AMA: MaintainX Director, Product Marketing, Sherry Wu on Influencing the C-Suite

Influencing any stakeholder (whether internal or external) comes down to two factors. Think of any stakeholder as a customer you'd like to market to. You need to know 3 things: 1. What does your stakeholder care about from a business perspective? 2. What information do they need, and where do they prefer to access that information? 3. What do your stakeholders like to do, as humans, outside of these decisions? For example, internal c-suite folks may care about growth and scale, and you interact with them in internal meetings. When you're interacting in internal meetings, frame. your recommendations in the language of their careabouts - e.g. I'd recommend investing in xyz program or software because it will help us reach our growth goals. External allies may care about THEIR revenue goals -- frame recommendations in terms of why it's good for them. Major donors care may care about ensuring accountability and visibility for their contributions. On the last point -- this isn't so much about influence in a specific situation, but building good relationships in general (which are important for influence). For internal stakeholders, invest time in coffee chats and get to know your stakeholders outside of project-based meetings. For external stakeholders, this is really where the technique depends on the stakeholder, e.g. you can build relationships with major accounts by inviting them to contribute to a customer advisory board, for example, but you likely won't do that for a donor.

See my other answer on frameworks for building intluence with stakeholders. Influencing the c-suite to get resources is about influencing the c-suite, which is really about influence, period. Think of any stakeholder as a customer you'd like to market to. Y 1. What does your stakeholder care about from a business perspective? 2. What information do they need, and where do they prefer to access that information? Internal c-suite folks may care about growth and scale, and you interact with them in internal meetings. When you're interacting in internal meetings, frame. your recommendations in the language of their careabouts - e.g. I'd recommend investing in xyz program or software because it will help us reach our growth goals. Sometimes, you may find that the c-suite cares about these goals and thinks that it's a good idea to invest in resources. However, the timing may not be right for the organization (there are other priorities, perhaps there are dependencies on other organizations, etc.). In this case, if you've got buy-in for the idea in theory but no sign-off on the timeline, I'd say something like, "Sounds like we're aligned on the approach, but may need more time to decide. When do you think we would be at a point where we're ready?". 

Oftentimes, disagreements are simply differences of opinion, which exist because there is a lack of data. In this case, PMMs are great neutral third-parties who are well-positioned to close that data gap. Listen carefully to what the execs are saying, and understand the WHY behind their disagreement. Are they disagreeing on strategy because one of them believes that the decision will make you uncompetitive in the market? As a PMM, you can bring competitive intelligence and customer insights to bear here. Are they disagreeing on a decision that impacts the customer experience? As a PMM, put on your customer hat and bring some customer insights (maybe pull in a customer marketing friend to help). Do they think that the decision will impact profitability? Bring in your finance counterparts to weigh in and model out a few scenarios. All decisions should be grounded in business impact. As a PMM, you might not hold all the data that are necessary to come to a decision, but you can (and should) be able to get data to ensure that the decision is made with the business in mind.

There are 3 main ways I interact with the C-suite: * Regular leadership meetings where we discuss product roadmap and GTM * Project-specific interactions * Regular 1:1s (this will depend on the size of your company) During regular leadership meetings, execs discuss high-priority company initiatives, such as initiatives to target new markets, upcoming product bets, and company building. As PMMs, we provide critical intelligence to inform these strategic decisions, and oftentimes end up driving the execution of decisions made at the exec level. For project-specific interactions, I like to use the DACI framework to help me determine when to communicate to execs (DACI is great for all projects, period). PMMs are usually in positions where we're driving high-impact, cross-functional projects (e.g. product launches, pricing changes, category-defining campaigns). For some projects, execs are approvers; for others, they are key collaborators. For example, if you are working on a pricing change, your CEO may be an approver but will likely not be in the weeds with you day to day as you investigate pricing and packaging. In this case, you would interact with her when you present proposals for approval, and you may cc her (depending on the size of the company, and her preference) on any status update comms to internal stakeholders. If you're working with execs to overhaul your strategic narrative, then you may interact with them more as a collaborator, and your interactions will be less formal. Finally, it's important to know what's top of mind for execs. At smaller companies, it's easier to have access to execs so you can know what's top of mind. At larger companies, you might get this information in town hall meetings or perhaps department-specific AMA sessions. I currently hold weekly1:1s with execs to make sure I'm keeping a pulse on company priorities, and I bring execs in to meet with the PMM team to ensure we're building relationships outside of projects. After all, execs are human too :)