Influencing the C-Suite

Great question! I think about this one a lot...First off, it’s important to callout that there is no perfect org structure :)  In general, you have to identify what you’re optimizing towards and what structure will give you the highest chance to get there. For Eats PMM, we’ve always kept a fairly tight PMM to PM relationship, so we map PMMs directly to their Product counterparts.  Product is broken down by audience - ie., Consumer, Restaurant, Delivery Person so we have leads within each audience and typically, sub-groups within that focus on either Growth (getting users from 0 → 1 tr...

This all comes down to how is the rest of the business organized. If you're organizing in a way that's incongrous to everyone else in the org, you will not be setup for success. With smaller nimble teams it's likely just based on bandwith and who has room to take things on. With larger teams, or as a team is being built out, it's best to align with your core cross-functional partners such as Product. There is usually overlap with PMMs working with 2-3 PMs. I've organized teams by product area in the past which aligned well to how Product was organized. 

In general, PMM roles at Intercom are more of the 'full stack' variety - i.e we cover the whole journey from feeding into the roadmap to launch, including competitive research, buyer/persona/market research, GTM strategy, positioning and messaging, enablement, launch planning etc. Our team sits in marketing and reports into a Senior Director of PMM. Our team structure has shifted several times in the time I've been here, based on changes to the company strategy, product team structure and where we most need to focus resources,. Currently, we're split into 3 'groups' based primarily around ...

The structure of the PMM team is usually a function of the size of the company and it’s GTM model. The “typical” SaaS PMM team has a set of Core PMMs that are focused on product, and usually a sister PMM team in the form of Industry/Solutions Marketing that is focused on solutions for specific verticals or segments. At Atlassian, since we have a flywheel model, PMMs have a lot more focus on activities that deal with acquisition (self-serve), cross-sell, and upsell. So while our PMM teams are organized by product (e.g. Jira, Confluence, etc.) individual PMMs on a product team can focus on c...

The PMM team structure depends on the size of the company, how technical the product is, and the GTM model. * Company Size: As the company grows and scales, PMM tends to fall under the Marketing org and they may segmented by Core Product PMMs where they focus on the overall messaging and positioning, Industry/Solution PMMs that focus use cases for those specific industries ,and solution areas, and there may be PMMs that will focus solely on sales enablement, competitive intelligence, or pricing. For smaller companies, PMM teams will play a more 'full stack' PMM role. For...

Our team is structured by audience type and discipline. We have one part of the team focused on our end users and prospects, another part of the team is focused on our partners, and a third on market research and market strategy. That said, I strongly believe it's important for PMM teams at hypergrowth companies to be nimble in terms of their structure and be willing to redefine roles and responsibilities as company strategy and the needs of the business shift over time.

At DocuSign, there are product marketers across our main product categories, as well as industry and audience teams. Every company I've ever worked at has grouped their teams differently, so I tend to consider new roles based on mapping skills to company needs. If the largest TAM is in a vertical that is specialized, perhaps you'll need an industry PMM. If the biggest gap in company need is relative to product launch materials, maybe you need someone focused on building a great bill of materials. Etc. 

I've done it in so many different ways! Few quick pointers:  * The most important thing is to ensure every team member has a good swim lane and growth path.  * Take your revenue goal and slice that evenly across the team to see what makes the most sense — product line, segment, or objective.  * If you have a big product organization, try aligning your team with leaders. This will help you ensure PM-PMM alignment for a stronger product strategy.  * If you have several SKUs/product lines, it might be worthwhile to have a person or a team dedicated to overall messaging and nar...

Startups are unique because (virtually) every employee is also a shareholder. Which means that every internal meeting is also a shareholders' meeting. Now, unlike companies where you are a passive shareholder (Grandma bought you 10 shares of McDonald's, for example) but have no way to influence day-to-day decisions, you get to make a big difference at the company where you work. Every day at a startup is a chance for you to make an impact that will increase the value of your (and your colleagues') shares. It's a meaningful opportunity. What does all this have to do with ensuring alignment...

This is a tough one! It can be really difficult when you have exec stakeholders who aren't aligned. Ultimately, it's on them to get aligned and provide clear direction 'down the chain' but a few things that could help: * Understand where the misalignment is - is it the whole strategy, or specific parts of it? Is there a compromise you could propose that would help get alignment? What are the main concerns of whoever isn't on board, and can you ask questions to better understand what is driving the concerns - and can you then address those? * Provide additional research/ev...

