AMA: Honeycomb.io VP Marketing, Jo Ann Sanders on Developing Your Product Marketing Career

Great question. There are 3 ways to get demonstrable management experience outside of having FTEs report to you. #1: Manage interns and contractors. Volunteer to run a message testing project through a research vendor. Volunteer to produce an explainer video series using an animation production company. Volunteer to hire an intern and complete a data analysis project that is valuable to the business. Outside of these project-based examples, identify an area where having an ongoing freelancer on the team (under you) would be valuable - a designer, a writer/copy editor, an extra resource just to focus on case studies, an analyst, etc. #2: Get “matrix” management experience by stepping up to lead large cross-functional projects (beyond product launches). Drive the success of a new pricing initiative through all of GTM. Take on a major overhaul of the website. Lead an initiative to document, measure, and improve the customer journey from landing on the website through closed/won. The key here is that you are running a cross-functional team that is matrixed into you as a leader. #3: Volunteer to take on an experimental and/or skunkworks project. Clearly define the phases, what needs to be validated, the resources needed, and make sure you are sharing learnings often and broadly. These types of projects show your initiative and ability to operate in highly ambiguous circumstances, which are critical management skills. They also often lead to exec-level visibility. By successfully taking on one or more of the above, you prove that you have the experience to manage a team - tenacity, ability to delegate and get the most out of others, time/deliverable management, prioritization, stakeholder management, and good decision-making.

I do think having a mix of both startup and large company experience is highly desirable - it shows that you can succeed in a variety of environments. So at some point, you will need to make the jump. I do believe that my mix of both worlds has made me more marketable. Going to a larger company is great for finding mentorship and/or deepening your PMM skills, You will also get a 'halo' effect of learning more about how other functions operate at a mature company - i.e. how large-scale PM teams operate. You will also really hone your communication skills and cross-functional leadership/persuasion skills. There are A LOT of initiatives competing for attn at larger companies - you need to stand out to get the resources you need. If you jump to an established company, you may have to take a lateral title move, or even go down in title and work your way back up. IMHO, this is not a big deal in the long run of your career. I once went from a VP-level role at a startup to a Sr. PM role at Adobe because I was making an industry shift, and I had never worked for that size of a company before. It was a GREAT decision. I gained highly valuable experience, and quickly worked my way back up to Director level roles, and then went back out to the startup world into VP roles.

It is really hard to get these types of big deliverables right, as you won’t really have enough information as an interviewee to nail them. Unless I specifically ask for this type of deliverable, it can actually work against you. Instead, I prefer that candidates show how they think throughout the interview process. For example, prior to the hiring manager interview, spend a large chunk of time on the website and come prepared to talk about your observations re: what parts of their messaging you like (and why), and what parts need some work, offering a suggestion or two. Look at competitor websites and note what you think they do effectively. Look at the content your prospective employer produces and analyze where there are gaps in terms of content needed for the funnel, and talk about how you can fill those gaps. Is there too much thought leadership and not enough ‘how to’? Or the reverse? Are they lacking in customer evidence or competitive positioning? Do they have gaps in content for some of their personas - I.e. they are really strong with decision-maker content, but not so strong with content that appeals to practitioners. To me, this is more compelling than abstract deliverables.

I would look at 2 vectors. * What products/features are critical in winning deals. At Honeycomb, our Sales Engineering leader looked at all closed/won deals in a given time frame and indicated which products/features were most important in successful POCs. We’re putting PMM ownership on the top products/features from that analysis. We were lucky to get this analysis handed to us. If it is not easy to get this level of information, even just surveying your sales/SE teams and asking them to stack rank product/features in terms of importance in their deals will give you directional info. * What is coming from a new product launch perspective that will need strategic support? When the company has invested significant R&D into something, PMM needs to be there to bring it to market. Otherwise, the investment falls flat. If you can’t support new major launches due to bandwidth, this is often an effective negotiation hook with mgmt to get additional PMM resources. i.e. “we just spend x months building y product, and the biggest risk we face is lack of PMM bandwidth to ensure success in the market.” Leadership is more likely to proactively fund additional PMM resources to ensure the success of new products than retroactively add resources when the perception is that the GTM failed.

