How do you foster strong relationships with product and other marketing teams at the department level?

Fostering strong relationships begins with having the right mindset: assume everyone has the best intent, and you’re all there to build something great together. (If you don’t believe that’s the case, then you’ll likely want to reevaluate whether that’s a place you want to be working.) 

Next, figure out what unique value Product Marketing can add to help other departments. Working with Product? Help create a narrative that articulates how your product is differentiated in the market, and use customer insights to identify opportunities for the product to support that narrative. Working with Communications? Help identify upcoming product releases that support thought leadership pillars for executive talk tracks.

Proactively helping others not only accelerates the business you’re all building (a rising tide lifts all boats!), but also helps maintain the “magic relationship ratio” of 5 to 1. According to relationship studies— yes, these are studies about romantic relationships, but the concepts still apply to any interpersonal interactions— you want to maintain a ratio of 5 (or more) positive interactions for every negative interaction during conflict. Conflict is bound to happen, but it doesn’t feel like conflict when you have a solid foundation of positive experiences working together.