Ask for What You Want: Careers, Contracts, and Building Products That Work Everywhere

Speaker A: Welcome back to another episode of Practical Product Management where Marilyn and I sit down and talk about how product management is done in context. It's not all about theory and all about the great books that are out there, but really like, how does product management get done, um, in your company, in your life as a product manager. So, so today we get to talk to our friend Jen. So we met Jen at Amazon. Um, all three of us work there at the same time and have stayed friends and seen each other over all these years. And so we're going to talk to Jen today. So I'll ask you, Jen, to tell us a little bit about you before we start asking you questions and talk.

Speaker B: Well, thanks, ladies. It's great to see you guys again. Um, I am from the Seattle area. Uh, not originally, but I've been here for the last 20 years. Originally, um, started my career within the public accounting space and then quickly transitioned to the tech industry. Um, I did a few years at Microsoft and then I went to Amazon where I met these amazing women, um, primarily within the payments organization. Different kind of roles and then compliance and, um, more like core acceptance expertise. Um, and then I wanted to go to a smaller company and I went to a company called Stripe. Um, worked with their partnerships organization for a few years. And now after 15 years in tech, I'm, um, taking some time for myself, um, spending time traveling, um, finishing all the home remodel projects that I've been working on for the past 15 years and just, uh, you know, trying to figure out exactly what my next step is.

Speaker A: I think you just flew in yesterday or the day before. The day before.

Speaker B: Right? I did. I was in Sydney and Fiji, um, for a few weeks. And then I actually leave for Ohio and Sri Lanka, um, tomorrow night. So

Speaker A: Ohio doesn't really fit in.

Speaker C: I was going to say, how's Ohio? Is it like I actually.

Speaker A: Yeah, random stop there. Um, yeah. Ohio, Ohio to Sri Lanka.

Speaker B: It's all about balance, ladies. All about balance.

Speaker A: Awesome.

Speaker C: Well, it's super good to see you again, Jen. I'm very excited about this conversation. Um, maybe. Tell us, tell us, tell us and the people out in the universe, um, how you got into product management. Because you, like Leah, you came through the accounting track, um, and ended up sort of like building some pretty cool stuff. How'd you end up here?

Speaker B: Um, I would say, like, similar stories. I just kind of fell into it. Um, when I was working at Microsoft, um, I was working really closely with an engineering team that was all located within Shanghai, and all the business partners were within Redmond Localize. And I was doing a lot of like, product capabilities and features and functions and writing business requirements and things of that nature. And I just thought that was kind of like the job of just like a program manager. And then I transitioned to working at Amazon, um, and I really wanted to get into product management. Um, fortunately, someone that was very thoughtful connected me to Leah, um, and said, this is the product woman, the payments woman. Like, she is like the best under the sun. So I started begging her by buying her lunch to mentor me, um, and realized that, like, what I'd actually been doing a lot in Microsoft was product management. And then she really helped me kind of hone in my product management skills at Amazon. So again, just, I just kind of fell into it. I feel like many people out there.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think, I mean, I think we've had this conversation a few times before. Like back when, back when we. Back in my day, um, you know, back when we were all sort of starting in product management, there was no. Really clear. And I don't. Maybe there's not one clear path to get there and you kind of end up doing the job. And I think that's part of the beauty of product management. But probably also some of the downside of product management is that you really have to sort of like self apply to sort of round out your skills. Um, but you can come in from anywhere. And that's kind of the cool part here.

Speaker B: Yeah, I completely agree with you. And I think what's also interesting is that it's a skill set that will help you within other kind of career paths or, you know, um, you know, roles that you have within another organization. So, you know, I moved from product within Amazon and then to more of a partnerships role within stripe. Um, but I worked with a ton of product people and I think that they really valued working with me because I could speak their language. So I think that the skills are so transferable to other roles and, um, just other areas of the business. Uh, so it's accounting. It's like one of those things that's super helpful to have as a foundation.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's really interesting because I think sometimes as a coach, when product managers come to me, they will diminish their background and be like, oh, well, I didn't come. I'm not a trained product manager and I'm like, who is? Right? Like, but who do you know that is like, there are a few little schools and courses and things today, but quite frankly, that's not where you learn to do Product management.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: We learn to do product management. That's part of the reason why we do this podcast. We do it in context and with others around us. I think that that's what I remember seeing you do. Like you had the skills, you'd done a lot of it. It was just sort of applying it in the direction of now we're gonna go build something.

Speaker B: Right? Yeah, exactly. Defining exactly what it was and then working with really strong and amazing people like yourselves to figure out exactly what I was doing and how I could do it better.

Speaker A: Exactly, exactly.

Speaker C: I also think another, um, another key attribute, like we're just going to talk you up here for a second, Jen. Another key attribute of you is that you have a really deep domain expertise. So when Leah and I talk about T shaped people, there's the like, there's like the wide, broad skills of product management. And you, you probably have actually more wide, broad skills than just product management, but you have all of these wide, broad skills and then you have deep domain expertise. Um, and so when you talk about a classic T shaped person, not that you're T shaped, but I think that you're like, you're like one of the people I would hold up and say like Jen's. Jen's exactly that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, and so why don't you talk a little bit about your domain expertise and how you ended up there And I mean, because you're both. I'm on the phone, my friends, with two of the best people in payments. I don't know if you know this or not.

Speaker A: Uh-huh.

Speaker C: But these are the ladies.

Speaker A: As though she seems like, like she doesn't have those skills too. Right.

Speaker C: Not. But I do. Like, I look up to both of you. So like, you know. Yeah, tell us a little bit about your teeth.

