Carmelo Squillaci on finding the customers worth winning

I mean AI I'm very surprised that in 20 minutes of episode we haven't talked about AI yet. That was like amazing job. No AI until now and I was like thinking maybe I should not mention AI and we should finish this podcast without an AI. But anyway, go on. Of course. Of course. Hi everyone. Welcome in another episode of our podcast. Today we have Carmelo with us.

He's joining from his hometown in Sicily but normally we met here in Barcelona in an event. I think he will tell more about what he will doing but first of all welcome Carmela. Nice to have you here. Thank you so much Baris. It's always nice to see connection coming to something bigger and I'm very happy to to be here as well. Thank you. Agreed. would you like to tell a bit about what you do in life in general?

Yeah. So, as you already said, like probably the the audience with might spot my Italian accent across the way. I'm from Italy. I'm I'm from Sicily. Actually, I'm now based in Barcelona for the past 5 years, more or less, same time that have been actually working as a PMM, private marketing manager. I am focused mostly on SaaS, so software as a service platform mainly for the B2B audiences.

We will touch base on B2C, B2B T2C maybe later, who knows. I also worked a bit there. My path was a bit let's say having some poses or let's say some spin-offs as I like to call it them. I started as a sales for very few time then I pivoted immediately to product marketing that is also my background what I studied masters and my university and I also touch base a bit on growth and I'm back on a full-time product marketing manager again which is actually what I love the most and so this is why I'm very happy to be here talking about it

Great congratulations first of all can you tell us a bit more because even for me although I've been in this marketing world for some time. It gets a bit confusing between you know like performance marketing, growth marketing, then you have product marketing. How do you separate these roles? Like why for example for you product marketing is the main thing that you want to focus on? Yeah, that's actually a very interesting question that I would have loved to hear the answer five years ago when I start working to be honest.

What let's say the common definition of product marketing is that we are the connection between the customers and the product and everything that is in the middle. Everything that is in the middle means literally the entire company. I personally love it because you get to have the best of both worlds. I would say you get to be a nerd when it comes to understanding the deepness of the product speaking to developers understanding with the product manager what was the view behind that feature that part of the product and everything but you also get let's say funny and more also social part where it comes to u interviewing customers speaking to sales getting to know feedback from customer success so we literally have a combin combination of skills and combination of roles that makes your dayto-day very very different from one day to another which this is something that I was very clear to myself knowing myself a bit I knew that my days couldn't look the same all the time so private marketing definitely has the variety of scope that allows you to from one place to another and so yeah allows you actually to connect what the customer wants or desires with what the company is building and make it let's say connected together.

So the so-called feedback loop so that's more or less what per marketing does very very high level I would say. So, so basically you're working with nearly every team in the in the company especially in a B2B sauce you're like in touch with developers in touch with product team in touch with salespersons clients everyone am I understanding basically yeah yeah all right and I would love to understand in a role like this how do you actually like measure the impact of marketing

In general I would say that it always depends this is a probably a cliche a cliche answer but when it comes to private marketing the myth that is around us is the fact that we don't have or we don't own main KPIs as a function because as as I was describing at the beginning like just a moment ago you can see that we are very spread across the entire flow from development to go to market to sales to churn everywhere basically it doesn't mean that you need to do everything at once or you are alone most of the time we talk about solo PM PMM.

So most of companies usually have one or maximum two PMMs. Now we're getting better and better. There is more offering on this side. But let's imagine that you usually are one person doing a lot of things which I've done for the first couple of year experience that I had. and I have clear examples of where I could measure my success and it comes a co-owned metric with the team that you are working together mostly for a certain project.

So it depends I would say for example it comes to opening a new market, targeting a new customer, deep diving on a segment that you already have but you want to understand if you can actually a lot more revenue on those or you want to return retain churn on a specific segment. Of course these can translate in business metrics especially when you your company has OKRs you can really easily let's say map where PMM can contribute.

