AMA: Gong Senior Director, Product Marketing, Sherry Wu on Developing Your Product Marketing Career

This is the perfect example that shows success happens when opportunity meets preparation. First, there has to be a business need for a manager on the team. That business need is not in your control (it’s at the discretion of your company). You can certainly make the case about the need, but let’s save that for another question ;) Then, once there’s a business need, you need to show you’re prepared to rise to the need. How do you do that? Show leadership. Isn’t that chicken and egg? No - you can demonstrate leadership in a lot of ways. Find ways to mentor others. Proactively influence without authority. Demonstrate your ability to get alignment across teams. Show that you are already acting like a leader, and you will be the first person in mind when the business need for a leader arises.

These are in somewhat prioritized order: * First, be excellent at your craft. As a manager, you need to coach others to reach their fullest potential and to meet business expectations. That means you need to know what good looks like and teach others how to hit that bar. * Second, be able to prioritize and decide the best course of action for high-impact projects. PMMs bridge so many teams - sales, PM, demand gen, comms, and more - if you think you get a lot of asks as an IC, wait til you lead a team ;) You need to know what’s most important for the business so you can focus your attention and your team’s attention on what matters most. * Third, influence without authority. This will help you avoid becoming a reactive service org. Sometimes stakeholders will ask for something but you might not think it makes sense for the business. You need to be able to either push back or advocate for a different idea, and you need to be able to do that while earning the right to continue being a respected partner. * Finally, communication. Just as you adapt your comms for different audiences, you’ll need to adapt your communication for new audiences as a manager - execs, finance, etc. Think about what these stakeholders care about and how they like to consume information. Adapt your communication accordingly.

I would reframe this question. While high-quality content is important, it’s a means to an end — business impact. Your resume is the best place to show impact. The thing that will make your resume stand out is if you can tie your work to business results. I would focus on that first. LinkedIn is a great way to give a preview of your business results, and also a good place to put your work if you’ve created public assets (eg demos, webpages, etc) you can link to. Sometimes hiring managers ask for work samples; you can send those on request via email, without having to create a dedicated space for your portfolio.

First, you have to know what good writing looks like. Ask your manager, peers, and yourself -- what are some great examples of good writing? These can come from anywhere - fiction, B2B, companies you admire, thought leaders in our industry (I always love April Dunford's stuff, for example). Second, study good writing. Figure out some core principles. I always look at copy to see how it stacks up to this hierarchy of needs -- is it accurate, clear, authoritative, and does it show empathy for the audience? Being a PMM means being a linguist, so you must have good command of the English language AND the language of your audience. Last, practice :) The more you write, the better you get. You don't have to just practice on work projects, either. Write journal entries, reviews for restaurants, write letters to friends. These are all different types of audiences, and you'll learn to adapt your voice and tone for every channel and audience. Happy writing!