Sarah Urbonas

It sounds like you're mastering your craft in PMM with multiple promotions & raises (congrats!), so I'll focus my answer on building your leadership muscle to help your leadership team view you as a candidate for people management. * Career Conversations: Set up dedicated time with your manager (separate from recurring 1:1s) to talk about your aspirations & ask what's needed to get there. This transparency in your career goals empowers your manager to share feedback to help you get to the next level, either at your company or elsewhere. * Mentorship: Start building managerial muscles by mentoring more junior PMMs and seeking projects to informally manage them (with their manager's blessing, of course). Even if you don't have the org structure, this gives you examples to speak to in interviews on your people management skills. * Networking: Expand your network through industry and leadership events to build new skills you can test drive in your current role and meet PMM leaders who will help mentor and champion your career. I made the jump from PMM IC to people manager almost 6 years ago and am continuing to leverage the above strategies to both expand my leadership skills & my team's professional development - so it's an ongoing journey! Hope this is helpful & wishing you luck in this next career chapter.

The north star I try to stay grounded in through uncontrollable external factors: stay human & customer centric. This will help you make faster, more focused decisions that land with customers vs feeling opportunistic or tone deaf in uncertain times. At Dropbox, we launched a deep integration with Zoom in February 2020 to drive MM/ENT Dropbox usage. When COVID hit in March, we saw an uptick in integration adoption as Zoom became a household name and foundational SaaS tool. We listened to the market and quickly shifted our positioning from enhancing collaboration to powering remote work (a novel JTBD at the time!). This customer centricity enabled Dropbox to be the first company in the market to talk about distributed teams and async work, and because of this, helped us gain credibility addressing a new customer need well beyond our Zoom partnership. To help operationalize this new GTM strategy, we secured additional EPD resourcing to ensure the product could support an unprecedented uptick in adoption. We also shifted sales enablement from selling a collaboration tool to selling a new way of working - which is where staying human comes in. We built deep empathy with business leaders recognizing they were unsure how to maintain business momentum with teams unprepared to work from home indefinitely, and refined our pitch accordingly. Not all GTM shifts as a result of uncontrollable factors have been as successful, of course, but remaining customer centric allowed us to make quick decisions to rewire our GTM strategy. It was also one of the most rewarding career experiences as we became a source of support & reassurance for customers as they navigated this new way of working.

The question I ask every PMM candidate: "What is your major & minor in Product Marketing?" PMMs flex many muscles, but asking this question helps me learn 1) where you shine the most, and 2) your humility as a team member. The strongest answers I've heard have focused on skillset strengths with specific examples, and how they lean on xfn peers in their 'minors' that aren't quite as skilled at or find as fulfilling. Highly recommend asking this question for roles beyond PMM too - oftentimes the majors/minors will help uncover superpowers you wouldn't have known through traditional interviews Qs!

Imitation doesn't feel like the highest form of flattery when competitors copy work that required months of research, customer validation, and building. Here are a few tips to stay ahead of the competition. * Impact Metrics: Whenever possible, leverage a customer to beta the product or feature you're launching to come out of the gates with impact metrics (ie, time/money saved). We did this a lot at Dropbox to build credibility with strong customer logos, especially when entering new markets. It also exposes copycat launches as fluff vs substance. * Resonance: Brand Marketing is PMM's right hand to help stay top of mind & differentiated among competitors. Share competitive intel and persona research with them to empower them to build campaigns that keep target audiences consistently engaged across channels and loyal to your company. * Innovation: Always plan what you're building in 6-12 months to stay ahead of the curve & focused on what will differentiate you in the broader market landscape. At Brex we have a 2+ year roadmap to keep teams & resources focused so we can innovate at a faster pace than competitors. Finally, don't write off competitors copying your products and features - understand how they're positioning, pitching, and packaging a similar offering to strengthen your strategy. I've found gaps in my approach from competitors just as much as customer research, so use it to your advantage!

These are my three tried-and-true steps to prepare for and land your dream PMM role. 1. Create a 'job brief' with company information, recent news, flagship customers, target segments, and current messaging/positioning to orient around. Use this as your north star as you study & formulate interview questions & answers. This is typically one page with links out to news articles, website pages, & customer stories. 2. Write out your accomplishments to demonstrate why you'd succeed in this role based on the JD. I typically build talking points on 5 projects I'm proud of (including things that I wish I did differently), 3 examples of xfn work, ~3 things I failed at, ~3 strengths/weaknesses. This is typically 3-5 pages of bullets. 3. Use ChatGPT & Zoom to randomly ask questions while you're recording yourself after you've studied the above docs (pro tip, give ChatGPT the JD & prompt it to ask Qs you may be asked in the interview!). Watch it back & critique your responses to with a lens of concision & storytelling. Luck favors the prepared, so there's no such thing as overkill when it comes to interview prep. And don't forget to play a pump-up playlist before your interview :) good luck!