AMA: Gong Former Vice President, Product Marketing, Julien Sauvage on Developing Your Product Marketing Career

Excellent question. I would start listening to the newly acquired company's customers. Go on a lsitening tour. Understand the buyer and user's pains, challenges, wins, why they love your product, what's missing, how they measure success. From that, you'll be able to start mapping these new key challenges and value props to the ones already in place. From that, updating your messaging doc. Your pitch decks. Oh - and then the pricing and packaging work starts :) and enablement. I know - it's a lot 😃

Gong, of course :) Come join us (https://gong.io/careers) I mean I'm biased but on top of that, I think Salesforce took the Product Marketing to the next level back in the days, and helps elevate the function in the industry. At the end of the day, it is all about cutting through the noise and finding your own voice. I think the companies that excel at PMM actually see Brand, PMM and Corp Narrative as different sides of the same coin. Telling your story. Your brand is your reputation in the market, and PMM naturally helps tell stories that foster that reputation.

I think Messaging / Positioning / Storytelling are absolute must-haves, but then - in true Product Marketing fashion, you have to clearly identify your edge. What’s your core differentiation on the market? I personally love skills such as * Customer facing skills (if you come from a sales/ CS background) * Being able to go deep into the tech - you can build demo, not just decks * If you have an intimate knowledge of the customer journey, you can work on adoption programs * If you like teaching then Enablement will be your BFF * etc.

Early in your career, I'd totally go for the rocketship option to be honest. Best way to learn a lot all the facets of GTM, get your hands dirty, influence key strategic initiatives, show impact, etc. - that'll follow you for the rest of your career! Moving fast is the best way to learn fast, I'd say.

Owning an entire product line! Or an entire fucntion - like awareness, enablement, etc. I actually think soft skills is what your CMO/ VP PMM is likely to look at - your ability to manage your cross-functional partners, measure and show impact, build your annual strategic plan, etc. Need examples? Suuuure. These are some of values I seek when hiring a lead PMM on my team: * Collaborative. We ask others for ideas. We listen to their inputs. We share information. * Accountable. We establish our goals. We stand by our actions. We stay engaged and we own our stuff. * Impactful. We get it done. We have an impact on the business – because of what we did and how we did it.

Well, you need to have an impact on your company's big strategic priorities. Easier said than done, right? So I'd look at your company OKRs or top priorities and align the 3-5 focus areas to that. Need an example? - if your company mostly cares about awareness then work on Category programs ( Category creation, Thought Leadership, AR, PR) to optimize DLs, views, mentions, Share of Voice etc. - If your CEO and CMO care about pipe first, then work on PMM programs and campaigns that will influenced that (campaigns, launches, online assets) - If conversion rates or sales velocity are a big priority, you'll likely work on some sales messaging and decks, demo flows, etc. Win Rates (to competitor, status quo) The list goes on! Remember - PMM is in Marketing but has the potential to touch all the metrics that your CEO cares about. 😊 

I would be super metrics-dr :iven here. Maybe show a few functions you've owned (or contributed to), from top of the funnel to middle and bottom of the funnel, with the corresponding programs and the metrics you've optimized for each. For ex: - Owned awareness plan - running exec programs and targeted PR, I could increase the share of voice of my company by x% - Built strategic narrative - creating company messaging and enabling field, resulting in y% in sales velocity and z% competitive win rates - etc. Hope it makes sense! 

The expansion in scope! A director owns a function. Is able to partner with senior leaders and build strong relationships in other departments to establish strategic plans and objectives. Be as metric driven as you can in your current senior manager role, show the impact, then your manager should be able to see how that expertise you've built could apply to the entire function.

See above. Gong, of course :) Come join us (https://gong.io/careers) I mean I'm biased but on top of that, I think Salesforce took the Product Marketing to the next level back in the days, and helps elevate the function in the industry. At the end of the day, it is all about cutting through the noise and finding your own voice. I think the companies that excel at PMM actually see Brand, PMM and Corp Narrative as different sides of the same coin. Telling your story. Your brand is your reputation in the market, and PMM naturally helps tell stories that foster that reputation.

The ultimate test is: are you passionate about helping people grow? If not, and that's ok, then people management might not be for you. People learn and grow with new experiences. I like to nurture learning for people looking for experiences & stretch goals, with tactics like: yearly rotation, having a major/ minor project (90/10), or doiong monthly lunch n learn within the team. Another big one for me is empathy. I know a lot has been said and written about that - it's true. If you can't put yourself in your directs' shoes, it will be harder 👟 Finally, I'd say... planning. It's best way to be strategic and impactful while making everyone in the company aware of what’s coming up and the associated success metrics. 

Great question. I would challenge that a bit, and think that good strategic needs to be based on flawless execution and vice-versa. Maybe you can own 80% of the strategy but execute on 205 of the stuff, to keep a pulse of the market? And vice versa for your DR. Or divide and conquer by the functional needs: you take top of funnel, your PMM take enablement and pricing. That type of thing!

Some of the soft skills and qualities that I seek: Strategic yet hands-on , Storytellers yet tech savvy , Measured yet creative , Customer and sales facing , Running the business . Then in terms of values: * Collaborative. We ask others for ideas. We listen to their inputs. We share information. * Accountable. We establish our goals. We stand by our actions. We stay engaged and we own our stuff. * Impactful. We get it done. We have an impact on the business – because of what we did and how we did it.