Weedmaps

Senior AI Product Manager, Search and Personalization

Systems of Impact

AI Product Management Consultant

Product Manager Accelerator

Product Mentor

Mozilla

Achievements:
•	Led a 5-person cross-functional team to implement the first experimental design with AI/ML experimental capabilities at Pocket, a B2C social bookmarking product for storing, sharing and discovering web bookmarks.
•	$3M revenue growth by expanding Pocket Recommended content to international markets.
•	Managed the Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy for the B2C AI/ML home surface product, impacting 600k monthly active users (MAU), leading to an 8.18.% increase in customer engagement.

Responsibilities:
•	Managed 3 B2C AI/ML products, including a B2C AI/ML content delivery product, a cross-platform B2C AI/ML home surface product, and a B2C AI/ML international expansion product.
•	Led Product Roadmap, design, and MVP of B2C AI/ML platform in order to decrease machine learning model time to production.
•	Led the Product Roadmap for the B2C AI/ML content delivery product in order to decrease the bounce rate on the Home page.
•	Prioritized requirements for B2C product user onboarding by completing user interviews (Voice of Customer) to decrease Home bounce rate.
•	Wrote and prioritized User Stories, requirements, enhancements, and issues for a B2C AI/ML Pocket recommended content based on strategic, product, and business goals.
•	Set data-driven OKRs and KPIs in order to drive prioritization and roadmap decisions.
•	Collaborated cross-functionally to deliver B2C AI/ML Pocket-recommended content to new markets via Firefox New Tab (France, Italy, & Spain).

Staff Product Manager, Data Products & Machine Learning at Pocket

GameStop

Achievements:
•	Collaborated with the Product Details Page (PDP) team to increase and improve the recommendations shown on the page, leading to a 30% increase in average order value.
•	Led a 12-person team to implement in-house recommendations using Google Cloud Platform (GCP) across the entire product catalog, leading to increased recommendation placement by 75%, engagement by 11%, and overall rec revenue by 10%.

Responsibilities:
•	Led the Product Roadmap for a B2C AI/ML personalization product in order to increase average order value (AOV).
•	Collaborated cross-organization to re-platform the pricing engine MVP and its go-to-market (GTM) rollout across 3500 stores, leading to an estimated 75% reduction in manual pricing and pricing exceptions.
•	Interviewed 12+ customers and studied e-commerce market trends to understand customer needs and converted them into actionable engineering-focused user stories.
•	Set data-driven OKRs and KPIs in order to drive prioritization and roadmap decisions.
•	Organized and led agile ceremonies to prioritize user stories, provide guidance, and drive progress.

Senior Product Manager - Recommendations

MGM Resorts International

Achievements:
•	Launched the first personalized content within MGM in collaboration with Microsoft which resulted in $500k in net new revenue over a 90-day period.
•	Launched a Recommendation-as-a-Service Product (RaaS) serving both external and internal customers.

Responsibilities:
•	Wrote user stories, requirements, and prioritized for a B2C AI/ML product in Azure.
•	Conducted Voice of Customer Interviews and studied hospitality trends to understand customer needs, and converted them to actionable engineering-facing user stories.
•	Collaborated cross-functionally across 8 lines of business and engineering channel partners to scope, build requirements, develop, and deploy a RaaS Product.

Senior Product Manager - Personalization & Loyalty

Achievements: 
•	Led a 2-person team to launch a 0 to 1 MVP for restaurant recommendations via email, leading to $50k in net new revenue over 30 days.
•	Launched the first personalized content within MGM in collaboration with Microsoft which resulted in $500k in net new revenue over a 90-day period.

Responsibilities: 
•	Conducted Voice of Customer Interviews and studied hospitality trends to understand customer needs, and converted them to actionable engineering-facing user stories.

Product Manager - Customer Insights & Growth

Lender Toolkit, LLC

- Worked with customers to refine their processes and improve delivery times by up to 20%
- Created implementation analytics with Engineering team using PowerBI to track delivery times
- Worked with Ellie Mae to build and implement new cloud based software platform for next-gen experience

Product Manager / Implementation Project Manager

Reflex Media Inc

- Wrote user stories and Implemented ML-powered moderation techniques to manage messages and reduce customer support burden for a marketing agency, reducing support moderation by over 90% through ML image classification and natural language processing (NLP).
- Initiated work with Data Science to implement machine learning systems to improve user recommendations and increase user engagement
- Initiated work to understand the Google Ad Manager platform to work with Data Science and Digital Marketing to implement site-wide analytics and improve site ad conversion
- Initiated Ownership of Messaging and User Engagement of the Seeking site, increasing member engagement by 13%
- Worked within the Atlassian ecosystem (JIRA/Confluence) and managed feature backlog and spec creation for Dev, including prioritization

Associate Product Manager

Workfront

- Developed user interview strategy to improve Digital Asset Management (DAM) product offering
- Developed metadata reporting structure to understand user metrics and usage
- Owned product from Ideation through initial Growth phase
- Increased from 20 base customers to 132 customers in 6 months with no marketing, a 560% increase