Speaker B: Um, I think from a domain expertise perspective, I think those skills were just through like working with third parties and just like diving into those details. I think payment space is so interesting because it's different not only based on different payment methods, but also from a geographical perspective. So, you know, card processing, for example, within the US is totally different than card processing in tricky, for example. And so, you know, when I worked a lot with third party providers in Turkey to understand, understand how to launch, um, Amazon in Turkey, it was a mind blowing experience because acquirers just work differently. The different installments and different payment solutions that consumers enjoy there. So I would say from a domain expertise perspective, it was just a lot of curiosity and a lot of asking a lot of questions, um, and then trying to figure out how to build solutions around these new ways of offering acceptance or new ways of um, managing costs or routing or whatever kind of uh, the role uh, needed.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, so yes, yes, I have a payments background, but I, Jen is one of those great examples of someone who started out and I was the payments expert and pretty soon I was like, this is the payments. Because it's like after a while I went on and did other things and was pretty soon like, oh, I don't know. But Jenn will know. Right. But I'm curious, like for you, given now the kind of time you spent in the domain, what do you think some of the, ah, what are the most interesting things that have come up or changed over these last few years in your mind and kind of that payments, fintech space?

Speaker B: Oh my gosh, I think the list here is probably endless. Um, I think the introduction of just how crypto um, is evolved through the industry, also through AI, um, and how that technology can be used with just more intelligent um, routing or just more intelligent processing more broadly. Um, making things just more real time in terms of like onboarding merchants or underwriting merchants. Um, from that perspective, gosh, um, I mean, I'm curious what your thoughts are.

Speaker A: Yeah, you know, sometimes we talk about like if you stay in something long enough, you see it change a few times and you see some like different, you know, moments and you're like, oh, that's interesting. And that's interesting. When I started in, before I was in, before I was a product manager, I was an accountant and I worked in banks and we used to literally go into this little room and had this dot matrix printer and that's where the Fed file would come in and we would know where to put the money at the bank and all this stuff. And. But when I look across my payments career, the thing that I always point to as a game changer was you know, like square, Square, that whole concept of carrying, you know, this and being able to use it as a mobile payment device, that didn't exist. The mobile payment devices before Square were bricks. I mean like you had to like hold them in your arm and try, try to hold like cradle them like a baby because they also cost crazy amount of money. But I agree with you, like, I think that things like square, I think things like crypto coming into play, um, I think the, the kind of advent of you know, being able to. I never, I mean I get on the tube and on a bus with my phone. I don't even have to most the time. I Leave my apart. My flat in London with my phone in my hand and my keys in the other. I don't even carry a wallet anymore because I don't need to as long as my phone is charged. Um, so those kinds of things I think buy now, pay later. Like I think there's this things that have happened that maybe aren't like every one of them isn't revolutionary but what has happened across time is it's kind of, it's, it's made it a commodity game on the kind of individual transactions but everybody can now really engage with it. Whereas when I started out in payments we were trying to really figure out how to move payment like techno technical solutions down to consumers who weren't rich, right and had an AMEX or a really nice visa, right. Like you were trying to move it down to the common denominator of all the people. And I think payments to me is that more than ever. I don't know, I don't know what you guys do either of you think about that.

Speaker C: So I have um, I thousand percent agree with you. Um, I think, I think that the shift for consumers is pretty visible. People, people understand that it's pretty tangible even if you're not in payments. Um, and you know we did work obviously a long time ago on small merchants and you can look at square and be like yeah, uh, small merchants, like I can go sell my pottery at the art fair, someone can, someone can just tap my phone. I don't even actually need a dongle anymore which is amazing. M. I actually think Jen, what you said earlier about um, acquiring onboarding, like I actually think that the expectations from a consumer perspective, those demands are actually driving some fundamental shifts that are going to start pushing upstream into mid size and larger size business because payments for some companies is still relatively complex and expensive. And especially when you start talking about you know, multi currency, multi country multilocation, like there's just still some complexity and for like mid to larger sized businesses this is still a significant portion of their cost base cost of payments. It costs a lot. And the people that are like I don't know, I still write checks to people which I think is insane because they're clearly not understanding how much it cost to like get that check in and put it in the bank. They're just, they're not thinking um, but I do think that that um, the shift in mindset is going to start moving up into that direction because I still think there's portions of this industry that are largely underserved where it Touches the consumer much better. Uh, because none of us have patience. Right. We all have Apple and other things on our phone and we want everything to work like that. But I think there's still this market in the middle that's grossly underserved and waiting for something revolutionary to happen. And I don't know what that revolutionary thing is. And we should all have a whiteboard one day and figure it out and start a company. Uh, but that's.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I completely agree with both of you and it's interesting. Like you know, Ali was talking like I, I was remembered or I remembered a use case or situation in which I was traveling internationally and my Chase cars was frauded. The Visa card was the only card I had um, besides my amex. And as you know IMAX isn't necessarily as prevalent within the eu. But um, I was basically locked to my phone and using Apple Play the entire time. But I was able to actually use it. There was no um, merchant, there was no hotel, there was no you know, distributor at the time that didn't accept TAP to pay. So I completely left out um, and to your point, specifically Maryland on cost. It was interesting. I was actually talking to a company, company um, earlier this week that was spending $40 million on cost of payments and they were only processing like 12 billion in volume. And I thought, I'm like, yeah, there's a lot of opportunity out there. They got it further explained to say like you know, that they're only, they uh, were a global organization but they only had legal entities within the US and Canada. And so I think primary driver that was cross border fees. And you know, they're looking for areas to optimize, optimize um, that overall cost. And I said yeah, it sounds like there's a lot of opportunity for optimization there. Um, but there's also a balance of uh, you know, going local and you know, setting up a, you know, legal entity in which you can actually acquire from. So there's definitely some cost benefits. But 40, um, million is a big number.

