Holly Watson

Product Marketing org structures can vary by organization. Previously at Attentive, our PMM organization is comprised of the following teams: Product Marketing Core (focused on our product offering, more to come here), Sales Enablement & Competitve, Technical Writers, and Training. Our PMM Core team is split by our products with a 2-3 PMMs managing a single product offering usually comprised of several features. Collectively we all report into a VP of PMM who reports into our CPO. Yes, Attentive's PMM team is under the Product org. and we partner very closely with our Marketing counterparts.

The relationship between PMMs and Sales Enablement can be powerful to ensure the field is getting and staying up to date with the product, the market, and the competition. Product Marketers do a great job crafting stories that drive product adoption and awareness. This information is curated through strong partnerships with the Product organization and Competitive/Market Insights team. If your organization does not have a CI team, that's ok - that means your PMM is a powerful treasure trove of market and competitive insights. As a member on the Sales Enablement team - it's crucial that you leverage this intel. Be tightly connected to the material your PMM is producing, internal trainings that are hosted, and roadmap initiative underway. Sales Enablement has a great pulse of the field and areas the AEs and others need support. Bring this to your PMM with a menu of options for your PMM to plug into for joinning a regional/global sales call, a deep-dive into a specific feature or capability, hosting a lunch-in-learn for competitive differentiators. As a Sales Enablement lead, the more specific you can be in your ask to PMM, the easier, and quicker it is for that PMM to deliver or point you to an existing content piece. Finally, be sure to spend time with the material produced and if there are opportunities for Sales Enablement to tailor the content to best suit the field - make those updates and ask your PMM to review/edit/collaborate with you. 

Yes, great question. This relationship can be so valuable to both the PM and PMM, but also to the rest of the organization. For this relationship, I encourage each team to spend time understanding each others roles and responsibilities as well as having a discussion to align on what responsibilities will be owned by PMs vs. owned by PMMs. Ownership too can often be a word that is scrutinized, so for clarity owners are who leadership or other stakeholder are pointed to for questions, updates, and results. Good owners do not operate alone - they are great at gather input and influence from their teams. In terms of building better relationships with PMs - starting with role clarity and expectations are key. Then, it's about implementing that agreement across projects. Here is where fluid, open communication and feedback is a must. Establish regular check-in, identify key milestones each team is accountable to (roadmap planning, launch dates, release dates, customer events, etc.) For weekly team calls, be sure to set an agenda, work to have each team member understand their role and what is expected of him/her during those weekly calls. This too is the same for product launches or other big projects.

Internal alignment takes time. Here are a few recommendations for getting started and fostering strong relationships for the long term. First - it's important to recognize and write down who your stakeholders are. For Product Marketing this is often Sales, Marketing, Product as primary stakeholders with Implementation, Solution Consultants, Customer Success, and Support playing crucial roles as well. Second - work with each of these groups to understand their world. What KPIs, goals, metrics keep them up at night? What objectives and initiatives are they trying to run in order to increase pipeline, build brand recognition, or delight customers? Understanding your stakeholder world will help to align on areas you as PMM can support. Third - communicate your plan of action to your stakeholders. You cannot help everyone all the time, everywhere. Yes, we know this, but it's easy to spread yourself too thin and ultimately not deliver a high caliber project. Communicating your plan might mean focusing more on the Sales team for the quarter. Working with those stakeholder to update sales material, draft strong objection handling responses, improve the pitch deck and script. This time is well spent as insights often lead to campaign ideas for awareness and adoption that support marketing. Fourth - Be consistent and meet your deadlines. This is important when building a fostering trust across the organization. Trust is fundamental to establishing strong relationships. When working with your stakeholders be clear about expectations, deadlines, roadblocks, and deliverables.

1. Sales first call deck (FCD) with script 2. Competitive battle card with 1/ objection handling questions answered, 2/ private pricing options/discounts, and 3/ why customer should by now. 3. Video content like 1/ demo, 2/ polished promotional, 3/ internal sales video of a peer delivering the FCD Keep in mind YOU don't have to be the one to make all this content, but YOU are in charge of orchestrating it's delivery.

Product Marketing sits in a highly cross-functional area of the organization. The relationships with Product, Sales, and Marketing are crucial to foster and ensure you get right. This is not an easy tasks and it is never really done. Establish recurring syncs and opportunities to align on big projects, objectives, and goals. Encourage each PMM on the team to nurture 1:1 relationships with their colleagues in these departments. We can often fall into the habit of large group calls or big team meetings - while these are necessary, sometimes a simple 1:1 slack and a short call between individuals can be very powerful in not only getting the job done, but also developing a strong trust between partners.

There are tones of recommendations that you'll find in a simple search that include battle cards, sales scripts, slide ware, and more, but to prioritize what is going to be most effective - ask. Build relationships with your sales leaders and understand the sales methodology, the customer response to existing content, and where your particular sales team might need support.

Great question! This is a common scenario for growing organizations. As a smaller PMM team, you'll have to work to set project priorities. This is not an easy tasks, but what helps is being transparent and communicative with your teams across Product, Sales, Marketing and others. For growing organizations, work with your Sales Department to understand their biggest pain points and align on where you as a PMM can best support. Prioritize the feedback and the work you're able to take on vs what you might have to revist or commit to later. This conversation seems obvious, but keep having it. Set up recurring touchpoints (even if for 15min) to hold each party accountable to what was committed. Finally - Be consistent and meet your deadlines. This is important when building a fostering trust across the organization. Trust is fundamental to establishing strong relationships. When working with your stakeholders be clear about expectations, deadlines, roadblocks, and deliverables.

Competitive intelligence is great resource and team to collaborate with, if you have the opportunity. I work closely with this team to help me uncover details on the top 5-8 direct competitors like product positioning, pricing, where they win, and where they're weak. It's up to you as the PMM to determine what information to surface to sales and how. A few tactics I've seen work include a weekly newsletter - short and to the point that summarizes compete activity; battle cards; objection handling questions and answers; and private rate cards. Keep in mind you'll also want to stay aware of indirect competitors. Perform similar analysis for indirect competitors, but it might be a little lighter due to bandwidth and information retention. Regardless, indirect competitors can soon become direct competitors, and you'll not want to be caught on your heels if that happens.

Sales enablement should be a steady drum beat throughout the year. More specifically, during a product launch or major release cycle, you'll want to lay out a sales enablement plan that can span 2-4 weeks. Keep your training sessions short (30 mins preferred; 45 mins max). Have guest speakers from within the sales team - peers training peers builds trust. Address why sales should care - how will this retire quota, help them reach new markets, increase deal closer rate (time to close). Keep your training specific to where sales will win (who is the decision maker, what phrases work, how do they beat out the competition). These training sessions should build up towards your launch and continue shortly after (check-ins once a month for 3 months).