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Mike Flouton

Mike Flouton

VP, Product, GitLab
About
Former VPM, VPPMM, investor and advisor. Back to my roots in Product.

Content

Mike Flouton
Mike Flouton
GitLab VP, ProductAugust 17
The product marketing part of the typical career is pretty straight forward. Generally, you will start as a Product Marketing Manaer. In larger orgs, you may take on a Sr. Product Marketing Manaer or Principal Product Marketing Manager title as you become more of a senior individual contributor. ......Read More
3109 Views
Mike Flouton
Mike Flouton
GitLab VP, ProductAugust 29
I'd first like to call attention to your last sentence - this is an issue with all of marketing, not just PMM. The CMO the the highest turnover spot on the exec team. There are two reasons IME. 1. The bad news.  Marketing is an easy target when times are bad because many of the ways we are ......Read More
1540 Views
Mike Flouton
Mike Flouton
GitLab VP, ProductNovember 15
Perhaps this is controversial, but I would say there are zero pros and many, many cons.   MBAs can be useful if you're looking to switch fields. Otherwise, I'd much rather see two additional years of work experience. I've hired MBAs from top 15 schools and from a PMM perspective, I was basicall......Read More
1269 Views
Mike Flouton
Mike Flouton
GitLab VP, ProductNovember 16
Complex enterprise sales are more about relationships and solution selling than they are collateral. So, if anything, content and collateral becomes less important the farther up market you go. These sales are about face to face presentations, conversations, solution selling and discovery.   Th......Read More
1158 Views
Mike Flouton
Mike Flouton
GitLab VP, ProductJanuary 30
Become the go to expert on something - quickly. Generally, as a PMM, you want to be the expert on the buyer. Shadow as many sales calls as you possibly can. Develop relationships with customers. Call them, show up at their office, take them out for drinks. Compile a library of stories, personas, ......Read More
1009 Views
Mike Flouton
Mike Flouton
GitLab VP, ProductAugust 17
I think about two buckets of metrics - activity and outcome. Activity metrics are easier to measure, but are not as directly tied to company performance ("hey, we delivered 2,748 leads to sales this quarter!"). Outcome metrics are often abstracted a layer, but focus on what really matters ("booki......Read More
987 Views
Mike Flouton
Mike Flouton
GitLab VP, ProductNovember 15

Don't bother. If you work for an executive team that doesn't see the value of PMM, you need to get a new job. You've got way too much work to do to waste your time trying to demonstrate something that should be obvious to anyone with a clue. 

986 Views
Mike Flouton
Mike Flouton
GitLab VP, ProductNovember 22
Coaching/mentoring is my favorite part of the job. But there are certain pre-requisite skills I don't want to spend time teaching you. We could probably come up with a really long list of those, but in the interest of keeping this list useful, I will stick to three.  * Be an excellent writer. F......Read More
952 Views
Mike Flouton
Mike Flouton
GitLab VP, ProductAugust 8
This is going to vary widely by organization, and you'll find Jr. PMMs doing the same work in one organization that a director or even VP would in another.  That said, as a general rule, the more junior PMMs typically take on more tactical work. This can take many forms, but content creation, gh......Read More
948 Views
Mike Flouton
Mike Flouton
GitLab VP, ProductNovember 14
First, Make sure you own your company's most strategic product. Usually that's the product with the highest revenue or fastest growth. Ideally both.   Second, make sure the execs know who you are. Go as high as you can go. Develop relationships with the CEO and/or board if you're small or mid-s......Read More
933 Views
Credentials & Highlights
VP, Product at GitLab
Top Product Management Mentor List
Product Management AMA Contributor
Lives In Campbell, California
Knows About AI Product Management, GTM, Product Management vs Product Marketing, Stakeholder Mana......more