Speaker C: It's a big number.

Speaker A: I would have said throw me a million and I'll, I'll cut that in half.

Speaker C: Right, exactly right.

Speaker B: This could be a really, really good deal.

Speaker A: I like it. This is, this is what anybody out there listening should be like, how do I get Jen to come in and solve that problem?

Speaker C: Just consult, right? 6, 7, 8, 10 months.

Speaker A: Yeah, sorted.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: And if you, if you really want her to, she can negotiate your contract and you'll be, and everybody will be like, nice Nice girl, very fiercely just took all of our money away. A really nice lady. That just totally robbed its mind. It was a crimson. I was so surprised. Right, Yeah. I like to find a win win in everything.

Speaker B: There's always, you know, there's always an upside for them as well.

Speaker A: Yeah, totally. Well, I'm curious. One of the things I was thinking about, um, when it comes to you specifically is like, you travel a ton. You've been all over the world, you've been all these great places, but you've also worked internationally, kind of in this domain of payments. You know, sometimes now that I've lived in Europe for seven years and in, you know, three different countries with three very different styles of paying. Right, sweet. If you go Sweden, Germany, in the uk, there's three very distinct ways of being right. Um, you know.

Speaker C: Ah.

Speaker A: So one of the stories I like to tell is that when I first moved to Sweden or. And even in Germany, sometimes somebody would send you a bill and they would just want you to send an email with your bank details. And at first I was like, I can't. Can't send you my bank details in an email.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: But now I'm like, sure. And I just do it because that's what everybody does. It's expected. When I said that to someone, um, recently, I was like, it was shocking. She said, and I would also never hand my credit card to a waiter at a restaurant and let them walk away with it.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: And I was like, right, good point. Right.

Speaker C: Every time we're in France, every time we're in France, I just try to give people my credit card and they're like, they'll actually, like, throw their hands up and walk away.

Speaker A: No, don't give me your card. I don't want to be accused of anything. But I'm curious for you, having worked all of, you know, on all these different things and lived all over the world, what are some of the things that you think are most different about sort of how people pay in the world and how they, how they show up in different ways?

Speaker B: Um, I think the most interesting one is in Dubai, actually. Um, they are a big, uh, not cash and delivery, but card on delivery. Um, uh, economy there. And so you'll buy something online, a courier will take it to you, you open the box and then you pay for it. Or you open the box, you don't want it, you refuse it, and you don't pay for it. Um, and the reason is because they want to actually see like, the product or service or the good before they actually pay. And I'm like, for, for a, um, culture of just strong trust and um, Sorry, I'll have to add this as I'm like totally blinking. But look, of a culture of such strong trust and such strong values. I'm just shocked that they're willing to, or they're not willing to put their card on file or they're not willing to pay for it in advance and they then kind of go through the hassle of having to physically accept the good or service, um, and then paying for it.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Uh, I think, I think that was one of the biggest, um, aha. Moments for me from a product perspective back when we all worked at Amazon, is that there is such a, I mean, money's important to people, right? Like when you start getting into things like money and security, um, you get a much more visceral reaction from your consumers. Um, and I remember when, uh, One Click in China launched. Do you guys remember that?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: And they hated it. They hated it. They thought it was fraud. Um, something that I thought was brilliant. You know, one click and magic. All the, all the magic happens and I get my thing. Um, so it's funny when you talk about Dubai and you talk about sort of like Germany or the UK where people are willing to share some things and not willing to do others, when you think about a multinational company or a company that's interested in being multinational, how important, how important it is to do that local research and really understand how people feel about that transaction, um, process and what they're willing to live, uh, with and, or not. What's very uncomfortable to the point where it just sort of like, will kill your conversion rate. Um, yeah.

Speaker B: Another example is, uh, when I, when we launched Amazon, um, in Turkey, um, we, to your point specifically, Marilyn, we want, wanted to make sure from an authentication perspective or like a conversion perspective, we removed all the friction. And so we did these really strong deals with, um, different issuers to say, hey, can you reduce the threshold on authentication that it would trigger so we can like, give these consumers a really great experience, you know, shopping on.de the same as shopping on.tr and after we launched, the feedback we got from consumers is that, ah, like they were shocked that they didn't actually have to authenticate.

Speaker C: They did.

Speaker B: They felt like the transaction actually wasn't complete because they never kind of hit that step in the process and they were upset about it. It was a strong like, backlash that, you know, they kind of expected that and um, that was just kind of like part of the online Purchasing flow, and they didn't feel like it was as secure as other transactions. And so we quickly had to, like, roll back and, you know, work with the different issuers to actually increase those thresholds again, um, to make sure that, you know, consumers actually felt like they were safely transacting on the website.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's that. It's that concept. We talk. We've talked about this before. Like, there is sometimes meaningful friction.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like friction that users are like, yeah, I want that. I want to. I want to know that, you know, who I am. I mean, when we. I remember when we were doing Amazon, we were doing. We were launching Amex in India at Amazon, and they were going to throw up, like an intersection, superstitial and a little, you know, a little page. And we were like, it's not gonna work. And they were like, that's how it's gonna work. And I was like, it's not gonna work. We can do it this way, but it's gonna be expensive because I'm gonna have to roll it back and fix it. So why don't we do it this way? And it was just this really interesting conversation because I was like, they're gonna. It's gonna be a problem. Like, it's gonna be. And of course we did it. We agreed. We did it. We rolled it out, did an A B test that failed. And I was like, good for how we're going to do it. And. But it's. It's those kinds of things that are. There's such important conversations. Right. You can't. We can't make assumptions that, you know, this is going to work in every locale.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I mean, also, I think things come along that make us change behavior. So when I moved, you know, in Sweden, if you carry cash, you're just a total weirdo. Like, I remember handing cash at a store in Sweden once, and the girl going, oh, is this what our new money looks like? And I was like, yes. You know, and then going to Germany, where I would sometimes have to leave a restaurant and leave my purse and go get. Go to an atm, because they didn't take anything but cash. And I'd be like, where's the closest atm? And they always were like, oh, it's around the corner. And they, like. Lots of places didn't have card machines. You had to have cash. But then the pandemic happened, and they couldn't only take cash because cash was dirty. Right. And we were all buying online and there were all these things. And so it changed. Not completely, but it changed the ways, uh, of being right and how we pay. And I think that that's something also that we see in this. In kind of this deep domain of payments in fintech, that across time people will make change. Right. But we have to be aware of what change they are comfortable with and how they can make it.

