Sahil Sethi

* Not being able to strongly respond to the question “Can you pitch your product to me ?” * Not being ready with good writing samples * Not coming with strong examples of your leadership skills - influence, persuasion, relationship building, collaboration and more These questions demonstrate the fundamental aspects of product marketing. The first is about messaging/positioning/value prop. The second is about whether you can write/communicate that in words (even a pitch deck or a webinar abstract or a demo video whose script you wrote is a writing sample). The third is about your ability to work with others and be a connector and orchestrator. I believe you will get one of these questions, or their derivatives, in most PMM interviews

There are so many good responses to launch tiering here. I am going to focus on KPIs in my response here I broadly categorize launch KPIs into three parts - Engagement, Adoption and Revenue 1. Engagement KPIs - measure engagement with launch content. Anything from # attendees, # visitors, # viewers, blog visits, email open rates/CTRs, PR pickup, social engagement (e.g. retweets) by channel. Irrespective of launch tier, super important to measure engagement of content leading up to the launch, actual launch attendance and post launch buzz (E.g. 7 day social mentions) 2. Adoption KPIs - For GA features, important to measure 7 day/30 day/90 day/180 day sign-up or adoption metrics. Could be no of users (e.g. WAU), or feature page visits, or other metrics you may have for your product's usage and adoption. For non-GA features, you typically want to look at sign-ups requests assuming you are running a limited preview/beta program 3. Revenue KPIs - Big fan of measuring ARR impact - particularly retention/expansion, and sometimes acquisition/new ARR. This is particularly important for Tier-1 launches with major market impact, and requiring major marketing treatment. Leading indicator here is pipeline / leads - either directly arising from launch events, or influenced by the launch. Not uncommon to accompany launch events with some physical ABM activations . Any new pipeline generated from those events is part of the launch impact. Any existing pipeline accelerated at those ABM events is part of the launch impact. That thinking can be applied to all new and existing opportunities influenced by ALL launch tactics - event attendance, webinars, trainings etc. Good launches are accompanied by thematic campaigns. e.g. at Qualtrics, when we launched our new AI features for our market research product, we ran campaigns/case studies/webinars/thought leadership on the importance of Intelligence. All marketing was working towards that message for a whole quarter. That led to a measurable bump in pipeline -- which we all quantified as launch impact. 

For tenured PMM roles (e.g. team leads/directors or senior/principal PMMs who may not be team leads), I do ask for an assignment We usually give an open question that mimics a real business situation (often a challenge we are facing). It could be around marketing to a new audience, or launching a new product, or some change in positioning and messaging we’d like to effect. The final presentation is usually a 30-60 min 1:many presentation where you (the candidate) has the freedom to decide how they want to use the time I am looking for both functional PMM skills (e.g. messaging, building a GTM plan) and leadership skills (influence and persuasion, communication skills) suitable for their tenure. Tips - Really important to ask a ton of questions and deconstruct the problem, espeically if it is ambiguous and open ended. Don’t jump to conclusions , especially if you have seen a similar situation in your previous experience. Every company has its unique challenges. Ask the right questions, and share your assumptions Bring examples of customer centricity. The response to every GTM challenge (doesn’t matter if it is about messaging, enablement, packaging or new launches) starts with understanding the customer challenge and pain points. If that is not given, it should be the first question you ask The presentation format also demonstrates your ability to run a meeting - a key skill for PMMs who are often orchestrators of key projects. Be prepared to engage a broader group. Emphasize strong storytelling over process. Be clear and confident in your communication

MBA certainly provides access to a network and usually a world-class quality education and introduction to marketing frameworks which are useful in any marketing job. But it also comes with a huge opportunity, and often, financial cost My personal take is that MBA can help in functional transitions but may not be required if you are already in marketing/ product marketing. I am a fan of learning on the job which MBA cannot provide

