AMA: ClickUp VP, Product Marketing, Mike Berger on Developing Your Product Marketing Career

I've always thought that Hubspot has done a great job with product marketing. They have great product market fit and their messaging and positioning is typically on point. As their platform has grown and they've introduced new offerings like their CRM, their "powerful alone, better together" message was really smart. And despite all the new offerings, they still clearly articulate the value of each for the distinct set of buyers each maps to. From a more general marketing perspective, they've continued to beat the drum around "inbound marketing" FOREVER. Most companies get bored of their own messaging, even though the market typically hasn't yet taken notice. Hubspot has stayed the course and its paid off. 

Here are some ways to think about the move from Sr. PMM to Lead: Skills * Sr. PMM - You have advanced product marketing skills and significant experience in the field. Based on your expertise, you regularly work to define the scope of your role and build on your skillset. * Lead - You have mastery of all product marketing skills, which you not only apply to your own work, but also to teach others on your team. Judgement * Sr. PMM - You work under limited direction and lead clearly defined initiatives from strategy through execution. * Lead - You work without appreciable direction and lead increasingly ambiguous initiatives with significant financial impact to the business from strategy through execution. Problem Solving * Sr. PMM - You regularly work on complex, cross-functional projects that require you to solve challenging problems through evaluation and analysis of multiple variables. * Lead - You develop clear solutions and a simplified narrative for complex problems requiring the regular use of ingenuity and innovation, and may serve as precedent for future decisions across the organization. Teamwork * Sr. PMM - You work with, or lead, a cross-functional team on strategic initiatives in a collaborative, effective and efficient way. * Lead - You often lead larger or more complex cross-functional initiatives you drive from strategy to execution in a collaborative, effective and efficient way. Influence * Sr. PMM - You interact with senior and executive-level employees and external representatives. You can easily explain complex ideas at the appropriate altitude for each audience to provide context, educate, build alignment, drive decisions and execute. * Lead - You serve as consultant to management and act as both an internal and external spokesperson for the function, and you represent your team or the organization as a primary contact on initiatives and projects. You educate and influce functional leadership on decisions effecting your function.

I think the one thing that most PMMs that are early on in their careers should focus on is storytelling. Conveying the value of a solution in a clear, concise and compelling way is incredibly important, but it's table stakes. Doing the same by telling a story takes it to another level, and makes it much more memorable. Some PMMs are natural storytellers, but most aren't. Most need to work at it. But the payoff is high as storytellers are highly valued.

I'll answer this by conveying what I look for when I hire product marketers: 1. Messaging skills - can you take complex things and make them seem simple and easily digestible 2. Writing skills - writing is an art form, and is the most important foundational skill for a PMM in my opinion 3. Storyteling - can you turn a customer use case into an interesting and memorable story 4. Influence - can you rally people around your ideas and vision 5. Collaboration skills - PMM is obviously an incredibly cross-functional discipline Notice I didn't put in "Organizational skills" while many likely would. I think there are tools we can use to stay organized (hello ClickUp!), and I can always hire people that are super organized to project manage launches, etc. While organizational skills are clearly important, they don't make my top 5 list. 

Short answer, yes. If it's a job you really want, go above and beyond. Now, if a company says they want you to prepare a 5 slide presentation on something, I wouldn't simply decide that 10 slides is fine, because they might want to see whether or not you can create a concise deck. So if you plan to go above and beyond, and you have questions around it, just ask the hiring manager or recruiter. When I ask candidates to prepare an excercise, some candidates proactively request time with me prior, which is really smart, and puts them at an advantage. But many don't. I also just had a candidate who didn't think they put their best foot forward in a presentation, and this person asked me if they could prepare some additional thoughts over the weekend and go over it with me the following week. I said "of course". When people go above and beyond, not only is it a sign that they really want the job, but it's also a strong indicator of their work ethic. 

For those of you who are earlier on (first ~8 years) in your career, here is the framework I'd use: 1. People (and Culture) - You should feel energized about working with the people at the company, ESPECIALLY your manager, and the culture should feel like a fit. 2. Company - Join a rocket ship with a brand that has buzz, and you'll have a lot of options when you're ready for whatever comes next. Join a slow growing company no one has heard of, and far fewer doors will open. Like it or not, that is the reality. 3. Learning Opportunities - Are you going to be surrounded by people that will help you grow as a PMM, or not? For your first few PMM jobs, don't join a company where you'll have few people to learn from, or where you'll be the only PMM. 4. TAM - this is something I learned the hard way. Join companies going after large total addressable markets. It's no fun when growth becomes restricted due to a small TAM. 5. Product - look for a product that provides an excellent user experience with clear differentiation and strong product market fit. Picture yourself pitching the solution to a prospect. If you feel like you'd have to spend days in front of the prospect simply to convince them that they might need it...run. 6. Wealth Creation - obviously you need the salary that allows you to pay the bills, but things get complicated on the equity side. For equity, I personally wouldn't focus on it earlier in your career. Earlier in your career the odds are stacked against you making life changing money. So focus on the things higher up on this list. Obviously many of these things are interrelated.