Speaker B: Yeah, I completely agree. Yeah.

Speaker A: Super interesting. So I also wanted to talk a little bit about. I'm gonna shift gears a little. I want to talk a little bit about mentorship and friendship and kind of. I think the three of us can have an interesting conversation about that. So years ago. Let me tell everyone a story. Years, um, ago, someone came to me and said, you know, would you mentor this lovely young woman, Jen Bloom? And I was like, yeah, I guess I don't know what I'm gonna teach her. Like, uh, in my mind, I was like a. She, uh, you know, I think she probably knows stuff already. She works here, right? Sin. She works here in GPS at the time, which was Global Payment Solutions. So she must know something. But sure, I can teach, I guess. And so we had lunch and, you know, I mentored you and. And I, you know, and I did. I'm not saying I didn't, but I think what's fascinating about. About mentorship is that it has its own, um, life. Right? And you can't. You might mentor someone for a really brief period of time or be a mentor for a really brief period of time. You. You really intersect your lives and you influence them, and then you move on. And sometimes mentors become friends, and then you ask the. The mentee becomes the expert. So then the mentor asks questions and you have this sort of kind of flux, kind of, you know, fluctuation in your relationship across time. So I'm curious for you, since I've told my side of that story, what does that. What does the other side of that story feel like when you are sort of on the receiving end of having a mentor, but then also that turning into something else? What does that. How does that feel for you?

Speaker B: Um, I think that for me, um, I think it's probably a unique experience per person. I think that, um, not to speak for. For all people, but I can't imagine that every mentor is probably going to end up like your BFF per se. I think it just really depends upon the mentor. And I think with you specifically, Leah, that we just had such a great relationship through that mentoring in terms of having respect. You were very patient, you're very calm, you answered a lot of questions, and you just Kind of built this very strong relationship of trust um, that just kind of evolved throughout like our life cycle and our life cycle, maybe like a relationship cycle. Um, and you know, even as you know you transitioned away from Amazon, took on different roles like you were still a very strong um, just advocate per se in my life. And I was always kind of like drawn to continue to gain your expertise or gain your experience or just ask questions. And I think where selfishly it's created the most value for me is that now that you're kind of transitioned into this part time or this full time coaching um, ah, role I can go back to you and say I'm having this problem, I don't know how to handle a situation. And because you've worked with me in the past and because you've mentored me in the past, you can say there's something else to it. You know, there's a really great example of a few months ago I reached out and said, hey, I'm having this problem with this individual. And he said there's something else going on. What's really going on? And I said well you know, there's. This happened, this happened. He said oh, it's because you don't trust Jim and you basically like walk me through everything that I was feeling. So I think that um, you know, from a mentor perspective, like I think, you know you can have many different mentors within your, within your life but I think that like those in which you find a strong relationship with, from like a trust factor perspective and you know, respect factor perspective, I think that's where you get like the most long term value out of those relationships. Um, and I'm incredibly lucky to have two women, um, which I've trusted and respected for uh, my entire career, honestly.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think it, so I think it's interesting, I think that there's an element of this that I'll ask you, Marilyn as well. You know, I think sometimes it's hard as you continue your career, especially as a senior woman. There's not always other women further along. At this point there's not very many women that are older than me that I'm going to turn to and be like help, right or that have done certain things. And so I think we end up in a situation where we are each other's peers, each other's mentors, each other's friends. And I think that that's okay and that women need to just accept that that's part of how this will work a lot of times for those of Us who are, you know, maybe still in sort of that marginalized capacity where the network isn't as big as it is for. For men. Right. So what do you think about that, Marilyn? Like, uh, how have you thought about mentorship in that?

Speaker C: I mean, I was struck by the conversation because I, you know, uh, clearly you guys are great friends. Um, and part. One of my favorite things is seeing you both somewhere else together on Instagram, because I'm always, like, super envious and fomo. Um, but. But I don't think it always starts with mentorship. I mean, Leah, we were colleagues and we were not friends, um, for a little while. And you are, you know, absolutely one of my best friends. And I learn from you every day. And I think I was trying to sort of like, think about this while you guys were talking. I think there is something about, um, finding the people that you just want to see succeed and then letting your barriers down and being vulnerable and being humble and being willing to tell, like, tell someone, like, hey, Jen, like, we don't talk very often, but I think you're a total badass. And every time I see you win, I want to celebrate with you. And I'm going to start reaching out and telling you that more often because I want to see you succeed for no other reason except for that you deserve it. Um, and then. And then being able to, like, I mean, Leah, the first time we shared like, shit, how much money do you make? Um, that was like a vulnerable moment.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: To have a conversation about, like, you know, I'm going to try to renegotiate this. Can you help me? Um, or give me perspective? And there is so much power in that network. Um, and. And I, like, I just want nothing more than to have a whole bunch of people like us helping their peers in network. Because to your point, like, you know, that's not very many female CEOs, uh, there's not very many people to look up with. And all of those women have hundreds of people trying to get their time.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And we're not going to get it. So, like, why are we not helping each other? There's. There's room at the top for all of us. Why are we not helping each other get there? Yeah.

