Josh Bean

In order to add value, you need to first consider the priorities of the business and the leadership team. You could be doing some pretty great work, but if it doesn't advance the business's priorities it will likely get wasted. Once you're doing work which aligns to the business goals, its a good idea to set goals on a quarterly basis.  At the end of each quarter or project, put together a summary of the improvements you made, and review it with business leadership. If you have a team be sure yo ...Read More

I've had a bit of a unique journey including leading a small marketing team responsible for everything, as well as focused PMM teams. I don't believe in general blueprints like "your first hire should be competitive and second should be core product" since every business is different. More complex or technical products likely need more "product" PMMs as a early hire and a simpler product in a competitive market may need more PMM muscle around messaging to stand out and competitive marketing.  In ...Read More

If you're chasing titles, you might want to be concerned. I prefer to think about the long term plan and look for opportunities that further my career ambitions. Its ok to take a short term hit on title if you're going to be on a team where you earn lots of experience, credibility and get to work with some strong PMMs. In the long run this will set you up for the rest of your career. From a hiring managers perspective, if there's a recruiter screening resumes, you might get filtered out by title ...Read More

In my experience, being a people manager doesn't change much across disciplines. The priorities should always be to help your team grow and develop their career (the output is great work and team success). If you've demonstrated you're a strong people leader that should be enough. I know formal people mangement opportunities can be hard to come by in a small company. Try to informally mentor some of the less experienced PMMs on the team. Also recognize that management skills is just one part of ...Read More

I always think of PMM as the glue that connects the various functions of a business (product/sales/rest of marketing/etc). A PMM's responsibility is to understand the needs of prospects and customers and communicate that internally. Additinoally, it's PMMs job to take all the innovation and programs a company is creating and wrap that in an easy to consume message/narrative for prospects/customers/employees/analysts.  Hoever, if you're in product marketing and find yourself reporting to Product, ...Read More

Communicate communicate communicate. PMM/GTM/PRODUCT need to be constantly communicating. Here's a sample cadence to get you started: PMM <> Product PMMs and Product managers catch up weekly/bi-weekly on upcoming releases, roadmap changes, voice of customer PMM and Prod leadership meet monthly to review roadmap, strategic messaging and key product/product marketing topics PMM <> GTM PMMs and sales leaders should be meeting on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to review high level performan ...Read More