Natalie Louie

I break up my 30-60-90 day plan into 4 phases of success for Product Marketing – it also includes focus for after your first 90 days, all outlined below.  

You may not get to everything in each phase, or you may move through things faster – I use this as a guide and checklist to keep myself accountable. Following this has helped me identify what wins I can crush every 30 days. You can tailor it to your needs at your company and the level you are entering at.

The key is to actively listen in interviews and cross-functional meetings and if anyone is working on something that syncs with your superpowers – speak up, ask questions about what they are doing and trying to achieve, schedule a 1:1 with them and volunteer to collaborate with them or take it off their plate. When you ask lots of questions and get to a point they don’t have an answer – that’s the signal to raise your hand and offer your help. Don’t go in guns blazing, it needs to be natural and collaborative. Show humbleness and mastery. PMMs are the strategic glue between product, marketing and your customers, we are not the main show and final end point.

I also treat all internal stakeholders as one of my personas – get to know their pain points, what brings them value and how to speak to them. Also, during my 1:1 interviews with them, I’ll also ask if they have worked with a PMM before. If yes, I asked what worked well, what could’ve been better and discuss how we can work together to show the value I bring. If they’ve never worked with a PMM, I share with them what value I can bring and discuss how we can collaborate together. Tips here on how to approach all your stakeholders.  

PMM Phases of Success

The first 3 phases include execution (your wins) and they ramp up. See here for examples on quick wins.  

30 DAYS: DISCOVERY

• Listen, Ask Questions
• 1:1 interviews with cross functional partners
• Customer Interviews, ICP, personas, map customer journey
• Product training, roadmap, launches to date
• Analyze existing content, strategy, data
• Research competitors

70% Discovery + 20% Strategy + 10% Execute

60 DAYS: STRATEGY

• Think, Create, Iterate
• Buy off on business plan: vision, headcount and OKRs, and PMM roadmap
• Create PMM playbooks:
• Messaging and positioning framework defined
• GTM and product launch strategy defined
• Pricing and packaging roadmap
• Competitive intelligence framework / Amplification

60% Strategy + 30% Execute + 10% Iterate

90 DAYS: EXECUTION

• Produce, Operationalize
• Roll out PMM playbooks and frameworks
• Have or identify how to get a team in place to fully execute
• Uplevel existing team
• Iterate and create efficiencies
• Cadence established for customer interviews, GTM meetings, PMM standups, Working sessions, 1:1

80% Execute + 10% Strategy + 10% Iterate

91+ DAYS: SCALE

• Refine, Scale, Expand
• Focus on refining and tailoring playbooks and frameworks
• Team in place is able to scale so we gain efficiencies
• Ready to expand scope
• Deep partnerships with cross-functional partners
• Uplevel areas of development

30% Scale + 50% Execute + 10% Strategy + 10% Iterate

MESSAGING FRAMEWORK

Andy Raskin broke down our Zuora messaging framework perfectly: The Greatest Sales Deck I’ve Ever Seen

This messaging framework we use has 5 elements: 

• Name a Big, Relevant Change in the World
• Show There’ll Be Winners and Losers
• Tease the Promised Land
• Introduce Features as “Magic Gifts” for Overcoming Obstacles to the Promised Land
• Present Evidence that You Can Make the Story Come True

Another good messaging framework Andy Raskin breaks down well is a keynote by Elon Musk 

Elon’s framework also has 5 elements: 

• Name the enemy
• Answer “Why now?”
• Show the promised land before explaining how you’ll get there
• Identify obstacles—then explain how you’ll overcome them
• Present evidence that you’re not just blowing hot air

At Zuora, we use a version of both of these frameworks in all our messaging. 

POSITIONING FRAMEWORK

Positioning also has its own framework. Notable resources are “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey Moore and “Positioning” by Al Ries.

A positioning statement has 7 elements: 

• For [target customers]
• Who [statement of need of opportunity],
• The [product name]
• Is a [product category]
• That [statement of key benefit].
• Unlike [primary competitive alternative],
• Our product [statement of primary differentiation].

ELEVATOR PITCH FRAMEWORK

A elevator pitch has 4 sentences: 

• What the customer is trying to do
• Highlight the pains of trying to get there
• Why this pain is happening
• How we help

Good overall book Kyle Christensen, Zuora’s CMO, recommended to me is “Made to Stick” by Chip Heath & Dan Heath. Lots of good frameworks on making sure your ideas stick! I read it 10 years ago and I'm actually reading it again right now. 

Start with my 30/60/90 day plan. I embark on this process and begin looking for where I can dive in for my quick wins.

You never know what scenario you are walking into or which project has suddenly been prioritized when you first start. The key is listening for what people are working on, understanding why it’s important and raising your hand for anything you know you can do with your eyes closed. I have 10% execute in my first 30 days because that is me working on my win. Then each 30 days thereafter ramps up my time spent executing and delivering more wins.

