For someone working in product marketing, what would you deem most valuable in terms of upskilling to reach the manager level?

If I had to boil it down, I’d say the most valuable upskilling to reach the manager level in PMM is about: Building influence across functions - because of course! Learning to prioritize and coach (this also includes how to say "No"!) Try this: Shadow your manager when they’re making prioritization decisions, or ask to co-lead quarterly planning. Practice saying no (or not right now) and explaining why. Thinking strategically and help with quarterly planning Try this: When working on a launch or ...Read More

These are in somewhat prioritized order: First, be excellent at your craft. As a manager, you need to coach others to reach their fullest potential and to meet business expectations. That means you need to know what good looks like and teach others how to hit that bar. Second, be able to prioritize and decide the best course of action for high-impact projects. PMMs bridge so many teams - sales, PM, demand gen, comms, and more - if you think you get a lot of asks as an IC, wait til you lead a tea ...Read More

Product marketers need to be great storytellers for their products, but also for themselves. Internal communications, cross-functional collaboration, and executive comms are crucial to growing your career as a PMM. This is because product marketing is not only a functional career, it's a strategic career. You have to be able to influence your product teams, your business teams, and your supporting marketing teams. You are often the face of the product and need to be able to speak publicly or wit ...Read More

The competencies that moves one from individual contributor to manager are not unique to Product Marketing. What is unique is how these are applied, within the PMM scope in your role / organization. Generally these are: Strategic thinking: the ability to break down complex and ambiguous problems into questions / topics that can help guide the work of a team, and your XFN partners. The higher you move, the larger your scope becomes. The ability to move between levels of detail to ask the right qu ...Read More

Building your path to product marketing management requires focusing on two critical areas - and I'll share what I've found works best based on my experience. First, it's essential to develop true expertise in the core product marketing craft. The scope of product marketing is incredibly broad and nuanced - you need to be fluent in  everything from strategic narrative development to positioning and messaging, while building deep knowledge of your product, customers, and business landscape. Take ...Read More

To become a PMM manager, I would:- Demonstrate that you can lead people, even if you aren't a manager. That means leading by influence and leading strategy. Come up with ideas and champion them across your team/organization. Rally others around them and execute, then report on the impact it made. Do this over and over.- ASK. Be vocal about what you want and set up a plan to get there with your manager. Possibly just ask to manage 1 person to start.- Work on as many cross-functional and collabora ...Read More

Lots of really great perspectives here already! To add something different I would say start thinking like a GM: Know your funnel inside and out. Understand pricing and packaging. Build strong opinions backed by data and conviction. Prioritize like a product owner. You’re not doing “campaigns.” You’re driving outcomes. I would say that 'do the job before you get the job' is framing that has helped me. Start to think about areas and opportunities where you can teach others. Share learnings, mento ...Read More