How do you see ‘narrative’ and ‘story-telling’ playing in to the day to day work for PMM? How does it differ for a PM Manager vs. Director?

Being able to craft a compelling narrative for your product or solution that is targeted, differentiated, and drives urgency is one of the core skillsets of a PMM at any level. As you get more senior the scope of that narrative changes. Instead of covering one solution area or one particular audience, you might be covering multiple areas and audiences. At the director and above level you are likely covering the entire platform narrative and ensuring cohesion with the solutions/ICP level narratives.

In terms of the day to day work, this looks like the following
1. Talking to customers
2. Listening to Gong calls
3. Analyzing competitors messaging
4. Crafting messaging frameworks
5. Empowering your marketing teams with the right messaging for campaigns
6. Creating sales assets (pitch decks, 1 pagers, outbound sequences)

Storytelling is a way to structure content. Successful storytelling structures content that engages an audience across a journey or via an experience that creates a feeling that remains with the audience well after the journey or experience is over. Think of the last book great book you read. Can you remember what it was about? Maybe. Can you remember how it made you feel. Probably. The interesting thing I really came to realize during Covid is that storytelling isn't just for external audiences. They're useful for internal audiences too.

With this framing in mind, the answer is simply - storytelling is crucial to the day to day work for PMM (and PM). It helps run successful meetings, manage up, execute launches, drive decisions, influence roadmaps, enable sales teams, etc. It also helps craft company and product stories to help grow the business. As one advances ones career there are more opportunities to hone your craft, but the fundamentals remain.

The last thing I will say here is that in my experience the best PMMs are the best storytellers. They can net out the signal from the noise for executives, TL;DR the customer feedback to the meat for product; and write copy that resonates with prospects. If there is one skill to really practice that will make you a successful PMM I would encourage you to lean into becoming the best storyteller you can be.