This is where DACIs (or RACIs) decision-making frameworks are critical. At a projects inception, it’s important to agree with senior executives on who the single final approver should be. Who is accountable for the success of the project (ie. whose job is on the line if it succeeds/fails)? Agreeing on the one approver in the beginning should prevent downstream conflicts. If you are stuck in the middle, the best you can do is offer objective data for both sides of the argument and leave it up to the decision-maker to understand the trade-offs being made with the decision. (In some occasions...

Goes back to the shared goals - which at a high level, are hard to argue with - revenue, cost savings, customer success, etc. Once you get that common agreement, then it's about the strategy / the "how" to get there. If there are disagreements here, I would start with trying to understand why and seeing it from both of their vantage points. Then trying to see if you can get them 1:1 to understand the other point of view or better yet, get them to talk to each other. Ultimately though if all that doesn't work, you may need to get a tie breaker that's someone else and who they will listen to.

Getting senior alignment is a key strategic role for PMM - we can be powerful bridges and connectors. Whenever there is a clear difference of opinion the best thing I’ve found is to bring the customer more fully into the room. Bring research to bear on the problem. You can be a powerful tiebreaker if you can couple your opinion with insight and data.

This is definitely a challenge most PMMs see themselves in. I typically find success when I work the challenge from both ends. If the executives cannot disagree and committ while in the same room, spend time with each one individually. Understand their concerns, their perspective, and their reservations on an indiviudual level. I find that often many people are speaking "different languages" and the disagreement is somewhat superficial. It's your job to frame the strategy in a way that appeals to both. It's not easy but it's possible. Good luck!

Your founders will have a stronger org when they eventually trust product marketing with more control over messaging. If you can, start with research. Talk to prospects and customers and show how they respond to different approaches. And test and learn. If you have an existing audience base, you can try different approaches to a/b testing messaging through various marketing channels (i.e., digital advertising, email, website, etc.). Identifying quick ways to validate and challenge hypotheses on messaging will help shape a perspective to share with your founders when you don’t have a huge bu...

Don't frame it as a way for "product marketing to get more control over the messaging". Frame it as a way to bring the voice of the customer into your messaging. Product Marketing should be the voice of the customer within the organization and the VoC should deeply influence the messaging. It's not easy for founders to release control, so they may still want to be involved and that is NOT a bad thing. Use their insights, along with the voice of the customer, to develop messaging and measure its success. Be transparent with what is working and what isn't. 

Product marketing is so often misunderstood, and a lot of CMO’s didn’t grow up with it so they don’t particularly understand it. Still other CMO’s struggle with the PMM orgs that seem to spend more time on things they can’t see or aren’t held accountable for inside their own marketing org. And, like you said, while pmm plays a cross-org glue role, it can leave it stretched way too thin as a result. I think having a charter for your team is a really important place to start. It should last you a good year or two or more, or at least until your company hits another important milestone. On to...

Your executive team and CMO should be looking to you to prioritize your workload.If you wait for someone to prioritize your workload for you, you'll end up working on things that skew completely in the wrong direction or may be overindexed on a particular metric. PMM has many stakeholders and its important to balance priorities across sales, CS, product, and marketing. Always defer back to the company-wide objectives. How can you best serve those objectives and drive impact? How can you make a measurable impact? How can you build for scale? These are all important things to consider when pr...

It's hard. Real hard.  Many PMMs make the mistake of starting with messaging. This is a no-no. Messaging comes last and just puts words behind what was already decided. You have to nail this in sequential order.  1. First comes strategy 2. Then comes positioning 3. And finally comes messaging Your CEO owns the strategy. Period. If they don't know where you are going, the positioning will be unclear or may work for a little while until the market or your product evolves. I recall a meeting in a prior company where I aligned with the positioning of our chatbot/customer service...

It's key to align around a high-level story that powers success—in sales, marketing, fundraising, product development and recruiting—by getting everyone on the same page about strategy and differentiation. Alignment is difficult. If you can start with your CEO, that is key. Ultimately, your CEO is yuor ultimate storyteller and if she is bought in, then its easier to get the rest of the executive team aligned. The story is the strategy and that should be your starting point. What’s driving your story in the market? New features and functionality … or a bigger promise to your customers?...

