AMA: Drift Senior Director of Product Marketing, Aurelia Solomon on Product Marketing Skills

This really depends on the business. I think both skills are incredibly valuable for Product Marketing. If you are new to PMM with a brand marketing background, you'll likely be stronger in the areas of messaging & positioning, campaigns, and TOFU/MOFU content. If you're new to PMM with strong analytical skills, you might be a great fit for pricing & packaging, win/loss analysis, competitive analysis, product strategy and launches. I've seen folks with both types of backgrounds be very successful in product marketing. Think about what you are strong at and what you enjoy doing. And ideally, find a company and role where you can shine in those areas while also flexing 1 or 2 newer skills you want to learn or sharpen.

It's a hard discipline to enter right out of college but it's absolutely doable. I say that because it's a high visibility function that is extremely cross-functional and requires attention to detail but also the ability to think bigger and strategically. Many of these skills are learned with working experience -- how to engage with executives, how to turn research into concise talking points for sales, how to influence a large group of stakeholders etc. * My advice is to talk to as many folks in Product Marketing that you can. Ask them what their day to day is like. Ask them how they got into the role. Ask them what skills they feel they use and are learning regularly. I myself am always happy to talk to anyone looking to get into product marketing! It shows a lot of courage, hard work and determination to network in this way. These are the soft skills I look for when hiring. It might not always work out on a specific job/role, but it means I'm likely to refer you to my peers for future opportunities. * Look and apply for associate and entry level roles. This might be a generalist who can help across the team (I've hired folks out of college here before) or roles focused on competitive and win/loss - or sales process content support. * Be open to the role and be a sponge. Try to learn as much as you can about product marketing. Start identifying what you enjoy about the role and what you don't like -- what types of projects you enjoy working on vs those you don't (i.e. positioning vs competitive)

I love this question! I always look for the soft skills because smart, hardworking people will learn the hard skills. When I'm hiring, I think about what the business and team needs in its current state through the next year or so. Sometimes that means I have the flexibility to hire someone who doesn't have all the hard skills (and can learn them) but sometimes it means I need someone who knows the job inside and out and can hit the ground running without much coaching on the hard skills. I believe we as individuals are always developing and learning, so coaching is a critical part of development (soft and hard skills). The best way to show off your soft skills, for me, is through the conversation we have. What are the questions you ask? What is your attitude and demeanor like? What examples do you share and how do you articulate them? When I'm evaluating candidates, the soft skills I'm looking for in a new teammate are: * Work Ethic (Are they hardworking?) * Intellectual Curiosity(Are they curious and hungry to learn?) * Teamwork (Are they collaborative?) ( * Communication (Are they a good communicator / how do they communicate?) * Decision Making (How will they react and/or handle different situations and scenarios?) Lastly, references are a great way to validate your soft skills. Anyone you ask to be a reference for you, make sure you know how they will talk about your strengths and areas of opportunity. This person has worked with you before so their opinion impacts a hiring managers decision making. It's just one data point, but a good one I add to my list when making hiring decisions.

See my answer above. It depends on the company and what their needs are. My default is hiring for soft skills because they are harder to teach, but that's not always possible to meet business goals. Sometimes the hiring manager needs someone who can come in right away and do the job with minimal coaching on the hard skills. This is a good thing to suss out in your interview process -- ask the hiring manager what they are looking for.

* Keep it short and simple. Majority of reps (and people) won't read more than a paragraph. * Use bullets to keep it concise and easy to skim * Always include a CTA (what do you want them to do with this) and what's in it for them to read it/take an action/use the content etc. Make sure your ask of them is VERY clear and includes any links to resources they might need (i.e. call sheet, list of accounts etc) * If there is a lot of information to share, start with a 3 bullet TL;DR / exec summary (what they NEED to know) and link to the additional details (for those few who want to read all the details)

Great question! And upward feedback is so important. We are all always learning so feedback is critical. * In your next one on one (or schedule time if you don't have it). Think about what your goal for the meeting is. Is it just to give the feedback? Is it for your boss to change their decision? Knowing what outcome you want before you enter the conversation will help you stay on track. * In the meeting, ask to understand the why (and context) behind the decision your boss made. * The above response might change your mind. But if it doesn't, you can maturely express that you see the feedback/situation from a different point of view and would like to talk through it with them. * Explain calmly and openly (not defensive or upset) why you don't agree and what your perspective is. * Give them time to respond, to ask questions etc. And have a discussion on it. * I find that 95% of the time, people are very receptive to feedback when it is brought to them in a mature, open way. There might be times when your boss (or a colleague in a different situation) don't agree. And in these situations, I believe strongly in disagree and commit. You can voice your perspective and that you disagree, but then commit to the decision that has been made and don't look back, don't complain about it. Accept it and move on.

* Communication * Leadership * Strategic Thinking (ability to think and see big picture but also dive into the details and problem solve). For example, can this person go deep into researching a competitor, distill their findings, and add the context of their own business, to deliver concise and defensible talking points to arm the sales and customer success teams with. * Stakeholder Management

* Data driven! * You can use intuition (re: what you're hearing from prospects, customers, reps, analysts etc) to create a shortlist of assumptions, but you must validate that with data. If the data doesn't support it, it doesn't mean it's not important, but you need to clearly call out the discrepancy of what you're hearing vs seeing in the data (and perhaps dig more into why this is happening -- or give it another quarter or two of data to track any changes) * If you lead with just data informed, you're going to be looking for specific data that validates your assumptions (and might miss other insights right in front of you). Taking a data-driven approach means you are looking at the quant data and summarizing what it's telling you -- and then combine and rationalize that with the qualitative data you're collecting from the field. * Qualitative feedback matters and should be used in tandem with data. But any recommendations or business cases or perspective you share should be based in data (both quantitative and qualitative) * But data alone isn't enough. You need to understand the data - what is the insight from this data? What is the data telling/showing us? And what are you going to do about it?

* Communication and executive presence (and if in a management role, delegation). * As one moves into more senior PMM roles, it becomes more about the softer skills (you already know how to do the core job!) * In a senior role, your success depends a lot on how well you can communicate internally (upward to execs, to peers, to different departments and/or leaders in the business) and externally (with customers, prospects, analysts, influencers etc). * Learning how to clearly articulate your position in a way that resonates and influences will be key to you and your teams success * If managing a team, communication remains critical (provide transparency about leadership decisions, explain the why behind decisions, share information from other teams) but delegation will be your superpower. How can you elevate your team by giving them responsibilities that challenge them and help them grow? All while freeing you up to focus your time on coaching them (and the team) and making space to strategic think and work on meaty, cross-functional business initiatives.