Priya Gill

Not sure I completely answer the question. Typically when I ask candidates to give a presentation, it's less about the specific products they're presenting, but rather HOW they present it. Can the candidate articulate how they effectively approached their GTM strategy, from ideation to execution and beyond. Can they effectively launch a product/feature and properly engage the right cross-functional partners to make that launch a success? Are they outcome-oriented and think about the metrics they're trying to drive with a given launch? Those are just a few things that I would be looking for in a presentation.

I would also add: Can they clearly understand the customer pain points and technical capabilities of the product, and translate that into clear marketing messages that resonate?

The folks that I've seen who stood out were able to tell a story with their presentation and were clearly outcome-oriented vs tactic-oriented. I don't want someone who's just going to go through the motions. I want a critical thinker who will think outside the box.

First off, I'll say that I'm never a fan of making someone create messaging/positioning and defining a GTM plan about the interviewing company's product because you're never going to get to the level of knowledge as someone in the company...and it takes way longer to do it right. OK, rant over. :)

Typically when I ask candidates to give a presentation, it's less about the specific products they're presenting, but rather HOW they present it. Can the candidate articulate how they effectively approached their GTM strategy, from ideation to execution and beyond. Can they clearly understand the customer pain points and technical capabilities of the product, and translate that into clear marketing messages that resonate? Can they effectively launch a product/feature and properly engage the right cross-functional partners to make that launch a success? Are they outcome-oriented and think about the metrics they're trying to drive with a given launch? Those are just a few things that I would be looking for in a presentation. My hunch is that you were missing some of these things in your presentation.

There are 3 that I primarily look at that PMM influences (not directly drives):

• Pipeline / Bookings (Demand gen / monetization efforts)
• Win rates (Sales enablement and content)
• Product adoption (Growth efforts)

There are metrics that we can directly tie to PMM but that I find to be less meaningful, like engagement rates on content that we've created or product launch metrics which are more a moment in time. 

I think that it's totally fine that we don't directly drive the major metrics I mention above, but showing how PMM involvement / partnership can positively shift and impact each of those metrics is what's key.

There are 3 core areas that I ensure I have a solid understanding of before I create new messaging and positioning:

• Target buyer(s) & their pain points: Get a clear understanding of who my target buyer is (budget, motivation to buy, purchase blockers) and what their pain points are (as it relates to the problem space your target buyer is looking to solve)
• Product knowledge: What features and functionality are we delivering and how does that translate into a unique value proposition and set of customer benefits
• Competitive landscape: What similar offerings exist in the market today and how does our offering differentiate

From there, I leverage a messaging framework that leverages the learnings from above and includes details on the following:

• Target Audience(s)
• Market Trends
• Problem Statement
• General customer challenges / pain points
• Elevator pitch
• Key solution benefits (supported by features) -- I always keep these to 3-4 main ones!
• Competitive differentiation
• Customer evidence/proof points (if available)

I usually go through several rounds of edits after receiving feedback from key internal and external stakeholders (though I typically keep it to key messages when seeking external feedback).

In many cases when you’re trying to reposition a mature, market-leading product, it’s because 1) you’re either trying to change your target market’s perception of your product / product portfolio or brand relative to the competition.

Interestingly enough, this is exactly what we did earlier this year with the rebranding of SurveyMonkey to Momentive. We found through our research that despite the strong aided and unaided brand awareness that we had with SurveyMonkey, the name was becoming very limiting as we we’re trying to push up market and lean into our enterprise strategy. The term “Survey” was considered very functional and limiting to that category we were trying to break into. And “Monkey” was bringing up perceptions of “silly” and “cute”, which becomes a difficult hurdle to overcome when you’re trying to sell software to enterprise buyers.

So what did we do?

• Research, research, research. Qualitative and quantitative studies in seven countries, with over 22,000 respondents in total plus 10 different types of studies to instill confidence that the direction and decisions were the right ones. We also did a lot of interviewing and quantitative studies with prospective customers that fit our target ICPs (ideal customer profiles), especially when it came down to determining what name to choose.
• Ensure Executive buy-in at every step. You’d be dead in the water if you didn’t achieve alignment at the executive level, from beginning to end. We conducted interviews with all of our executive stakeholders and kept them apprised of ongoing updates every step of the way.
• Formalize the new brand architecture and positioning. Determine how to structure different products, brands and solutions based on long-term needs and how we planned to evolve in the future.
• Treat the rebrand / repositioning as a major product launch. You want to generate as much excitement and awareness as possible, both internally and externally. Treating it as a major product launch will ensure you achieve your intended outcomes: greater awareness, stronger brand perception, etc.

