AMA: Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead, Stephanie Kelman on Stakeholder Management

Team relationships are everything in product marketing! When you're the bridge between product and marketing, those connections determine whether you're seen as a strategic partner or just "the slide deck person." Here's my playbook: With Product Teams: Becoming Their Secret Weapon Speak their language (literally) - I spend time learning the technical details of our product, not to become an engineer, but so PMs don't have to "dumb things down" when talking to me. This builds massive credibility ...Read More

Ah, prioritization is the eternal struggle! Getting leadership aligned behind your product marketing efforts can feel like herding cats wearing AirPods. Here's my approach: Make It Impossible to Ignore You Connect PMM work directly to company metrics that matter - I've learned leadership suddenly pays attention when I frame work as "This messaging project will directly impact our product adoption rate" instead of "We need to refresh our product positioning." Speak their language! Create a "reven ...Read More

Getting product data from busy (or sometimes protective) PMs can feel like pulling teeth. Here's my playbook: Build the Relationship First, Ask Questions Later Become their revenue translator - PMs speak product, senior leadership speak money. I position myself as the person who can translate their brilliant product work into business impact: "My job is to make sure everyone understands why your feature matters to merchants." Get in early, not just at launch time - The biggest game-changer was w ...Read More

Great question! I bombed a few executive presentations early on by going too deep into the weeds. Now I always ask myself: "If they had only 2 minutes to hear this, what absolutely needs to make the cut?" Also, I've learned to read the room. If a senior leader starts checking slack or asking pointed questions, I adjust on the fly to get to the business impact faster. When I'm chatting with senior leaders: I get straight to the point - Executives are time-poor, so I front-load the big stuff. Inst ...Read More

I've spent about half my career in start ups. It's always the classic "build the plane while flying it" marketing challenge! Creating your first marketing plan when you've got events, product releases, repositioning, AND competitive fires to put out can feel overwhelming. Remember, in startup land, your marketing plan needs to be solid enough to provide direction but flexible enough to pivot when that inevitable surprise opportunity or challenge pops up! Let's break this down into something actu ...Read More

Let's get real about one of the trickiest parts of PMM life—getting stakeholders to not just nod along but actually deliver quality work on time! Creating Accountability That Actually Sticks Make it public and visual - I use GitHub to make the work visible to all stakeholders that shows who owns what. There's something magical about seeing your name next to an overdue task that everyone can see! At Shopify, we called this "shared accountability in the sunlight." Set micro-deadlines, not just fin ...Read More