I've joined companies where I took full control of a product launch, created all the decks for a conference, launched new partnerships and pricing strategies in my first 90 days. Your company hired a PMM because a board member or executive knows they need you, so look for all that low hanging fruit. 

QUICK WINS EXAMPLES

• Product Launches: are they planning one or in the midst of one? Jump in to run it, help/takeover an aspect of it, uplevel the launch plan line items
• Press Release: is there a PR going out? Ask to write or review it and uplevel it.
• Acquisition: are they acquiring a new company? Help with how to message and position the new partnership
• Conference: do they have a user/customer/internal conference coming up? Dive in and volunteer to help with the decks, speakers, storyline and content.
• Competitive: hear lots of chatter about competitors? Offer to deep dive on collecting research and create some battle cards with your killer template
• Product Market Fit: did you join before product market fit? Start doing research to define ICP, Personas, TAM, SAM, Competitors and map the Customer Journey
• Marketing campaigns: look at existing campaigns and help create content, position content better, discuss which new channels to activate, ensure campaigns are integrated
• Content: look at existing content and uplevel it, create what’s missing ASAP or help organize it better
• Video: think they could do more? Help create a good video for their website or marketing
• Website: looks lackluster or they want to update their website? Jump in to help with strategy and delivery, definately fix any copy/messages that aren't clear
• Hiring: have open headcount or gaps? Help hire, close top candidates, refer good people you've worked with before
• Blog: offer to ghost write a blog with Eng or Product
• Webinar: help create content or present on a webinar
• Monetization: pricing a new product? Jump in to help them figure out value, pricing and packaging
• Partner: are they announcing a new partner? Help message and position it
• Gaps: see a hole? If you can’t fill it, offer to find and manage a contractor who can and bring them onboard, so you can have a win together
• See something that is confusing or doesn’t make sense? Speak up, ask questions and dive in to help bring clarity

As a PMM I’ve always had a close relationship with demand gen, from startups to public companies.

Here’s what we do together and what we each own separately:
Together we discuss themes and ideas but demand gen owns the tactics and PMM owns the strategy. We both own the results.

Demand Gen: focuses on launching and driving campaigns, optimizing them to drive pipeline, working with SDRs and AE’s, managing large budgets for paid media, seo, organic. They own the tactics.  

Product Marketing: we are the experts in our product, personas, competitors, solutions and verticals so we own messaging, positioning, direction of content, hypothese and angle. We own the strategy.

Demand gen will own a calendar and kick off a template or framework on how they want to run a digital campaign. I’ll populate it with all the relevant information and messaging. If I have a product launch, message or position we want to own, I’ll weave it into the campaigns. Demand gen will activate the campaign, run the campaign and if it's a webinar I will help build the content or be the moderator/speaker on it. We set target results together and demand gen will track actual results -- then we all review results together and iterate.

Yes, I always do.  

Treat each stakeholder like one of your “personas”. Understand their role, what their pain points are, what their goals are, what words they use and what’s important to them. Do a 1:1 with them, get to know them, their OKRs, interview them and find out how you can help them and work with them. Once you have a clear idea on how to deliver value to them, incorporate that into how you work with them, message them and position your work to them. You already do this as a PMM for customers and prospects, so applying this same tactic to internal stakeholders works just as well.

I even apply my PMM ability to speak to and treat personas differently in my personal life, with my kids, family and friends -- it really brings alignment across the board! I find our PMM skills in this area are a best practice for approaching life :)

Find your champion in each team and build a relationship with them. They can be your go-to person when you need advice on how to work with their team, you can bounce your ideas on them first to get early feedback and they can help socialize any of your ideas or strategies within their team. I find during this process, I end up refining my thinking, strategies and ideas too, so it’s win-win.

Test your ideas on stakeholders in each group and socialize early. The longer someone is exposed to an idea, certain words and strategies -- the more time they’ve had to process it and start weaving it into their thoughts and initiatives. Eventually, they will start taking ownership of those ideas too. You have to be patient, the bigger the idea, the longer it will take to be adopted. When I was at Oracle, a few of us had a novel idea and strategy and I socialized it across stakeholders in groups across the years...I never gave up. It was finally brought to market 3 years later. If you truly know your idea is a good one and have done your research as a SME (subject matter expert), then be patient and consistent and you will get there. On the other spectrum, there are of course ideas that can be socialized and have buy-in within a few days/weeks as well.

Use storytelling and examples for context and back everything up with data -- use customer data, market data, OKRs, MBOs, KPIs, industry benchmarks, customers stories, quotes, etc… When you can have data driven stories with stakeholders, tailored to them, you are validating your thoughts while using storytelling to give context and relevance, while making your ideas stick. People remember stories that are put in context, they don’t remember a list of facts.