There’s a lot more to this and our amazing VP of Brand, Karen Budell, goes into a ton of detail about how we made this happen. Adding the podcast here in case it’s helpful: https://www.93x.agency/blog/behind-the-scenes-of-surveymonkeys-rebrand

There are four areas where I believe that PMMs can add the most value, and that’s where I usually start my assessment to identify the lowest hanging fruit:

• Product: Do we have product-market fit with our ideal buyer? Is our messaging differentiated and compelling? Is our pricing and packaging competitive?
• Demand: Are we targeting the right personas, industries, categories? Where are we winning and are we doubling down effectively? Are there untapped markets worth pursuing?
• Enablement: Are our win rates, average deal size and pipeline conversion strong? How does ARR / GRR / NRR look? Speak to your GTM teams (Sales and Customer Success) and run a survey assessing confidence levels in the pre and post sales process to identify areas of opportunity.
• Customer: Do we have effective automated onboarding and engagement programs? How are we driving expansion in the customer base?

You can’t do everything, but you should be able to identify one or two things that require attention and can have a big impact.

This pitch deck is commonly sited as one of the best: https://medium.com/the-mission/the-greatest-sales-deck-ive-ever-seen-4f4ef3391ba0

And I’m not surprised to see that because it has all of the elements you’d likely see in a pitch deck: a unique market shift and the challenges it presents, how your product solves, and customer proof points. It’s short, sweet and to the point.

The only challenge is that it can be very difficult to find a market shift / trend that’s truly unique, so more often than not, a lot of pitch decks have the same setup, pointing to their product as the solution. I’ve heard this a number of times from CIOs who’ve expressed frustration about “long lead ups” in pitch decks and that they wish it would just get to the point faster. If you can nail the market shift and customer pain points well, and how your product uniquely solves, you’re golden.

Regular engagement and alignment in key. I meet with my cross-functional leadership team bi-weekly to ensure we’re aligned on the needs of each team as they evolve and areas of focus.

Key goals and deliverables:

PMM with Sales: Drive sales success by developing content needed to support the pre-sales customer journey and business goals, such as use cases, pitch decks, customer case studies, and other prospect facing content.

PMM with CSM: Drive customer success by developing more in-depth content needed to support the post-sales customer journey and business goals, such as detailed use cases, QBR decks (quarterly business review), roadmap decks, and other customer facing content.

PMM with Marketing: Drive pipeline and bookings by supporting strategic marketing plans (demand gen campaigns, paid media, growth experiments) that build brand/product awareness and interest.

PMM with Product: Drive market success of the product / solution / service with a strong GTM strategy, compelling messaging, differentiated positioning, and strategic pricing & packaging.

As counterintuitive as this may sound, simple messaging isn’t always the way to go. It really comes down to your target buyer(s) and the set of messages that resonate with them, which may need to be simple for a line of business buyer like Marketing or HR or more complex/technical for an IT/Developer buyer. But it always comes back to understanding your target audience and their pain points, and ensuring you're tailoring your messaging for them.

Also, depending on the channel/medium where your messaging is shared, it may necessitate varying altitudes. For example, Social Media is a clear channel where you need to keep your messaging short and sweet whereas a blog is a channel where you can go more in depth.

If you understand the customer problems or market gaps you’re solving for, then you should be able to hone in on your target buyer and the types of customers you want to attract. It’s a lot easier to narrow down to an ICP if your product is already established and you have a base of customers to pull data from. From there you can start looking for patterns to see if there are commonalities across a specific segment of customers: by region, industry, company size, or type of buyer (department, job level). If your product isn’t established yet, then you can leverage market research solutions (like a global panel via SurveyMonkey), to gather buyer feedback. Either way, once you’ve honed in on this, you would operationalize it by infusing it throughout your GTM strategy. Meaning, your messaging and positioning, pricing strategy, sales enablement, marketing content, etc. would be tailored to this audience.