Grant Shirk

A shorter answer here, but I think there's a pretty straightforward way to measure sales enablement overall. Ideally, this is driven by the sales enablement team, and you're fueling their succces: Key metrics to measure sales enablement: 1. Rep ramp - How long does it take new reps to onboard and reach full quota? What is the success rate in that period? 2. Annual quota attainment - What % of reps are at or above plan? Does it match the business needs? 3. Win rates - How effective is sales at qualifying, develping, and closing opportunities? Win rates is probaly the most...

As a PMM, revenue is a trailing metric and the one you have the least control over. If there aren't existing quotas set by industry (and this is rare), this is likely to be unsuccessful. Instead, go back to the core KPIs for PMM: Opportunity creation (count), Qualified pipeline ($), and win rate (or pipe coverage). These are more direct to measure, and if you create opportunity for sales, they'll follow those dollars.  Establishing these can flow directly from past results and the next few quarters' plan. If you know, for example, that you tend to deliver 18% of business from a given ...

This is a really tough one. First and foremost, it's important to separate PM and PMM. They need to be parallel, not dependent, organizations to effectively function. You need them to have the freedom to call BS on each other, work through differing opinions, and emerge with a stronger view of the market.  I'd recommend starting with the problem to be solved. Is it improving overall GTM effectiveness (opportunity creation, pipeline, win rates), or accessing a new market or vertical? What are the overall priorities of the business that demand gen or product are unable to address on their ...

I recommend holding shared KPIs across PMM - the classics: Qualified Pipeline, Win Rates, Opportunity Velocity/Duration. Looking at how your industry marketing investments are improving your sales effectiveness overall.  Secondary metrics could be growth of bookings and sales in a target or priority vertical, but those are sometimes too trailing. Good to look at over multiple quarters. 

A "head of role" is a very different focus. Before we can talk about standing out in the interview, I think it's important to define what a leader in marketing can and should be.  Rule #1.#1. You are no longer a marketer. Not really. Your real focus is twofold: building the team, and strengthening the company. At this point in your career, you already know how to do the job. The pivot now is to build a team that can do the job better than you and at larger scale. And then you have to leverage your expertise to help guide the overall company to a better, more predictable, more exciting...

I'm a little biased here, but I don't believe that there are courses or certifications that are a prerequisite or requirement to jumping into product marketing. If you haven't done any marketing before, or worked alongside a good marketing team, Pragmatic Marketing by the Pragmatic Institute is a solid framework for twisting your head around what marketing is really about.  But the best way to learn is on the job. If you have a PMM function at your current company, get to know them. Ask about what they're working on, why it's important. What are the biggest challenges they're trying to o...

Internal evangelism and industry expertise.  Yes, you need all the core PMM skills. You might even need to be a stronger writer and positioner than the core PMM. But if your sole goal is to help grow your share in a specific industry or set of industries, you're going to have to: * Sell hard on behalf of your customers. Industry features are niche features. Functionality, file support, integrations, compliance, partnerships. Industries are specialized and niche, and each of these will never be "above the line" when it comes to traditional product prioritization. But you have ...

Unfortunately, I really haven't. Find people who've worked places where you see great industry expertise. Talk to them. Talk to customers.  Read Crossing the Chasm. Again.  Ooh, fun one. Alex and the Sharebird team are telling me that there's a 300-character minimum answer. Now we get to pick on them a bit. "Alex, I thought that one of the greatest strenghts of PMM was synthesis and simplification! Why can't I be super concise and pithy here? ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?" Okay, let's see if that's 300 chars yet... ... 

This one depends on company stage and maturity of the market.  At Cisco, we're incredibly mature, and I'm very fortunate to work alongside Sophia Danvers and her amazing Audience Marketing team. They eat industry intel for breakfast and turn it into not just persona insights, but messaging, content, and campaign ideas that keep our top industries growing, even 15 years later.  In earlier stages, this process is a lot more ad hoc, and really depends on how much time you can spend with customers and sales. When you're building, it's less a formal process than it is a habit or a practice...

The pressure's on for this one. Feels like this is the kind of topic first chapters in business books are devoted to.  A successful GTM is hard to describe in detail. Every business, customer, product, team, and marketplace are different and the right path through can vary widely. And the details shift as the market matures; competitors enter, different problems take priority, macroeconomic uncertainty can loom. But, there are some characteristics of success you can look towards to judge if you're on the right track: * It's predictable. You have a process and plan that you can plan ...