How do you manage the transition from being the sole person responsible for product marketing activities to now having someone else who can share the burden?

The most important thing during this process is to clearly outline roles and responsibilities for both yourself and the new person on your team, I am a huge fan of RACI models for driving that clarity. Secondly, you want to clearly understand each of your strengths and key areas of growth for your new hire - so that you can make sure you are leveraging them for the right type of work where they can make a big impact while giving them the opportunity to work on projects where they can learn and g ...Read More

This can be challenging at first, but it’s absolutely essential to start doing not just for your own career growth, but for your team’s growth as well. Try to delegate a mix of different types of things: quick wins, more strategic projects, etc. Don’t just default to delegating the easier things. You’re responsible for your direct report’s career path right now — lead with empathy and take that seriously. Think about their gaps and opportunities for growth and try to fill them with relevant init ...Read More

The best part of being in product marketing is sharing the burden - there's always something to do in the messy middle ;) I think a simple and pragmatic way to share the load is adopting a framework like the Eisenhower Matrix to help prioritize and delegate efficiently. The Eisenhower Matrix is a productivity, prioritization, and time-management framework designed to help professionals prioritize a list of tasks or agenda items by first categorizing those items according to their urgency and imp ...Read More

Delegating is extremely important as you grow! It can feel unnatural when you’re getting started, so here are some tips if you’re doing it for the first time: Scope for the person: Try to understand your new teammate and what they bring to the table. Try to understand their strengths and where they may need coaching. Based on their unique skills, define a workstream that plays to their strengths and allows them to stretch their skills, while limiting the downsides if they don’t ramp up right awa ...Read More

I think one of the hardest things to do when transitioning from being the first/sole PMM to bringing on a team is sharing the foundational knowledge around the audience, market, product, and business that have allowed you to operate efficiently—from being able to make great decisions quickly to nailing voice/tone of messaging. One way to go about this is to onboard your new PMMs in two ways: Have them work on something that will let them go deep on how your target audience thinks and behaves—how ...Read More