At Zuora (and at my last company at Hired) we have OKRs and each group creates their own and works with each other to define theirs. We can also view everyone's OKRs in our Workboard tool. Alignment begins before any project begins. Each quarter we all get better at aligning our OKRs. And, with each project we improve on how we report back on how we acheived our OKRs together. We also focus on shared frameworks and process we all agree and align on. During and after each project we keep iterating and improving our frameworks and share learnings with other members of our teams.  

With OKRs and agreed up frameworks, this helps us run and execute integrated marketing campaigns and product launches as smooth as possible. 

(Below is a similar answer to a prior question.) 

For demand gen and PMM, here’s what we do together and what we each own separately:
Together we discuss themes but demand gen owns the tactics and PMM owns the strategy. We both own the results.

Demand Gen: focuses on launching and driving campaigns, optimizing them to drive pipeline, working with SDRs and AE’s, managing large budgets for paid media, seo, organic. They own and run the tactics.

Product Marketing: we are the experts in our product, personas, competitors, solutions and verticals so we own messaging, positioning, hypothesis and angle. We own the strategy and direction of content.

Demand gen will own a calendar and kick off a template or framework on how they want to run a digital campaign. I’ll populate it with all the relevant information and messaging. If I have a product launch, message or position we want to own, I’ll weave it into the campaigns. Demand gen will activate the campaign, run the campaign and if it's a webinar I will help build the content or be the moderator/speaker on it. We set target results together and demand gen will track actual results -- then we all review results together and iterate.

The more technical your product and complex your use cases, i.e. selling to enterprise customers, then PMM can report into Product. This is what we do at Zuora and other companies I’ve worked at.

The less technical the product and the less complex your use cases, i.e. selling to SMB/MM customers, then PMM can report into Marketing. This is what we did at my prior companies too.

When PMMs need to understand complex use cases and technical products they have more air to cover and it’s better to have alignment with PM's to make sure knowledge transfer happens properly and nuances are picked up. PMMs will find themselves having more questions about the product and asking PMs or SMEs to check their work and make sure they aren’t mis-stating something.

Size of the company can also dictate which group you report to -- smaller startups (series A-D) may have smaller marketing teams and PMMs will take on additional marketing areas and report into Marketing. PMMs will wear many more hats. In larger, later stage or public companies who have larger marketing resources and teams, PMM may roll into product and be more focused on core PMM activities. PMMs may also be more focused and specialized, i.e. tied to a specific product, solution or industry.

Regardless of which group you report to -- the PMM and company should decide what makes sense for them -- there has to be strong alignment to both Marketing and Product orgs. PMMs should join all cross-functional meetings with both teams and move between both seamlessly. As a PMM, I’ve always felt like a core team member of both Marketing and Product, despite which group I’ve actually reported to.

PMMs can be more proactive to own more of the funnel and customer journey when they expand their expertise to have a say in or own the pricing and packaging strategy.

PMMs already connect the dots between customers and products and know how to deliver value across the entire customer journey. We deliver value through our positioning, messaging, story telling, content creation (pitch-decks, case studies, webinars, campaigns, white papers, website, etc..), product launches, competitive intelligence, analyst relations, etc...

But, if you look at a customer journey from the first touch point and interaction with a campaign, website, event, deck, demo, all the way to a conversation around packaging and pricing -- the customer has to find value along each interaction and it needs to be consistent. If pricing and packaging was done in a silo with no PMM input, the customer isn’t experiencing consistent value and I’ve seen deals fall apart at that stage or sales struggle to close a deal when pricing comes up -- and they rely heavily on “discount to sell” strategies to get a deal over the finish line. PMMs who add pricing and packaging to their toolkit can deliver value at every step of the customer journey and can be a part of the entire funnel strategy and help build customer lifetime value from acquisition all the way through retention and expansion revenue.  

• Extra tip: expansion revenue is the bucket companies often forget about, and when you can double down in this area with strategy, execution and results that bring significant revenue and value to any company -- you will be handed more of the funnel.   

In order to make proactive strategic decisions, I am always analyzing customer data: usage data, purchase data, discount data, segment, expiration, etc... and I’m bucketing the data and looking at trends based on what our company’s OKRs are. The data tells a story and I discuss the insights with other stakeholders and through this process, it helps uplevel all the decisions I’m making for pricing, packaging, content, messaging, positioning, campaigns, sales plays, etc... 