This is such a good question There are many ways to demonstrate success of messaging/positioning work 1. Talk through the process - Explain your approach to developing messaging and positioning. Talk about the customer interviews you did, the drafts you wrote, the messaging pillars you discarded and why, the frameworks you followed, the internal sales validation you did, the product deep dives you sat through, the brainstorming sessions and workshops you led, the customer testing you observed and the internal roadshows you led. Talk about how your brought stakeholders together, how you helped gain alignment and consensus and how you helped drive a sense of urgency and impact 2. Talk through the storytelling - Good messaging relies on good storytelling. Good stories involve a problem (customer pain point), a solution (your messaging - what, why, how your product solves the problem), and the outcome (value points, reasons to believe). A simple way to show your work on messaging is to talk about the elevator pitch (~50 words) before your work, and after your work. That demonstrates that you know your work, and command and confidence in your message. I always ask this question “How would you describe your product to me?” in any PMM interview, particularly if I am interested in knowing more about the candidate’s messaging skills 3. Talk through the deliverables - I understand the question is about not showing documented work but i believe that is the best way to show messaging and you should be ready to share any deliverables here. It could be a pitch deck, a one pager, a blog post, a thought paper, a webinar abstract, a web page, a recorded demo - anything where elements of your messaging are showing up - even if your name is not against the deliverables. Hiring managers understand that most PMMs are not copywriters but it is always good to demonstrate the ‘substance’ of your messaging work show up in different places To talk about the success of messaging, it is important to understand which aspect of customer journey is it impacting. Sometimes messaging is used in acquisition channels (ads, website, webinars, SDR emails etc.) and it is driving more leads/MQLs/pipeline. More commonly, a lot of PMM messaging shows up in conversion channels (pitch decks, demos etc.) where it impacts win-rates, deal velocity, avg deal size etc. It can also impact adoption/retention/expansion metrics where you can talk about upsell/cross-sell rates, churn rates, product adoption etc. Being clear on the metrics is first step to explaining the impact on messaging If your work is recent and the impact numbers aren’t ready, then it is important to talk about the process outcomes. What was the reception to the new pitch deck when you led the trainings ? How many downloads did you get ? How did the early set of customers react to the message when you presented to them ? Did your website see any lift in conversion rates when your A/B tested the new headline ? Even basic things like measuring CSAT from internal trainings can be an example of impact

Good question. As PMMs, our roles touch so many aspects of the company that ROI could be hard to define. My advice to every PMM is to think through the impact of their work, and the process of measuring their impact --- on a day to day basis, and not after the activity. So when the question does come up, you have a response ready. ROI can be measured both in terms of quantifiable business metrics as well as your impact on people, on the company brand, on the product roadmap or the company strategy For business metrics, be clear about metrics that your work directly influences. It could be awareness metrics (share of voice, brand awareness, brand perception), acquisition metrics (leads, MQLs, pipeline), conversion metrics (win-rates, conversion rates, sales velocity) , retention metrics (churn/expansion, upsell/cross-sell rates), adoption metrics (30/60/90 day adoption by features or personas), or overall business metrics (revenue, ARR) e.g. “Since we launched the new messaging, our sales win rates have increased by 20%. Some of this is due to better training and onboarding of our reps, but a lot of that is our emphasis on competitive differentiators in the new messaging and the quality of enablement that I led” is a great response if your work centers around sales enablement Or “My work on setting up our launch engine is leading to better, more timely communication of our feature updates to both customers and partners. The social buzz around our launches is high, and we are seeing our users come back and use the product more. The cohorted weekly active user count is up and we are exceeding the 30-day adoption targets for every single feature launched last year. Our renewal rates are also up by 5 points and a lot of it is due to our launch and innovation momentum that is directly impacted by my work “ is also a good response It is possible that you work in an organization where the linkage between your work and business success isn’t clear. Or it’s not something that your current manager has ever cared about. This is where you have to do the hard work of working with someone in ops/BI and trying to quantify that impact. It doesn’t have to be perfect. But you need to demonstrate the process of thinking through impact.

My favorite question is very simple I ask them “Can you pitch me your product?” (if they come from any marketing role) It allows me to understand their storytelling skills. It helps me understand if they are truly comfortable with the idea of messaging and positioning (which I think is fundamental for any PMM to be successful. They have to understand it - even if they aren’t developing it). It helps me understand their oral communication skills. Sometimes, it also demonstrates a bit of flair and creativity. And this is often the jumping off point into other questions The best answers vary but they are pithy (50-100 words, 30-45 seconds ), and cover a good story (the before state, the after state, the what, why, how is my product better) and uses language/words that are clear and easy to understand for any layperson

TLDR In the large majority of B2B SaaS companies, PMM owns messaging/positioning for products/solutions and demand-gen/performance marketing owns the deployment of that messaging appropriately into acquisition channels like paid social, paid search, web, webinars, events etc. Campaign ideas can and should be encouraged from anyone -including folks outside of PMM/demand-gen Campaign execution and ownership can be a gray area- keep reading below for the nuances Detail In an ideal world, both PMM and demand-gen (along with brand/comms teams) should collaborate and jointly build an integrated marketing plan for the year/quarter/month. The integrated marketing plan covers things like --> Who to target, what to say, in what channel, at what time and frequency. All of this comes with clear and defined KPIs, owners and collaboration models. An integrated plan is also key to identifying how much to invest (resources, $). Nailing this upfront is key to strong PMM and demand-gen collaboration. e.g. PMMs build messaging based on understanding the customer pain points, personas, segments etc. That same foundational understanding is key to demand-gen building their plans on which assets and channels to optimize for. An enterprise focus may often put some onus on webinars and ABM while a PLG focus puts more emphasis on web and content. The integrated plan identifies the channels to go after, with the right messaging , the right KPIs and informs who does what in this plan. The rest is about execution which includes monitoring and iteration Campaigns are a gray area. An ideal campaign involves the following (A) Picking a messaging theme (e.g. intelligence, security, growth etc. ) that is unique and distinctive to help the product/brand advance B) Building a campaign architecture - hero content or landing page, channels for paid/organic/social/SEO , form fills and lead captures (or not), nurturing plans, CTA, retargeting etc. C) Execution - with heavy elements of monitoring and iteration Ideally, A) is PMM owned and C) is demand-gen owned. B) Can be owned by either of the two groups and is very much dependent on org and functional maturity and individual skill set. Whatever model you follow, it is really important to have someone thinking about the campaign architecture to make sure the campaign is tightly integrated