I see three parts to driving alignment, both with execs and among all other stakeholders: 1. First, bring them along for the journey. Messaging cannot be done in a silo, and it’s difficult to properly adopt if not everybody feels bought in. Interview your execs and stakeholders to learn their perspective, where they feel the company or product is differentiated, what customer pain it solves, what benefits it delivers. The answers will vary and will be meaningful inputs as you craft and test your messaging. 2. Second, set regular check-ins and milestones with execs a...

To drive alignment, make something that execs can respond to. Recently, I created an example “future state” pitch deck to articulate a future narrative for Glassdoor. It wasn’t perfect, but it helped drive discussion and alignment on overall company positioning and direction. But in general, make something for folks to respond to. I think it is so important for product marketing teams to establish credibility and expectations that PMM owns specific artifacts that ultimately help the company make smarter decisions. We have a toolkit of go-to templates that we try to work from for whatever b...

I feel fortunate that I’ve led positioning/messaging workshops since I graduated college because I worked for an agency that mandated them for every project we worked on for tech clients.  Getting an exec team to agree on a document outlining positioning and messaging isn't the hard part in my opinion. The difficult part is to get the messaging to stick once you put it out in the world: on a homepage, in a blog post, an ad, a slide deck for sales, etc. When positioning and messaging is put to use, execs start to realize what they signed up for. “Wait, we’re going after that job title in ...

At the end of the day, Product Marketing owns messaging, and there should be general alignment around that. I think that's a really important place to start because literally everyone has an opinion or point of view on messaging, but someone ultimately gets to 'own' it. If in your organization, that's PMM, there should be and understanding across the organization that it's the responsibility of PMM/Marketing to come up with product positioning and messaging. If you're an exec / leader in Marketing, you should be building relationships with other execs to create alignment around that; if you...

This is an iterative process, and always better to over-communicate than under-communicate, so we can get everyone's feedback and input and people feel they have been heard and their input taken into consideration. Even if you do not end up going in a certain way, be able to explain why not and why that input was still helpful.

I start with personas. I develop a thesis about core personas based on sales and customer success feedback, and then conduct user interviews to validate or invalidate those ideas. That's probably the most important bit–my job isn't to just synthesize learnings from within our business, it's to continually test and validate those learnings externally. I then circulate research + personas with key executive leaders (CEO, Head of Product, Head of Sales), until we agree on the shape of each. Then I create a messaging house for the business, and each product line, according to the primary person...

Start with data. Ground your messaging in first and third party data that illuminates what is important to your target customers, key pain points, aspirations, how they like to be messaged to, language they use, etc. Show your work -- don’t just include the suggested messaging in the doc; add an appendix or reference section that demonstrates a thoughtful approach that is grounded in the data. Next, see if you can get some quick feedback from target customers on your messaging to further validate the approach before showing it to your exec team. This can be a great use of a CAB (customer ...

Ha! this skill is probably the hardest. When it comes to messaging, everyone will have an opinion. Before you drive alignment on the messaging, align on the problem and solution. That is 50% - 60% of the battle. The rest is just wordsmithing. Depending on the level of messaging, I would incorporate them into the messaging development process. 

Here's my general approach: * Do customer and prospect research (exec team will be more likely to be bought in with data - especially from your key personas and customers)  * Consolidate findings and prepare a messaging brief using the framework you landed on.   * Present those findings to and get feedback from key stakeholders - including marketing leadership, sales, and product team - and (most importantly) customers  * Incorporate feedback into the final messaging brief  * Present messaging to leadership along with the data and the 'why' behind the messaging. Presen...

We typically prepare and validate a strong Messaging and Positioning Framework (MPF) document first. Our template typically includes things like the market context, objectives of our messaging (i.e. what we hope to drive/influence), quick single-sentence description of the product etc. Once we have this document, we circulate it among the exec team (typically months in advance of a launch to give everyone enough time to reflect and comment). We also typically have multiple live discussions on the topic (depending on the complexity of the product/launch) and use the MPF document to drive ali...

Here's my process, I * Conduct customer and prospect research (exec team will be more likely to be bought in with data - especially from your key personas and customers)  * Consolidate findings and prepare a messaging brief using the framework we landed on.   * Present those findings to and get feedback from key stakeholders - including marketing leadership, sales, and product team - and (most importantly) customers  * Incorporate feedback into the final messaging brief  * Present messaging to leadership along with the data and the 'why' behind the messaging. Present ro...

