This transcript was generated with the help of AI and may contain some errors.

Martino Ruggiero (00:00):

This CrossWave is a kind of a culmination of maybe three different projects that were kind of going on at Yamaha. But I’ll say consumers, how they use personal watercraft has changed over the past few years. Maybe not everybody wants to go fast or not everybody just wants a base price cheap, but they want to do more activities. And that’s different for every person.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (00:20):

In the case of the CrossWave, you’re kind of talking to everybody about what they do on the water because that’s what the CrossWave can offer. So silos broken, borders cross. Let’s go. Do it with the CrossWave.

 

Kyler Mason (00:35):

Whether you’re going to market through dealers, distributors, or some other partner channel, the mediated sale is complex. We call it B2B2X.

 

John Gough (00:43):

But the leaders in the industry are the ones who are making it look simple. I’m John Gough

 

Kyler Mason (00:48):

and I’m Kyler Mason, and this is Why You Win, presented by Element Three.

 

John Gough (00:53):

Our guests today are Leslie Zlotnick and Martino Ruggiero. Leslie is the marketing manager for Yamaha WaveRunners and Boats, and Martino is the WaveRunner product manager. And these who have worked together for 18 years and have launched a lot of products together. But in this episode, we talk about the CrossWave specifically, which was not only a new product launch, but really a whole new category. We cover product development, their overlap and handoff with marketing, building enthusiasm with customers and dealers, and other lessons that they’ve learned. You’re really going to like this one. Leslie Martino, we’re so glad to have you on the podcast. Thanks for coming on.

 

Martino Ruggiero (01:25):

Thank you for having us.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (01:26):

Great to be here.

 

John Gough (01:27):

Absolutely. We’ve been excited to have you to come on and talk about your roles at Yamaha, and in particular, the launch of the CrossWave. As we’ve been watching the press and all the awards that you all have been winning, we’ve wanted to have this conversation about product launches and in particular to have people from both sides of the house in product management and marketing come on and talk to us about the handshake that you all have and how you all collaborate and work together and how that has gone from the inception of the product all the way through to launch and beyond. So as we jump into that, the first question, just to orient the listeners here, Leslie, I’ll ask you first, can you tell us a little bit about your day-to-day and then to you, Tino?

 

Leslie Zlotnick (02:11):

Yeah, for sure. We have an advantage in Yamaha. Specifically, Yamaha Motor Corporation has a marine division, and I’m responsible for the marketing for all of Yamaha WaveRunners and Yamaha Jet Boats. And in order to keep the customer excited, intrigued, and ready to be on the water, we have the pleasure and the pressure to introduce a new line of products every single year to our potential customer or that owner that’s looking to upgrade. So while we do have a responsibility, my marketing team to keep the potential customer informed, engaged, and educated about our product, we also get to always be working with people like Martino to find out what’s coming next so that not only are we telling those folks what we have available now, but we get to prepare them for what’s coming next as we continue to innovate those products that Yamaha is so proud to produce.

 

John Gough (03:18):

Love that. And Martino, what’s day-to-day look like for you?

 

Martino Ruggiero (03:22):

The thing with product management here at Yamaha and on the watercraft side specifically, the watercraft is WaveRunners and boats. I’m on the Wayrunner side is myself and I have a team under me. And I like to say that we’re basically in charge of what the WaveRunner product lineup is and what it’s going to be. So at Yamaha, we are very, very far out thinking. We’re very far out in our planning. We’re looking at the next five plus years. So that being said, whatever we’re doing, it’s all with a very, very lengthy development schedule and timeline. Right now, we are working on the planning stuff for model years 29, 30, and 31 going out. And for the stuff that’s near term, maybe more year 28 for us, we’re getting into the nitty-gritty of the details of working with development of what that’s going to be. Stuff that’s going to be model year 27, that’s already done for us.

 

(04:16):

That’s what now we’re working with Leslie and marketing on what that launch is going to be. So our day-to-day could be anything as far as planning stuff way out from just a concept standpoint or working with our development side, our development counterparts, engineers on the stuff that’s a little bit more in the recent future, if that makes sense. It could be designing stuff from sketches. It could be writing prototypes, evaluations, or a lot of just concept planning with developers and engineers for stuff way, way far out.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (04:49):

It’s almost like think about the typical question somebody asks when you hit your head. What year is it? We ask that all the time here. “What year are we talking? Are we talking present year? Because we got to promote the current model year. Are we talking next year? Because we got to start thinking about how we are going to market that next model year. Are we talking three years from now because we have to come up with what we’re calling that thing or that feature or that product?

