Hey! Welcome to the Coffee & Compete newsletter where product marketers, compete pros, and GTM leaders get strategies to win in their market in 5 minutes or less.

Our community events are picking up serious steam in 2024 —  so we’re sharing a sneak peek of what is in store for the community, including:

💨 How to speed up two of the looooonnnggestt PMM tasks

😳 What to do when you’re stumped in your next PMM interview

💛 Bouncing back from layoffs

(as always hit me up if there’s an event topic or session you’re keen for us to run!)

Adam 

write, write, then write some more

Raise your hand if you’ve had to write scripts for customer interviews.

Now raise your other hand if you started to pull your hair out when realizing just how freakin’ long it takes.

Now raise a third hand if you received five other requests from different departments all while you were still trying finish the damn script.

(Has anyone ever mentioned product marketers being asked to wear a lot of hats before? 🙄)

Alright, instead of being sassy, I’ve brought in Jess Petrella since she can actually help you.

Jess is leading a workshop this Tuesday in the community to walk through how you can use AI to set up and structure scalable customer research.

PLUS, she’s going to share her AI workflow for conducting SWOT analysis, too.

Come join us here, and knock two off the most time-consuming tasks off of your list this year.

Plus, a chance to pick Jess’ — and others in the communities — brain on how they’re finding efficiencies with AI.

There’s no such thing as a bad question, right?

We’ve all been there. Everything is going smoothly on your interview.

You have the room leaning in, nodding. You’re showcasing the research you’ve done on their business. Plus, they even laughed at your jokes!

And then you get hit with a question and have absolutely no idea how to respond.

*blank*

What the heck do you next?

Stay calm. Take a breath. And follow Yi Lin Pei’s five steps 

1. Acknowledge the question. For example, “That’s a great question, do you mind if I take a minute to think about it?”

2. Think out loud. Demonstrate your thought process by thinking out loud help show how you process information.

3. Ask clarifying questions. This is an opportunity for you to get more insights and clues that could lead to another idea.

4. Provide an alternative example. If you still can’t come up with anything, then try to redirect and provide an alternative example you are familiar with and ask permission to share.

5. Be honest and move on. No one knows everything. Admitting you don’t know shows your honesty. 

If you’re looking for more tips from Yi Lin Pei, then you’re in luck.

She will be hosting a workshop with us walking through tactics you can use to land your dream product marketing job. Come join us!

New releases for your 👀, 👂, and (hopefully) 🧠 

How PMMs can ‘bounce-back’ from layoffs | We’re Not Marketers

Gab, Eric, and Zach share their personal experiences with layoffs and tips they used to get back on their feet.

Ahref’s incredible social proof | PMM Files

How Ahrefs are able to prove they’re best-in-class without resorting to vague badges.

The biggest AI trends in competitive intelligence | The CE Show

The Compete community had 60+ questions on using AI in competitive intelligence. So, Brando and James tackled a few of their favourites.

❄️ Your next dream competitive intel gig

We’ve got another killer opportunity in the community courtesy of our friends at Snowflake.

The team is looking for a competitive intelligence lead that can nail differentiation and positioning for sales and marketing teams. 

More specifically, this role is responsible for owning competitive positioning for Tier 1 competitors, as well as enabling field facing teams to compete and win. 

Check out the opportunity here.

P.S. Wanna binge hours of on-demand content, connect with others, and learn from some of the best in the industry?

Then join the 3,000+ other product marketers, compete pros, and GTM leaders in the Compete Network community.