Episode 43: Surfacing Christina Grell
In this episode, Lisa and Andy talk to Christina Grell, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Rocket Mortgage. Christina explains the discipline of product marketing and how it intersects with design and user experience.
Christina Grell is a Senior Director of Product Marketing at Rocket Mortgage, responsible for helping clients and partners achieve their financial goals by setting go to market strategies and executing omni channel marketing that drives the demand and usage of our simple, fast, and trusted digital solutions. She leads a team of Product Marketers that ensures our products and features are brought to market in the most coordinated and effective way so that we can help our clients can live their dreams.
Christina has worked in the financial services industry as a marketer for over 20 years in a variety of disciplines including Product Marketing, Lifecycle Marketing, Incentive and Loyalty Program Execution, Marketing Strategy, Sales Enablement, Project Management, and Direct Marketing. She has worked for companies such as TD Ameritrade (now Charles Schwab), Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase, where she started her career as an associate in their Leadership Development Program.
Christina is a native New Yorker who received her BBA in Marketing from Howard University and MBA in Marketing and Management Systems from Fordham University.
Outside of work, Christina enjoys giving back to the community. She volunteers her time mentoring young adults on topics such as financial education, college planning, and career management. Her interests include reading, traveling, and cooking.
Transcript
Andy Vitale:
Hey Lisa, we just wrapped up a great conversation with Christina Grell, a product marketer, new to our podcast, that discipline of product marketing, which she described as that intersection between product, marketing and sales. Super interesting.
Lisa Welchman:
Yeah, that was really a new role for me. I hadn't really seen that before. I think one of the most fascinating things for people who are listening to this podcast is how she integrates the disciplines of UX, marketing, brand, management, all of these things together in her role. And so that was unique for me and I really learned a lot.
Andy Vitale:
Yep. Hope everyone enjoys it.
Lisa Welchman:
Christina, welcome. I'm going to jump right in.
Christina Grell:
Let's do this while we can.
Lisa Welchman:
Yeah. Can we talk about your current role? It would be really great to hear what you're doing all day long and how you got there.
Christina Grell:
Yes. So I am a product marketer, senior director of product marketing at Rocket. My role is supporting our Rocket Mortgage business on the B2B side. So my team is specifically focused on our partnership space. We have strategic partnerships with a number of brands who are interested in helping their clients identify mortgage solutions. They may be helping their clients in other financial capacities or in other ways. And if a mortgage opportunity presents themselves, they want to be positioned to be able to help those clients identify a lender to help them with their mortgage solutions.
And so my team as a product marketing team is focused on making sure that our partners understand the value of partnering with Rocket, what Rocket Mortgage has to offer. Certainly making sure that the folks who are interacting with their clients understand some of the solutions, at least at a high level, and then they pass them over to us to help walk the client through applying for a mortgage and getting approved, and getting them into their dream home.
Lisa Welchman:
Christina, I'm really interested because you've talked about product marketing, which is a designation that I haven't really heard a lot of at all. Can you talk about what that is and how you got into that role?
Christina Grell:
Yes. So product marketing sits at the intersection of product, sales, and marketing. As a function and discipline we are keenly focused on, one, making sure that for our products, we understand what our product solutions are. We understand the pain points that we're trying to solve for. And we understand what the solution is, what our features are, what our capabilities are, how our product solutions solve problems for the target audience we're going after.
We have to have a keen understanding of our target audience. We have to understand who they are, what's a day in a life of for them. What are their pains, what are they trying to accomplish? And to be able to articulate how our product can help with all of that, how we solve problems for them, and how we can make their lives easier and better.
And I say we're at the intersection of product, sales and marketing because in some cases, product marketing, even though we have the marketing title, does not actually sit within the marketing organization. In some cases we may be focused on the top of the funnel where we're helping our sales team with content, and or anything that could help them sell our solutions to either B2B enterprise or someone who is a buyer of solutions, or specifically to the user of the solution.