Speaker B: And I think as we all kind of grow in our careers and your experiences and our mindsets, like, there's more and more value and saying, kind of like, add, um, to, you know, the mentoring relationship. And so I think, like, maintaining those relationships and continue to kind of curate them. And to your point, Marilyn, like, it's hard to, like, just reach out to someone kind of randomly and saying, you know what? You're a badass. Oh, you're a badass.

Speaker A: We swear on this. We had our, uh. One of our guests counted how many times he swore, which was fun.

Speaker B: Um, you know, just, like, randomly reaching out to, like, colleagues and friends or mentors and say, like, you're a badass. You know, that was an awesome, awesome post you did on LinkedIn. Or I'm really proud of the fact that you did xyz. Or I'd love to learn more about your experience. Doing, you know, xyz, I think, is really, really important. It's not something we do very much of. Um, so, like, mental note for myself, I guess, as I kind of explore what I'm doing next and where my next phase of my life or career journey per se takes me. It's definitely something that I need to kind of, you know, flex my muscles around.

Speaker A: Exactly. I. But I'm always really impressed when someone. It's often. I mean, it's been men a few times, but it's often women, I think, maybe because I'm a woman who will reach out to me cold on LinkedIn or an email and be like, I want to learn this. Would you talk to me? And I'm like, yeah, okay. Like, and I often tell people I say yes, so you should always ask those things. So if you're. If you're out there and you're listening to this and you're like, I'm not just to reach out to that person. It's a total stranger reach out. Because sometimes they're like, yeah, okay, because I'm curious enough about what makes someone say, how did you end up in this career? Or, how did you decide to do this? Could. Could I have 30 minutes of your time?

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And that is not an offer to the whole world. Please don't message me.

Speaker C: I was just gonna say, and this is how we know Leah is a nicer human than I am. Because no one asked me anything ever. And I don't always say yes,

Speaker A: But I just. I think that there's something to be said for the. The courage it takes us to say, yeah, I'm struggling. Or I don't understand how this contract should work, or am I asking for too much? Am I asking for too little? I m mean, I sat at Marilyn's counter and said, would you read my Klarna contract and tell me if it's any good? And she's like, okay, right? And I was like, you know, And. And we sat there and discussed it. Right. And you know, Marilyn's point. Like, the first time we were like, where are you? In the Amazon salary band for senior for L6? And she was like, I'm here. Where are you? I'm here. But one of us had to say the number first. Yeah, Right. Like, and it's. It's those conversations. They need to happen. We need to trust one another that there's not. This isn't a competition. Yeah, right. I mean, once again, just the other day, I was talking to a recruiter, and I was like, you know who you need to be talking to?

Speaker C: I do that to you all the time. Yeah.

Speaker A: So. And I think that there's. There's. There's room. We have to stop behaving like it's scarcity. M. Right. And I think so. I don't know. I just think I have. I mean, I was going to say one other thing about Jen and I and our relationship. Like, literally now, when. When we're having a coaching conversation and she describes something to me, I'm like, oh, God, it's a good thing. I know what those words mean, but I don't understand it anymore. Like, she'll be describing how something works, and I'm like, huh. Uh, I think I. I get the gist. Right. But I couldn't. I could no sooner walk in and do what Jen does at this stage after all these years, than, you know, then m. Like, bake like Marilyn. Like, these are not things I can do.

Speaker B: I don't think any of us can bake like Marilyn, to be honest with you. I'm pretty sure you can pick up my payments expertise, though, for allegedly.

Speaker C: I'm gonna start at, like, baking with Marilyn blog, and you're all gonna see that that's not true. I bake with a lot of alcohol. Just so the public knows, like, if you're a tea toller, you're not gonna want any of my desserts.

Speaker A: I still sometimes think about the bourbon cupcakes that were at my 40th birthday party.

Speaker C: Those.

Speaker A: Those were good. Look, see, Everybody has. Every time. Those cupcakes. Yeah, those were good. I'm gonna be 50s next year. Marilyn, I'm gonna need you to whip some cookies.

Speaker C: I will come over and I will make you pastries and cupcakes, and I'll

Speaker B: be your sous chef.

Speaker C: Done. Let's do it.

Speaker A: So the other thing that we were talking about a little bit ago was that you are a badass negotiator. You've done so many kind of partnership relationships and negotiated cost of payments at big companies and done all these different things. Where did you get that skill?

Speaker B: Uh, gosh, that's a great question. I think it's just something you, like, learn over time. Um, you know, kind of like we were talking about earlier, just like learning from your mentors, learning from your peers, like, understanding, you know, what things that they've negotiated. I mean, it's so interestingly a great example is that, you know, when you move to, um, uh, Sweden for Klarna, you had mentioned that you not only negotiated that they would, you know, help you move over there, but if it didn't work out, you'd hope they'd help you move back. And I'm thinking, God, what a great idea. Like, because that doesn't mean you're kind of stuck, right? So I think that's just like those things you pick up over time. And I think, like, the most important, important thing is really trying to figure out, like, what they want, what would make that third party happy, and truly trying to find, like, a win, win situation between them and having a lot of just like, open dialogue. And I think the strategy used at one company, so, for example, a negotiating contract for Amazon, who is like the big giant gorilla, um, it's different as a strategy. You work from a smaller company or a company that just has a different, um, approach or maybe a different position. So I think the skills are just one of those things you just kind of learn over time, um, continuously talking to others that have done it, um, especially yourselves, and, um, just, you know, iterating and reflecting on past deals you've done too. Um, what could I have done better? What could I have gotten more of? Like, am I happy with the outcome, am I not happy with the outcome? Things like that.