Every executive team is different, so I would encourage you to think through the culture (and sometimes - quirks!) of the members of that team as you craft your own approach. That said, I've found a couple things particularly effective in my experience.  * Bring along key lieutenants for the ride - once you get to the exec team, a number of important leaders should have been part of the ideation and review process. Individual sales leaders, product owners, customer success leads should all be stops on your journey to craft the right message. That way - one of the first slides ...

First, start with data-driven positioning. Who are you in the marketplace? Where are you heading or trying to become? How do you think your competitors are moving in the space? If you skip this step, you'll lack differentiation in your messaging, and you'll get a lot of resistance from executives who think in visionary terms. To build the most effective messaging, you need to start with a deep understanding of how your customers think about your company and why they are buying it in the first place. Draw on insights gleaned from customer blueprints, interviews, surveys, focus groups, looka...

This is so important, and not focused on enough so I'm glad you asked! A few thoughts around this: * Get your CEO and CMO involved early. Ideally you can get early drafts to them, and also get them bought into the importance of the process and value of this effort which will make every aspect of this a lot smoother. * Have a consistent review process. Depending on your size and stage of company, it's unlikely that your executive team needs to see or review every piece of messaging. If you're working on a minor "enhancement" to your product and some lightweight messaging, t...

This requires having a strong relationship built on trust with your executive team and, depending on the size of your company, the CEO. Get the executive team involved early and often, and be willing to disagree and commit. Come prepared to conversations with data, market insights, competitive intelligence, and anything else that will help them understand how critical the work you are doing is. Help them buy into "why this messaging" and "why now" by anticipating their questions, bringing a lens of customer-focus, and a broad understanding of the crossfunctional strategic impact. 

We match internal promotion based on the level of the product announcement. Small updates are little features that mostly existing customers are excited about. Medium updates are larger changes that potentially open up a small new audience or unlock new revenue potential. Large updates are major product changes or brand new products that require significantly adjusting our go to market strategy.  Small updates: Monthly email to sales, slack message to success Medium updates: ^ + dedicated email to sales/success + all company slack channel + join sales all hands recurring meeting to train...

Internal comms is sometimes undervalued, but in my opinion, it is one of the most important parts of a PMM's role, especially because product marketing is one of the very few roles that are extremely cross-functional and sits between multiple teams. Here are few ways I've seen it work best: * For major XF projects, have regular update emails so that you can make sure you are bringing everyone along the journey and it does not feel like you are working in a black box. * Internal newsletters (whatever cadence works for your org). We partner with the product team on a monthly newsl...

Internal newsletters, revenue org all-hands, relevant slack channels, and team-specific meetings. Of course, not every activity is shared through every channel. Depending on the "size" of the project or deliverable, we choose which channels to broadcast through. Thankfully we have a well-organized enablement team that manages these channel logistics, so we're able to efficiently streamline internal comms. On a personal level, it's critical that I provide key executives and other team leads with visibility of what's coming, so that they get their teams' attention and start a network effe...

I think this depends largely on the size of an update - and the audience.  For our largest releases, they are communicated early and often - to drum up excitement. Through company all hands, sales trainings, slack channels, etc.  For mid-sized and smaller updates, we'll leverage the internal channels that make the most sense for the internal audience. If its sales, we'll update via our bi-weekly newsletter, slack channels, internal knoweldgebase docs on what to know, as one example. Each internal audience has their own channels and communication styles they prefer - and usually we work ...

We are a slack heavy company. So we have our own announcement channel for all things Marketing that I actually started so that we could share our updates!  We also do quarterly roadmaps and retros where PM + PMMs present their upcoming roadmap and a retro on their activities from the past quarter. All of Product and PMM go - and we invite our key stakeholders across the business, including the leaders from other areas of Marketing. 

Why do you want to communicate updates and activities? If the goal is to communicate just the work the team has been doing, then I don't think that you should be communicating this to a large audience. This may be a good weekly summary email to your manager (Also, why would your manager need it?, the manager should already know it and it should be in your 1:1 doc), anyway, my point is communicating just WHAT you or your team is working on is waste of time for you and the reader. I would rather communicate the impact and how other teams could leverage the work your team has done. This ...

