AMA: Zendesk Group Product Marketing Manager, Lauren Hakim on Stakeholder Management

Great question! With a bit of extra effort, there are many things that can be done to forge relationships that build trust in a virtual environment. To do this successfully, invest time in getting to know your stakeholders and identify opportunities where you can add value and share your knowledge. Whether it’s a 1:1 or a team happy hour, dedicate time every week to get to know your team members on a personal level and build rapport. I have found that establishing common ground and better understanding the people I frequently interact with creates a much easier and more productive working environment. Our team at Zendesk uses the Donut app for Slack to connect teammates on a regular basis. I would highly recommend this if your team is using Slack. If you see a report or customer insight that is relevant to your product area - share it with your product manager. If you have a special skill (e.g. making great product demo videos), host a lunch and learn session with your product marketing team. Sharing your insights and expertise can make others more likely to consult you and demonstrate that you are credible.

Part of our jobs as PMMs is to drive alignment across teams of diverse stakeholders, all of which speak different languages, care about different things, and want to be approached in a specific way. When it comes to key strategic projects, I believe that tailoring your approach to meet the needs of your stakeholders is critical to achieve maximum success and collaboration! This could be as simple as reframing certain elements of a master deck/doc you’ve created for a key strategic project. Depending on who you’re communicating with, identify how you can adjust your project updates to ensure those particular stakeholders find your work important and valuable. For example, marketing may care more about how you helped them generate more high quality leads vs product may care more about product/feature adoption. No matter who it is you're communicating with, identify their key measures of success and think about how you can align your outcomes to their objectives.

Product marketers have to work and communicate with a wide variety of stakeholders to push ideas and initiatives forward. Influence is critical for PMMs to be effective, and that comes with building trust. Invest time in understanding your stakeholders’ needs and pain points to help you determine how you can best work with them. By speaking the same language as your stakeholders and proactively providing the insights and information they need, the more they will lean on you and trust you to get the job done. Immerse yourself in your product, the market and your customers. Use those insights to identify opportunities where you can add value: influencing product roadmap, helping your sales team close more deals, ensuring your messaging is compelling, etc. Bringing valuable insights and a unique point of view to your stakeholders will improve your credibility and make you a more influential PMM.

Great question. At Zendesk, we do a lot of monthly/quarterly syncs with product leadership, sales leadership, marketing leadership, etc to discuss top programs and communicate achievements. Quarterly business reviews are another great way to share top wins and learnings. We also leverage supplemental channels like Slack, company/team all hands and our GTM newsletter. This can vary by company. To determine what works best for you and your team, you’ll need to figure out a way to speak the same language of the people that you’re trying to communicate with. Take the time to understand the priorities of your key stakeholders and executives so you can align your outcomes to their measures of success. Identify their communication preferences so you can establish a communication approach that best meets their needs. When you’ve taken these steps, it’s much easier to build visibility and communicate achievements in a way that resonates with your audience.

Product launches take a village to execute successfully! Start by defining your launch goals and plan. This will make it easier to identify your stakeholders, which can include individuals or groups that will be involved in the launch execution and/or impacted by the outcome of the launch. At Zendesk, we use a tiering system to determine the level of effort required to support a product launch and the stakeholders that will need to be involved. For example: * A tier 1 launch is typically reserved for brand new product offerings that will have a major impact on our customers or the business. A tier 1 launch would span many different stakeholders across product (e.g. product managers, engineering, pricing, etc), core marketing (campaigns, events, PR, SEO, brand, etc.) and GTM (enablement, pre/post solutions consultants, partners, etc.). * A tier 3 launch may be a smaller update to an existing product with minimal impact. As opposed to a tier 1 launch, a tier 3 launch would require less stakeholder involvement. We may pull in the web team for website updates, docs team for release note updates, email marketing, etc. As with most product launches, things are constantly changing! Involve your stakeholders early and often, and make sure to get their buy-in on the launch goals and the role they will play. Proactively and constantly communicating with your stakeholders makes it much easier to pivot if necessary as things change or challenges arise.

This can certainly vary depending on the company! Here are some examples of areas that would be owned by different product marketing levels based on my experience: Messaging & Positioning * PMM: Crafts messaging and positioning at capability/feature level with some coaching * Sr. PMM: Drives messaging and positioning at the product/feature level and coaches others on product/feature level positioning * Director: Drives messaging and positioning at the category level and ensures alignment across teams Sales enablement * PMM: Creates materials and conducts enablement sessions on sales fundamentals (e.g. first call deck, demos) * Sr. PMM: Orchestrates enablement initiatives and programs at the product level or across multiple features. Identifies opportunities to increase pipeline by collaborating directly with reps and sales leadership. * Director: A mix of strategic/tactical partner to sales leadership for their functional area. Ensures execution of sales-facing content and training. GTM strategy & execution * PMM: Plays a specific role in building GTM strategy and execution for area of focus (e.g. buyer, competitors) * Sr. PMM: Drives GTM strategy work across multiple products, features, or initiatives (e.g. pricing, narrative). Makes recommendations to optimize methodologies and processes. * Director: Ensures the success of the development of GTM strategy and responsible for their teams’ execution of GTM programs. Considers the portfolio strategy (e.g. where a particular launch strategy fits in amongst other launches). Makes recommendations to optimize methodologies and processes.

PMM sits at the intersection of these various stakeholder teams and keeps them aligned. No matter how big or small your company is, you likely have similar stakeholders that you need to manage and communicate with. To be effective, product marketing needs to have a voice across the company. I’ve always found it valuable to forge trusting relationships with someone in sales leadership, product leadership, etc. Make sure you’re communicating with them on a regular basis. With product, catch up regularly on upcoming releases, voice of customer, strategic launches, etc. With sales, review performance, key customer wins, strategic campaigns, etc. Having a regular cadence with these teams while bringing them valuable insights and a unique POV will ensure PMM has a seat at the table.