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Sherry Wu

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

January 11, 2023 @ 11:00AM PT

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Sherry Wu

Senior Director, Product Marketing Ā· Gong

šŸ‘‹ Hi, Iā€™m Sherry, based in Seattle, WA

šŸ’¼ Currently Senior Director, Platform PMM at Gong

šŸ‘€ I love PMM because we are the ultimate GTM polymaths

šŸ¤ PMM also = enablement at scale, which is why Iā€™m glad Sharebird exists!

šŸ¦ Favorite ice cream flavor: anything with a coffee or tea base.

  1. How do you ensure alignment when you have two senior executive stakeholders who disagree with each other on the proposed strategy and you are stuck in the middle?

    Sherry Wu
    Sherry Wu

    Gong Senior Director, Product Marketing | Formerly MaintainX, Samsara, Comfy, Cisco ā€¢ 3y

    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 b ...Read More

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  2. What do your interactions with the C-Suite look like on a regular basis?

    Sherry Wu
    Sherry Wu

    Gong Senior Director, Product Marketing | Formerly MaintainX, Samsara, Comfy, Cisco ā€¢ 3y

    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 exec ...Read More

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  3. How do you influence the c-suite to get more resources?

    Sherry Wu
    Sherry Wu

    Gong Senior Director, Product Marketing | Formerly MaintainX, Samsara, Comfy, Cisco ā€¢ 3y

    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.Ā  Think of any stakeholder as a customer you'd like to market to. Y What does your stakeholder care about from a business perspective? 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 inte ...Read More

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  4. Can you compare and contrast techniques and mental frames for influencing internal c-suite people vs. external allies for ecosystem development? (... and vs. major accounts and/or major donors?) Are these all similar enough? Any significant differences? Thank you!

    Sherry Wu
    Sherry Wu

    Gong Senior Director, Product Marketing | Formerly MaintainX, Samsara, Comfy, Cisco ā€¢ 3y

    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: What does your stakeholder care about from a business perspective? What information do they need, and where do they prefer to access that information? What do your stakeholders like to do, as humans, outside of these decisions?Ā  For example, internal c-suite folks may care about growth and scale, and you interact with the ...Read More

    1,544 Views
    2 requests