AMA: Salesforce Senior Director, Product Marketing Launch Strategy & Emerging Products, Jodi Innerfield on Product Marketing Career Path

I don't know if you'll like this answer--there is no one career path after Product Marketing. I believe career "paths" are more like jungle gyms than ladders--sometimes you go forward and up, other times you've got to move to the side, and sometimes you've got to hop from the swings to the monkey bars. What does that actually mean? Product Marketing in particular has so many different roles and skill sets within it: messaging, enablement, events, product launches, product adoption--the list goes on. My question for you is: what part of PMM do you enjoy most? What do you enjoy the least? Are you analytically minded and like clear metrics and KPIs, or do you prefer iterative, qualitative work? Identify the work that challenges and motivates you, and find a role that leans into those skill sets while also giving you the opportunity to learn something new. Maybe that's a PMM role, or maybe it's Growth Marketing or Product Management or Customer Success or Campaigns or...Every person is different, and every role and company is going to prioritize something different.

What does "Product Marketing Lead" mean at your company? Titles aren't the same everywhere, so it's important to understand the expectations your manager and your company have for you in this new role. As I interpret "Lead," that probably means you're in charge of something holistically--a product, a feature, a launch. How are you communicating your work and your successes to your manager, team, and department? Are you regularly sharing out the work you're doing, what you've learned, how you're pivoting going forward? It's not necessarily just the work that changes as you move up in your career, it's the expectations for communicating the work you're doing, who you're communicating with, and how you're learning and evolving your work based on what you've learned and accomplished. To stand out, you first need to make sure you're sharing the work you're doing.

This answer is going to be different depending on your company and its job levels, expectations, etc. So I can't answer it generically, but I can tell you what changed for me: the team size and scope of work. As a director, I started out with zero direct reports and owned one product. My role then grew to be a team of 3-4 people and I owned a growing line of business. As a senior director, I've had anywhere from 4-12 people on my team, and the scope of work just keeps growing. But if you look at other directors and senior directors in the org, their stories are different, so this is just my experience. Ask your manager for clear expectations and the difference between director and senior director. It will likely be a mix of team size, scope of work, executive communication, maybe P&L ownership or revenue targets.

While I can't say these three skills are what helped me achieve my role today (in reality it's a mix of hard work, luck, and re-orgs!) I will say these skills are what help me as I grow: 1. Adaptability: Things change all. the. time. I've changed roles every 1.5-2.5 years, sometimes of my own design and sometimes because a team was eliminated or the organization's priorities changed. My team has grown and shrunk because of re-orgs and redesigns and shifting priorities. I've learned that I can be frustrated or annoyed for a minute about these changes, but the frustration doesn't serve me. The only constant is change and the best thing I can do for my career and my sanity is just adapt and adjust, and if I don't like the way things changed I can either make a change myself or wait a few months and it'll change again! 2. Executive communication/Storytelling: I've learned to take my storytelling and communication skills from the first call deck into every presentation, slack post, and email I send. If I can position an argument or a proposal compellingly, I'm more likely to get my project approved or my idea in front of the right people. Learning how to adjust my communication for my leadership has helped me make a business case for programs, people, and projects, and it's helped leadership see that I can think strategically and position my communications for the right audience. 3. Willingness to Learn: Honestly, I get bored really easily, and sometimes career shifts for me are about the desire to be challenged and learn something new. Once I know what I'm doing, it's not that fun anymore, and I'm ready to move on. While that's not the best advice to give someone, it's a motivator for me in terms of what I look for in a role and has helped me determine when I stay in a role or when I move on.

Not every great individual contributor is going to be a great manager. It's harsh but true! Managing and leading people is a totally different skill set, and what made someone a great IC is not what's going to make them a great manager (in fact, it may make them a terrible manager!) I first want to know: Why? What's the motivation for being a people leader? If it's because it's perceived that managing others is the only way to move up, that's not a great motivation for leading. But if there's a desire to help someone else grow in their career, to take on a new challenge by learning to delegate, to teach someone else how to do the job, so that they can focus on strategic planning, resourcing, and organizational operations--that makes a little more sense. The unsexy but also very important factor in the transition from IC to Manager is business need. There has to be a reason for the organization to level people and create a team under someone. Sometimes it's the span of control of the org getting too big; other times it's that the work needs more hands, and it makes the most sense for the person already leading the work to now manage others also doing the work. But realistically, business need and org design are what drive the ultimate decision to become a manager, less so someone's desire to be one. The desire has to be there, but it's not going to be the deciding factor.

I don't think it's important to come from a PMM background, but I do think these three skillsets are necessary to be successful as a PMM: Adaptability: Priorities, focuses, and resources change quickly. I look for people who react well to change, and are flexible enough to handle high-level strategy one moment and get in the weeds on performance metrics the next. Storytelling: PMMs need to be great storytellers. Even if you've never had a PMM role before, your interview is an opportunity for you to tell the story of your career, why you've made the choices you did, and why your current skillset is a fit for the open role. Whether it's an internal meeting where you need to get buy-in for your plan, or building a demo or a first call deck, storytelling is PMM 101. Curiosity: PMMs need to be interested in your customer and the problem they need to solve, to position your product as the right answer. That takes curiosity about your customer. And, the PMM role often has to answer the question "how do I grow my business?" It takes a curious person to want to dive into problems, ask a lot of questions, and learn new skills in order to identify the right strategy and path forward.