So a lot of times we're putting together what we call sales enablement, which is just what it is. Enabling our sales team with content and any assets or resources that could be helpful for them in selling our solutions. My team supports our sales team in prospecting for new partnerships. So again, we're talking to enterprises who are looking for solutions for their business overall.
Or again, it could be once we have a partner signed up, actually helping the users understand the product experience and understand the value that the product brings. And so we help the sales team.
We also work with the marketing team with actually executing the content. We're in a unique position because we are within marketing. We were within the product group, now we're in the marketing group. So we actually do get very close to the execution. So I have a lot of folks on my team who actually will do the end to end, which is not typically what a product market marketer does. We actually do everything from end to end, from the concept development, debriefing, to all the way through to actually helping execute the piece and working with our creative partners to actually get content developed.
And then we work with our product team as well because we have to understand what are we trying to sell? What's the value prop of this thing? How is it solving problems? Can we deliver on our promises? And making sure that we're very close to understanding the solution.
Andy Vitale:
So Christina, that was a great look into what product marketing is. Obviously when you started out on this journey, product marketing wasn't a fully formed discipline, it wasn't even a thought at the time. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey that led you to that role, especially some of the things that might be considered unique?
Christina Grell:
Yeah, so I think what got me here and interested in product marketing quite frankly is, I've been doing a lot of the work already, just not under the title of a product marketer. I've been in financial services marketing for the majority of my career. That has been a combination of doing marketing strategy, sales enablement, certainly working on execution as well of marketing content. And so I think that combination teed me up to be able to be an effective product marketer.
I think what's been unique in my journey, especially working for Rocket and Rocket Mortgage, is the opportunity to be so close and be in the financial services space for the majority of my career. So that made it easy for me to understand our target audience and understand what they're going after, what they're trying to achieve.
And also from a strategist perspective, I'm understanding the opportunities that we have. When you're in financial services space, you're not always selling a product. That's where Rocket Mortgage is very uniquely positioned that we have a product solution out there for our end users and now also our B2B audience as well. And so being able to understand who our target audience is, being able to synthesize some of the research that tells us what are their pain points, what are the opportunities we have in this space to serve them better? Certainly understanding the competitive landscape and understanding the different types of solutions that are out there for consumers.
And then also having the experience of being in the B2B space as well. I did sales enablement for a number of years. And being able to work closely with our sales team and understand how do they work with our consumers? How do they work with our clients and how do they understand? What do we need to do to arm them with the right tools and resources to make them effective at going out there and doing their job?
And so I think that combination again, teed me up to be an effective product marketer. Product marketing is a fairly new discipline role, I think a lot of people who've been in product marketing have been doing the role of a product marketer just not under that title.
Lisa Welchman:
One of the questions that I have around, well, I have two questions. The first one is that communication that you have with the product team and with sales, it sounds like it's more of a collaboration than a one way street.
Christina Grell:
Absolutely.
Lisa Welchman:
So you can probably actually bring value into the product team by your knowledge and expertise of actually kicking it out there with the sales and marketing team versus... And they can give you some insights based on their UX research or whatever. So how does that collaboration work?
Christina Grell:
Yeah, it's a very interesting space to be in because we have the opportunity to be a part of the product development as well. We do ask our product teams to bring us in early and often as we're thinking through the building of a product solution and thinking about who we're going after? Why are we going after this audience? How do we build this product in a way that is teeing up the right features and capabilities to solve problems? And then we have to be able to figure out, okay, how do we articulate this back to the audience? How do we help them figure out what is the most important thing they need to know about this product?
We can't go through a whole tech sheet on what all the features and capabilities are, but we want to make sure that we understand at the highest level, what is the pain point we're trying to solve for? And how do we articulate that back to the audience so they see the value in the solution. They see the value in the product, and they see how it's going to help them solve what they're trying to solve for. And at the end of the day, the closer we both are together, the better we can get the product solution out there and bring it to market.
