AMA: DataGrail Former Head of Product and Customer Marketing & Brand, Aurelia Solomon on Product Marketing 30/60/90 Day Plan

Keep it simple. Think about it like this: 1. 30 days - Be a sponge. Listen, observe, and learn. 2. 60 days - Integrate & Show Value. Build some key relationships & identify 2-3 quick wins you can execute 1. What are 1-2 things that will create value for the business and specific stakeholders that you can do well? And can execute in a relatively short period? 2. Who are the people you need to get to know? 3. 90 days - Run. Build on your early wins by taking on a few more meaty projects that have a big business impact. 1. I would also encourage you to make sure by this time that you understand the product and feel comfortable demoing it. You should also understand what motivates your customers/prospects to buy from your business and why they don't (why you win and lose). You can do this via listen to gong calls Sharebird and PMA have good templates. Also Sirius Decisions (now owned by Forrester). I'd also check out different JDs online - many companies outline JDs as what that role will be doing in the first 30/60/90 days. You can use this data to help build your own.

This really depends on what your business needs! I would recommend assessing what you believe will help the business move the needle the most to achieving their goals (for that quarter, year etc). A few examples I've done as quick wins 1. Organize a Customer Advisory Board (customer list + invites, topics for discussion) 2. Competitive research - build some scrappy competitive battle cards (something is better than nothing!) 3. ICP Research & build buyer persona cards (and then enable sales, marketing, and the business on how to use these) 4. Relationship building!! This one is a little more mushy to measure but quick wins would being able to have some go-to folks (peers & execs) that will help you get buy-in and support. 5. Revamp the product demo (either the demo tour on the website or how your PCs/reps demo the product). Ensure the demo is a story showing pain and talking about value

Alliances * Sales, product, and cs are your biggest internal stakeholders. Find your peers in each department and start building strong relationships (need a foundation of trust and respect to be successful) * Executive team /c-suite. Many of what PMM works on touches the exec team. It's critical to start to build relationships here. * Understand what motivates each ELT member - find a way that you can help them to start building respect. * Customers * Partner with CS to identify a few customer friendlies you can speak with and start to build a relationship with * Listen to gong calls (prospect and customers) to hear their questions, challenges, objections etc. Research * There is A LOT you can do here. I would focus on the following three areas: * 1. Understand your market (customers, competition, AR, ideal customer profile) * Customers (feedback, challenges, goals, what they love about your product) * Competition (who are they, value proposition, differentiation, pricing, product features) * 2. Understand your product (how does it work, how is it different from other tools, what are the gaps). Get familiar and comfortable demoing the product * 3. Understand your internal processes & performance * Sales process & methodology * Marketing funnel & MQL/SQL/OPPTY criteria etc * Performance KPIs * pipeline (from all sources), ARR, avg discount, Average selling price (ASP), sales cycle length, retention rate, G$R & N$R

1. Ideal customer profile (ICP), buyer personas, use cases/sales plays (what problems do you solve for customers and how), and customer journey (what path do these folks take through the funnel to buy from your business 2. Positioning (brand down to features). This includes website copy, pitch decks, one pagers, messaging frameworks, vision/mission, marketecture (platform/product positioning), competitive positioning (battle cards, VS landing pages, one pagers etc) 3. Partnership with product (is there a tiered product launch strategy? Is there a product release process? How do we enable our internal teams and customers about new products and features? Is PMM part of the product development process or just get things "thrown over the fence" at the end? Is there a customer facing product roadmap? Is there an internal roadmap/kanban or Jira board?

This is a great question. First 30 days: * Focus is on getting to know the team (your peers, execs, and those who work for you) and the product -- and starting to build relationships, build trust and respect from others. * Do a listening tour * Talk to sales, product, cs, finance (internal) * Talk to customers live and listen to gong calls (customers & prospects), read G2 reviews, customer NPS and product/feature feedback & requests * Talk to analysts (gartner, forrester, idc) and read their reports First 60 Days * After you've listened and learned (and of course will continue to learn), put together your reflections. What you've heard, what you see as challenges and opportunities, and what you are going to do to help the company, how you'll measure success (share this brief plan with your executive team -- 5-8 slides total). * Do you have the right people on your team? Do you have the data you need? The tooling you need? * Include any FTE and budget requests you have in this deck (and if you're not ready at this point, you can do this after 60-90 days) * Build the Goals/OKRs (whatever framework your company uses) for the following quarter (depends on when you join) * Now that you've built some relationships, you can talk to leaders of each department about the opportunity to join their team meetings (or a company all hands) to share a bit more about yourself, your team (what is product marketing, how pmm helps their team, how to work together etc). * This is you building your team charter & mission deck - and incorporating "what is pmm and why it matters" so that you can do a roadshow with each team * Pick 1 big meaty project that you are assigning your name to and can start to work on (this might be parenting with sales to rebuild the sales process, redefine your ICP, revamp messaging & the website, build a competitive program, build customer insights & advocacy programs etc). * Identify a few quick wins you can take on and deliver in the next 1-2 months before your 90 days. First 90 Days * Continue executing on the big project * Showcase the results of the quick wins (if possible) * Make sure you're building up your team - and getting them wins. Ensure they are creating value for the internal stakeholders they work with * Reinforcement of PMM and the conversations you should be part of (if you're not in those meetings already) * Imbed yourself in the business at this point - be the glue, be part of the conversations. You might still be listening in some but have valuable inputs to share for others.

