junk food advice all PMMs binge

Hot Cheetos? Takkis? Nah. Talking to customers.

May 02, 2025

Let’s test it out

Most product marketers say: "Talk to customers." Cool. But then what? Build a deck? Send to sales?

slo-mo deck swat Noooope. 😂

I spent five years talking to customers — as a sales rep. And here's the first pls-like-me hurdle every PMM needs to leap:

Make what you know worth a rep's quota.

Because quotes in a doc and insights in a slide… That could've been an email. (One they'll never read.)

Welcome to the next episode of Dying 4 Influence. The weekly newsletter for misunderstood B2B product marketers.

Know how the best PMMs operate in B2B. Get a dose of knowledge to stand tall in a sea of unseasoned marketing.

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You’re not a PMM

If you don’t “talk to customers”…. But what does that really mean? Today, there’s no guardrails to that blanket advice. And Ryan Paul Gibson knows so firsthand.

In our latest podcast episode, he broke down why it’s "junk food advice".

✅ Sounds good

✅ Feels good

☹️ But gives no nutritional marketing value

(Luckily, we’re not marketers, and can eat whatever we want.)

The Difference Between Conversations and Investigations

Ryan explains the fundamental problem with unstructured customer conversations:

"The whole point is you have a thesis or hypothesis, an objective you want to learn, you structure the conversations in a way that it's driving every single thing they talk about towards your objective and getting the data and insights you need to meet the objective... What happens is people get on a call, which is great. So you like our thing? And like, how are you using it? And like, is it good? And like, it's all subjective opinions. It's all like outputs. It's all stuff that is helpful, but it's not helping you make decisions about how to do marketing."

This is the critical distinction.

Most PMMs are having customer conversations that get opinions, when what they realllly need are ahas that drive marketing decisions.

What Buyers Really Want to Know

Buyers don't ask for product specs. They silently ask:

  1. "Why change what I'm doing?" The status quo is powerful. Buyers need a compelling reason to disrupt their current way of working. Your customer research needs to uncover what business conditions make change necessary.

  2. "And why now?" Timing is everything in B2B. Ryan pointed out the 95-5 rule: "95% of your market's not in market at any given time... they have a concept of what the solutions are in the market, but at this point the business conditions do not exist for them to make an investment."

  3. "Why this product category?" Buyers have multiple ways to solve any problem. Your research must uncover why they choose your category over others.

  4. "Why your company?" What makes your company credible in this space? This goes beyond features to trust and reputation.

  5. "Why your product to drive this change?" What specific capabilities make your product the right fit for their situation?

  6. "And why buy it from you, rep?" What makes the individual sales rep trustworthy and helpful in navigating the purchase?

Moving Beyond Basic Customer Interviews

Ryan's experience as both a TV reporter and a marketer revealed a stark contrast in approach:

"I went and I took broadcasting, and I became a TV and radio reporter for three years... I learned really how to navigate the environment... How do you ask questions and get to the heart of things? And then I went back to B2B... and the very first time I wanted to talk to a customer, you should have seen the looks I got. I've been doing it my whole career, and now all of a sudden it's like, 'Well, sales does that, product does that. What do you mean you want to talk to customers? Don't. Just go write me a landing page.'"

This highlights a fundamental gap in B2B about PMM’s role in customer research.

Ryan suggests that effective customer research requires these four:

  1. Clear objectives - Know exactly what you need to learn before the conversation starts

  2. Structured conversations - Guide the discussion to uncover patterns, not just opinions

  3. Focus on pre-purchase mindset - Understand what happens before they talk to sales

  4. Business context - Learn the conditions that trigger a search for solutions like yours

The PMM Superpower: Reading Buyers' Minds

Great PMMs flip what we hear from customers into what buyers need to believe. Then show sales how to do the same. Because while sellers talk to customers... You read their minds.

To develop this superpower, Ryan suggests focusing on the 95% of your market that isn't ready to buy right now:

"If you look back over the course of that, that's what we've had to do. We've had to understand how people get, start somewhere and then get to sales. And if you can't do that, then you can't actually build a marketing program that's going to influence these people further up the field."

Turning Insights into Sales Enablement That Works

To make your research valuable to sales, focus on:

  1. Decision Triggers - What business conditions make this purchase a priority?

  2. Research Patterns - How do buyers educate themselves before talking to sales?

  3. Evaluation Criteria - What specific factors determine their final decision?

  4. Objection Origins - Where do common objections really come from?

  5. Competitive Positioning - How do buyers actually compare solutions?

When your sales enablement addresses these deeper questions, reps will pay attention because you're giving them insight into what's happening in the buyer's mind before they ever reach out.

Getting Started: Three Questions for Better Research

In your next customer conversation, try these three questions Ryan recommends:

  1. "What was happening in your business that made solving this problem a priority?"

  2. "How did you research potential solutions before talking to any vendors?"

  3. "If you had to explain to a colleague how to evaluate solutions like ours, what specific criteria would you tell them to use?"

These questions will take you beyond "do you like our product?" to uncover the actual buyer journey in a way that will make both marketing and sales more effective.

As Ryan puts it, your job as a marketer isn't just to help sales close the 5% who are ready to buy — it's to influence the 95% who will be ready to buy in the future.

And that's the PMM superpower, worth their quota.

Want to Learn More?

Listen to our full conversation with Ryan Paul Gibson on the We're Not Marketers podcast. He shares guerrilla tactics for getting customer access when your company says no, the history of product marketing going back to P&G in the 1930s, and why B2B marketing is fundamentally misunderstood by most founders and executives.

"We're Not Marketers" is a podcast for product marketers who want practical, sometimes controversial advice on making marketing meaningful to both buyers and the sales team. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

“To catch a marketer” starring Ryan Paul Gibson

Are most B2B marketers actually doing customer research wrong?

In this episode, Content Lift founder Ryan Paul Gibson reveals why "just talking to customers" isn't enough and why one-third of marketers can't even get access to customers at all.

From his days timing how long people take to put cream in coffee to calling customers without permission, Ryan shares guerrilla tactics for getting real insights when your company stands in the way.

Tune in for a masterclass in effective customer investigation that goes beyond the junk food advice most marketers are fed.

  • The guerrilla tactic for talking to customers that will get sales "yelling at you" (and why you should do it anyway)

  • Why most customer interviews produce useless insights that can't guide marketing decisions

  • The 95-5 rule: Why 95% of your market isn't ready to buy (and why that's what marketers should focus on)

  • How one simple purchase decision took Ryan three years to make (and why that destroys most marketing dashboards)

  • Why B2B marketers who can't explain unit economics will always lose budget battles

📢 Share the Word

How many of your fellow Product Marketers need to read this? Drop them this newsletter so we can all enjoy the memes.

That’s all we’ve got for this week. It’s your turn to tell us what you think with this one-question poll below.

See you next Friday 👋

Eric, Gab, and Zach

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