AMA: Apollo.io Former Head of Product Marketing, Susan Chaika on Stakeholder Management

April 14 @ 11:00AM PT

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👋 Susan Chaika

Hi all, I'm Susan Chaika, most recently the Head of Product Marketing @ Apollo.io (rev-tech) and former PMM at companies such as Zendesk (customer support), LiveRamp (ad-tech), and Nielsen (martech)

• 👋 Based in: SF Bay Area
• 🧠 Top of mind: AI in PMM
• 💬 Ask me about: international product marketing, anything cross-functional
• 🍦 Fun fact: When I was building out my first PMM team, PMM wasn't really a "thing" yet, so I started my PMM people leadership journey teaching PMM to ex-account managers and customer success folks

How do you manage difficult stakeholders?

Susan Chaika•

Apollo.io fmr Head of Product Marketing | Formerly Zendesk, LiveRamp, Nielsen • Apr 14

Difficult stakeholders are usually a symptom of misaligned goals or missing context, not personality issues*. I focus on trying to understand their motivations and identi...

404 Views

3 requests

How do you handle competing stakeholder OKRs or incentives that misalign with the GTM strategy, and how do you reset them?

Susan Chaika•

Apollo.io fmr Head of Product Marketing | Formerly Zendesk, LiveRamp, Nielsen • Apr 14

Here’s the thing - competing goals/OKRs/incentives across teams is a structural problem that PMM will rarely be able to solve alone. The best you can do is to make the tr...

8411 Views

1 request

How do you partner with Sales leadership to land new messaging, drive adoption, and close the feedback loop from the field?

Susan Chaika•

Apollo.io fmr Head of Product Marketing | Formerly Zendesk, LiveRamp, Nielsen • Apr 14

Just as no plan survives contact with the enemy, no messaging survives contact with Sales - nor should it. Messaging shouldn’t be developed in an ivory tower; if you’re a...

380 Views

1 request

What’s your approach to stakeholder change management during pricing or packaging updates to minimize churn or confusion?

Susan Chaika•

Apollo.io fmr Head of Product Marketing | Formerly Zendesk, LiveRamp, Nielsen • Apr 14

I’m assuming this question is focused on what happens AFTER the new pricing or packaging is already decided on, and now you need to roll it out to customers. P&P chan...

353 Views

1 request

How do you leverage customer and market evidence to influence skeptical stakeholders and drive consensus on narrative?

Susan Chaika•

Apollo.io fmr Head of Product Marketing | Formerly Zendesk, LiveRamp, Nielsen • Apr 14

Short answer - just do it. Long answer - having customer and market evidence is gold because it takes you out of the realm of opinions and into the closest thing you can ...

398 Views

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How are you adapting your product release and collateral strategy as products evolve more rapidly with AI?

Susan Chaika•

Apollo.io fmr Head of Product Marketing | Formerly Zendesk, LiveRamp, Nielsen • Apr 14

Yes, product releases are happening more quickly because of AI, and that’s essentially pushed customer-facing teams into an always-on launch motion. But let’s not forget ...

582 Views

1 request

What are the best practices and strategies to align cross-functional stakeholders? Please also provide examples.

Susan Chaika•

Apollo.io fmr Head of Product Marketing | Formerly Zendesk, LiveRamp, Nielsen • Apr 14

There are so many ways to go about this. Here are the principles and strategies that I find myself falling back on time and time again:Identify shared goals: Start off by...

359 Views

1 request