 

Martino Ruggiero (05:17):

We’re working very far out. So tonight I have a meeting of a kickoff meeting for our project that’s for 2031. So that just shows how far out we’re working on stuff. Like I said, 27’s done. It’s from a development standpoint. Now we’re working with marketing on how we’re going to launch this thing in a few months. And then 28, we’re working on the colors, the colors and graphics on those. And that’s basically the last thing we do from a product standpoint. So we’re pretty far out.

 

Kyler Mason (05:46):

So this podcast is called Why You Win. And you’re thinking about some long range planning, which is honestly in a lot of the conversations we have that far out’s kind of unusual. How do you go into that really far out planning and think through the lens of how you’re going to win the next customer, the next market, the next feature? Where does it start? How does it start? What question do you start with? What does it look like?

 

Martino Ruggiero (06:11):

I think because we … Yamaha’s a Japanese company. I think we’re a very conservative company. We don’t rush things out to market really. I want to say we’re usually not the first ones to do some things in the industry, but what I’m told, what I hear the feedback is, we usually do it better if we’re not the first. And again, we’re just a very conservative company looking far out. We really don’t rush things to market. It’s really tough playing that far out because the industry is so fast to change. Consumer habits change, the market changes. It’s very hard to plan that far out. But to answer your question, the first thing we start with is, is there a need for this product? Whatever it’s going to be. Is there a need that the customer has that’s not being addressed? Like Leslie says, we have stuff coming every year.

 

(07:00):

So our platforms that are already in existence or models that we’re just going to refresh or still be new every year, but maybe we update the colors or something like that, those are always going to be there. That’s our bread and butter, that’s our volume. But whenever we want to bring something totally new, like the CrossWave, like you said, it has to start with, is there a need for it? We’re not going to be a company that’s going to make something or brings them to market that just because we want to, we have to have a lot of research, a lot of buy-in from a lot of stakeholders to say, yeah, this is something that the market needs, customers want, and it’s going to be something very worthwhile to the industry. So the first thing is, is there a need for the product?

 

Kyler Mason (07:41):

So let’s go there. What told you there was a need for it?

 

Martino Ruggiero (07:44):

This CrossWave is kind of a culmination of maybe three different projects that were kind of going on at Yamaha. A bunch of things I can get into that more of how this came to be. But I’ll say consumers, how they use personal watercraft has changed over the past few years. I mean, if you look back to the ’90s and the early 2000s, it seemed like there was two categories. There was the race, the performance, I want to go fast. Everybody always wants to go fast, more horsepower, racing type of personal watercraft. And the other kind is the value. Something that I want something affordable, a family’s new WaveRunner, that’s something they want to have with the lakehouse, sporting and performance or the traditional recreational consumer who’s looking for something value just to get on the water. I’ll say things have changed a lot over the past few years.

 

(08:35):

I think customers are trying to do more on the water. They’re trying to do more activities. I kind of use the term in- house, I call lifestyle models, where people want to use their personal watercraft or boat or anything, any kind of recreational toy they have to do more on the water, cater to their lifestyle. Whether that’s staying on the water longer, whether that’s going long distance touring, whether that’s fishing, whether it’s just taking the most stuff with you out on the water for a day on the water. The trend is changing where maybe not everybody wants to go fast or not everybody just wants a base price cheap waiting on the water, but they want to do more. They want to do more activities. And that’s different for every person. It’s very easy to make something that’s specifically geared towards a certain activity or a certain lifestyle, but how do you make a platform where anybody can take it and do what they want with it?

 

(09:29):

And that’s kind of what started this whole, what the CrossWave platform is.

 

John Gough (09:33):

When you’re talking about that timeline of that product idea or that sort of seed of we need something more cross-functional, we need something more, it can be lots of different things to lots of different people. Years ago, obviously, is when you had this idea first, when did you start to bring marketing into that conversation? Is it on a day one or is it year one or when does that overlap begin?

