Get into flow with Enablement

“Keep your friends close, and your enablement team closer” - Thomas Parke D’Invilliers Enablement teams are critical partners to product marketers. Great enablement increases your impact on the business.Strong relationships with enablement will make you a better PMM. PMM & Enablement In FlowI’ve been lucky to work with some terrific enablement folks. PMMs bring expertise in the … Continue reading Get into flow with Enablement →

Use Titles & Headlines to Get Your Way

First Impression RulesI could have called this post “Overview of slide titles and headlines”Ugh. Titles and headlines are precious, because they are: The first thing people see An opportunity to make the audience think or do something A chance to hook their emotions Tell Me What to Think or DoThe best presentation titles and slide … Continue reading Use Titles & Headlines to Get Your Way →

Design a Great PMM Team

PMM leaders thrive when they lead a high-impact, innovative, and happy team. Everything’s clicking.Everyone is doing great stuff.The company sees it and calls it out. I was on teams like that 5 times in 21 years as an employee.In 7 years of coaching, I’ve seen it another 2 times. It’s rare. Each high-performing team had great … Continue reading Design a Great PMM Team →

3 Critical Thinking Behaviors for PMMs

My best CEO taught me that a lot of product marketing’s value is influence on company decisions. To that end, she taught me (and demanded) 3 critical thinking behaviors. Why Critical Thinking Matters to Product MarketersPMMs influence decisions with lots of people involved, and lots of ambiguity.Our job is to drive good discussions around those … Continue reading 3 Critical Thinking Behaviors for PMMs →

Put Social Conflict to Work

When we hear the word ‘conflict’ we think of wars and attacks.We think of loud verbal arguments.But assault and loud arguments are just extreme types of conflict.Those are counter-productive at work.Don’t do them. But there is a productive type of conflict: social conflict.Social conflict helps groups of humans perform better. Embrace social conflict:Ask for advice or help.Ask … Continue reading Put Social Conflict to Work →

Get Your Way without Being an Asshole: 5 Good Behaviors & 5 Bad Ones

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 … Continue reading Get Your Way without Being an Asshole: 5 Good Behaviors & 5 Bad Ones →

A Foundation for Great Executive Presentations

Want to get better? Up your game on presenting to executives. Because your work will achieve *way* more, with executive support. And your work & impact will improve with good executive direction. Plus you’ll get: Faster decisions & clearer feedback Better executive relationships & career advancement Shorter & fewer meetings In this post I'll cover the … Continue reading A Foundation for Great Executive Presentations →

Best Practice: Work with CSMs

If you want to understand customers,so you can better position your products, then work with your ally, the customer success manager (CSM). CSMs and Their Relationships Many PMMs choose sales people as their primary path to customers. That’s good. AEs win by finding a business need so important/urgent they can drive a deal. But CSMs often build … Continue reading Best Practice: Work with CSMs →

The 7 Product Marketing Muscles

Plus ça change: I've seen the same thing over and over across two decades of product marketing in companies big and small, in unicorns and in turnarounds: there are 7 product marketing (PMM) muscles that make the biggest impact. On my 4 product lines at Salesforce and Oracle, I saw some great examples of all … Continue reading The 7 Product Marketing Muscles →