Kavya Nath

This is a great question and something I’ve also used when interviewing candidates. I completely see how it can be daunting and spans varying levels of expectations. Personally, the thing I try to emphasize as part of this task is that I’m not looking for a perfect deck or designed project plan. But what I’m interested in seeing is how you strategize and think through a GTM approach. From research on market and competitors, to aligning internal stakeholders around packaging, pricing, positioning, internal/sales enablement, collateral creation through to campaign execution. If you’re able to talk through a GTM using a framework in which you see yourself strategizing and executing against that’s a win in my book. I would also highly recommend asking questions of the interviewer/hiring manager on what level of detail they’re expecting to see and use information gathered in the interview process to formalize your plan. For example, If a company is clearly focused on user adoption as a huge initiative include that in your launch plan, etc.

What is your superpower?! This one is great because it gives you insight into how a candidate perceives themselves. There's a self-awareness that comes through with the responses that allows for you to getting a sense of who they are an individuals and how they work in a team. The best example of this was someone who told me their super power was being able to make silos disappear.

The most successful product marketers are ones who lead with empathy and take on the customer point of view. I actually wouldn't separate out high-level GTM strategy from product/feature specific launches. The skills you've listed as high-level overall GTM (messaging, positioning, pricing, packaging, etc.) are the fundamentals to be able to launch any product or feature. Tactically all PMMs should be able to write, and present, and analyze data to make decisions that help grow revenue and support customer adoption. The ways in which you get it done, however, are through fostering cross-funcational relationships within your organization, understanding the goals and objectives of other teams, and working to help bridge gaps that will ultimately impact how your customers experience your products. 

The key things that standout are when a candidate's responses highlight cross-functional collaboration, trust building with stakeholders, and a 'we'll figure it" mindset. A great way to assess this is by not only asking for examples of how they would launch a product, or how they develop go-to-market strategies but it's also by digging into questions like: * Have you ever had to change someone's mind on a strategy you were suggesting and how did you go about it? * How have you been able to influence product strategy? * Tell me about a time when you received critical feedback and what you did with it? These types of questions along with questions that allow them to highlight business impact (revenue growth, product adoption, etc) - allow you to see how a product manager can navigate internally to succeed. The role of a product marketer collaborates with so many different teams in so many different ways - and is inherently one that has to deal with "leading without authority". Questions that get to the heart of how they interact with and influence those around them allow you to see the full scope of what they're capable of.

The ability to work effectively across cross-functional teams is an extremely important part of a PMMs role. And each team you interact with has a very specific set of needs and dependencies in order for the working relationship to thrive. 1. PMM and Sales: This is a relationship that gets to the bottom-line = revenue. It's easy for the PMM role to quickly become a content creator (decks, one-pagers, etc). Where product marketers need to spend time is in understanding the sales process and the customer. There is no one size fits all when it comes to the sales process and deliverables needed. But the more you understand about the process can help reach business goals. * Join sales calls. Hear what customers are saying directly and how your sales team is responding and navigating the discussion. How are the sales team engaging with customers? What customer pain points are we trying to solve for? What are sales teams hearing in the field? * Use this information to inform what deliverables can help educate and enable the sales team on the market, customer, and product/solution you're selling as well as help develop the right set of sales assets based on what customers what to hear and see as part of their buying journey. * Work closely with sales leaders and sales enablement teams to create processes and programs around how to best educate sales teams on positioning, competitive intel, objection handling, while also holding space open for feedback. What you might create as a PMM might not be landing in the field and being able to take that back and revise/adjust will strengthen the partnership with sales teams. 2. PMM and CSM: Typically with CSM's, PMM's are looking at what customers are doing with product and in some cases what they aren't doing with the product. Adoption (and retention) are typically the main goals CSM's are aligned to and product marketers play a key part in helping to understand and synthesize user behavior in ways that can provide feedback loops to product teams as well as identify gaps in customer education and training programs that can help drive adoption. We partner with our CSMs to host client roundtables and advisory boards to get direct feedback from customers on what they need and where we might not be hitting the mark. This allows us to create programs and strategies that will get us to the goals we've set as a business. 3. PMM and Marketing: PMM and Marketing partner closely together for all things in-market. We stay close to ensure our target audience and our messaging is on point. We collaborate on developing in-market and sales content to tell the story of what we're doing and why it matters. The goals are generally to drive awareness and leads for the solutions we're aiming to sell and deliver on. Deliverables are usually MPDs or marketing briefs that synthesize product positioning/messaging, key value props, product features, and target audience segments that can be used to create market-facing campaigns and supporting events that help reach our awareness and lead-gen goals. 4. PMM and Product: Last but not least - the most important relationship to be had is with your product counterpart. While the breakdown of roles and responsibilities between PM and PMM varies from company to company it's without fail one that brings together how we solve problems for our customers. Key goals in this cross-functional dynamic is understanding market insights, customer behavior, how users are using our products, and competitive intelligence to influence and shape product roadmaps so as a company we're delivering on things that are most important to our customers as well keeping a competitive edge in the market.