 

Martino Ruggiero (10:00):

A lot of it is just built within product management and the very, very early steps. It’s a concept. It’s doing research. It’s doing research with customers, potential buyers, our dealers to kind of see if we have something that’s even going to evolve anything. I’m not going to bother the marketing team for something five or six years out that’s not even going to come to fruition. That wouldn’t even be a really realistic good use of time and all that. But I’d say once we get to a certain point where there’s something definitely on our plan where this is going to be a product in the next few years, even if we don’t have the year pin down, I’ll kind of pull in both sales and marketing. I’ve got meetings up next week where we’re talking about stuff going on in the early 2030s. Just say, “Hey, sales, hey, marketing, just so you know, this is something we’re working on.

 

(10:46):

Sales, I just want to get your buy-in. This is what we’re working on. This is why. This is what we think it’s going to do for the market, why customers want it. This is something you guys also believe in and you guys can sell it. And hey, marketing, this is what we got coming the next few years. Here’s year one, two, and three is this. So if you’re planning to do this with year two and you don’t want to wait because of year three.” You know what I mean?

 

Leslie Zlotnick (11:07):

We’ve talked about that before, how it’s … I want to know the best thing since sliced bread, but I also want to know what’s coming two years after that because I want to save some for later, if you will. We don’t want to blow it out of the water every single year. It gets exhausting. You really want to hedge your energy and reserve it for things like the CrossWave that truly deserve it or to give Martino and his team credit, sometimes we don’t even have to work that hard. The product sells itself so well and it’s so unique that we just have to tell people about it and that’s all we have to do. Show it. Show it off, show how it can be customized. That experience that Martino was talking about, it’s a customizable experience. So oftentimes it could be as basic as shooting it correctly or talking to Martino about what that unique selling proposition is, capturing it with our content, and then making sure people see it.

 

(12:14):

Other times there will be product, and I know we’re talking about the CrossWave, but just so that we think about our tactics, there’s other times when the product, we’re not quite clear of what the benefit is until it gets in the customer’s hands and we want to make sure that we approach it the right way. So we all think, “Oh, this is what the customer’s going to love. Let’s go for this. ” I think even from the crossway, we found the customization of it is awesome, but really it’s that the fishability has honed in on it more than anything.

 

Kyler Mason (12:48):

Was that a surprise?

 

Martino Ruggiero (12:50):

Not a surprise. We knew fishing was going to be bit with the CrossWave. We contemplated the strategy a whole lot. We didn’t want to make it just a fishing model, which is something that we went back and forth on a lot like, “Hey, we have a personal watercraft with a full walk around bow and deck that you can fish from and more store.” We didn’t want to make it just a fishing model because we didn’t want to take away from other recreational users who want to use it for touring or hanging out the sandbar and all that kind of stuff. But at the same time, we knew this was going to be a big fishing ski. So that was kind of a tough line to toe, I think from the marketing side,

 

Leslie Zlotnick (13:24):

Just how to

 

Martino Ruggiero (13:24):

Position it.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (13:25):

But we did it right because it’s almost like we created this menu, this trifecta of, do you want to fish? Do you want to … Go

 

Martino Ruggiero (13:35):

Big on family,

 

Leslie Zlotnick (13:35):

Go big on touring, go big on fishing. Right. Thank you. Touring, family, fish. And really all of those are still big because the campaign is go big. And if we just said go big on fishing, I can say right away, just from my family, we’d say, “Nope, not for us. My husband wants a CrossWave and we’re not fishing folks, but it has resonated so well with that market, but it has weaved its way into many others.” So it benefited all of us to kind of give that the touring, the fishing, the family idea.

 

Martino Ruggiero (14:12):

I think we knew fishing was going to be big on it. I think it felt good when we realized we were right. You’re at the Miami Boat Show or something. I’m just standing back watching and listening to guys talk about how they would rig it out or how they would equip it or Bassmaster. They just had that event a little while ago. I wasn’t there, but one of the guys from Leslie’s team was working it and before he went to that show, he was like, “Oh yeah, I go there with a boat and a WaveRunner and oh, the fishermen, they hate having a wave run.” They’re always like, “Why’d you bring that? ” After the show he came back, he was like, “Oh my God, everybody was all over this. ” I’ve never seen that much just all around it at any of the boat shows as they were at this Bassmaster.