Differentiators Good messaging smartly incorporates differentiators. Yes messaging is about the outcomes and benefits, it is about the category and the disruptions , it is about value pillars but great messaging smartly incorporates differentiators in that work When you describe your product with adjectives like easy to use, flexible, integrated, intelligent, automated, enterprise-grade, accessible, secure, powerful, unified, all-in-one etc - you are indirectly conveying why your product is different/better than others. When done well, this is the key area you demonstrate how you are different Differentiators could be on features that are unique to your product, or market leadership (e.g. #customers, volume of data), on vision, or simply execution and innovation. Best differentiators are a combination of all these. True story - I was once in a scenario where we were up against an incumbent. They had more customers and a rich feature set but their innovation was stagnating. We had more engineers and bigger investments on the product, and our innovation momentum was strong (e.g. no of releases in the previous 12 months). We highlighted our innovation momentum and vision as a key differentiator. Combined with customer proof points and case studies, we dramatically improved our win rates (even though the products were very similar) In very competitive scenarios, the best way to understand differentiators is to ask customers why they chose you over others. This could come through win-loss surveys, or direct customer interviews. You could have the best ‘AI engine’ on the planet, but if that’s not the reason your customers are choosing you over competition, maybe it doesn’t deserve to be in the list of top 4 differentiators (even if your product team feels otherwise). Good messaging balances the "voice of the customer" with the product truth to create a truly differentiated and winning value proposition Building differentiators is not enough. It is important to make sure this is well represented in your customer’s buying journey. Make sure your sales reps are trained to describe your competitive differentiators in a demo, a cold call and every solution presentation. Make sure your web copy highlights not just what you do (features) and why does it matter (outcomes) but also the how you do it in a manner that is unique and differentiated. PMM is in a unique place not just to create these differentiators but also to make sure they are consistently used and described by everyone. This comes from the right enablement and company wide activation - and often requires CEO/top down support and alignment. The goal is to make sure that everyone - the CEO, the sales teams, the partners, the CSMs and everyone in marketing has the same response to the question “What is unique about xyz? How are you different that others“ Finally, when it comes to specific competitors, it is important to condense all talking points in the form of a battlecard that sales teams could use. If you have a more PLG led self-serve motion, sometimes you can articulate these competitive differentiators on the website directly as comparisons. Either way - important to highlight two things * What are the reasons why customers choose you ? Remember: it is not just about the features. * Substantiate with real customer examples

Really good question. I think of the following steps before a kick-off - a) Leadership buy-in b) Compelling story c) Project plan d) Customer validation and testing plan. Doing these well will naturally bring about strong alignment First - Leadership buy-in . Make sure there is leadership buy-in and alignment if the project isn’t coming down top-down already. Spend some time explaining why we need a messaging refresh by tying it to company priorities (e.g. category creation POV, reflect new innovations and roadmap, helping improve competitive win-rates , new segment /vertical focus (e.g. going up-market), new user/buyer personas etc.). Second- Internal storytelling - write a story and go on internal roadshows. The story should cover the Why (the Why of this project), the What (new messaging artifacts) and the How (customer/sales interviews, message testing ,timelines, enablement plan etc.). Spend most time with teams you need help with e.g. Sales teams for messaging validation, or CS for access to customers for interviews, or Product for roadmap and vision storytelling Third- Project plans - Make a list of all deliverables that need to be created/updated , the teams involved and the expected timelines. You will need to go beyond creating a messaging framework and a pitch deck. The website will need a refresh. The PR boilerplates will be revised. All partner communication will look different. Your content/campaigns will need to align to new messaging. All customer facing teams (Sales/CS/Partners/Support/Services) will need deep enablement on the new messaging. Once you make the list, map the teams you have to work with. Give them a heads-up. Ask for partnership on this project. Give them ownership for the rollout of this messaging for their channels (E.g. the enablement team should be in charge of the roll-out plan with sales) Finally - Customer validation plan. Be clear, and loud, about your validation and testing plan. Are you doing qualitative customer interviews ? Running message testing studies ? Do you have leadership check-ins already in place ? Have you identified champions from sales for ongoing testing and validation. Will you present at the Customer advisory board ? Will you run this by partners ? Timely check-ins and testing not only help you build a high quality messaging framework that resonates with the market, but also helps you manage the skeptics