• Example: at a prior company, our churn was higher one quarter and reducing churn was our company’s OKR the following quarter. I decided to look at customer data and study what customers purchased vs. what they were using. I looked at which customers were expiring that quarter, how much they spent, what usage tier they purchased and what their current usage was for our product. Then, I grouped customers into 3 buckets (I actually had 6 buckets but will use 3 for simplicity): 1) those using most of what they purchased, 2) those using half of what they purchased, 3) those using little of what they purchased. Bucket #3 was our high churn group we were worried about and bucket #2 was a group we wanted to keep our eye on, so I came up with a different pricing & packaging strategy, messaging, positioning and marketing campaign that sales used to engage with the customers in these two buckets. By having a view across their entire journey, I came up with a proactive funnel strategy and we reduced churn that quarter.

Here are 4 ways this can be mitigated: 

• There’s always a reason why you don’t agree -- when you can get to the data and root cause driving the disagreement -- then you start to build bridges to get back on the same page. Instead of disagreeing, a good response is to keep asking “why”?... “Why don’t you agree?”...”Why will that be an issue?”...”Why do you think this won’t work”...”Why, what does that mean?”. Keep asking “why” and digging until you unlock the root cause. People often have access to different information and facts, or they are using words differently. I find as a PMM I’m constantly level setting with people to make sure we all have the same facts, understand the same meaning of all the words we are using and get down to the “why”.  
• With each strategy or project I always refer to our company and shared OKRs (Objective and Key Results) -- or maybe your company has MBOs, KPIs, etc... I use this to prioritize projects so when I engage with a channel owner and speak to their/our OKRs, it’s hard for anyone to not agree on a shared strategy. The key is making sure your OKRs tie to channel owners and this requires coordination in advance with those stakeholders and managers. PMMs are a strategic hub who are there to connect the dots between cross-functional stakeholders so we need to mold and wrap ourselves around other groups.
• Example: Channel owners are always trying to drive pipeline and I know they have OKRs around this, so I was on board with having a PMM OKR to drive $4M of pipeline for a product launch I was working on. My launch went very smoothly because I put the OKR on my slides when I was presenting ideas or metrics to channel owners. It’s always good to level set on the shared goal at the onset of any launch or meeting so that everyone is on the same page.
• Treat each channel owner like one of your “personas”. Understand their role, what their pain points are and what their goals are. Do a 1:1 with them, interview them and find out how you can help them and work with them. Once you have a clear idea on how to deliver value to them, incorporate that into how you work with them, message them and position your work to them. You already do this as a PMM for customers and prospects, so applying this same tactic to channel owners works just as well. 
• Whenever I roll out a new launch, framework, message or piece of content, label everything “draft” and share it with channel owners in advance of any meeting where you plan to present it the first time. Having these smaller meetings or 1:1’s to get their early feedback and buy-in is key to get everyone on the same page individually vs. introducing new ideas at a larger meeting where people can be influenced by group think -- i.e. someone doesn’t like it and others, who wouldn’t feel that way on their own, start to jump on the bandwagon. Successful people already have buy-in on their ideas before a meeting vs. presenting their ideas for the first time at the meeting. This isn’t feasible for every decision because it takes time, but for the big ones, like your upcoming launch -- this strategy has worked very well for me.

I mentioned this in a prior question - treat each stakeholder like one of your “personas”. Understand their role, what their pain points are, what their goals are, what words they use and what’s important to them. Do a 1:1 with them, get to know them, their OKRs, interview them and find out how you can help them and work with them. Once you have a clear idea on how to deliver value to them, incorporate that into how you work with them, message them and position your work to them. You already do this as a PMM for customers and prospects, so applying this same tactic to internal stakeholders works just as well. 

Whenever you role out a new idea, strategy, message or piece of content, label everything “draft” and share it with stakeholders in advance of any meeting where you plan to present something new. Having these smaller meetings or 1:1’s to get their early feedback and buy-in is key to get everyone on the same page individually vs. introducing new ideas at a larger meeting where people can be influenced by group think -- i.e. someone doesn’t like it and others, who wouldn’t feel that way on their own, start to jump on the bandwagon. Successful people already have buy-in on their ideas before a meeting vs. presenting their ideas for the first time at the meeting. This isn’t feasible for every decision because it takes time, but for the big ones -- this strategy has worked very well for me.

Also socialize ideas earlier, the longer someone is exposed to an idea, certain words and strategies -- the more time they’ve had to process it and start weaving it into their thoughts and initiatives. Eventually, they will start taking ownership of those ideas too. You have to be patient, the bigger the idea, the longer it will take to be adopted. 

Find an executive sponsor and senior level person (your power persona) and get their alignment -- this is key is having them also drive the same ideas and strategies in their org that are aligned with you. 

Data can also be found anywhere - they can be stories, quotes, examples and best pracitices from other industries. Data can be qualatative and quantatative. The more research and interviews you do, you can collect your findings and summarize them into your own data chart to use to build consensus.