 

(14:58):

And I go, “Really?” So that was huge to me because earlier that week he’s like, “Oh, fishermen hate whatever they hate on the … ” But when they saw that, he said it clicked, they got it. They’re like, “Look at this. I can get into shallow areas. Look at this. I can get … That bass boat over there is $80,000 and this thing is … ” You know what I mean? So I guess it feels good when you’re like, “Okay, there’s things we need to think about. “

 

Leslie Zlotnick (15:22):

It’s been such a- The

 

Martino Ruggiero (15:23):

Validation.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (15:24):

A positive disruption to previously drawn borders and that we’re breaking through those, knowing that Yamaha is such a huge marine brand. Sometimes it’s, well, are you talking WaveRunners or are you talking outboards or are you talking boats? And in the case of the CrossWave, you’re kind of talking to everybody about what they do on the water because that’s what the CrossWave can offer. So silos broken, borders crossed. Let’s go, do it with the CrossWave.

 

Kyler Mason (15:58):

It’s a great line right there.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (16:00):

It’s like I’m in marketing or something.

 

Martino Ruggiero (16:02):

I was at the Toronto Boat Show and we talked about fishing and sandbar and touring, all that. And there was so many people coming up to the CrossWave talking about up in Canada, it’s big cottage country and there’s lakes everywhere. It’s crazy up there. But these guys were saying they came to the boat show to look like a small boat or something to go from their cottage, their cottages are like an islands to get their groceries and all that and they saw this and they were just blown away. They’re like, “This is so much better, so much easier to manage.” So I mean, that was something obviously from a product standpoint, we tried to cover everything, but I

 

Leslie Zlotnick (16:39):

Mean- You didn’t think about that.

 

Martino Ruggiero (16:40):

Right. Well, I never thought like, “Oh, there’s going to be guys in Canada using this as their ski for grocery.” You know what I mean? Yeah, to go to the general store on their islands for their cottage. So yeah, I mean, it’s been awesome. Yeah. The validation that not only did we hit the nail on the head with what we were trying to do, but in certain areas it was way more than we thought. And then these other areas we weren’t even thinking about.

 

John Gough (17:04):

So as a conservative organization, sometimes we hear people who are thinking about bringing new products to market, especially new category entrants like this. Well, the reaction will be, “Well, we can’t do that because we’re going to eat our own lunch.” And this thing, as it sits between, is it a WaveRunner? Is it a jet boat? It could be both. Was there internal conversation around the risk of do we know where this sits in the portfolio and does it make sense as an addition or is it a risky cannibalization? I

 

Martino Ruggiero (17:40):

Don’t think it was a risk. It was definitely discussed and lots of conversation about it. The FX is our top of the line luxury line, and we felt that this was definitely a step up from an FX when it comes to lifestyle usage. So the FX and then even the FX counterparts with the other competitors, fantastic ski. The FX is what I ride day to day in the summer with my son and all that. It’s a great all around luxury flagship ski, but there’s a limit to activities or usage you can do with it. You know what I mean? So having a CrossWave as this next step up, is it better than an FX? No, not at all. One’s not better or worse. There’s a place for them. Every time someone walks up at a boat show and goes, “What’s the best one you got here?” It’s like-

 

Leslie Zlotnick (18:29):

The best.

 

Martino Ruggiero (18:30):

It depends. It depends what you want.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (18:32):

You

 

Martino Ruggiero (18:32):

Know what I mean? If you want to go fast and race, this is the best one. If you want something just for take your kids around the cove or pulling a tube, maybe you don’t need the biggest horsepower the fastest. We have a lighter, smaller engine one for that. So I like to think that we have a pretty full product line or portfolios, as you said, where everything has its place. If not, then I’m doing something wrong as the product manager. I mean, there’s always maybe some slight cannibalization where somebody might have bought this, but they bought that. But for the most part, we’ve positioned it in such a way, I think, that it’s a step up from our largest flagship series. Just simply you have these things like a walk around bio and deck that you can bring more things, you’ve got more storage, the capacity to bring more people, gear, fish, all that stuff.

