AMA: HubSpot Head Of Product Marketing, Tiffany Tooley on Building A Product Marketing Team

I think you have to remember that people typically stay with an organization when 5 things exist: 1. A great culture that they believe in 2. Sticky relationships with their peers 3. Good pay & benefits 4. They're appreciated and can see how they can grow their careers 5. Good work/life balance Focusing on balancing those 5 things and keeping your finger on the pulse of them is key to retaining great talent. If one or more of these aren't addressed, it can be really challenging for your team to want to stay and for you to keep them. 

Great question! Sounds like your team is really prioritizing the awareness and consideration phase of your buyer's journey, so you're optimizing for product intel, launches and then sales enablement/support. I think one other area to consider, which may be in your launch team's remit, is buyer enablement and customer stories/proof, so the experience and content you're creating to help your buyers quickly and confidently make decisions. Outside of that, I'd recommend you have a good partnership with your competitive team, so that those insights can help support your messaging and GTM strategies. Moving forward, you'll want to decide if you start to support additional organizational goals of product adoption, customer advocacy, etc. These aren't sometimes areas that small teams support to start, but over time can really prove to be invaluable multipliers for an organization

We start by co-creating it! It's very much a collaborative exercise across the team to determine how we want to show up as a team! Some of it comes from listening to individuals, replaying back what you've heard and key themes, and then using that to facilitate good conversations around what's next. We very much anchor our team values back to HubSpot's culture code, which embraces Humility, Empathy, Authenticity, Relatability, and Transparency. We also recognize the values we create have to be centralized, reinforced, shared with others across the org and then measured, so they're not only easy to find but are prioritized and shared to set the right expectations for all. Lastly, I think once you codify your team's individual values you should take a step back each year and assess whether they're still relevant for the coming year and if not, support new team-wide conversations on how to modify them. 

This is a fun question! I'd say you want to typically start with the Product first. If you have overlap, meaning one persona often purchases multiple products (especially if they're purchasing them at once), then you could certainly consider starting with the Persona approach first and building a solutions strategy over a product-oriented one. If however, your persona typically purchases one product at a time, I recommend you start with the Product approach and then support your teams with a better understanding of the factors that matter most to your primary personas, so those can help inform them and your buyers as they make their purchase decisions. Customer lifecycle stage is something else to consider early on if you have one product or if you have a fair large or sophisticated team.

This very much depends on your company size, but I'd say the basics are: * Messaging & Positioning * GTM Strategy Development & Execution * Sales & Buyer Enablement * Campaign Support * Competitive Support * Consistent partnerships with Product, Sales & Customers There are always a ton of questions about TAM, Pricing & Packaging, Personas, etc. I've been on teams where those things are certainly supported or led by PMM teams, but as the business scales, I often find the TAM, Pricing & Packaging work tends to transition to strategy or pricing teams and the persona work is typically either folded into the enablement workstreams that PMM leads or is supported across the organization by a multitude of teams.

Great question! I'd recommend 4 things: 1. Stay up on current trends in the industry. This seems like a no-brainer, but it's one of the things that I see folks deprioritize as they're working to get things done early in their careers. Whether it's AdWeek, Forbes, you name it! Stay up on the recent trends and technologies on a weekly basis. 2. If your organization has a sales team, get to know them and your customers. They're your primary "customers", so spend time listening - understanding their challenges, the opportunities they have, and identifying valuable ways to help them. 3. Mentorship matters! If you don't have a mentor, reach out to the senior leaders and individuals within your company that you admire, so you can learn from them 4. I highly recommend programs like The Marketing Academy, which are cohort-based and meant to help support both your personal and professional growth. Best of luck to you!

I've done a lot of interviews and hiring over the years and I'm constantly impressed by how smart and driven Product Marketers are! It's one of the things that makes interviewing so much fun - you get an opportunity to talk to and learn from the best of the best. That said, I think there are a few things that really stand out for me, and they are: * Curiosity - Most candidates are well-educated and skilled, so it's the folks with humility and a curiosity to learn that really shine during the interview process and on my team * Customer-First - Candidates with deep empathy for the customer (both buyers and sales) and can show consistent examples of how the work they've done has been developed with them in mind * Creativity - Whether it's their ability to creatively solve problems or the level of creativity they bring to their campaigns and strategies, I often find that these individuals are the spark of innovations that a team or project needs! * Resourcefulness - I believe you don't always have all the answers and neither do those around you. The best candidates can share how they've identified solutions across their team during ambiguous times. They don't let the lack of clarity prohibit their progress. Instead, they take steps to build clarity. * Impact-Focused - Finally, they never forget that the reason they're leading all the projects and programs at their organization is to have an impact. The best candidates can speak clearly to the impact they have had and have a POV on the additional impact they'd like to see. 

Without knowing how many you're talking about, this is a bit of a tough question to answer with specificity, but I'd say you definitely need to create and/or revisit your operating model every time 2-3 new people join your team, especially when you're going from 1-4. Think about establishing principles for: Who is doing what? (i.e your key functions and workstreams - I often find DARCIs help out here) How you'll share information - (i.e. which meetings help us discuss and progress our workstreams) Where you'll share information (email, project management tool, chat, etc) When you'll share information (i.e. what's your preferred cadence) How you prefer things to be done (these are your standards or best practices) Starting with those 5 things should help you start to build a living operating model that your team can iterate on as it continues to scale. 

I'd say there are 3 things to keep in mind as a new PMM: 1. Go easy on yourself and prioritize the things that will have the biggest impact. Product Marketers are central to a GTM strategy, but that doesn't mean you have to know everything or do everything. Think of your career less like a sprint (which leaves you quickly exhausted and solely focused on getting across the finish line!) but more as a run (in which you can manage a comfortable conversation and can keep your head up to see and embrace new opportunities 2. Prioritize ongoing learning. You're new! Taking time to prioritize and then schedule time for peer learning or to take on new experiences or stretch goals. You learn so much in your first few years that can set you up long-term for success! 3. Work with your manager to build an Individual Growth Plan. Think about where you want to be in the next 3-5 (maybe even 7 years) and start to work back from there. The sooner you can identify the steps you need to take to reach your goals, the faster you'll be able to meet them and have the clarity and insight needed to guide the choices and decisions you'll certainly be making on your journey. 

This one is so important! That's because it helps define your team's strategic impact on the organization. At a very high level, I think your team's goals should directly map into the company's organizational goals so that your team can convey how they're helping to grow the business. Once you've defined the team's prospective impact on your annual goals, then you can determine how your respective sub-teams across your PMM team (or individuals if you're leading a smaller team) can support them. At an IC (individual contributor) level, you may see workstreams that are more tactical in nature. That's to be expected! But each person on your team should understand how they're contributing to the greater goals of the team and organization. My recommendation to help get buy-in on all of this is to have your team help co-create these goals. As a leader, you may be defining the team's key objectives, but should consider how you can empower each member on the team to define how they achieve those.