As PMM, how do you get buy-in with senior stakeholder in a big SaaS tech organisation to execute your GTM strategy in the region?

Do not launch in that market/region if you do not have support. Instead, focus on other areas/regions that do, shore up your resources and be a bigger success. Nothing is more attractive than a successful product elsewhere, so if you find success in other regions, the stakeholder will be asking for you to come to the market. 

A seniors sales stakeholder in a SaaS organization's job is to drive revenue, and the easiest way for them to do that is to launch a new product. If they are not welcoming the new product with open arms, it probably has big flaws and they don't want to go through the trouble of launching it or already biased against it. I would meet with that stakeholder for feedback. You can use the 5A Framework to keep it high level, and get solid feedback.  

"If they don't sweat you, don't sweat them," Kunal Merchant, PMM at Meta.

I could be butchering his quote, but this is something that has stuck with me through the years, and is great life advice. I actually think it works well with dating too. ;-) 

Also, I'm making the assumption here that the senior stakeholder is a SALES/REVENUE driving stakeholder. 

A colleague once told me that Product Marketing is a team sport. I couldn't agree more, and gaining alignment and getting buy-in with stakeholders is a critical success factor in the role. The questioner asks about senior stakeholders, but I think it’s important for product marketers to think about all stakeholders, regardless of the level or title.

The first -- and most important -- part of buy-in is listening. Great product marketing leaders listen very well. If I’m starting in a new role or building a new program, I start by listening to stakeholders so that I understand their perspectives and viewpoints.

Listening leads to understanding and insight, but it doesn’t mean taking orders. The next step in getting buy-in is to formulate your own opinion. This is an area where I see product marketers stumble - they translate their listening tours directly into action without forming their own opinion. Stakeholders – especially executive stakeholders – are rarely looking for ‘yes people’. They want thought partners who have strong conviction (even if loosely held) and a POV.

Another tool in the buy-in-toolkit is to establish ground rules for decision-making at the outset. I’m a big big fan of the RASCI model (see this post) as a way to build trust and make decisions.

What if you’ve done all of the above and you still don’t have buy-in? What else can you do? There are more actions you can take. Try getting everyone in the same room to debate and mine for conflict and, if there still isn’t alignment, strive for a ‘disagree and commit’ agreement. That approach is effective most of the time because you’ve created an environment where everyone is heard.

Finally, one of the most important ways to gain buy in, especially with executive stakeholders, is to root your recommendations in the business. Understand the metrics that drive the business and levers that drive those metrics -- with that approach, you'll rarely be misaligned. 

We used a RAPID framework and set up 1-2 hour sessions to review with the executive leadership team. The RAPID framework stands for:

Recommended

Agree

Perform

Input

Decide

You outline key exec stakeholders in each, and allow them to Approve/Reject and provide "input" while outlining all the reasonings for your (specific) recommendation. 

I can walk through an example LIVE of how we did this for GTM strategy in 2023!

Tbh—this is very hard since most of us sit in North America, and we think the world ends in North America. 

The key here is to listen to their priorities. They are on the ground and might have different needs. Start with your internal customers before you push for a global GTM strategy. Make sure the diagnosis of the problem in your strategy includes their issues. If their issues are addressed, the rest is more about alignment and ensuring they have a stake in the game, meaning they have to do something to make this strategy come to life. 

First, you've got to find out who will be impacted by it. Sales, support, operations, marketing... all of these teams need to come together for a successful GTM execution. There are so many moving parts, that having clearly articulated goals for the GTM and getting alignment across teams is what will define success.

The key with getting buy-in with senior stakeholders is to engage them at the right time, with the right level of detail, so that you’re able to understand what matters most to each stakeholder and how to best incorporate their input. There are a few components to doing this well:

• Clearly outline the DACI (driver, approver, contributor, informed) for the GTM. Understand whether each senior stakeholder is an approver, contributor, or informed. Just because a stakeholder is senior does mean they are an approver. You should aim to have no more than 3 approvers. Everyone else will be a contributor or informed, which means that you and the approvers can choose to accept or reject their input.

  • Communicate this DACI and ensure that they understand how they and their teams will be expected to contribute to this GTM.

• Develop an executive summary version of your GTM and share it with these stakeholders.

• Share this GTM with each senior stakeholder, preferably first in a 1:1 or small group setting. This ensures that you’re not bombarded with feedback. If there is anyone not aligned with the strategy, or the launch provokes controversy, there is a safer feeling space for both that person to express their concerns, and you to make them feel heard.

Once you’ve gotten initial alignment, you can kick off the GTM with a large group of stakeholders across levels of seniority. It is also a good idea to keep an open channel and communicate any changes to the plan based on how it is unfolding with frontline stakeholders.