Speaker C: I definitely think you're the pro, though. So, like, my natural state is. I mean, you will never know it. Um, but I like, you know, I actually want people to be happy and I want them to like me. And I don't want to be too mean, which is not how my public Persona comes up. Uh, but negotiation is really hard for me because I'm like, you know, should I, should I just say what I want and then let the chips fall? Like, let the chips fall. Um, and I think it's one thing to be negotiating for myself personally, but it's another to be negotiating on behalf of a business. Like, I actually want this product to work. I actually, you know, so the, the economics are relatively easy because that's a math problem. But the Rest like Leah, you're like, if I'm not happy, move me back. Like, I don't know if I could ask for that. Like, that was. That's, uh, that's bravery. And I think, Jen, that this, you know, there's a lot of people that could use help developing those skills. So I feel like we're all going to need to like, group think a cool book or some articles on like, Jen. Do you have like, Jen's top secret tips to negotiation? And, well, you can write that up on Linked and we'll post it. So if you do, we'll post it here. And if you don't, like, you know, we'll come back and have another art of part of the cool deal. Maybe the conversation.

Speaker B: That's another episode. Brainstorming. Negotiation time. There we go.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: Three way. Uh, brainstorming.

Speaker A: No, it's funny. I, uh, will just say that the best thing about that contract you guys are both talking about is I negotiated for them to move me back. No matter what the reason was, it didn't work out. Whether they were unhappy or I wasn't happy. And then when I moved to Berlin nine months later, they put it in the second contract. So I had a whole reset of another year. And I was all. I didn't even know it was in there. I was like, yeah, sure, we can use the exact same paper. That's fine. I had two whole years where there was no risk, right, that I could, I could pull the plug and say, move me back to Seattle. Right? So that's amazing. That made me up. But you know what I remember, I will say this, and I think you go back to what Jim was saying. When I was negotiating that deal, I sat in. I mean, Marilyn and Patrick helped me, but I also sat in a room with the director of engineering I was working with at, uh, Providence. And he was like, you should ask for this and this and this. And I was like, I can't ask for all of that. And he's like, I would. And I remember thinking, wait, if he would, I need to be willing to ask for it. And let. He's like, let them tell you no. He's like, give them something to say no to. And then you can be like, yeah, okay, then I'll take these other three things that you weren't going to offer, put five things on the table, and let them say no. And I was all, okay. And so I remember saying to him, is this how men negotiate? And he was like, yeah, like. Like I was some sort of dummy. I Was like, I had no idea this whole time. But he was like, yeah. And he was like rattling off things. You should ask for all these things. And I was like, okay, so it

Speaker C: feels like too much, but I want them to like me.

Speaker A: Right, Exactly. So I put the ask on the table and, and the CPO at Klarna was like, yeah, I mean we don't, we don't do these two things, but the rest is fine. And I remember thinking I didn't ask for enough because it was so easy. Right. And, and I think it was a fair deal. It wasn't like they weren't being taken advantage of and I wasn't being. It was a fair deal. They got what they paid for.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And I got what I paid for. Right. And so I just think it's fascinating that we don't. Who teaches, who teaches us these things? Right. We have to go find them out.

Speaker C: Yes. Yeah.

Speaker A: Right. Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, I think asking your things and also just helping them understand like what you're, what you're asking for, like why you're asking. Because sometimes your ass meet come off as just like super arrogant or like unnecessary, necessary. But if you back up to say like, hey, like if I don't like this, I can't afford to go back or I, you know, I want to make sure that I can, you know, help my family or you know, whatever the. And you can always, you know, BS it as well. But um, maybe we have that actually. Um, but I think kind of explaining like why you're asking for something or like also how it's going to add value to both them m and you or adding value to you is also going to add value to them is really important. When you think about like making a huge plethora of ask. And also to your point specifically, like prioritizing them too. If I ask for 15 things like, but I only really want 10 of them, um, I really need to like lean into those first ten but add, uh, have those other five as um, you know, you know, back pocket items per se.

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Well, it's interesting because when I, when I first moved to Germany and was hiring people, there was a bit of a practice of hiring someone with this sort of like, we'll pay you this now and in six months we'll renegotiate. Drove me batshit. It was like this expectation that at the probation mark, because everybody's kind of got this six month probation, the probation mark, that you could ask for something more. And I remember saying, we didn't do that. At Clark, let's be clear. But when I went to the startup I was like, I told the HR team, I was like, I'm not negotiating at six months, so make sure everybody who takes an offer from me knows that that offer has to stand until their first performance evaluation, so they better ask for what they want. Right. And ah, the HR team was like, we'll probably have to pay people more. And I'm all, I don't care. I m would rather pay them more now than try to negotiate every single time. I mean when I first started that job, every six months, every, you know, I was on this really terrible rolling cycle of people being like, I'm at my probation mark, it's time for you to give me a raise. And I'm like, for what? Yeah, what am I giving you a raise for? Right. Well, it's because I was promised that during the interview. Well, we don't make those promises anymore. And it was a cultural thing, but it was also like, yeah, uh, I'm not, not doing that. Yeah, I want you to be happy when you walk in the door. And if you're not going to be happy, you shouldn't take the job, don't take the job.