Lisa Welchman:
Collaboration's always interesting to me because I'm working with teams and helping them build these collaboration models. There's so much focus on product. And one of the things I like to talk about when I give a talk is, the maturity cycle. I talk about how things fall into chaos or whatever. But people are often focused on the product falling into chaos. Not a good UX, not a whatever, but what also is happening in a mirror reflection is the team is like that.
So when you grow things very, very quickly and you grow a team quickly because the product has passed growth, you have to pay just as much attention to how you're actually organizing that team as you are structuring and creating a good experience with the product. And so is there anything that you've just learned works, whether or not it's a team structure, or some type of communication group, or something like that?
Christina Grell:
I think in my mind's eyes, what works the best is bringing everyone to the table, not excluding people because they're at a certain title. Sometimes we tend to be siloed in our own world. But when we bring each other to the table, I think there's so much more value you can bring because it doesn't matter what your title is. It doesn't matter what your tenure is. If you're all working on the same thing I think it's important for everyone to be on the same page and to understand the up funnel and the lower funnel aspects of what you're doing. What's happening at the top, what's the strategy? And then ultimately as well, what needs to be delivered in our world to bring things to market.
Andy Vitale:
One of the other things that, I don't know if it's just something that is part of you and your personality, or if it's something that you've spent a lot of time to grow. But I think that in working with you, I feel like you've got the ability to really make people feel calm and that everything is okay in a very tense environment at times. When there are high stakes, when there are different opinions, I think you've got the ability to really like, "All right, listen. Let's just sit down. Let's figure this out because we all have opinions and this is how we're going to move forward from here." So is that something that you've always been good at, something that you've always had, or is that something you had to work on?
Christina Grell:
Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. I'm glad that's landing because I certainly try. Part of the job as well is managing relationships. And at the end of the day, we're all people. We're all trying to get things done and it's a matter of figuring out how do we work together? How do we make sure that we're thinking about... Even within our own organizations, how do we get things from point A to point B to point Z at the end of the day and working together to make that happen.
And so certainly being able to understand and being empathetic to where everyone else is on the journey and understanding how we can help each other, certainly I think adds for a better working relationship at the end of the day. And understanding and making sure that we can work collaboratively together. I understand, "Hey, you've got these deadlines. You're up against this thing. You have these problems, you have these roadblocks. What can I do to help? Where can I help." And help you understand, "Hey, this is what I need, these are the deadlines that are needed by, and this is why." I think bringing that context to the table and understanding how do we ebb and flow around each other certainly makes for a better working relationship. So in my mind it's always about how do we help each other, and that's the only way we're going to get us from where we are to where we want to be together.
Andy Vitale:
In thinking about your journey still, thinking about how you've become successful, are there what people would consider seemingly unrelated skills or expertise that you have that really helps you succeed?
Christina Grell:
The skills that you need to be an effective product marketer I think include being able to collaborate with other teams. We do work with a number of different teams. As I mentioned, we're at the middle of sales, and marketing, and product. Being able to collaborate with those teams to get us to where we're trying to go is very important. Certainly relationship building and being able to build relationships with different teams, understand what they do, understand how they get the things done that they do, and understanding where we can collaborate and work together. Certainly they have to understand what we're trying to achieve as well and what to bring us in. A lot of the commentary that we often hear is, "We don't understand what you guys do."
So a lot of times it's building the relationship from a place of understanding like, "Hey, here's how you can work with a product marketer. Here's what we're trying to achieve. Here's the right time to bring us in." And I always say, bring us in early and often. Because it can't hurt for us to at least be a fly on a wall and understand what's happening in the background. Because that only aids in us being able to translate what is happening, what's going on, what we're trying to do. Especially from our product team, understanding early on, what are we building, why are we building it, what problems are we solving? That then translates for our team to then be able to create the right types of marketing content that can, one, help our sales team articulate what are the value props associated with a product or solution. But also help the end user understand the value as well.