 

(19:18):

So I don’t think it would eat into our personal watercraft, the other models we have. I feel we’ve created another segment, so to speak. And same thing with the boats. I mean, a boat is just going to be bigger. This position is kind of bridging the gap between personal watercraft and boat. You basically, if you’re looking at a boat from the boat side, you’re looking at something that’s a little smaller, a little more maneuverable, a little more manageable. If you’re looking from a WaveRunner, it’s a step up that you’ve got more storage, you’ve got more stability. It’s kind of that best of both worlds. It’s a crossover between a WaveRunner and a boat.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (19:55):

And when we learn about product on the … I try to annually pull Martino in with our marketing team and see what’s coming for the next year. And sometimes those meetings are, “Okay, what are we going to do with that? ” With this, we were so excited because of that brand new category that Martino mentioned. This is brand new and there’s so much that can be done with it versus square peg round hole. This is drilling a whole new hole.

 

Kyler Mason (20:25):

Leslie, question for you. You mentioned earlier that year in, you’re out, you’re launching products, you’re thinking through concepts and campaigns and messaging. Have you ever been in a situation where you go meet with product and you already have a concept in the bag for something that’s going to launch that year and you’re like, “You know what? I think this concept fits better somewhere else.” And you repurpose it.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (20:49):

I would say almost the opposite, and I have to give credit to our agency partners that there are times when they pitch maybe a concept and I’ll say, “You know what? I know what’s coming in another year. Save that for next year because it’s either more fitting or stronger or we might need it based on what the product is. ” So it’s sometimes chicken and egg. Does the product come first or does the concept come first? It’s very important to me that the product is king. We’ve realized that’s what we’re here for. I don’t want to create a marketing message that doesn’t get backed up by high quality product. And that’s honestly why I’ve been here as long as I have because Yamaha’s product is so high quality and it makes the marketing of it easy and enjoyable. And yeah, the CrossWave is just another example, but very rarely are we just ideating on some concept.

 

(21:49):

It’s always backed with product.

 

John Gough (21:52):

You mentioned that as you were talking about the launch for this particular product about how you let it market itself, right? You said to us there’s been no paid media behind it or at least several weeks ago, very little. And you’re just sort of letting the buzz drive the whole thing. And how is that different from a normal product launch just in terms of rhythm for you all to just maybe go a little hands off?

 

Leslie Zlotnick (22:21):

We all pay for eyeballs. We all pay for ears.That’s a part of what marketing and advertising is. And in this case, it was, let’s see how this works. Let’s float it out in the middle of the water and see what bites. Normally that’s what it is. It’s we have to get this message out. We need to get people excited because Martino knows there are years when we introduce product that makes us all super excited. And then there are years that we introduce product that get us crazy out the door excited. So in the years that we’re just regularly excited, we look at our media spend and we look at how much interaction we have maybe with the endemic and non-endemic media sources. And we say, “Hey, we’ve got to tell this person about it and this person about it and this person about it. ” In a case like the CrossWave, it was really just more organic.

 

(23:17):

But the effort, I’m not going to say the effort went away. I’m going to say the effort shifted. It was more how are we keeping the momentum going versus heavying up right at product launch. So I don’t even think we did a teaser for this. The normal is, okay, let’s tell everybody we know that here’s our new product line and here’s what it’s about. And Yamaha does it again, where this was almost like radio silence on purpose.

 

Martino Ruggiero (23:49):

And put it out there.

 

Kyler Mason (23:51):

Yeah. So it leaked. Is that true? The product leaked?

 

Martino Ruggiero (23:55):

No, no, no, no. It didn’t leak. But what I was going to say is what helped I think is the CrossWave looks so uniquely different. So if we come out with a new WaveRunner with a new engine, let’s say, under the hood, or I’m sorry, looking at it without looking under the hood, you wouldn’t know any difference. You know what I mean? If it’s a new engine, other than just claiming new horsepower, new engine size, CCs, whatever, the CrossWave just visually looks so different. So I think what she’s saying, we just put it out there to let it flow. People are going to go nuts, good or bad, like and not like a whatever because it’s so visually different. I think where she’s given the product credit where it’s like the product is, it’s kind of doing a lot of it on its own. The comment I made about leaking is that-

 

Leslie Zlotnick (24:40):

Because it looks so different when you go test it-

 

Martino Ruggiero (24:44):

There was all these photos taken on the online forums and all that kind of stuff. And so everyone was trying to guess what it was. There’s always theories and conspiracies of what was out there. But like she said, if we test something where maybe just the engine’s different, we could go out with a current waiver and nobody would know. It was so hard to keep this thing under wraps and when you have to take it out and test in ocean or chop water and stuff like that.

