Making connections: The secret to exceptional cross-functional teams

This article originates from a presentation at the Product Marketing Summit in San Francisco, 2022.

Hey everyone, I'm here today to talk about working with cross-functional teams and how you can help them succeed. I've got a few hard-learned lessons to share about how we, as product marketers, can be the glue that holds these groups together.

But first, I want to level set. Right now, I'm running on caffeine and adrenaline. My company, NVIDIA, has a major biannual conference coming up in two weeks, and I'm involved with some of the big announcements and launches that are part of our keynote. No pressure, right?

So why am I writing this instead of frantically dealing with last-minute conference planning? Aside from being a workaholic overachieving perfectionist with impostor syndrome, I’m doing this because I've got an amazing cross-functional team.

Our group of product, sales, marketing, creative, campaign, events, and other teams have come together to pull something amazing off. We're now working on the final details, and I couldn't be prouder of how it's all coming together.

I can do this because I know that my team has my back, I know that we’re aligned on our objectives, I know that we all share and understand the same goals and needs, and can trust each other to make those goals happen.

So, how can you get here?

I want to do a quick thought exercise with you. Think of a time when you were in a room with a group of people that didn't really get along. You’re all working on the same project together, but there's a bit of tension. Maybe there are some heated discussions; maybe there are some strong debates; maybe there are some outright disagreements.

Are you thinking of a meeting with people outside of your immediate team? Are the people in that meeting from other teams like product or sales? I thought so.

Often, we as product marketers are in these cross-functional meetings. They're crucial for the work that we do. We can’t go off into a corner and build a marketing strategy or develop messaging and positioning on our own. We’re reliant on sales teams, product teams, and others for that input.

So what can we do about this tension? How can we help our cross-functional teams succeed? How can we make those meetings less awkward, and help everyone to get along? How can we be even more successful as a team than we've been before?

The secret is you. As a product marketer, you’re in a unique position to build connections and help bridge the gap between these disparate technical and non-technical teams with different objectives, who may not even speak the same language.

If you've ever worked in a tech company, you can understand the difference between the engineering jargon and the sales jargon and bridge those gaps, not to mention the gaps in the goals and KPIs of different teams.

Product marketers are born connectors

In preparing for this article, thinking about cross-functional teams, teamwork, and what that means as a product marketer, I rediscovered Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point. Perhaps you’ve read it – it's pretty well-known in product marketing circles.

He describes three types of people:

• Connectors,
• Mavens, and
• Salespeople.

The way he describes Connectors really stands out to me.

I wouldn't call myself the most extroverted person, but I absolutely love bringing people together. Even though I might not be the life of the party or the one that's typically up on a stage, I love connecting people who have something in common or might be able to help each other out. In my career, that's led me to mentorship, volunteering, and all kinds of incredible opportunities.

Rediscovering this book was also an 'aha' moment for me because I realized something else: this definition of a connector also applies to product marketing.

Where Gladwell says, “Having a foot in so many worlds, Connectors have the effect of bringing them all together,” and we can very easily change out “Connectors” for “product marketers”.

Now, let’s take a step back for a second because product marketing is, I would argue, a loaded term. There are a lot of different definitions of this role, but I love how Product Marketing Alliance illustrates the work we do in the diagram below.

Even if your role is more outbound, or you're more focused on content or sales enablement than overarching messaging and positioning, this structure makes sense.

ste

We’re essentially the driving force behind getting products to market and keeping them there. In representing the customer or developing our product messaging, enabling sales teams, or even helping drive product adoption, we’re working together with all these other teams. We’re dependent on them. We sit in the middle, and we ultimately bring them all together.

Product and sales are set pretty far apart, and that can cause problems. We in the product marketing world are focused on understanding the customer, understanding sales’ needs, understanding product development, understanding the roadmap, and bringing all of that together.

That allows us to develop realistic sales enablement material that ensures that the sales team is aligned on what the product can do, rather than selling the world.

So how do we do this effectively? What skills or superpowers do we need to hone to become connectors within our cross-functional teams? I'm going to share three that have really helped me. These are skills that we often use when we market externally, but they're just as valuable when we're working with our internal cross-functional teams.

PMM superpower number one: Translation

Product marketers are translators. By developing personas and segments, we help other teams to understand our audiences every day.

Think about how we can use that power internally. Maybe you’ve been in a room with a technical team and a sales team and realized that you understand what both sides are saying, but they don't seem to understand each other. I can't tell you how many times I've had to swoop in and explain what a CTA is, for instance.

Let’s look at some practical steps you can take to harness your translation superpower.

Step one: Listen actively

As a translator, the most important thing is to actively listen and understand what our team is really saying. For that, we need to make sure we’re paying attention to all sides.

Step two: Know where they’re coming from

Context is also crucial. Make sure you know where everybody is coming from. I've sat in a number of rooms, especially launch war rooms, where things have gotten heated. Maybe sales is demanding something and product teams are saying that they can't deliver it because the timing doesn't work.