I can tell you based on quite a bit of experience that this is the easiest question I'll ever answer on the topic of building a successful PMM career. It isn't even close. When you are early on in your career, forget about the role, title, pay, etc. Instead, jump into any seat on a rocketship. When you are on a rocketship, if you perform well, there will be plenty of opportunities for growth as the company grows, and the experience you gain will be highly valued by other companies hoping to achieve similar growth. I know it can be hard to see this when you are early on in your career, but in hindsight it will be clear as day.

If you are looking for key Product Marketing metrics to determine success, here are some ideas: * For a mature product: new users, adoption (usage), active users, daily active users, monthly active users, retention, net retention, pipeline, revenue, deal size, win rate, close rate, velocity * For a very immature product: # of early customers, # of customer demos, # of trial signups, adoption (usage) * For going after a new buyer: # of new relevant titles added to the database, # of wins in a new vertical The key is to determine what the objective is given where the product is in its lifecycle, and come up with the right metric accordingly.

I think a monthly email update, or Slack update sent to the entire company is a great way to update the rest of the organization on the activities and achievements of PMM. Generally speaking, there is so much noise with all the channels of communication people have to deal with today that something that gets "sent" to the company in some way, shape or form is much more effective than anything that would require someone to seek out such info. So if you put all of PMMs achievements on a page in a company portal, very few will end up looking at it in my opinion.

Maybe I'm unique but I've been in Product Marketing for a long time and I've never been asked to present a "marketing portfolio". I have, on the other hand, been asked to present on specific topics or share specific experiences on many occasions. If someone is asking you to present a "marketing portfolio" and you are new to product marketing, I would ask the person asking you to provide more detail on what they are looking for. If you don't have a portfolio, then I would tell them that you are very interested in the role and I would ask them whether or not they can think of a specific exercise you could do to prove you have the right skills for the role. For hiring I've done, I always have candidates go through an exercise designed to prove that they are a good fit for the role. The exercise usually involves either relating past experiences relevant to the role, or to analyze content and make recommendations for improvements. In some of the roles I am hiring for now, I am asking candidates to tell me what they like and dislike about our messaging versus a few key competitors, and what changes they would make and why. If you were previously on the creative side, or the campaign side of marketing, then maybe they are looking for previous examples of your work? Hard to say without more info.

Here's what is top of mind for me as it relates to making a big impact in a startup environment: * Understanding of the customer - not just a surface level understanding of the customer, but a deep understanding of customers incuding their pains and motivations. This is knowledge that no one can take away from you, and it is highly valued across many functions. * The answer to the question of "Why now?" - many startups fail, or fail to grow quickly, because they can't clearly convey why customers should change the status quo. This is a big problem and leads to many "closed - no decision" statuses in the CRM. Figure out the answer to this question! * Be an "orchestrator" - in a startup environment, the go to market motion is often disconnected across functions. Ideally, efforts across sales, marketing, CS and product should be aligned around a cohesive strategy, and PMM should play a leading role in both defining that strategy and orchestrating the cross-functional execution of that strategy. This is one of the biggest differences between a strategic and tactical PMM function in a startup environment. * Pricing and packaging - pricing and packaging at startups is almost always more art than science, and if you join at a relatively early stage (Series C or earlier), it's almost never dialed in. Changes to pricing and packaging can be an incredible growth lever, and PMM can lead the charge in tweaking the model to drive better monetization. * Value-based messaging (and selling) - in many cases, startups tend to focus on product features without strongly speaking to value. Bringing the value story into the core messaging typically a significant opportunity for a PMM to make an immediate impact. And beyond content, efforts to enable sales to have value-based conversation and for SEs/SCs to deliver value-based demos is really important too.

I look for a combination of: 1. Impact - have they played a significant role in driving positive business outcomes for the company 2. Skills - have they achieved a level of mastery necessary to successfully coach others 3. Leadership - have they recognized and elevated those around them, not just focused on themselves 4. Collaboration - do I hear positive feedback from others across the compnay who have interacted with them All weighted equally to me, and all super important.

This is very hard to answer without more detail. Knowing the reason why you haven't been promoted yet would obviously inform how I'd approach the conversation. But my advice would be to simply approach the conversation honestly. Some tips: 1. Make it clear you believe you deserve a promotion 2. List the reasons why (focus on the impact you've made) 3. Ask your manager if he/she agrees with your assessment 4. If yes, ask about a timeline 5. If not, ask them what you would need to do in order to be considered for a promotion I think #2 above is where things tend to go awry. I put "impact" in there for a reason. A simple laundry list of items you've checked off over the past few years doesn't necessarily translate into "impact". Rather, those who get promoted are able to clearly connect the work they've done with the positive outcomes it drove for the business. I find that for PMMs who are sharp and deserving of a promotion, the number one reason is that they don't ensure that they are working on things that are important or strategic for the company, and therefore don't easily map to impact. So make sure that at least a portion of your time is spent on these important or strategic projects. And of course, make sure you are working for a great manager who exposes your work to the rest of the organization, especially to other executives. This way, when promotions are being decided, your work doesn't end up being the company's best kept secret.

Great PMMs really understand the nuances behind messaging and are able to create simplicity out of complexity. They are framework-driven. They connect their work to strategic company initiatives, especially those tied to growth. They are "drivers" with a strong bias to action. They are phenomenal communicators and are able to hold their own in discussions and debates with senior leaders. They use the right mix of instinct and data to make decisions. They make others "want" to work with them on projects. Their work is memorable.