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How do you define 30-60-90 plans for senior PMM hires? What do you expect from newly hired PMM leads in terms of achieving KPIs?

Jon Rooney
Jon Rooney
Unity Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly Splunk, New Relic, Microsoft, OracleAugust 24

For new senior PMM hires (like Sr. Director/Director team leads), I think of 30-60-90 plans to follow a basic flow: assess (30 days), design (60 days), run (90 days). 

During the "assess" phase, a senior PMM has to listen, observe and learn as much as possible: meet the team and figure out the current state of how basic stuff (sales decks, product launches, campaign content/strategy, analyst relations) gets done. Learn the product cold, not just the demos but how to actually use it. Watch how teams (whether PMMs or PMs or Sales Engineers) demo the product - how consistent are those? How do customers react? How does our demo pitch compare to competitors? Same thing with sales pitches - how many homegrown/Frankenstein pitch decks are floating around? What seems to land and what doesn't? How are reps - particularly in a fast growing environments when new reps are joining all the time - getting enabled on the product? How are they grabbing assets when they need them? Go through the same onboarding as a new sales rep. And, once you have a little bit of grounding, do ridealongs with reps - even if it's just Zoom calls. Attend a QBR or two if you can. Watch demos/keynotes/etc from competitors to help you understand the landscape - how differentiated is everyone? Could you infer your company's positioning from the space left over from how competitors position or is the landscape pretty murky. Finally, understand the current marketing machine and how it works. How does content end up on the website and how/why does it change? What's the demand gen hand-off with sales and how is marketing being measured? Why do we invest indo certain events, how do they get executed and what do we hope to get out of them? Who defines campain themes? Who reviews and has to approve copy/content/press releases/analyst presentations? How are launches planned and executed?

For the "design" phase, map out how PMM works with sales, product and the rest of marketing and lay out what should stay the same and what needs to change. Engage with all relevant stakeholders on what you think needs to change and why (particularly, how these changes will make their lives easier and help them meet their goals). This is the hardest part, no doubt, but if everything was operating perfectly they probably wouldn't have needed to bring you on in the first place. Ladder up these changes to the top level GTM goals (revenue growth, product usage/activation, net customer retention) and explain how these changes will help meet those goals. Then map it all out with everyone, making sure it's all as simple and straightforward as possible so that everyone will be ready ready to implement these changes.

Finally, during the "run" phase, put it all in practice with a growth mindset of measure and iterate. Go in with the assumption that you didn't get everything right so be ready to tweak things - whether it's as simple as adding another reviewer for web copy updates or as major as who should be an analyst spokesperson for a major launch. Cover your own responsibilites but also stay close to team doing new things in new ways so you can both support them and get firsthand feedback on what's working and what's not. Synthesize that feedback, adjust and run again. 

Of course, in the midst of all of this in your first 90 days you'll have tasks and firedrills flying at you from all over the place - it's critical that you juggle both and don't lose sight of methodical assess-design-run work or else you'll end up as a reactive "short-order cook" rather than as a strategic partner to the other functions. This is an awful place for PMM to land and it doesn't really help the business or your team. Don't let that happen. 

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Christine Sotelo-Dag
Christine Sotelo-Dag
ThoughtSpot Senior Director of Product MarketingAugust 3

This answer probably varies from PMM leader to PMM leader but my personal 30-60-90 day break down typically looks like:
First 30 days: Onboard. Meet everyone you should meet. Gather all the context you can. Approach things with fresh eyes. Don't be afraid to flag something that doesn't sit right - we are looking for fresh, new perspectives.

First 60 days: Begin scoping out your initial projects. Who are your stakeholders, ramp up on what you need to know and how to kick these projects off.

First 90 days: Clear plan in place for projects, including how to measure success, timelines, milestones, etc. This is probably the first time we see KPIs.

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Eric Bensley
Eric Bensley
Asana Head of Global Product MarketingNovember 22

30 days - learn the business

60 days - first big win/deliverable (ie Webinar, enablement session, campaign, etc)

90 days - create a plan moving forward for product or solution area

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