See open roles on Olivine’s job board.
P.S. We’ve got an invite-only Slack community for PMMs. Feel free to apply here.
Thanks for reading, see you next month!
✌🏽 Rae
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