Questions and answers - "Marketing x Teams x Entrepreneurs" N°13
There is a big difference between participating in a questions and answers session and making the most of the interview. Whether in content marketing, recruiting or product, mastering questions and answers is vital for your growth. That's why the "Marketing x Teams x Entrepreneurs" newsletter N°13 focuses on "questions and answers". Ask, listen, and reflect.
For this edition, the curated content is coming from the bests: SaaStr, Reforge, UX Collective. And Masooma Memon ✍️, Tina Donati, Jason M. Lemkin, Michael Mizrahi, Nadia Harris, Lorraine K. Lee, Elena Verna, Crystal Widjaja, and Jessica Tenuta.
#marketing #recruiting #jobinterviews #communication #futureofwork
x Marketing
About the importance of listening in interviews
As interviews are becoming more numerous in content marketing through podcasts, videos, and articles, becoming a mini journalist may be very valuable. To guide us, Masooma Memon gathered the tips and tricks of Tina Donati, Content Marketing Lead at e-commerce automation platform alloy, in her "Content Workshop" newsletter. I especially like the importance given to active listening:
"Hear the words your interviewee is telling you, let them sink in, and follow up with comments or additional questions about what they said." - Tina Donati
I can only recommend you follow Masooma on Linkedin or subscribe to her newsletter.
From bad to good answers in marketing VP job interviews
Even though you are not looking for a VP job, the insights of Jason M. Lemkin, who interviewed 100s of VP of marketing candidates, bring a lot of light on what should matter in marketing. The founder of SaaStr shares his ten interview questions with his views. My favourite questions are: "What are the top 3 things you think we should upgrade in marketing?", "How have you worked with the sales team in the past?" and "How big a team do we need?". Discover the others.
x Teams
The internal communication trap
By sharing his journey, Michael Mizrahi, Head of Operations at Levels, forces us to rethink internal communications to make them more efficient. In his article on Medium, he underlines what matters: establishing the vision, identifying what doesn't work, testing, communicating and iterating. In addition, he provides very actionable advice to structure and scale company communications intentionally—a must-read for every business looking to improve communications.
Mastering hybrid meetings
In the last episode of her podcast dedicated to the future of work, the remote work advocate, Nadia Harris, interviews Lorraine K. Lee, Head of Editorial at Prezi. Among the questions, you will find: what are the main challenges and the best setups? How do the trends toward remote and hybrid meetings look these days?
Follow the "iTech Media Work Your Way" podcast to get flexible work news, tips, and tricks.
When job candidates interview recruiters
A candidate's perception and the actual reality may have a big gap that can be problematic. How can applicants check better if the job is what they are looking at? According to Elena Verna and Crystal Widjaja from Reforge, by doing "reverse interviews". It consists of a detailed and structured process to bring specific and relevant insights. I like the tips regarding the formulation to ask meaningful questions. Refreshing.
x Entrepreneurs
Why customer insights are stronger than customer feedback
As a former product manager, I loved this article on UX Collective by Jessica Tenuta, designer-founder of Packback.co. Indeed, listening to customers and users remains key to success, but this is a more subtle operation than we may think, with numerous traps:
"User feedback is always a valuable source of information. But if product designers aren't careful, user feedback can quickly become a to-do list of features organized by who has yelled the loudest and most often." - Jessica Tenuta
Fortunately, Jessica provides numerous concrete ways to make the most of customer interviews by challenging our mindset deeply. My best one is:
"Rather than taking a "feature request" at face value, use a feature request as a jumping-off point for deeper research to identify why they made that feature request." - Jessica Tenuta
In my opinion, the recommendations can be applied outside a product environment, for example, in marketing.
If you reach these lines, it means you read my newsletter: thank you!
I hope you enjoyed it.
Happy to read your comments!
Lucie.