AMA: Koala Head of Marketing, Lauren Craigie on Stakeholder Management

Very. I work with my executives to identify when we think it's reasonable to launch (whatever it is—a product, content, a new positioning narrative, etc), and when that date is set, it's PMM's job to set the waterfall of activities before that. We can't control whether things slip but it's out job to identify the dependencies, and keep reminding folks of the goal. In some organizations you might be #blessed with a project manager. That person can help you keep meeting cadence, push on deliverabl ...Read More

This kind of behavior is actually a gift. If my sellers have picked up on something that they think makes a meaningful difference in their sales cycle time, I want to know about it! If they're positioning something differently than I asked them to, there's a reason for it, and it's rarely because they just don't want to change their habits. The positioning is either too complex, or it doesn't resonate, or it's not easy to deliver. All of these problems point back to PMM. In my experience, if the ...Read More

I lean on research a lot as a quick win, actually. It aligns best with the foundational "unseen" role of PMM, and bringing things to the table that every function can consider as inputs into the work they feel responsible for, is a win. For $1k/month you can use Wynter to ask your key audience some critical questions about jobs to done, pains, gains, and interests. All of those can be used by sales, product, and even engineering For free, you can ask your audience questions. Interview happy cust ...Read More

Great question, because timelines will ALWAYS slip. I think some of the most important things to remember are: Get alignment on the goals. If you're launching something that your pipeline goals depend on, for example, you need to keep coming back to that to remind folks why tight deadlines are critical. Always ask, "What are the things that might be more important than this? What is less important than this?" Make dependencies clear. I once was asked by the head of engineering to give a presenta ...Read More

Lots of stakeholders you need to interact with will have different perceptions of what product marketing is, and how you specifically can help. I think the most important things I've learned over the years is 1) Don't assume anyone knows your role in positioning, messaging, launches, enablement, content, etc. Many people at the company may already be doing parts of these things, and your first job is to help them, while also introducing other things they could be thinking about. 2) You're not en ...Read More

Ha I actually wrote a whole document about this at one company—about our async collaboration process. I will actually write on documents what kind of feedback I'm happy to take, and from whom. I do think of it as a bit like a diamond shape. You start with a very small group of people (execs) to identify what you want to do, and when. You then widen your audience to include more folks around the middle of the project, when you're already set some guardrails for them to operate within. Towards the ...Read More

CEO Any co-founders If in SLG: Sales exec. If in PLG: Product exec Marketing exec If in SLG: Sales enablement person if they exist. If in PLG: Person in charge of acqusition/distribution I think it's important to note in the above that in a sales-led growth motion, my alignment with my sales exec is more important to me than my alignment with my marketing exec, even if I report into marketing. Hopefully the two are tightly aligned and it won't feel necessary to rank order the two, but I've found ...Read More

I don't really love this question because I don't really think PMMs influence. They make value incredibly obvious—for buyers, and stakeholders. I think educate or even align might be a better word here? And in that case I do find it difficult sometimes to educate/align with people removed from the GTM cycle. If your PMs don't regularly talk to customers AND sellers, it'll be more difficult to explain the positioning you chose and the timelines you're keeping. I've been in a few situations withou ...Read More