The PMMs I coach want to grow their impact on the business, and they have ideas that they want to get their way on – but most of them say they’re worried about being perceived as assholes.
Getting Your Way vs. Being an Asshole
Getting your way requires you to lead & get support from your peers, your boss, and others. I’ll talk here about 5 behaviors that will help you with this, get you perceived as senior, get you promoted.
Being an asshole (or perceived as one) will hold you back, make you seem junior, cost you support, and put you on top of the list at layoff time. I’ll share 5 asshole behaviors to avoid.
5 effective behaviors to get your way:
- Frame problems
- Build & articulate an informed point of view
- Lead conversations from the rear
- Make specific, time-bound recommendations
- Sustain goal focus
5 asshole behaviors to stop doing/avoid:
- Serve up problems
- Offer opinionated guesses
- Go along lazily
- Use conversations to push your ideas, without listening
- Thrash
Get Your Way
The 5 effective behaviors to practice are:
Frame Problems
Make the first words out of your mouth a statement of the problem, with context of the importance of the problem.
“Since one of our top 3 goals is to improve margins & retention by shifting pipeline to our ideal customer profile (ICP) – and with current pipeline being 70% non-ICP, we need to make changes in marketing and sales now, to improve by end of year.”
Audience: Sasha makes a great point, I haven’t heard it laid out this way. I’m glad she’s bringing this up.
Build & articulate an informed point of view
Your next behavior is really an extension of framing the problem. Think about the situation and come up with your point of view on what needs fixing, informed by data. Then practice saying it out loud, and in writing. Use a slide deck to develop your argument – and to communicate the need for change.
“The 30% of our pipeline that’s made up of ICP accounts is coming from outbound prospecting by experienced AEs, but our less-experienced sellers are creating pipe that’s non-ICP, and demand gen is creating mostly non-ICP leads — perpetuating that behavior.”
Audience: Katryna is really smart. I wonder what we should do.
Lead conversations from the rear
Bring together a group to discuss the problem, its causes, and ways to fix it.
Get other people to come up with points-of-view, and suggested solutions. This means you’re mostly asking questions, moderating a discussion.
You’ll hear more from people who see it differently, and often hear better ideas than yours. While you can contribute to the discussion once it’s been underway for a bit, you should *primarily* act as the facilitator. People will appreciate your leadership, your including them, and your open-mindedness – and if people raise your ideas, and think they came up with them, even better.
Audience: Oh, this is gonna be fun. I have something I want to say, and a question.
Make specific, time-bound recommendations (after the discussion)
“As a first step, I propose we equip and train our less-experienced sellers with outbound targeting, call scripts (as Kelly suggested), discovery questions, and the customer stories Andrew mentioned, that highlight our advantages and ROI for our ICP. This should take 2 PMMs two weeks to pull together, and another week to enable sales.
“At the same time, we should help the demand gen team develop more ICP-targeted lead programs that we can test and iterate on, then launch next month so we can affect Q3 and Q4. Which it sounds like Melanie has some ideas on.”
Audience: Interesting, I want to be involved, and I have some more ideas. I like her meetings.
Sustain goal focus
Finally, the big things that move your business don’t change that quickly or often. Stay focused (out loud) on the top problems. Sustained focus, and repetition over time, is the most effective method to get your way.
“Our top goals this month are the same as last month:
- Get more of our pipeline made up of ideal prospects
- Get sales to spend more time on ICP deals
- Get marketing to spend more dollars on ICP leads.
”What else should we do to get there?”
Audience: Maybe the idea Christina brought up last month. I really liked that and have been thinking about it.
Don’t Be an Asshole
5 behaviors you should avoid, because they’ll make people think you’re an asshole:
Serve Up Problems
Bringing up a problem without putting it in context of priorities. And putting your energy into vocalizing how bad it is – without suggesting a solution.
“I hate that our win rates are stuck at 30%, which means we’re going to miss the year by $20 million, which is *not* okay.”
Audience: True, but not helpful. Brad is always complaining.
Offer opinionated guesses
Just saying what you feel, without data.
“I think the website is totally wrong for our ICP.”
Audience: Oh god, Brad’s going to start another science project that goes nowhere.
Go along lazily
Not contributing to a discussion of a problem/solution. Just waiting for the boss/group to decide. This makes you seem like you don’t have a point of view, or expertise.
“Well whatever we decide to do, I’m willing to roll up my sleeves and pull a team together to work on it.”
Audience: Brad always talks like a team player. But makes everyone else do the work.
Use conversations to push your ideas, without listening
You’re excited by your idea. Good, but just pitching it won’t help the *whole* group.
“I want to start with my idea for what I think we need to do.”
Audience: Oh god. Here we go again. I wonder what’s for lunch.
Thrash
Jumping from one problem to another, some of them small things, some big. Whingeing on about a different problem each week.
“Have you seen the partner-sourced pipeline in Europe? It’s terrible.”
“I watched some Gong calls, and our demos are embarrassing.”
“Our product’s limitations on mobile are costing us business every month.”
Audience: Thanks for stating the obvious, Brad. What an asshole.
Conclusion: The Power of Choice
If you want to accelerate your career, you need to maximize your impact.
But you have a choice between working toward that like a leader, or being an asshole.
Which are you going to choose?
From the front porch in Moss Beach,
Tenders
Product Marketing Best Practices 