This is a great question and I would say one that depends entirely on what your product line is comprised of. 1. Larger SaaS with multiple products: For a larger company that has multiple product lines, splitting PMMs up by product line is going to be the most successful. This will allow individuals to become SMEs in their area while covering the scope of the role from end to end. Of course, if you're able to have multiple PMMs supporting each product-line (which can often be the case) you can start creating a bit more of a matrix and introducing splits across PMM function. Typically, I try to refrain from doing this too much since it can pigeon-hold individuals into specialty areas. * Another way of thinking about structuring a team across product lines can be looking at what features make up each product and having s PMM cover specific features with typically a more senior PMM that looks at the product as a whole. 2. Smaller companies with 1-2 products: For smaller companies splitting by product function tends to be a bit easier in that the PMMs can be SME's as well as main points of contact cross-functionally to support internal initiatives like sales enablement, GTM, release management, marketing programs, etc.

In one word - prioritization. In two words - ruthless prioritization. 1. Which products are driving sales - prioritize support there over products that aren't levers that lead purchase decisions. 2. Same for features - which feature sets do customers ask for and want the most - prioritize that over smaller features that won't be impacting buying decisions. 3. Use the same approach for adoption and retention - what does your data show? What are the products and features your customers are using the most? Invest in programs and strategies that increase their usage and help them realize the value. This can be done by ruthlessly tiering and categorizing existing products/features and upcoming products/features that you'll be launching. In the short-term it will help you use data and insights to focus on the most-important things, say no (or not now) to things you know won't impact the business, and at the same time allow you to create the foundation for how to implement prioritization and process in the long-run.

Sharebird is an absolutely wonderful network to join and become a part of. It's wonderful to see communities like this grow and foster collaboration across folks looking to grow in their careers. The contributions and content coming from these communities is a great way to hear from leaders and peers facing the same types of challenges and provide a wealth of knowledge as you navigate your own career.

The biggest learning and maybe an obvious one is that what works in one region may not work in another. Cultural differences absolutely can and do impact how things like sales, marketing, and customer engagements are received. If your company is expanding globally to new regions, spend time with your teams on the ground there - join sales calls and learn about how business is conducted in those areas. These insights will help you develop the right go to market strategies. In addition to that - my last piece of advice is to not think about localization as an afterthought. Bake it into all launch and GTM planning. It's something that requires time and needs to be accounted for in work-back plans and schedules!

I would start by taking a hard look at all the things I felt I accomplished over those two years (writing a list helps!). Next start bucketing them into categories of skills (positioning, GTM, content writing, etc.), then have a little retrospective of how well you felt you did on the things you accomplished. I think you’ll naturally start to see areas where you yourself (given the time to reflect) feel like you knocked it out of the park or could maybe take a different approach or do things a bit differently. Understanding the latter will give you the ability to reach out and find resources, mentors, colleagues that can help bolster the skills you want to focus on learn new ways to approach projects than you have in the past.