AMA: Adobe Head of Product Marketing (APAC), Jeremy Wood on Influencing the C-Suite

The answer to this can be quite subjective. I only mean that in what matters to these leaders might not matter to others and so on. The key is to listen and understand what is the most important elements for YOUR leaders and align your strengths to those. It doesn't mean pretending or even discounting what you might feel is more important, but more so showing value that is aligned to what THEY find important. Product Marketing is an amazing function because it covers so much ground so it's not h ...Read More

I've definitely been in this exact situation where my key stakeholders were the C-suite (my boss was the CMO for starters!) I don't think much has to change to what you've said, as PMM's we continue to be the guardians of the message and ensuring things like product:market fit are optimal and our value propositions to our customers are clear and differentiated. Ensuring thats well understood across different departments doesn't change. A good example is working with sales leaders (including Head ...Read More

Great question. I think ultimately it comes down to ensuring they understand the role AND value that product marketing offers. I've found a lot of the lack of interest or engagement has come from a misunderstanding of the function or not appreciating explicitly the value that product marketing brings to a business. Once this has been clarified (i.e messaging, value props, competitive differentiators, launch success, enablement, customer engagement, evangelism and so on) I have found that they qu ...Read More

I've worked through this very scenario on a few occasions. I think as startups mature and grow there is often an understandable resistance to 'letting go' of all the parts of the business that the founders had to manage initially. Sometimes they have areas of particular interest and those are often the hardest (i.e engineering, product development, some even are 'aspiring' marketers!) I think and easy method is to open yourself to collaboration with them if at all possible. They hired product ma ...Read More

This is an interesting question because there's a few ways to answer: Find an ally to Product Marketing. Typically this is a department leader who understands the value of what product marketing delivers and has an obvious shared interest in success. In my experience this has typically been Marketing, Product, and Engineering. Build up rapor with these department leaders so that you will have an advocate in forums that are only leadership/c-suite (they will be your voice!) Soon these relationshi ...Read More

Thats a tough one to answer as there are so many variables. Define 'wrong'? I think what often happens is product marketers try to appeal to the wrong factors that are front of mind for the c-suite. A good example is being too tactical and too in the weeds when trying to showcase value. C-suite execs don't have time for that and quite franikly often don't care! What they DO care about is business KPI's and the health of the business such as profitability, new/net ASV, attrition, sales productivi ...Read More

One of the big opportunities with junior/new PMM's trying to get an audience with the C-suite is to make sure your managers or leaders (in your org) are advocating for you. Express your interest in having more engagements with senior leadership in your company and brainstorm where/when it would be appropriate to join calls, meetings, planning sessions etc. I have tried to champion the work of my team(s) and leveraging particular projects or areas of responsibilities to then bring to leadership a ...Read More