First 30 days: * Focus is on getting to know the team (your peers, execs, and those who work for you) and the product -- and starting to build relationships, build trust and respect from others. * Do a listening tour * Talk to sales, product, cs, finance (internal) * Talk to customers live and listen to gong calls (customers & prospects), read G2 reviews, customer NPS and product/feature feedback & requests * Talk to analysts (gartner, forrester, idc) and read their reports First 60 Days * After you've listened and learned (and of course will continue to learn), put together your reflections. What you've heard, what you see as challenges and opportunities, and what you are going to do to help the company, how you'll measure success (share this brief plan with your executive team -- 5-8 slides total). * Pick 1 big meaty project that you are assigning your name to and can start to work on (this might be parenting with sales to rebuild the sales process, redefine your ICP, revamp messaging & the website, build a competitive program, build customer insights & advocacy programs etc). * Identify a few quick wins you can take on and deliver in the next 1-2 months before your 90 days. * Keep focused on the relationship building. It doesn't happen overnight. When thinking about your quick wins, think about how this impacts the business and which of your internal stakeholders care about it the most. * Be specific about the quick wins you choose. It should help you build respect and kudos from specific stakeholders and help the business. You want to start to understand what motivates each stakeholders and how you can influence them (give them something to build the relationship -- and then that opens the opportunity for you to ask something of them/their team) First 90 Days * Continue executing on the big project * Showcase the results of the quick wins (if possible) * Make sure you're building up your team - and getting them wins. Ensure they are creating value for the internal stakeholders they work with * Imbed yourself in the business at this point - be the glue, be part of the conversations. You might still be listening in some but have valuable inputs to share for others.

I've honestly seen everything! I've seen folks come from Sales (as I did), from content marketing (typically great writers), from demand gen, from a finance background, from customer success. Someone coming from a sales background vs a finance background into PMM will definitely showcase different strengths/weaknesses (i.e.what will come more naturally to them vs requires more work) But when hiring junior PMMs, I look less for the background and more for the skillsets I need. * Are they hungry to learn? * Are they curious? Do they ask good questions - or seem interested in how things work? Are they able to connect the dots and see how things come together? * Can they be customer facing? Could they interact with customers? And prospects (though less need for this at the junior level)? * Do they have good writing skills - doesn't have to be exceptional, but basic/good writing * Are they collaborative and team oriented? Can they work well with others? * Why do they want to transition into PMM? What excites them about the role? * Can they do research (competitive, product etc)? * Do they have project management skills? Are they organized? (THIS IS SOMETHING YOU CAN TEACH so I don't over emphasize it, but depending on what you will need them to do, this might be more important). I try to focus on the intangibles (teamwork, drive/motivation, curiosity, culture fit etc) but of course you have to balance that with what you need for your business. Do you need someone that will require less coaching or you have the time for more intensive coaching? I've been in both scenarios and it definitely changes who I hire.

First 30 Days * Focus on learning the product (demo, the features, product positioning) * Learn about your business (sales process, pipeline, key KPIs, goals/success metrics - the basics of the business) * Listening tour to learn about your customer and competitors * Listen to gong calls from customers and prospects * Review your ICP, buyer persona cards, customer journey etc * Review competitors websites, internal battle cards etc (have them do research on each competitor and continue into 60 days) * Review your brand guidelines (tone of voice, how your write & speak etc) First 60 Days * They should be comfortable demoing the product (confident and able to do it) * Competitive research & voice of customer (ongoing) * Start to introduce them to folks across the business * Identify a few quick wins for them -- what are 1-2 projects they can take on and deliver in the first 60 days to showcase value and feel accomplished? * If possible, have them shadow an ongoing product launch so that they can learn through absorption First 90 Days * Define their scope and responsibilities. * Will they be a generalist? If so, what areas of PMM will you have them work on? * Some ideas: Competitive research & building battle cards, building foundational sales assets (one pagers, building customer case studies, voice of customer (from customer feedback etc)) * Will they have a focus? On positioning? on product launches? * Define what their goals are related to this for the quarter - and how you will measure success for it * Make sure to keep checking in with them (weekly 1-1s). You'll start to identify the areas they are strong and where they need more coaching. Provide that in real-time to them so they can keep learning.