And so you're the steward of bringing everyone together because you are helping to then take all of that information, synthesize all that information, and then get it out to the right audience. We're a little bit of storytellers as well, and narrators as well. Because again, we've got to be the ones to understand who our audience is? What their problems are? Understanding what our products are? What do we build and what are the features and capabilities? And then be able to present it out into an audience, whether it's our internal sales team or whether it's the end user, or our clients, so that they understand again, like, "Oh, now I know what this thing is and yes, this is going to solve this problem for me." Make sure that we're doing it in a way that is effective.
Lisa Welchman:
I want to touch on our next question, it's going to be an interesting answer from you, which is we're seeing a lot of challenges with digital experiences right now. I mean to the extent that people aren't signing up for accounts and things like that. People I think, at least from my perspective, in some ways are more aggressive about the use of digital, but also a little bit more careful. And so what do you think somebody in your position can do to shift some of those more negative dynamics around product usage and then to amplify the more positive ones? In a lot of ways that's your job to do that.
Christina Grell:
Absolutely. I think it's important for as a product marketer to understand what are all the options out there for our clients. Just thinking of yourself as a consumer when you're going out and trying... You know you have a problem and you're trying to look for that solution for that problem. There are so many different ways you can go about it.
Certainly a lot of times we'll do our own research and try to figure out, "Okay, what's out there? What are the different features and capabilities of this product that I think I need?" And whether you're getting some of that information from friends or family, whether you're getting that information from a blog, or a chat group, or whether you're getting information from product reviews.
And understanding, "Okay, what source of information can I trust to give me the right information about this product? Is this product really going to deliver what it says it's going to deliver? How do I vet it? How do I compare different products and understand what's the real value behind it?" And a lot of it for us is managing expectation for consumers as well. I mentioned I'm in the B2B space, but B2B buyers are also consumers as well. And so I think we have a lot of expectations when it comes to products as well. Because we see different experiences out there, whether it's an adjacent product or something completely different. When I think about Amazon and how they disrupted the marketplace, we have this plethora of options. When you're looking for one thing, you can find 10 different solutions. How do you trust and understand which is the right one for me? And so when it comes to the digital space, I think a lot of people are really concerned about, "Is this going to really deliver what it says it's going to deliver?" So being able to do that.
Lisa Welchman:
I think what's really interesting listening to you talk is that one of the supports that you have accidentally or just by circumstances is that you're in a heavily regulated space. So in that way, I think there's certain trustworthiness that probably comes with the brand and also just comes with the fact that you're a financial services company that's run from the United States of America. There's just certain policy that you have to comply with to even do that. So some of the broader concerns either in the B2B space or B2C that people might have, they probably are pacified to a certain extent. So that actually gives you a nice support where you can then be dealing with the stuff that you're talking about. Whereas for some organizations, they're really dealing with some fundamental things like, "Is it actually safe for me to put my personally identifiable information into this tool?"
Christina Grell:
Yeah, I think what's difficult in this space from a consumer perspective is when it comes to a large purchase, a large transaction like a mortgage, this is not like chump change. This is huge. And there's a lot that goes into-
Lisa Welchman:
For some people it's a once in a lifetime thing.
Christina Grell:
... Absolutely.
Andy Vitale:
Yeah.
Christina Grell:
Absolutely right. And there's a lot attached and a lot of emotions attached to this type of transaction. So you want to feel confident that you're working with a company that's trustworthy. That you're passing over your information and that they're going to use it in the right way and use it to... Certainly we're making decisions based on the information that we're getting on our consumers as well. So we want to make sure that the information flow, both to and from, that we can all trust each other in this transaction.
The client is giving us trustworthy information and that they have to trust that we're going to use that information for them in the right way to make a decision on, hey, whether this person can qualify for a mortgage. We're taking a risk too to say, "You're going to pay us back." So there's trust on both sides of the transaction.