The key here is consistency. Find a channel that works and stick to it. Else it becomes to fractured and fragmented. You can use a slack channel, you can have a dedicated section in your sales enablement platform, you can issue regular emails with links to content. Just make sure you stick to an appraoch so your GTM teams get conditioned to the process.

It depends on the size of your company. This will become more challenging as the size of the company scales. At a company with less than 200 employees it is pretty easy to maintain relationships with executive leadership to keep them in the loop via regular meetings, Slack, and internal newsletters. No matter what the size of your company is, make sure you are spending enough time educating others on your value, contributions, and successes. Don't try to hide your failures, though. Nobody is perfect. Be honest about your lessons learned and help others learn from them as well. 

Such an interesting question because I actually think it doesn't change that much. My last role was a company that was ~150 employees, Zendesk is now ~3,000 I think. In both companies, my biggest stakeholders were: * CEO * Head of Product * CMO * Head of Sales Often it feels like the job of product marketing at the stakeholder level is to help translate between these people and their teams to keep everyone aligned. If the product marketing leadership in your team has a seat at the table with these executives it's much easier to be effective and strategic vs tactical and execution focu...

This is an awesome question and one that I've thought a ton about as we've scaled. I touched on this a bit in another answer (“When thinking about adding new talent to your team - how do you structure focus areas?”) but will reiterate and expand here. As our company has scaled, I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that our key stakeholders as a Product Marketing team have changed, per se—rather, I think of it more along the lines that our key partners in supporting those stakeholders have evolved. Meaning: on a macro level our key stakeholders still remain: * Product management: sup...

I can only speak to the change from ~1000 → 3000+. As a company grows, the number of stakeholders grows along with it. That shouldn’t be a surprise. What I’ve also learned is that as the number of stakeholders increase, so does the importance of collaboration skills, role clarity, and decision-making processes: * Collaboration skills: With more people to align with, product marketers need to be especially flexible, picking the right battles to fight and letting things go that may not be worth the effort. * Role clarity: As mentioned in some of my other answers, its important for ...

I’m not certain the stakeholders and leverage have changed much in my experience with different company sizes, although resources clearly do. As you grow from startup to tween/teen and mature, the stakeholders diversify with the added resources that come from business growth. Sophia and I have generally watched pmm move from an individual contributor -- plugged in to a growth team, leading basic sales enablement, and driving core positioning through product -- to an enabler, helping other teams do their work better, and ensuring a single voice across touchpoints. In startup and sometimes tw...

The short answer is that there are more, and the desires each stakeholder has become more specific! Essentially, as companies grow they have the opportunity to bring in more specialized talent. This could be teams in finance that are focused on products, specialized support organizations, strategy teams, program teams, or any number of others. The benefit is that you often have more hands on deck to ensure the success of a product. The downside is often coordination cost, and when it comes to product marketing that cost can be high.  You can stay on top of things by being proactive in und...

Regardless of the size of the organization, there will always be a marketing and a product leader. They are your critical partners. Even in very large organizations with a matrix structure, you will still typically have these leadership roles for each business segment. As the organization grows the founder or CEO will be further removed from day-to-day operations and you're less likely to work with them. At AppFolio we are ca. 1600 people at the moment and key stakeholders I connect frequently with are: * Product VP * Marketing VP * Sales VP * The various business segment leaders * VP...

Oh boy, this is a great question.  In my experience in working with various different startups in the valley, I've seen this dynamic in many places. Sales and marketing tensions are not a 'thing' for no reason.  However, these relationships can improve. Some of the people who I've personally (and my team) had tense relationships with are now friends whom I rely on for references, counsel and collaboration.  Many professionals understand that their frustration is of a professional nature and one or multiple candid conversations can go a long way to begin the repair process. They kno...

As I wrote in another answer, the market will reward some kinds of tension, especially if there is substantive disagreement between leaders or functions on a critical topic (e.g. pricing and packaging, which I believe is the least understood topic in all of enterprise software). In these cases, lean into the tension, and remind each other all the time that you are doing something really hard but also really important to the company. It is absolutely worth it to have tough conversations in these cases - because when you make it to the other side, you will have built a significantly better co...

