AMA: Qualtrics Former Head of Global Product Marketing, Liz Tassey on Product Marketing Soft and Hard Skills

Brand is more than just a logo or color palette or tag line. Brand is the combination of customer touchpoints that create meaning and belonging for that customer...Brand attracts the customer in the first place, for sure, but brand shows up in how the product delivers on its promise, how customer support handled your issues, how easy it was to purchase. Imagine if you had expectations of a Nordstrom experience, but then got Wal-Mart. It's not that Wal-Mart is bad, but the misalignm of expectatio ...Read More

Messaging and storytelling: this continues to be the hallmark of a great PMM. In particular, really leaning in on differentiation and value to the customer (not speeds and feeds) while also simplifying concepts down in a memorable way that makes it easy for sales to land, marketing to build copy and content, and ultimately, the customer to understand. I sometimes joke that PMMs like ALL the words...but we don't need to use them ALL the time. Being able to really tell a compelling story that conn ...Read More

I would recommend doing a listening tour with your key stakeholder teams in the organization (product, sales, growth, enablement, partner) to help inform your priorities, as budget items could be almost limitless. It's also important to understand the state of your product and where it might need the most help, to help prioritize your asks. E.g you might need to invest more in awareness / thought leadership content or third party validation research, or maybe you have needs lower in the funnel s ...Read More

Not knowing the product: I've known PMMs who had never...used...the product. For real. This is job #1 - get familiar with the product, build and do demos with customers, spend time with the product managers understanding the roadmap, what's been the history, what is the vision for where the product is headed. This is a critical first step in building a credible relationship with product. I often "indoctrinate" new PMMs to the team by getting them on booth duty right away, so they learn the produ ...Read More

I love the data debate. A couple of my favorite quotes: "If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything" - Ronald Coase. "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses" - maybe Henry Ford I dont think it's an either-or answer. Data is obviously incredibly important, as it can be the objective source of "truth" and the rise of machine learning and AI have made data more powerful and helpful than ever. But as you think about how data is used in decisi ...Read More

Wow I love this idea! A couple of thoughts: Customer-obsession: This is probably the #1 skill/perspective that we can help other teams embrace. Is this driving value for the customer, is this something they can easily understand, are we solving the pain point in a unique and differentiated way, etc. Value orientation: This is captured a bit in the customer-obsession point, but if the entire company can have a great focus on value (building value, communicating value, helping the customer realize ...Read More

A good competitive intelligence function starts with great listening. Engaging your frontline (both sales AND customer success...why you are losing deals is good insight, but why you are losing customers is incredibly powerful), win/loss reports, gleaning insights from your customer experience and brand tracking programs, dark funnel data, first party research when possible.... Establishing listening upfront will help you then get a clearer picture of where you need to focus. Which competitors i ...Read More

I think it's a balance, but if I had to choose, leaning in to those soft skills is a great strategy when you are starting out.   It's really important to go into a new team / company with a really strong growth mindset and a relationship building / collaboration ethos. Be curious, meet with your key stakeholders to really understand how PMM can be a good partner, learn about the business and what's working / what's not (this will lean in on data/business acumen for sure), learn the customer and ...Read More