How do you handle the conflicting voices between sales, marketing and product?

- Anchor on the highest priority for the company, versus any one team. One of the hardest but also most liberating things about product marketing is that we are an inherently flexible function. Our skillsets are diverse, so we can quickly get into formation behind whatever is most important and strategic to the company at any given point in time. This is our greatest strength (and, if handled poorly, our greatest weakness; see below response), so don't let it go to waste! If the most important initiative at the company is revenue, make yourself indispensable to sales by holding your team to sales targets. If it is building a revolutionary product, prioritize product. Whatever you do, do not try to be everything to everyone. That just results in a lot of "RAM" (random acts of marketing) that don't make clear to anyone what you're actually good for. 

- When it comes to resolving tension between teams: Seek to find higher, common ground. Recognize that we're all trying to build a better business, so what are the highest order priorities we can all get behind? Resolve confict by bringing to the table with a point of view grounded in market or customer expertise. 

It’s a useful exercise to determine first what the company’s most important objectives are rather than any one team’s. PMM, being as cross-functional as it is, acts as sort of a layer of utility business athletes within the organization, pushing for whatever the most important outcomes are that the business needs to achieve in that specific period of time. Once you clearly understand what the company’s goals are, you can push for alignment between these three groups and prioritize which voice needs to be heard the most at that moment. You can also usually find common ground between these team – more often than not there is a solution that satisfies each team’s needs while addressing the company’s goals at the same time.

So ultimately, it comes back to setting a strategy, defining objectives, and aligning your stakeholder teams around those.

I wouldn’t view them as necessarily conflicting, but more so that PMM brings a different perspective :)

First of all, I would lean into data as much as possible. That not only makes the conversation more objective, but also strengthens your case. That could be quantitative (surfacing an increase in product usage by a new persona) or qualitative (buyer research with non-customers to identify market requirements).

Secondly, I would think about where PMM can add a unique perspective; what are some of the product team’s blindspots in how they roadmap? Every organization’s culture is different, but let’s assume that Sales represents the needs of large, prospective customers, and product has quant and qual user feedback covered.

Areas where PMM can add value are 1) representing the needs of non-customers (especially when aligned with business priorities); and 2) competitive differentiation (what are there gaps compared to the competition, or opportunities to be the first mover?).

For #1:#1:#1:#1: I would think about which types of audiences are strategic for the company. For example, a new industry, persona, moving upmarket, anything else? It’s likely you don’t have a critical mass of users in these new segments on your platform today, so it would be difficult for product to fully understand their needs through user feedback. Consider conducting qualitative market research to map out their market requirements, and tie that back to your organizational priorities.

For #2:#2:#2:#2: For a given product area, what are the pains that competitors solve for today? How are they solving those pains? What are potential pains they’re not solving for, and where your company can differentiate themselves? Consider creating a competitive matrix that prioritizes pain points based on gaps and differentiation opportunities.

My first piece of advice is to reframe ‘conflicting voices’ as different perspectives. When you think about it as different perspectives, it removes the negative connotations associated with conflict, and can be easier to dig into the perspectives themselves (vs. getting caught up in the discomfort of disagreement). Sure it would be easier if everyone’s perspective was the same or in agreement, but it would probably also mean you weren’t thinking exhaustively about a problem you were trying to solve.

I have found that typically when these groups have very different perspectives, it usually comes down to either:

1. lack of shared understanding (about the customer or product),
2. lack of complete understanding (e.g. they only see part of the picture), or
3. misalignment of goals across teams (each team is working towards something else)

The first thing I do as a PMM in the center of all of these teams (and others!) is to try to understand each of their perspectives and why they have that particular opinion. Once I compile them all together, it’s often easier to see the reasons behind divergence. 

If it’s a situation where alignment is required (e.g. defining a target audience, for example!), I always try to lead with driving for a shared understanding of the customer first, and a re-stating of the goals. This often unlocks the debate, and allows teams to see a more complete perspective. Then you can move into decision-making. 

By bringing stakeholders into the decision-making process, and anchoring recommendations on 1/ which decision best suits the customers’ interests and needs?, followed by 2/ which decision best suits the needs of the business, it helps all teams feel a part of the solution and can drive greater support and buy-in on the decisions.