But also I think everyone is also concerned about how that data is being used. Where is it being stored? What are you going to do with it? Are you going to use it again for me or against me? And at the end of the transaction, how do I know that that information is secure and we're done?
Lisa Welchman:
Yeah. Yeah, it's challenging. It's all still relatively new even though we're 30, 35 years in to these. And financial services was so early in the use of this because they already had structured data and they already had rules around what they could do with it. So it allowed them to port a lot of these processes online fairly early. It's interesting to think about that. Because people do want to know about tangential products and services that might be related, but not an aggressive way. It's really, really, really touchy. I really appreciate that. But anyhow, Andy, do you want to shoot for our last question?
Andy Vitale:
But before we even hit that last question, I wanted to touch on trust a little bit more. We live in this space where companies like Facebook or Instagram aren't fully trusted anymore. Yet two days ago, they rolled out a new social media platform that competes with Twitter and had 33 million people sign up in the first 24 hours.
Lisa Welchman:
It's amazing.
Andy Vitale:
So as we think about trust and where people develop trust and what drives that trust, what are some of the things that you've seen that really invoke trust when you're working with people that really do need to trust the company they're transacting with?
Christina Grell:
Some of it is a leap of faith. I think there's something to be said for working with and putting your trust in a quote unquote "trustworthy brand," a brand that serves millions of people. Because you got to believe that millions of people trust this company and instill their trust and are using their products and services for a reason. Although one can make an argument when you look at some of the other brands that have failed, maybe not. But you do have to have a little bit of a leap of faith. I think a lot of people also talk to each other and you get your recommendations from your friends and family. You go on these blogs, you look at reviews. And so you have to weeded out, "Is this really for me? Is this something that I can trust?" And I think some of the ways that we can instill trust is one, humanizing who we are and humanizing our brand, and humanizing the people behind the brand.
I think a lot of times people think of the digital experience as being these algorithms and things that are working in the background. We don't even know if we're actually talking to a human being. But the more that we can put our brand out there, our people out there, and we can also put ourselves out into the community so that people know who we are and they can see. We can also do testimonials where people are talking about their experience. It's not only our word of mouth, it's also the word of mouth of the actual people who have gone through the experience and can talk about what that experience was like for them. Those are some of the ways that we can instill trust. I think it's up to us, especially in the marketing space, is to try to get away from a lot of the fluff that's normally associated with marketing. Certainly we want to sell a product and we want to make sure that we're selling all of the best features and capabilities that we have. But it's important for us to also understand what are our flaws? Where are we not meeting expectations?
Lisa Welchman:
I agree with both of you all. But as someone who's not on the product side and dealing with governance all the time, I think the answer to that question is also a simple one. And you were landing on that towards the end, which is that the best way to instill trust for people who use your products and services is to be trustworthy. It's as simple as that. And I think when we think about what's going on, particularly in social media channels, that's what's failing, that's not marketing.
You are either a trustworthy brand with a trustworthy product or you're not. And yeah, there's some gray areas, particularly around the innovation cycles that have to do with digital. People make mistakes or they don't really understand the implications of the work that they're doing. But I've said it a lot and probably on this podcast, it doesn't upset me so much that mistakes are made. I'm looking at the reaction to the mistake and the realization after it happens of what do we do now? Do we continue down the same road or do we do something different?
Andy Vitale:
So Christina, we're on to our last question. What that question is really is just thinking about your professional journey and back when you started. What are some of the things that you wish that someone told you when you first started out?
Christina Grell:
Yeah, I love this question because now that I'm 20 plus years into my career, not to date myself, but we'll be honest because I don't know-
Lisa Welchman:
I call that experience, Christina. I know we're in this ageist society, but I push against that all the time. That means you know what you're doing with your experience.
Christina Grell:
... Exactly.
Lisa Welchman:
That's what that means.
Christina Grell:
Exactly. I'm a seasoned professional, play that way.
Lisa Welchman:
That's correct.