So in depending on the projects we can co-own different metrics together with the other main stakeholders. I would say probably something that PMM would be more accountable for could be qualitative metrics and our function usually let's say always struggles to how to make qualitative metrics quantitative which might sound weird might sounds complex I'm not going to lie it is but with the right process in place and with the right kickoff meetings with the right people and the right processes you can actually make PMM function by owning KPIs.

Yeah, that's that's really interesting because I I always thought as you said PMM as more of a you know like an assisting role where for example a sales team has a KPI or like a product team has a KPI let's say churn rate decreasing you know and PMM is kind of helping them achieve that goal but from what I understand what you're saying is that there are some cases where PMM can actually have their own KPIs tracked as well right

Correct that's correct I would probably make you two examples that make it even clearer to understand. So lately, but in general during the my experiences, I've been also working closely to growth where usually it's where you have more business metrics that are easier to to analyze. Let's say what I've done in my previous experiences were to understand from for example the the the main KPIs that was asked sales to of course analyze was new MR easy everybody can rep with that everyone's wants new MR right and my again is like we don't we don't want to know from where it comes from as long as you get new Mr. you we're gonna be happy.

That's the part where PMM actually can help. First, you figure it out what's the funnel might look like together with the growth, but also you understand what the success of that client can be before entering the pipeline and what would be inside the platform. For example, if you have a platform for hosting webinars like the one we are using right now, what you might want is to have people joining this this software, buying this software that actually streams for x amount of time.

So you have an ideal customer profile in mind. And so PMM helps you scoping what's that segment that might stream X amount of time a month. And then after that client gets signed for sales if that customer actually streams the way the the amount of times the PMM forecasted at the beginning that can be the product market fit the customer the ideal customer profile fitting that we were looking for.

It's a mix of quantitative and qualitative metrics that combined together can gives you actually more forecasted revenue for people who actually perform better from sales point of view. So you're unlocking good MR might reduce churn might increase upsell and at the same time this research was backed up in at the beginning of the final so at the beginning of the pipeline which helps you understanding better you know what the quality of the leads is and indeed one yeah sorry go ahead

No no please please go on yeah I was saying that one of the biggest in my opinion tool and let's say approach that PMM M might undervaluate together with sales is having a good lead scoring and good lead scoring doesn't mean only when it comes inside and what that the lead behave inside the pipeline so when it's still with sales but also how the leads evolves once they close on the the deal you know

So that's probably where PMM can contribute together with sales and the growth function and understanding better then each of that stage of the lead scoring. It's a magic that PMM can own for example depending on the case. Yeah. Like what I'm thinking is that once you set that up, you can also feed like the growth team for example to like for them to have like a better let's say ROI or like better lead targeting or whatever because you have a better scoring.

That's really interesting and like I mean we're talking of course mostly in a B2B SaaS environment but I also would love to understand like it's a competitive market there are so many B2B SaaS tools like even the one like we're talking about let's say webinars there are so many tools in the in the world right now how do you like market or like how do you approach the marketing in a competitive field like B2B SaaS

So I would try to go away from what is already available. Let's say in terms of knowledge, in terms of like you should need to understand, you need to double down on the two things that already work and understanding why they work. Of course, that's the bare minimum that if you have a feature that is topnotch, you should always double down. But then how you said that, right, how do I get myself to be the go-to platform for X, right?

So in that case the most important part is to add a sentence to what we're having in mind. What's the best platform to do this for who? Because most of the time you want to have for everyone. Spoiler it won't work. it won't work because you need to start from one point and then understand what can actually be skilled on the other on the other parts. And in my opinion, this is crazy important because it's true that short-term success might definitely be important especially for smaller startups who have investors who have funds behind them.

