#announcements

Important info for Customer Marketers & Community members

Thread

Val Geisler February 07, 2023 at 02:48 PM

My team sits in the Product Marketing org. We got a new team lead in September and she doesn't know what to do with us... and refuses to accept any of the "managing up" that I've done to date to help her understand. She wrote a new charter for us with no input from me. She knows PMM and I've come to realize she wants us to be her PMMs on insights, not customer advocacy. Certainly not customer marketing. Which I guess insights _is_ a part of what we do in advocacy but it's an entirely different lens and, tbh, I don't want to be a PMM. Maybe I'm looking at it all wrong though. Has anyone been in this position before? I feel super stuck and would love to brainstorm if anyone's been in this or a similar sticky spot.

Mary Green (Owner CMAweekly) February 07, 2023 at 03:14 PM

Hi @Val Geisler I’ve been in a similar experiene where my position was strongly altered by new management. I ended up leaving. At one point I was able to have a good conversation with this person’s superiors and it did help a bit, but I know this isn’t always possible.

Jeanne Talbot February 07, 2023 at 04:38 PM

Do you have a Forrester subscription? If so, set up an inquiry with Laura Ramos and Amy Bills. Just a thought.

Val Geisler February 07, 2023 at 04:42 PM

@Jeanne Talbot I don't... can you say more about this? I don't see the connection.

Jeanne Talbot February 07, 2023 at 05:18 PM

Often times leaders who don’t understand need to hear from someone they see as an authority. Laura and Amy are experts in our field from Forrester. Typically if you have a subscription to Forrester you get access to their research but you can also schedule inquiry calls and ask them questions about the structure and scope of responsibilities for certain roles for example. Having this kind of conversation with your leader, and Forrester could shine a light on the ways that your new leader is setting the team up for a lack of success. Let me know if you’d like to talk about this further. You’d have to have a specific marketing subscription to Forrester in order for this to be realistic but it’s just a thought.

Mary Green (Owner CMAweekly) February 07, 2023 at 05:37 PM

Ohh, that’s awesome. I need to be a Forrester customer. I love Laura Ramos.