AMA: Salesforce Vice President Product Marketing, Rekha Srivatsan on Platform and Solutions Product Marketing

* Don't box yourself, ever! * Don't always stick to how things are always done. * And ask questions more. * And observe and take notes. * And don't pretend to know it all! Here's the thing: When you are early in your career, you are often embarrassed to ask questions or ask "why?" But asking those questions more would help you understand things wayyyyy better. Some of my best learnings have come from asking questions to understand things better. Think about it — if you can't understand a feature as a marketer, chances are that your customers won't. That's your biggest advantage; use it!

I am familiar with this situation as I was here not too long ago. ;) Here's what worked well for me: * As a new leader, establish your 30-60-90 days goals with your manager. Align on the big bets, so there are no big surprises. * You are also likely to re-org the team to make it more efficient. Chances are that your manager might also have a few thoughts/ideas. Pick their brain earlier to understand more, so it can influence your plans. * Ask your manager for the critical stakeholders for you to build relationships across the organization and genuinely pursue that. * Ask 3 things during your every 1:1 - "What's top of mind for them? What can you do to help? Any feedback for you?" Asking these questions often earlier will help you understand their thought process and help you build a trustworthy relationship. The most important thing your boss can do for you when you start is offer their time and give you the time and space to onboard. It's a balance of pushing you to execute while allowing you to onboard and truly depends on the state of the business. 

Product marketing is the core of any organization. We are the product experts, which means: * We work closely with the demand gen teams to create compelling ads in the market. * We partner with the awareness teams to hype the product / upcoming features. * We align with the product teams on feature prioritization and the right short-term and long-term product strategy. * We work with the field to arm the sellers with the latest product innovation and how to sell them. * We work with the AR and PR teams to ensure we stay relevant in the market. Can you name another team that's central to an organization? ;)

Great question! You can consider your target buyers and prioritize messaging based on your top personas. This will help your field tremendously too. You can also identify common customer outcomes and make sure you map your buyers to expected outcomes to the general vision of the platform. Aligning all of this will help you really synthesize the top value prop of your platform. 

I've done it in so many different ways! Few quick pointers: * The most important thing is to ensure every team member has a good swim lane and growth path. * Take your revenue goal and slice that evenly across the team to see what makes the most sense — product line, segment, or objective. * If you have a big product organization, try aligning your team with leaders. This will help you ensure PM-PMM alignment for a stronger product strategy. * If you have several SKUs/product lines, it might be worthwhile to have a person or a team dedicated to overall messaging and narrative to ensure consistency. * Depending on how PMMs are defined in your organization, you can create teams for every aspect of the customer journey.