Most Important Skills for a Group Manager Product Marketing at Cisco
Stephanie, a Group Manager of Product Marketing at Cisco, emphasizes three crucial skills for success: "being a core storyteller" and simplifying complex information, strong relationship-building and influencing skills to collaborate effectively across departments, and robust project management capabilities to quarterback product launches and marketing initiatives. This reflects the multifaceted nature of product marketing, requiring a blend of communication, interpersonal, and organizational expertise.
Storytelling, Relationship Building, Collaboration, Project Management, Communication
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Stephanie Sosa
Group Manager, Product Marketing
Cisco
UCLA
N/A
Anthropology, Sociology
Technology
Communication and Marketing
Greek Life Member
Video Highlights
1. Storytelling and simplifying complex technical information are crucial for effectively communicating product value to both internal and external audiences.
2. Building strong relationships and collaborating effectively with various teams and individuals across different departments is essential for successful product marketing.
3. Project management skills are vital for coordinating and executing product launches and marketing campaigns, ensuring all teams meet deadlines and deliverables.
Transcript
What skills are most important for a job like yours?
I would say there are probably a few things that I particularly look for when I develop on my team. One, at the core of it, are you a storyteller? Product marketers' main job is to bring the stories of our product to life, not just to our internal teams, but to our existing customers or net new customers. So I really think that being a core storyteller and being able to bring technical terms into simplicity is incredibly important.
The second thing that I would also say is important as a PMM is relationship building. Are you really good at getting people to work with you? How do you work with people? How do you collaborate with people? As PMMs, we work with every single department internally, which means that we work with a variety of experiences, a variety of people who have different goals and backgrounds.
It's super crucial as a PMM that you understand what good collaboration is and you are able to not only work with them, but actually influence them. As PMMs, we also don't execute a lot of our own work, and so we have to get people to essentially do the work that we want them to do. So are you able to influence both your peers, but also influence leadership in case decisions are not aligned?
The last thing I will say is crucial as a skillset is project management. Again, as a traditional PMM, you are in charge of leading a launch or a go-to-market, which means you are working across every single internal team. But also, if you are doing a customer marketing event, you're working externally.
As a PMM, you are the quarterback. You have to ensure that every team is on time with their deliverables. You are the ones presenting things to execs. You are the ones coordinating across product, engineering, and design. So it is imperative that you know how to project manage. I literally joke with my team that a PMM is also a project manager, so if you've got that, you're good.