 

Kyler Mason (25:09):

Well, that’s what I was meaning, that kind of, I don’t know, accidental.

 

Martino Ruggiero (25:12):

I mean, we didn’t leak it. No. Right. Yeah. It was just hard to keep covered. You know what I mean? You just go to a boat ramp and people that aren’t even personal enthusiasts are like, “What is that? What is that? “

 

Leslie Zlotnick (25:25):

And you flip a coin and decide whether that’s good press or bad. We say every time because my first instinct is my stomach drops and I’m like, oh gosh, it was a big reveal and it totally got ruined. And then in other ways we’re like, maybe we’re- Let it

 

Martino Ruggiero (25:40):

Go.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (25:42):

Yeah. What are we going to do at this point? Let

 

Martino Ruggiero (25:44):

The theories go. Yeah, let them run with it. And of course, it’s never the finished product. Right. We have it all dummy down and stuff like that. So when we launched the real thing at Fort Lauderdale, I guess that’s when the public saw it for the first time. Yeah. I mean, it’s not what people would have seen before.

 

John Gough (26:03):

When we talk about the go to market for these kinds of products, we’re often looking at it through the manufacturer and the dealer and then the consumer lens. And Martino, you mentioned how you all are interacting with dealers for early feedback and product development. What’s the dealer buzz around this? How did they react to launch? How has that rollout been going? Where does the dealer fit in?

 

Leslie Zlotnick (26:30):

When we mentioned earlier that we’re responsible for two different product lines in watercraft. So my team’s responsible for the marketing of both WaveRunners and boats. Martino’s our product expert for WaveRunner. There’s a whole other team for boats. The reaction for the CrossWave, we had boat dealers saying, “Hey, can we sell WaveRunners now?” And we have some combination dealers as well, but we did have these boat-only dealers that were very intrigued and excited about the CrossWave. The traditional schedule for us introducing product is we normally come to market with something and say, “Here it is, here’s the price. Here are the product specs. We’re good to go. ” The CrossWave was out of sync with our normal schedule because we were so excited and because we wanted to tell the market about it soon and plant our stake in the ground and make sure that everyone knew Yamaha was responsible for something this revolutionary.

 

(27:25):

So we had this product intro in August for the CrossWave with no price. So people were super excited about this fascinating new product. They had no idea how much it was going to cost. So that also helped our effort to not have to spend money because there was so much chatter. How much is it? How much do you think it’s going to be? Oh my gosh, I’m going to hold off on buying that boat that I thought I wanted because I may want a CrossWave. So again, that demand, that curiosity, that viral chatter just kept going. And we were telling people on our website, “Here’s the CrossWave. It’ll be available in spring of 2026.” This was back in August of 25. So we just kept people hungry for it. And then when was the price finalized? I want to say if we’re-

 

Martino Ruggiero (28:12):

February.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (28:13):

Right. August to February, that’s a long window. So then we still, in August and September, had dealers placing wholesale orders. They didn’t know the price and we sold out.

 

Martino Ruggiero (28:26):

Dealers took deposits from customers without knowing the price.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (28:30):

The way the process works is we wholesale the product to our dealers and then our dealers are responsible for retailing the product on their own. So how do they know to take a deposit on something that they don’t even know how much it’s going to cost them? They don’t care. It’s a CrossWave.

 

Martino Ruggiero (28:47):

Yeah. I’m not confirmed with the dealers. The dealers will take the money. If customers were willing to give deposits for stuff they didn’t know the pricing, which was pretty-

 

Leslie Zlotnick (28:55):

Pretty wild, pretty

 

Martino Ruggiero (28:56):

Wild there. It’s

 

Leslie Zlotnick (28:57):

Like they say, “Take my money.” Here it is. Take my money. Don’t know how much more I’m going to need to put on the table, but here it is.

 

Martino Ruggiero (29:04):

Take my money.