Speaker C: Exactly. Right. Yeah.

Speaker A: And I feel the same way about my jobs. I've taken, I've taken pay cuts because I wanted an opportunity. I've made those kinds of decisions along the way. But I didn't, I wasn't mad about it.

Speaker C: No.

Speaker A: Because I took the job knowing. Right. And so I think, I think there's something to be learned in there about like walk in the door, excited about what you're doing. Don't you know, same thing when we're making business deals. I want everybody to walk away and be like, this is going to be great. Not well, I just got, you know, taken to the cleaners. I guess we'll work together for the next five years. Well, it's a good way to start, right?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I like your idea of like they're needing to be a win win.

Speaker B: Yeah. I think like, you know, starting on a positive note, like everyone wants to jump into something. You know what I mean? To your point specifically, like you start on a negative note, then I don't want to help you. Like I don't want to work for you. I don't want to give you, you my 110% that I would. Otherwise though, I think like really feeling good about like what you've got a deal and what they've got out of the deal is just really really critical to the success of the overall relationship, both short and long term. I mean, there's good things that could change throughout the relationship, you know, like. But as long as you recognize those and you revisit those at the time, um, you know, you can make adjustments along the way. But I think starting off on the right foot is really, really, really critical to being successful.

Speaker A: Yeah, I totally agree. Totally agree. All right, shall we lightning round?

Speaker C: Let's do it.

Speaker A: We both get excited.

Speaker C: Yay. There's no actual lightning.

Speaker A: There's no lightning. No one will be struck by lightning.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker B: Not yet anyways.

Speaker A: So far, no one has died during a lightning round.

Speaker B: I can see you guys in next episode to have, like, lightning boys bolts come through.

Speaker C: So if it were. If. If I had the ability. Maybe we should ask our editor if he can add actual lightning in that part.

Speaker A: Lightning bolts when we get to play. So. All right, I'll, um, I'll throw you a softball, I think. I think.

Speaker B: Okay, take it easy.

Speaker A: Tell me what your favorite city is that you've visited.

Speaker B: Oh, man, that's a really good question.

Speaker A: Um,

Speaker B: favorite city. Um, I mean, this may kind of be a little bit lame, but I really love New York. Um, I love the energy of the city. I love the art, the theater, the food. Uh, just, like, the entire vibe. Um, I couldn't do it full time. I always joke that, like, I'm a perfect, like, one month New Yorker, where I can hang out there for, like, a month straight, and then I have to, like, take a step back and, like, breathe. Um, but I would say New Yorkers, by far one of my favorites. Although I would just spend a lot of time in Sydney and walking the beach every single morning was just, um, really, really, really lovely. I felt very grounded, like, every day with waking up. So I go back and forth between, like, my city life and my beach life.

Speaker A: Right, right. And I mean, summer. Summer in Sydney can't be too terrible. No, right?

Speaker B: Not at all. As I'm wearing, like, a sweater and.

Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Marilyn, what about you? What's your favorite city?

Speaker C: Ooh, tough. Um, so many, like, right now, if you had to ask me, I would go back to Dublin. Like, Dublin is. Dublin is really wonderful. Like, it's small. It's kind of pocket sized. It's very green. The people are lovely. I get to ride on the little train to go to work. So I feel very local. Um, but the. You know, down in Grafton street, where all the restaurants and bars and pubs are super fun, and I just really like Dublin. Dublin's awesome.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Leah?

Speaker A: Um, I love Lisbon. Like, it's a city. Like, I love all the tile on the houses. The people are really nice. I mean, you can't. Like, the seafood is amazing, right? And, like, you're near the beach, but there's also a city there. I think I just really. I fell in love with Portugal, but specifically Lisbon, I think, has this kind of. It has this kind of multi personality thing going on. So I really love Lisbon a lot. So. And then last week I went through the little tiny town of Salisbury in the uk, um, on the way to the New Forest. And then obviously on the way back, we went through. We drove through Salisbury. And I was like, this is the cutest little town in the world. So now I'm kind of obsessed and I'm like, I want to go back there. I want to see all the things and I want. So it's like, that's what's fun about traveling is sometimes you run across something and think, oh, I don't have enough time this time, but next time I'm coming back. Yeah, exactly. All right, um, next. Next question. What, uh, what's the best advice you've ever been given?

Speaker B: I'll have to noodle on that. I feel like there's so much really good advice that I've been given that, uh, I don't know exactly what my. The best advice is.

Speaker A: Uh, we'll make Marilyn go first.

Speaker B: Yeah, Marilyn go first.

Speaker C: And I'm going to talk about it in context of what I needed at the time. Because to your point, Jen, I've received lots of fantastic advice from people. Um, I had a boss who's one of my favorite bosses. Um, and I was reaching a point in my career where I had never been before. Um, and I was stressing out about some of the things I was going to have to take on and some of the decisions I was going to have to take on. And he just sort of looked at me at one stage and said, hike up your big girl pants and get on with it. You know who it is, right, Leah?

Speaker A: Uh, I know who it is. So does Jen.

Speaker C: He has many of these, um, hike up your big girl pants and get it done. And that's exactly what I needed in that moment. Because, you know, action sort of breaks through a lot of that analysis paralysis. So you have to take the first, most logical step, um, and then you have to get going. And I kind of carry that one in my heart. And I've unfortunately gifted it to a few people various times. Um, heck up Your big girl pants and get it done.