For my #1 tip, see the answer to another question here re: what skills to develop to stand out as a PMM. tl;dr: deeply understand the marketing-SDR-sales funnel (and/or the self-serve funnel if that is important to your company) and tie your work to funnel IMPACT. The full answer unpacks this more eloquently. Beyond that answer, there are a few other areas I’ll go into. I’ll focus mostly on intangibles…most people pick up the tactical skills through on-the-job experience. Negotiating deliverables and deadlines. PMMs are enablers (in a good way). We enable those holding a number (Demand Gen, SDRs, Sales, etc) to hit those numbers. We have to identify and take on the most impactful work, negotiate realistic deadlines, and then HIT the deadlines so that those other functions can plan and execute. I’ve worked with PMMs over the years that were incredible experts and storytellers but often missed deadlines. They then lost credibility with cross-functional teams, and with leadership, as a result. In other cases, I’ve seen PMMs hit deadlines but they focused on things that did not have any impact (they chose pet/vanity projects, or they over-indexed on requests from PM vs GTM). The results were the same - lost credibility and tarnished internal brand. So, take the planning process very seriously, focus on impact, and honor your commitments. Stakeholder management is also key. Shit happens, so when you do commit to deliverables, communicate early and often re: progress. Let the teams/leaders that are dependent upon your work know if there are risks to deliverables and what needs to happen to get unblocked. No one likes surprises or having to re-plan at the last minute. Make sure your stakeholders are with you along the journey.

This is one of the trickiest parts of PMM. We generally do not hold a number, but we enable teams that do hold a number (i.e. Demand Gen, SDRs, Sales, etc). I do ask my PMM Directors and above to own the top-level KPIs for those other teams as part of their OKRs, even though they don't own all of the areas that impact the results. For example, I believe a PMM Director should have our quarterly MQL and SQL goals as part of their OKRs. Why? Because it forces them to deeply understand what impacts hitting those goals, and how they can tie their team's work to produce greater impact. The single biggest value PMM can provide is to really look at a product line's success from TOFU to MOFU to BOFU, identify problems, and attack them cross-functionally. PMMs need to be that overlay business leadership across these teams to impact a product line's overall success.

What PMM leaders are looking for in a candidate really comes down to 3 things. * A deep understanding of the target audience. As a generalist marketer, you probably have used a variety of tools - Hubspot/Marketo, analytics tools, virtual event platforms, etc. You are more likely to get a PMM job at one of those companies because you literally are their target audience. * Great messaging/positioning/writing skills. Highlight web pages, blog posts, emails that showcase your skills. Include data to showcase the effectiveness. * Business acumen. If a PMM leader is going to take a chance on you, they need to feel confident that you will drive impact. Highlight the ways you, as a generalist, have had business impact.

The single most important skill is to deeply understand and feel a sense of ownership over how your company makes money and where the problems are in the marketing-SDR-sales funnel. Or in the self-serve funnel, depending upon your business model. PMMs are drawn to the function generally because it is really fun to be an awesome product expert and storyteller. Oftentimes, PMMs will showcase to me the volume and quality of their content work in interviews. What I am looking for, however, is for you to show me IMPACT. I want you to think of yourself as a GTM architect or mini-GM, who is responsible for the success of a product line through all channels - demand gen, the website, SDRs, sales, etc. Meet with those leaders. Understand their function. Deeply internalize the metrics they track, Orient your work to improve those metrics. In an interview for a Sr. PMM role, I want you to tell me what the top 2 problems in the business were that you helped to fix. For example not enough top-of-funnel momentum for a given product line, and poor MQL to SQL conversions. I want you to show me that you worked with Demand Gen to analyze the top-of-funnel problems. Not winning for key search terms? You helped them define the search terms they should be winning. No one clicking on ads? You helped them with better ad copy. Getting lots of clicks on ads but poor conversions to leads? You helped them by swapping in an asset that led to better conversions. I want you to show me that you worked with SDR leadership to find out why MQL to SQL conversions were so low. Under-performing SDR sequences? You helped by creating more compelling copy and CTAs. SDRs not equipped to handle objections? You helped with talking points and enablement. Losing deals to competitors? You embedded competitive positioning earlier in the buyer’s journey (i.e. on the website, the blog, in ads), and you enabled the SDR team on differentiators. You will stand out for me if you show me how your awesome storytelling and product expertise has resulted in business impact.

In your current company, start building a relationship with the PMM team and PMM leadership. Volunteer to take on a few things that leverage your background and help PMM. One thing that comes to mind is to do an analysis of what is thematically working in social media and influencer marketing, and come to PMM leadership with content recommendations that would have greater impact. "Over the last 2 quarters, the top-performing topic area is x. Customer testimonials / a new demo / a webinar in this area would be really powerful." Analyze what competitors are doing with social media and influencer marketing, and look at what thematically is working for them. Bring that back to PMM leadership with recommendations for how that PMM leader could outsmart the competition. Invest in learning the product, and document what worked and didn't work as you embarked on your user journey. Expose your learnings to both Product and PMM leadership. Start blogging (personally, or through the company's blog if possible) about the value of the product.