 

Kyler Mason (29:05):

Well, there’s some scarcity there too. I’m assuming there was-

 

Martino Ruggiero (29:08):

They want to be the first ones that … Yeah.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (29:10):

No doubt. No doubt. I mean, we had anglers reaching out to us like, “I want one. You can’t get one and I don’t even know how much to charge you for it. ” We’ve got celebrities asking for it. Kayak

 

Martino Ruggiero (29:23):

Fishermen.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (29:24):

And then you introduce a price and you kind of wait to see what the market tells you like, “Oh, is anyone going to cancel their order?” Nope. Nobody canceled their orders. Everybody still wants it. They’re still excited about it. It’s right price, right product, right time. And I think that’s what we have to remember as marketers. You can’t go with the what if this doesn’t work. You have to go with, what if this completely knocks it out of the park and it has.

 

Kyler Mason (29:55):

Are there things you can learn from this and apply to other products Product launches that aren’t maybe as necessarily as revolutionary. What can you maybe steal from this from a playbook perspective that would work?

 

Leslie Zlotnick (30:10):

My nature is to have everything lined up and ready to go before a product launch. And much to my chagrin, CrossWave has taught me that you can still have a successful launch without all the boxes checked. Martino and his team were physically putting together the photo shoot unit a day before we took it on the water to create the content.

 

Martino Ruggiero (30:31):

Look good though, right?

 

Leslie Zlotnick (30:34):

Yeah. And Leslie of what … We’re in 2026, maybe Leslie of 2018 would completely malfunction. I would not know how to create marketing, create assets, create a campaign knowing something is so last minute, but give the people what we think they want. I speak in a lot of cliches, I’m realizing this, but- They

 

Martino Ruggiero (30:59):

Apply. It’s working.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (31:00):

It seems to be working. But if all the boxes aren’t checked, it’s okay because when the right ones are, you can really make an impact and reach out and create something very exciting. Well, we don’t have a price. What are we going to do? We don’t have a price. It doesn’t matter. We created a following. We created a group of people. We created a category. So what? There’s not a price. We’ll get there. I definitely learned that. I’m a marketer that seems to like process, but sometimes you just can’t have one and there’s nothing you can

 

John Gough (31:40):

Do about it. Leslie of 2030 is going to be so Zen.

 

Martino Ruggiero (31:44):

I don’t know. I’ve known Leslie for 18 years. I’ve never met Zen,

 

John Gough (31:52):

Leslie. I don’t know. That’s what I’m saying. Martino, you’re currently designing a product that when she finds out about it, she’s just going to be so chill. She’s like, “I don’t know, just tell me when it’s ready.”

 

Leslie Zlotnick (32:02):

No, it’s so true, John. Get

 

Martino Ruggiero (32:03):

It on the water.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (32:04):

Years ago, I’d be like, “But where is it and what color is it and how many features does it have? ” Now I’m like, “All right, just tell me it when we’re good.”

 

Kyler Mason (32:10):

Do you hide from Leslie sometimes? Do you see her in the hallway and you’re like, “She’s coming after me.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (32:15):

” Every time. What are you doing? What do you want? What?

 

Kyler Mason (32:19):

Yeah. I don’t have answers yet. Go away.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (32:21):

Just a little hotspot. Leslie

 

Martino Ruggiero (32:23):

And I have been here for a long time. We’ve got a pretty good sync, I think.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (32:27):

That’s true. Yeah.

 

John Gough (32:29):

For anyone who is listening, when Leslie was describing Martino and his team putting the unit together, she was pantomiming a hammer. So I don’t know what part of the unit you were hammering.

 

Martino Ruggiero (32:40):

Here’s a mallet for

 

John Gough (32:41):

Some parts.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (32:44):

For that particular unit, but anybody who has a deposit on the crossway, don’t worry. It’s very well manufactured.

 

Martino Ruggiero (32:49):

I didn’t build the ones you’re

 

Leslie Zlotnick (32:50):

Going to get. In our factory-

 

Martino Ruggiero (32:52):

I just built the one for the photo shoot. It goes through quality

 

Leslie Zlotnick (32:55):

Assurance, not too concerned.

 

Martino Ruggiero (32:57):

You notice the decal, the Yamaha on the photo shoot one’s a little crooked like that.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (33:01):

Marcino.

 

John Gough (33:03):

It’s like a Burger King burger. The ones in the commercials are actually held together with toothpicks. Right. Everybody knows. It’s okay.

 

Martino Ruggiero (33:10):

No toothpicks in the production crossway. No.

 

John Gough (33:12):

No.

 

Kyler Mason (33:13):

You got that one for yourself.