Speaker A: Yeah. Mine, I have two. One is pretty tactical, One is a little bit more strategic. So years ago, uh, you'll remember, Miller had this series of talks for us with women at Amazon and Sharon Chiarella. Someone asked her a question about how she decided what roles to take and what jobs to take. And she said, whatever you do, don't take the job that looks good on paper. Take the job that is that you're curious about and titles and money and opportunity will come because you will be excited when you're doing it. And I have kind of lived by that right along since then. Um, for the m. Most part, I made one. One error. I would say I made one error along the way and took a job that I probably should have taken the other job. But in general, I've tried really hard to not worry too much about what the title was going to be and what, you know, all of the things, but say, oh, I really want to learn that. I'm interested in that. The other piece of advice is from our friend Gino. Uh, so it's very, very tactical. I share this with product people all the time. So he came over to my desk on, like, my third day at Amazon and said, whatever you do, don't raise your hand. I can see it. You want to raise your hand. You want to take something on. You're not ready. Don't raise your hand until you can get a win. He m can see that I was so eager to prove myself in a room full of such smart people that I really was like, I'll do it. That's what I wanted to do. And he was like, don't do it. Don't raise your hand until you can get a win. Hold, hold, hold your nerve. Don't do it. And I listen to that, and it has served me at times. Every time I started a new job and been like, I want to prove myself, I hear Gino in the background say, don't do it. Don't raise your hand. Put your hand down. Wait till you can do. Wait till you. It comes to you, and you will get the win. And that's exactly. I've really lived by that, and it's really worked for me. So those are the two that stick with me. Did you think of anything?

Speaker B: Um, gosh, I thought so many things, honestly. Um, the one thing that I kind of keep going back to is, like, you know, feedback that I've gotten from a number of different individuals around, um, like a, like, user network and reach out to People, you know, there's so many people that have lots of value to add and they actually want to help. But to your point, both of you mentioned this during the conversation is like finding um, being brave and asking is sometimes the biggest struggle or biggest challenge that we faced. Um, I think another thing too that I keep thinking about too, and it's interesting because I was talking to another woman about this recently as like setting internal brownie boundaries. And I talked to um, women about this many, many times around. Like we have external boundaries in which they're things in which we promise to other people, but we also have these like internal boundaries to say like, I'm only going to work on this task for 15 minutes or I'm only going to reach so far. I'm only going to like put so much effort into something but then you kind of get spun up and like, well, it be, could be better. I could be, I could give them 110% as opposed to 100. But then you kind of um, then deprioritize things that are also important to you. So I think that um, making sure that you have very strong external and internal boundaries when you think about like how you want to prioritize your time or how much of yourself you want to give to something or someone that's so important.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, and I always like, I think on the boundaries topic, like reach out to your friends and say, am I setting this boundary in the right place? If you are. If you're not sure. Right. I mean, I know for sure Marilyn has held me accountable when I've been like, I need to do this and I have to do this. And she's like, hang on. Why, why do you have to do all those things? I'm like, right. I don't know. Right. And so having, having those people that will hold your help boundaries.

Speaker C: And I don't, I mean part of like, if they think you both seen this is like part of my challenge is like, uh, you know, you want to give 140% and you want to like do all the things and frankly, in order to live a balanced life, you cannot and you should not and you're going to end up 10, 15 years down the road stressed out, no friends, no life.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And then, you know, one day something's going to happen and you're going to have to go out and rebuild all of that. And there is like a job doesn't pay for your time 24 hours a day. You, you are, you're able to. And you're obligated to have a life and people in your life and a support system and a network and hobbies and. Right. Like, don't give that up. And if you're not, if you're not doing those things, like, you really got to think about your priorities in the moment. It doesn't mean you're a, a worse employee. It actually means you're a better employee because you're living a more well rounded life. Take your freaking vacations. Take all of your maternity and patley. Take every single day. Right? Like go have friends, go out in the evenings. Like read a book. Like, that's not a workbook. Like don't read a book to be better at work. Like read some crappy fiction. Yes. Right.

Speaker A: It's on my, it's on my work desk.

Speaker C: I love it. I won't show you what's on my work desk.

Speaker A: One of the best ways, I think, to have those kinds of boundaries that we're just talking about around work life balance, which I'm going to use that cliche, is really to, um, at some point in your career, take a fractional job or a consulting job where you're being paid for exactly what you do because all of the rest of it becomes noise and you're like, nope, can't do that because you only have three days. Or, nope, can't do that because you only paid for this.

Speaker C: Right?

Speaker A: And suddenly you're like, oh, time is money. I know what that means now. Right? So it's one of the ways when you're more. When you've done sort of all the jobs and, and kind of really grown your skills. It's one of the ways you can be like, oh, that's how that works. My time is money.

Speaker C: Well, I'm funny. Don't you feel like it makes you more effective because you're prioritizing the things that move the needle. Not another freaking meeting where you're not going to make a decision and everybody's just going to like blow gas into the air. Like, it's terrible. Yeah, M. It's huge.

Speaker A: It's a huge. It's a game changer. So, Jen, thank you for coming and talking to us. This was so fun.

Speaker B: It's been so much fun to chat with you guys again and, uh, I really appreciate it and I'm, um, looking forward to our next podcast on deal negotiation.

Speaker A: So, yes, gonna be a good one.

Speaker C: We're doing this.

Speaker A: We can, um, Marilyn and I can each be opposing companies and you can help us, help us figure out how to fight out a negotiation.

Speaker C: Wait, we're gonna role play? Okay.

Speaker A: I think that's what I just said.

Speaker B: Role play, talking points, all the above.

Speaker A: I love it. All right. It was really fun. And we'll see everyone on the next episode by mhm, Sam.