As I said in another answer, being a successful PMM relies heavily on being able to build relationships and trust with your cross-functional stakeholders. The tips in that answer about building relationships apply here, but I'll also add 2 things: 1. Always look for opportunities for PMM to add value, and make sure you understand other functions' goals and priorities. If other functions can see the value PMM bring - and that you want to help, not hinder them - it's much easier to get a seat at the table - they'll want you to be there, because they've seen the benefit of having you involved...

Product Marketing is one of those roles that can be very different from each organization. I find the most successful way to develop a strong relationship is to show value from the start and align on your mutual goals / objectives. If there are certain functions where you have a tense relationship, i'd suggest to first understand why there is this less collaborative relationship. Is it based on some historical context (prior launch)? Is it due to a difference in role expectations? Once you've identified the possible root cause, setup time with your key stakeholder and have that open discuss...

Product Marketing is one of those roles that can be very different from each organization. I find the most successful way to develop a strong relationship is to show value from the start and align on your mutual goals / objectives. If there are certain functions where you have a tense relationship, i'd suggest to first understand why there is this less collaborative relationship. Is it based on some historical context (prior launch)? Is it due to a difference in role expectations? Once you've identified the possible root cause, setup time with your key stakeholder and have that open discuss...

Product Marketing is one of those roles that can be very different from each organization. I find the most successful way to develop a strong relationship is to show value from the start and align on your mutual goals / objectives. If there are certain functions where you have a tense relationship, i'd suggest to first understand why there is this less collaborative relationship. Is it based on some historical context (prior launch)? Is it due to a difference in role expectations? Once you've identified the possible root cause, setup time with your key stakeholder and have that open discuss...

We're all human after all so taking the time to understand the baggage but also find a path forward. Find a champion on both sides willing to go on the journey with you and who is as vested as you are in moving forward. And making time for building carmaderie. I remember we once had tensions between our PMM and Marketing organization - so we spend time in workshops doing joint planning, finding operational projects where we could join up people to build bridges, and finally team bonding - including team building activities and dinners, happy hours, etc. And doing this on a repeatable basis....

First of all: patience. Lots of it. :) As you start to unravel the history of the relationship, you’re likely to find norms that were established so long ago that no one knows why they’re there. And with every new person who comes on board, you have the opportunity to start building new, more positive norms...but of course this can take a long time. In addition, a few other tactics I rely on: * Build support at every level. The individual contributors on a team can be just as powerful as the executives when it comes to setting cultural norms. If you’re coming in as a new leader, it...

Oh man, this is a tricky one!  It's important to start by first identifying the source of tension. Is it due to leaders of those teams (or the leaders of those leaders) not seeing eye to eye and their conflict flowing downstream? Is it due to your predecessor being a jerk? Is it due to one team not following through on their commitments which in turn hurts the other team?  I'd recommend then asking "what's my scope for influencing the relationship?" If you're a relatively junior IC PMM, you have a high scope for influencing your own relationship with a sales leader or PM counterpart, but ...

It’s always difficult to navigate tense relationships. It’s important not to take this all upon yourself. If you are looking to help, I think the first step is to assess the situation and try to understand the underlying cause that’s driving the tension. Is it due to misalignment of expectations and goals? Is it a result of constant miscommunication, which can stem from having different working styles? Is it a broken process that’s fueling confusion between teams? While it can be uncomfortable, it’s helpful to have honest conversations with individuals that are impacted and gather different...

At the core, these situations are about finding the product-market fit for the product marketing function in your organization. You are trying to establish a conversion thesis that will make them a future advocate for PMM instead of a detractor. So take a similar tact as you would do for customer-facing work.  1) Start by listening. Have 1:1s and understand what they see as having gone wrong in the past. Ask what areas they would like to have support for.  2) Look for data or anecdotes on launches or products that have underperformed expectations in the past. These mini-retrospectives can...

This is an interesting one. In my last company, I joined as the first PMM. In my first meeting with the product team, I spent a fair bit of time explaining the role of PMMs and what we do — how we connect the market to the goals of the organization, and the product back to the market. That helped PMs understand when and how to engage with PMM. In that instance, the company was also undertaking a shift from selling to developers -- an audience PMs knew well -- to business buyers. It was definitely a journey over a period of time to bring back market insight, customer questions and require...