Christina Grell:
But yeah, I think about my journey. I fell into marketing quite frankly as a result of getting an internship opportunity that happened to be in marketing. And I was like, "Oh, this kind of fits. Okay, I'll do this." And then being recruited by a financial services firm, and that's what put me together with marketing, financial services and stuck with this. I mentioned earlier that at the early onset of my career was around the time digital was really gaining momentum. It started off doing the early stages of email marketing and then understanding the intersection of online shopping, and whether people wanted to do online transactions, and working for a financial services company. Did people want to pay for things online? Do they feel comfortable giving their credit card information?
And so when I think about the early starts of my career, and definitely when I talk to interns or people who are starting out, one of the key things I always say is, "Don't be afraid to fail. Just try something and see what happens." I think there are so many opportunities out there to try different things. There's so many different types of roles and types of organizations. Early in your career, you've got plenty of runway to try something. If it doesn't work, say, "You know what? Not a great fit for me. Let me try something else."
One of the other things that I also talk about a lot to interns is, "Be flexible and be open to learning. Shadow people. Talk to people who are doing things to understand how they do the thing that they do. Like what's a day in the life of? And really understanding our products. What are your pain points?" What are you looking for to solve some of those pain points, whether you're trying to learn a new skill, or whether you're trying to build your career and get to the next step in your career. How do you go about that? What are the things you should do?
One of the things that we've lost in this digital era is just talking to people, connecting to people. We've got so much access if you think about something like LinkedIn. You've got access to millions of people you can reach out to. You'll be surprised that if you just click a button and say, "Hey, can I talk to you? Can we just chat for 15 minutes? I looked at your profile and there's something about what you're doing that's of interest to me. Can I just talk to you about it?"
Being able to open up your mind to other opportunities that are out there and not feeling like you have to have everything figured out at the beginning of your career and create this linear path of, "I'm going to do this and do that." And you think there's just this perfect ladder. Whereas in reality, as we all know, we zigzag. We may jump on different opportunities in different ways. I think it's interesting from a career perspective to be flexible and open from that perspective.
The other thing I've learned is what they say when you get on a plane and they're walking you through the safety aspects of your flight. Put your mask on first. Take care of yourself first. I think a lot of times we sacrifice a lot as career professionals. We put the work first and we forget to take care of ourselves. It's taken me a while to realize I got to put my mask on first. I got to worry about... I got to make sure that my mental health is taken care of, that I'm taking care of myself physically. Because you want to be able to bring your whole self to work, and that includes a clear mind and a functioning body so that you can do the job.
There's a lot of brain work involved there. I think we all learned during the pandemic how much of a toll that can take on you. I tell people, take a mental health day. Just step away. Take those vacation days that if you're afforded that opportunity and you can afford to do so. It's a staycation. Stay home and watch Netflix for a day. Whatever it takes to disconnect, do that. So I think it's important that we think about ourselves and not just a career.
Andy Vitale:
Well, Christina, it's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast. It's been great working with you for my two and a half plus years. Our teams have collaborated well together, and I'm really happy that you've had a chance to come on and talk about some of your experiences and share that with our listeners. So can't thank you enough for being on.
Christina Grell:
Yeah, it's great to meet you. We didn't get to talk about Andy though.
Andy Vitale:
That's fine.
Christina Grell:
He’s awesome. What can I say? He's just awesome.
Lisa Welchman:
Awesome. It's awesome.
Christina Grell:
That's awesome. No, but thank you for the opportunity. It's a pleasure to be able to talk to you, to talk to your listeners. And certainly I'm digitally connected, so if anyone wants to connect, I'm on LinkedIn, so certainly you can find me there. And it's been a pleasure to be able to talk a little bit about product marketing, what we do at Rocket, and how we are trying to build and deliver a trusted experience for our business partners and our clients.
So thanks for the opportunity.
Lisa Welchman:
Yeah. Well, thanks for joining us. It was a lot of fun.
Christina Grell:
Awesome. Thank you.