Where are they coming from? Well, sales is under pressure to drive revenue and close deals, while product is under pressure to deliver a quality product. Understanding where each team is coming from is going to help you defuse that tension and bring everyone together.

Step three: Find a common language

We at NVIDIA have an entire internal glossary for all the different acronyms we use on a regular basis. And different teams use different acronyms, right? Sometimes they even have the same acronym for different things. One example is AR – that’s augmented reality to our product teams, but it means something entirely different for sales and comms.

Ultimately, you need to find a common language, even if it's just plain English. Because you’re all working in the same place, you can come back to the company’s overarching goals, visions, and objectives.

PMM superpower number two: Matchmaking

We product marketers are matchmakers. We bring people together all the time, and doing so with our cross-functional teams is key. Let’s explore how you can make that happen.

Tip number one: Collect acquaintances

Maybe you like to go to industry events and network with your peers. Me too. Think about how you can bring that same energy to your place of work and seize opportunities to gather and network with people.

I can't tell you how amazing it's been to get back to the office, even just a few days a week or every other week, because it allows me to organically connect with people. You can do that online too.

Tip number two: Introduce people

It's helpful to think about how you can connect people with others as well. I like to have one-on-ones with new employees. They might not be on my team; oftentimes they're working on an adjacent segment or industry, or they might be on the product team.

At the end of our one-on-one, I leave the new employee with some recommendations for people they should talk to because they have something in common or because they can help each other out.

Small things like that help build stronger networks, across your cross-functional teams. It also helps build your position as that hub to bring people together.

Tip number three: Think collaboratively

Finally, you want to take that matchmaking energy and build it into opportunities. Think collaboratively about what you could accomplish as a larger group. Maybe it's something as simple as a webinar.

Let’s say your focus is developers – you might be able to collaborate with your media and entertainment team to do something even greater than a focused developer webinar.

Maybe you can bring in some industry representatives and partners to do something really cool that is relevant to a larger audience. Plus, working with another team gives you more resources to make that happen.

PMM superpower number three: Mediation

Our position of being in the middle comes with some challenges and a lot of responsibility. Because we know where everybody’s coming from and understand all the different languages being spoken at the table, we're in a position to help everyone find common ground. Coming back to that tense meeting room where not everyone is on the same page, how can you help bring them together?

Tip number one: Assume the best intentions

This one took me a while to learn. Coming into some of these discussions, I was kind of in a defensive position as well. I had my objectives and I wanted to make sure that I was heard.

When I didn’t get the feedback I wanted, it was frustrating. Oftentimes, it felt like a personal attack or an attack on my team and the work that we were doing. Marketing can feel like a thankless job where no one's exactly happy with us.

In spite of this, you have to assume the best intentions. Sales have their objectives – they have quotas to reach. Product wants to make sure what they put out there isn't buggy and makes customers happy. Everyone is coming to the table with their own reasons and objectives, and it's really valuable to assume that they mean the best for the company, for the team, and for your goals.

Tip two: Identify shared goals

Centering around shared goals feels pretty obvious, especially as we all work on our strategies and build OKRs, but it's really valuable as a team to center around something specific.

If you’re in a cross-functional team that's working on a specific product launch, what shared goals do you have around that launch? Are you driving a new vertical? Are you driving specific adoption numbers, or are you also looking at just getting awareness out there? Maybe your product team’s goal is just to understand how users will work with the product. Things like that can come into play as you build goals together.

Tip three: Align on objectives and KPIs

Of course, you want to turn those goals into something tangible, and you can do that by aligning objectives and KPIs. This, I’ve found, can be hard. Everybody has their own KPIs, but what are some common objectives that drive back to those goals?

For my team, this can be as simple as looking at awareness together. We want to understand how our product is being received, what volume of impressions it’s getting, what kind of engagement it’s driving, and how it’s impacting our share of voice. We also want to understand and drive adoption, so that’s an important metric for everybody involved in the cross-functional team.

Some metrics that come more from our sales and partnerships side are partners, lighthouse accounts, and integration of our technologies in public-facing solutions. T

hat last one is really valuable for me as a product marketer to build use cases from; it's also important for our product team to understand so they can see what our solutions look like in the field.

To sum up…

I've shared three product marketing superpowers. These shouldn't be net new skills; they should be things that we do every day with our external audiences, but they're also extremely valuable to bring back to our cross-functional teams.

I want to leave you with a final quote. This really speaks to me because I've definitely learned this the hard way. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

My company has a philosophy of “team of four,” which is essentially the core cross-functional team – the people that you can't do your work without. The team of four goes beyond the framework of decision-makers, stakeholders, reviewers, and approvers. It’s the core team that you work alongside for everything that you do.

Think about your team of four and how you can leverage your superpowers to bring them all together.