Start with discovery and a series of questions that you can consistently ask your stakeholders.  1. Understand them as humans: what motivates people, how they communicate, what they're passionate about, what parts of their job they feel best at. 2. Understand how they work: how they form strategy, how they build products, what data they trust, what data and strategy they lack and would love.  3. Understand how they position your product, what the value prop is, who your best-fit customers are.   Select 3 quick wins you can do that, depending on your organization, build trust through r...

First, this is so hard! I have been through a few turns of this and candidly I’d say not every company is ready. There are companies that are just not ready to have a strategic pmm org. Maybe their product org is still maturing, or not on secure footing for some reason. It is especially hard to have a strong product marketing team without well led and secure, collaborative product orgs. Second thing I’d suggest is to build trust, get closer to the customer. Product orgs always need more time with their customer. At Glassdoor, product marketing owns the market research and insight function,...

Building trust is the key component here and I think you get there by taking the time to listen and learn. With the product team specifically, it’s educating them on your role and how you’re ultimately aligned to the same thing --> amplifying the value of the product they’re building and to grow revenue and adoption. That said, there are many cross-functional teams product marketing works with and the best way to build trust is to know your products, your market, and your customers. If you can come to the table with that knowledge and expertise the value of what you have to offer will clea...

This happens a lot, and a lot of times it’s because PMM wasn’t established when the company started shipping products and became successful without the help of a PMM function.  The key is to really help the PM’s understand the true value of PMM and that we are able to take a lot of the work they actually don’t enjoy doing (writing documentation, building sales enablement and project managing a launch). PMs have enough on their hands working with their engineers and trying to meet tight deadlines and responding to customer calls. Start to identify work on their plate that should actually ...

Show up! In my last role, I was on a team where it wasn’t usual for PMM to play a significant role in the PM planning or organization. I showed up, spent time with the leaders, shared what PMM could do (by doing it!), and was consistent and available. I ended up being BFF with the PM lead. Together, we had a massive impact on the product and customer adoption. It was also a lot of fun.

If I was an exec at your company, I’d want to understand what is awful about this pitch (share research, client feedback?), what evidence you can provide that it is hurting my business (do an a/b pilot?), and what you think good looks like (comparative/competitive examples?). If you brought that to me, I’d hope I would listen. Then, if I was you I’d try to listen really carefully to what this executive is worried about. Bad timing, overwhelmed sales team, something else? Maybe you can then address those concerns more directly. Dig into the pitch and do the research to back it up. Gather fe...

In these types of situations, I’ve found that data can be a useful persuasion tool, because it’s objective. Have you considered surfacing win rate numbers? Or an even more granular metric in the sales funnel, like a lack of deal progression from early to mid/late stages? If execs are expected to take you at your word that the pitch isn’t working, based on anecdotal evidence, that can be a tough sell. Their thought process is likely, “how bad could it be? We’re doing well enough to merit an IPO.” But if the data is on your side (which I’m sure it is!), it may be obvious that there’s nothin...

Bad content is so frustrating! I generally use one or all of these tactics when I’m facing headwinds like this: 1. Try to understand the cause. It sounds like what's behind the c-suite pushback is fear of change, and in my experience, CxOs (like the rest of us!) sometimes just need to be reassured that everything will be fine. You can help everyone feel better about trying something new with a little social proof (e.g. at most software companies, the corporate pitch gets a refresh every 3-6 months) and with a solid Plan B (if the new pitch bombs, you can always go ...

There are already a few good answers here, but no one has mentioned jumping on the impending IPO - what's the pitch for that? There should be a story followed by great metrics. The story for an IPO shouldn't be divorced from the customer pain and adoption the company solves.  Also, on the pilots - find some reps who are respected, but not in the top 5%. You want people who want your help, but not the ones selling on years of knowledge and relationships. You also don't want reps in the bottom 50% - they want your help, but the likelihood they get cut is high. The thing to do with the top ...

First off, great job on finding a problem and bringing people together to fix it! I'd suggest having a little bit more curiosity and empathy around why the CSuite members are hesitant. I'm guessing there might be more going around the IPO and that there isn't actually a desire to be "consistently bad." In situations where I feel like things are non-sensical I try to pause and listen harder to see what isn't being said. In terms of selling the new pitch decks, I'd suggest positioning it as a "pilot" or "experimentation." It immediately drops the pressure around wholesale adoption of a new ...