But it's definitely clear to have this view very secured in your let's say entrepreneurial mind and say okay I need to first prove it that I'm so good at this segment raise at that moment and then actually expand to XY Z segment you know and this is probably where I would start at least that's could be a point I mean you're explaining in such a way that like it can be even like pro like PMM like a product marketing in general can even play a role in you know a startup's literal growth strategy you know like even with raising money etc makes a lot of sense one thing that you said while explaining is it has really stuck with me like you cannot have a tool for everyone you need to understand your audience etc but as you know for example for sales people they want to sell as much as they can so sometimes they also want to sell to people maybe your product is not the ideal one.

Have you been in these situations where they want something but you know what the product can do so you have like a like a dispute or like a fight with the sales team. Have you ever been in a situation like that? Yeah, I I've been all the times it's something that I feel like I've been I I was sales first. So and also important part is that

To me everybody should at least experience the four phases your company to understand put really yourself in their shoes because when it was the 27th of the month you need to reach your quota and there is anybody coming to you and they said oh but it actually works perfectly to me and it's completely the opposite of the ICP you would sign them let's be honest right I would say that in these cases a good a head of sales once we were very in good symphony and I got involved in the how to make sales bonuses and forecasts was a very nice experience to because it's usually something that would involve the head of PMM or VP of marketing you know function and I was a solo PMM so

It was only me myself and I so okay let's consult the PMM which I was extremely great for I was super excited to be there and since turn was also a huge problem. Guess why? We actually agreed to have a co like a compensation and the bonus based on the ICP profiles. So what it was we were serving tons of ICPS. Okay, we were having nine ICPs already.

So the list of clients that the sales people could sign were already in my opinion too generous. I would say in terms of ICPS I would say like maybe two or three you know with the ICPS and mine is we compromised a lot already because of course the ICP were very detailed in terms of sizing different industry different scenarios the platform in my opinion was already in a good in a good evolution stage where you can actually market that and we had like solution pages like the website was also conveying trust to those nine people which made sense to us to have those nine Of course, some were converting better, lower, but out of those nine types we were having and signing people were completely off the the types.

So, what we were doing, what we agreed on doing was basically if you sign more than X amount of leads that are outside of these nine classification, those won't count on your external bonus, your extra bonus. You know this actually like especially because then there was also the churn considered inside the bonuses which was not my decision. I was not involved in this but you actually kind of educated sales to understand whether it was worth it also from them from their point of view to sign a person and a client that end up actually churning two months after.

And this actually makes me think about important point which is internal alignment because everything in my opinion gets to the point where if you have a common ground shared among different function and you actually have a top- down management that conveys the same values then these can be limited but there are ways where you PMM can involve can be involved in processes and help them shape shape.

I think it's like you're in a really good point like I think I wish everyone had like a rotation just for some time like product team becomes sales team sales team starts coding for some reason you know like to really understand how people work because what you said is true like if you have a sales manager that is pushing you to reach your kota or like your salary is connected to your kota sometimes that becomes your number one priority.

So the rest is forgotten. You don't care about churn. You don't care about like if the customer is unhappy, branding, marketing, you don't care about anything or the vice versa. So I think like these roles like I think in like marketing growth or like PM like in general has that value of also in everyone in the same same let's say level. So you can actually talk about the same metrics.

You can really understand. I think it's easy when the team is smaller but once you get start getting bigger and bigger it gets really complicated in the environment is true is definitely true and to be honest like there like there was one time where we were very close in one of the first companies where I worked intern got the possibility like you get a sales intern okay but since you were an intern and they were fostering like the intern to full-time employee position they were giving them the possibility ability to spend x amount of hours now I don't remember what's the what's what's the amount in different departments and this actually decreases a lot the time of hiring decreases a lot the like the turnover of the employees because you actually experience what you actually good at and you like so you're less willing to to change job or to look for another job it's just a investment that we are too busy

To do yeah it's a it's a great talent management agement system. But I want to also get your opinion on I mean what we talking is really nice but as you know now we're in a age of AI too classic now but that's the fact and things are things have gotten faster like everyone is moving faster your competitors are faster your like clients or potential leads are faster what do you think like how the marketer's job has changed lately?