 

John Gough (33:17):

So as you all are been working together for 18 years, that’s awesome. You got plenty left in the tank. You’re thinking about new products that are coming out. And so my question to you is, if you were going to swoop in to another team who have a similar sort of relationship and mandate, and they are responsible for bringing these new things to market, marketing product leaders, what’s the lesson that you would share with them that you’d say like, “This is where the magic happens.”

 

Martino Ruggiero (33:47):

Swoop in and tell the team where the magic happens.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (33:50):

Be the customer. We’re all customers. That’s

 

Martino Ruggiero (33:53):

Good.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (33:54):

Be them. Picture what their response would be to whatever it is you’re doing. Their day-to-day is not WaveRunner creation. Their day-to-day is not how much volume, how much price will we get this approved. It’s when’s their reaction going to be when they see it for the first time?

 

Martino Ruggiero (34:16):

Leslie said, “Be the customer.” On the product planning side, we say we’re the first customer. So going back to your first question about, is there anything we’re looking at, and even applies on the marketing side, what’s going to make me want this product if I am a potential customer? And on the product side, definitely. Is this something I see a need for? Is this something I want on the water? Is it something I want to go to a dealership and get excited if I see … You’ve got to be the customer. And on the product side, we’re the first customer. So if I don’t buy into the product, I’m not going to …

 

Leslie Zlotnick (34:50):

Nope.

 

Martino Ruggiero (34:52):

If I don’t buy in or I don’t see why there’s a need for this in the market or why a customer would want this over something else, it doesn’t go anywhere. I’m not going to be like-

 

Leslie Zlotnick (34:59):

And it’s really hard to market that too.

 

Martino Ruggiero (35:01):

Right.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (35:01):

Yeah.

 

Martino Ruggiero (35:02):

So tell people about how I came to Yamaha or whatever. I was enthusiast before I came to Yamaha. I was somebody who was very into our product and Summer’s on the water and all that kind of stuff. So that just kind of goes with it. But even it applies to how Leslie said it on the marketing side. Am I going to see this and feel it and want it and picture myself in that experience? We’re selling an experience. We really are. Be the first customer or put yourself as the customer. And to also what Leslie said about that wow factor, I always look at it every model year. Like she said, sometimes we have things we’re excited about and things we’ve been more excited about. But I want to go to every launch we have in August with our dealers at whatever location we are.

 

(35:45):

And I want to be wowed at what we’re presenting and I want them to be wowed and be excited at what we’re showing them. If neither of us are wowed and we’re like, “Oh, here it is. “

 

Leslie Zlotnick (35:55):

It’s authenticity.

 

Martino Ruggiero (35:57):

We didn’t do a good job. And there are some years, like I said, we may not launch as much or whatever, and those are less exciting, but you always want that wow factor or that response when someone sees your stuff for the first time or they picture themselves on it or how they’re going to use your product. So that means a lot to us, I think.

 

Kyler Mason (36:16):

Look, think of the customer.

 

Martino Ruggiero (36:18):

Yeah.

 

Kyler Mason (36:19):

Pretty simple. Customer. It can be simple.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (36:21):

No just think that, because I think if-

 

Kyler Mason (36:23):

That’s what it was.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (36:24):

No, it’s if we are the customer, how can we get caught? That’s what we want to do.

 

Kyler Mason (36:28):

Got to catch them all.

 

Leslie Zlotnick (36:29):

Yep. Look at that back around to the whole phishing theme too. Catch them all. We left that one on the cutting room floor. We didn’t use that. Yeah,

 

Kyler Mason (36:38):

You can have that one for sure. We’ll do the next year. We do that next year.

 

John Gough (36:42):

Jump right on that tagline. I don’t think anyone else is using it.

 

Kyler Mason (36:47):

Oh, man.

 

John Gough (36:47):

All right.This has been great. Thank you both so much. We’ve enjoyed having you on.

 

Kyler Mason (36:52):

Thanks so much. Great. Thank you very much. Thanks,

 

John Gough (36:54):

Y’all. Why You Win is presented by Element Three, a marketing firm focused on modernizing go-to-market strategies for manufacturers that sell through complex distribution channels. We help leaders solve problems across demand generation, sales channel support and brand development.

 

Kyler Mason (37:10):

If you’d like more from myself or John, connect with us on LinkedIn. And for more from Element Three, visit elementthree.com. That’s elementthree.com.