AMA: You.com Director, Product Marketing, Ben Geller on Stakeholder Management

I think it's crucial for a remote team to have a regular process/cadence for showcasing their work to the broader company. Why? It creates a forcing function for the team to clearly articulate what they're working on & why. It also create visibility for xfn partners & fuels collaboration. Here's the process we use for my team at You.com: Every Friday, the marketing team puts together a short deck (<10 slides), that shares highlights from the past week & what's coming next week. We ...Read More

For a large cross-functional project, there are three keys to keeping everyone on the same page & running efficiently: Align on the high-level objective: When kicking off a new project, it's crucial to outline the vision for what you're trying to accomplish and what success looks like. I typically will do this in a joint Google Doc or Notion page and ensure that it's distributed ahead of time so stakeholder feedback can be incorporated. We'll then do a formal meeting to review & address ...Read More

Rather than thinking about what team they're on, I love the RAPID framework for stakeholder management. This is a tool that helps clarify who is accountable for decisions, and the role each stakeholder plays in that particular decision. The different roles in RAPID are: Recommend: Develops recommendation for a decision. 80% of the work happens here. Agree: Ensures the recommendation meets specific requirements. Their input must be factored in by the R. Perform: Executes the decision once made. I ...Read More

Personally, I've found that the best way to build trust in the first 90 days, is focusing on identifying areas where you can immediately create value (no matter how small). The softer side of relationship building naturally happens through executing. Here's why: You were likely hired for a critical reason. Especially in the current market, there's an expectation that you will be taking over work that was causing your teammates stress/headaches until you joined. Focusing on identifying areas wher ...Read More

In building trust with your stakeholders/xfn partners, I think having a curious, open mindset, demonstrating kindness goes a long way.For example, if you disagree with a decision, first seek to understand the rationale and context around the decision (e.g., in a quick Slack chat), before pushing back in a more formal setting.In the past, I've seen colleagues run into issues here, where they will unintentionally hijack meetings by voicing concerns in front of a broad audience, without having take ...Read More

As a PMM, it's crucial to be the expert in the market, including the user needs & competitive landscape, while you can lean on your PM partner to be the expert in the technical details of the product you're building. With this in mind, I would draw the line based on the type of question you're answering. If it's about the user's needs or competition, then it's your job to educate the PM/rest of the org.If it's about the technical details of how the product is built, then it's okay to lean on ...Read More