With AI. Do you think it's easier? Do you think it's harder? Where are you standing? I mean AI I'm very surprised that in 20 minutes of episode we haven't talked about AI yet. That was like amazing job. No AI until now. And I was like thinking maybe I should not mention AI and we should finish this podcast without an AI. But anyway, go on. Of course. Of course.

I would say that yeah AI is definitely something that entered literally without knocking at my door inside my job inside my day-to-day especially right now in the current company where I am we are heavily using AI not only in our product but also in internal processes everywhere. So I'm very happy to be honest to be in this position to get to experience this change in a first in my first hands.

So very very happy. I would say that fast is not always the key to when approaching like AI because literally what it was like 3 weeks ago we were running a new campaign. We were opening a new vertical and we needed evidences that our product could actually make sense for that segment and we needed to test it. We need to interview clients. We need to build customer stories.

Something that literally 3 years ago would have taken one quarter. Literally I did it in one week but it was not the time like to be like it was not the concept it was faster. He unlocked me the possibility to do instead of one customer interview five customer interview. So like the quality of the results is exponentially higher. I get to understand all the possible channels like the distribution and everything in a way that previously would have take me so much and now what I'm trying to say is like I got this row data in hours or days but I still spend what I would spend 3 years ago in research and strategy but now with thousands of more inputs points which made of course the result of the campaign in my opinion better because of course if Before I was let's say doing my job guessing on three data points.

Now I was guessing but with 30 data points. So of course the guess is more accurate. it's not anymore a guess is a more or less a prediction. So definitely AI is helping a lot. Everything depends on the level of maturity in which you are as a marketer and you know how to use AI and what the company is allowing you to to do and what they are ready to accept or not AI outputs as well.

So here is more responsibility matter and thing that of course plays all the difference. Yeah, I think it's to be honest for for us as well. I think there is like an exponential use as well. AI has been around for some time but I can see how in the team as well or like in the company we're just using AI as like a simple chatbot you know like just asking questions getting answers and suddenly now you have like agents people using it five different agents to do a job you know like to as you said one doing research one just like exponentially increasing the amount of workload that they can bring out and I al also like a huge believer in like if you can do things Right.

You can get a lot out of it and faster, which is for me it's like still a dilemma, you know, like it's faster, but it's not it doesn't mean that we work less. We still work a lot, but we do much more, which is like I don't know where it's going to go, but I'm interested to see where it is, you know. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time, Carmelo.

It's it has been great. And there's this one question that we ask everyone which is what has been inspiring you lately in your life. I would say that it's always I'm always looking for inspiration everywhere anytime because I'm an unstoppable mind and connected to what we were saying at the beginning probably it's now time to say a bit more about myself that we're working together with other two friends of mine to TMC the marketing crew and it's actually one of the event where we we met and gathering people because I now work remotely so gathering people from different scenarios actually having the possibility to chat with them in a more pure way like this is what really inspires me every day to see also what other people are doing what other like especially now with AI that everybody is like either lost at the same time as you but you never have the same space and a safe place where you can actually talk about it in a let's say a petty committee kind of environment it's actually very inspiring because you feel less alone in this moment of age changes.

So this is definitely and of course now I switched from LinkedIn to to another substack. So so to substack and there I am. Yeah. I'm actually evaluating again LinkedIn now that he released the it feels like AI's lock button. I don't know if you see that. Yeah. Yeah. It's such a good button. Exactly. but I was so tired of linking inspirational PS that were like girl like I can see it's AI.

So, I'm sorry. I'm not going to spend my time there anymore. So, in there, I've been finding some inspirational post and content. So, yeah, real life and real experiences both on offline and online. Let's say this is where I try to feed myself and my curiosity. Nice. Thank you, Carmelo, for joining and sharing. It has been great. Wishing you an amazing summer in Sicily and see you around.

Thank you. Thank you so much for giving me the possibility. It was a pleasure. Have a good one. Bye-bye. Ciao.