What are the best resources to stand me out as a Product Marketing Lead role after being a PMM for a while?

What does "Product Marketing Lead" mean at your company? Titles aren't the same everywhere, so it's important to understand the expectations your manager and your company have for you in this new role.

As I interpret "Lead," that probably means you're in charge of something holistically--a product, a feature, a launch. How are you communicating your work and your successes to your manager, team, and department? Are you regularly sharing out the work you're doing, what you've learned, how you're pivoting going forward? It's not necessarily just the work that changes as you move up in your career, it's the expectations for communicating the work you're doing, who you're communicating with, and how you're learning and evolving your work based on what you've learned and accomplished. To stand out, you first need to make sure you're sharing the work you're doing.

This is a paradox of career advancement: as you move up in your career, the skills that got you promoted aren't always the skills you need to be successful at the next level. The good news is that you'll need all the IC PMM knowledge and skills you've developed when you become a leader. No doubt you'll be training and helping earlier career PMM's get up to speed and grow, you'll need to know what needs to get done to make sure the most important work stays on track and invariably you'll have to roll up your sleeves and write messaging, drive a launch BOM or create an enablement deck from time to time despite your new title.

As a leader, the skills you'll need to build are more related to communications, influence and clear prioritization. You'll have to tailor your communications to your audience more, starting with getting really concise when presenting information to more senior audiences (VP+ or maybe even Director+ if it's a huge company). No one's going to read a 20 page document or go through a 10 slide deck at that level. You'll need to boil down the most important information to brief talking points and make it clear if you're consulting for a decision, simply informing people or seeking approval. Don't do an info dump and leave it up to senior folks to sort through it for you.

How you influence will also shift from being hyper execution-focused to more directional. You'll have to weigh your words more carefully, as questions and observations can be more readily received as orders as you get more senior. Be thoughtful about not accidentally randomizing, confusing or creating churn with your new title.

Finally, as you become more senior your team will require more precision and clarity around what's most important, what they should be doing and what not to be distracted by. Clear prioritization is key for both consistent execution as well as building trust inside your team and across the org. Don't dabble or give vague, fuzzy guidance. Be crisp and concise to set your teams up for success.