AMA: UiPath Former Vice President, Product Marketing, Diego Lomanto on Category Creation

We use varioius external forums for testing messaging. We do a lot of informal conversations with customers but we also have formal customer and product advisory boards where we preview messaging. I also like to get analyst feedback before launching anything. These forums usually provide useful insight to improve messaging substantially.. 

Educate educate educate. When I started at UiPath i must have had 50-100 introductory meetings in the first few weeks. I spent time with every stakeholder that I needed to work with or that I needed to be an advocate. I did a lot of them by zoom but I also got on the plane and traveled a ton. You can't replace the in person impact when you are just getting started and getting to know people. It's really not a big secret - when you are new do a massive amount of outreach.

We have a "storybook" with all of our core messaging. It's a powerpoint with a lot of slides covering segmentation, personas, products, and all the appropriate messaging that goes along with it. It can be a bit heavy (to download) but it's the one source everyone knows about. We host it on our internal sales enablement tool - Highspot.

There are a host of good training options out there. Sharebird is a good place to start and you can google alternatives as well. I mentioned a few books earlier on as well - Al Ries and Jack Trout and it's called "Positioning: The Battle for your Mind" and "Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It" by April Dunford. Other than that it really comes down to experience. Just do it and get better and better at it as time goes on.

You need to listen to people, share positioning work as it develops and be iterative. If you just show up with a messaging strategy without involving leadership in the formulation you are most likely going to get pushback because everyone thinks they know what we should be saying to the market. But if you take time to listen to people, and shape the messaging in response to their feedback people will be much more likely to agree. It goes back to that old adage that you should never show up to an executive meeting presenting something for the first time - shop it around beforehand. The same applies to messaging.

I look for a growth mindset, collaborative personality and humility. Obviously they need to be good at the core product marketing skills and have demonstrated success in other roles but for a leader I want to see them drive unity across the org. Regarding a growth mindset - I want them thinking about what are we not doing that we should be doing. It's easy to get caught up in the day to day work of product marketing and end up being tactical. I want them thinking strategically about how to drive growth and product success beyond the work right in front of them.

Hi - yes - I definitely recommend sharebird's resources. I also love a few books on positioning. First the classic book here is from Al Ries and Jack Trout and it's called "Positioning: The Battle for your Mind." I also recommend "Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It" by April Dunford