Product Related:
- Part of core team to establish/test/deploy new Digital Asset Management (DAM) offering via agile product management methodology
- Initiated/Completed Market research of asset management competition
- Created insights, personas, user stories, and prioritization from interview process to establish an MVP
- Launched white label beta product to 20 businesses for testing and feedback
- Developed implementation methodology and initial KPI measurements to report to executive management
- Revised Digital Asset Management (DAM) process upon feedback and analytics of usage

Design Consultant Related:
- Created and tested new ways to deliver implementations using lean/agile methodology improving certain implementation tier delivery times down to 60 days from 4 to 6 months
- Process Mapped and streamlined customer processes thru Lean Six Sigma methodologies and worked with the customer to build into the Workfront tool

Associate Product Manager / CX Design Consultant

- Worked with “At Risk” clients to re-engage Executive management and increase Workfront usage
- In a year’s time, worked with nearly $5M worth of Annual Run Rate (ARR) At Risk clients and only had a $180k reduction in ARR
- Worked within our strategic team to develop product offerings whose end results were pushed out to the entire company, adding 10 additional products for Sales to generate revenue
- Worked with executive management on user adoption strategies and built process around it for additional product offerings for Customer Success to reduce overall cost center
- Subject Matter Expert (SME) for End-to-End solution for Workfront, Proof HQ, and Workfront DAM for Customer Success and Ops departments

Strategic Services Consultant

Primary Residential Mortgage

- Created and Developed a Project Management Office (PMO), creating a new department within the company
- Developed training programs to improve project management culture within the enterprise
- Head of the Project Review Committee, other members include C-Level and SVPs
- Managed projects with budgets of $250k up through $25M+
-- Cross-departmental collaboration of 24 different departments (inc vendors)
-- Timelines that spanned from a few months up to 1.5 years
- Researched and procured new PPM/Work Management solution (AtTask).
- Developed and Launched AtTask/Workfront to company of 2000 users over the course of 6 months

PMO Project Manager

- Project Management of new programs, initiatives and revenue channels.
- Contract Negotiation with External Vendors and Investors.
- Review and interpret Investor/Agency/MI memos and determine impact to the corporation.
- Identify/implement opportunities to leverage systems to reduce risk associated with programs.
- Research and gather business and/or financial information, perform ad hoc analysis to support business decisions and provide feedback to executive management regarding results.
- Develop a thorough understanding of the business and its functions, processes and operations.
- Keep abreast of business and market trends, which may affect the organization.
- Research new investors, establish any requirements, determine market need, build out program, launch to company

Program Administrator / Product Manager

- Facilitate and manage the lock pipeline for Secondary.
- Analyze existing reports used by the Secondary Marketing team to ensure accuracy and completeness of data. 
- Identify issues with current reporting mechanisms, determine cause and recommend solution to ensure accuracy and completeness.
- Analyze the delivery and transaction functions to identify opportunities to become more efficient.
- Assists in identifying and implementing process improvements for secondary marketing functions.
- Supports the Capital Market team as needed to assist in the fulfillment of trades.
- Supports the Program Admin team on the implementation of new products.

Secondary Marketing Analyst

I help non-technical product managers struggling with costly mistakes and burnout by using AI to streamline their work and save them a day per week.

Are you a product manager without a technical background, struggling to keep up with routine tasks? I help you use AI tools to make your workday more efficient, so you can focus on what really matters.

Here's how I can help:

- Actionable Roadmap: Clear steps to integrate AI into your daily workflow.

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I’m Sam, a Senior AI Product Manager with over 8 years of experience. I’ve helped manage over 12 AI products, generating more than $250M in revenue. Now, I’m focused on empowering product managers like you to achieve more with AI.

Want to learn more? Send me a DM with "Streamline" or join my free community: https://www.skool.com/systems-of-impact/about

Sam Montoya

AmplifyPM

Founded AmplifyPM to transform great Product Managers into even greater Product Leaders.

AmplifyPM was born from a synthesis of my passion for teaching and a recognition that too many PMs hit career roadblocks from a lack of key leadership skills (that nobody ever teaches). AmplifyPM leverages my over two decades of experience building products and high-caliber teams at world-class companies to empower PMs with the essential skills for success. Learn more at AmplifyPM.com.

Founder

Google

Led Google's Messages & Rich Communication Services (RCS) team - Android’s equivalent to iMessage.  RCS brings rich messaging to 1B+ Android Messages users across the globe.  Managed a team of product managers and led a 300+ person org with a $xxxM annual budget.

Previously, built Google's OTT Comms growth organization from the ground up.  Drove product strategy for user retention & acquisition, experimentation frameworks, and growth analytics.  Mentored other teams within Google on establishing growth teams.

Group Product Manager

Product Manager

Bazaarvoice

Led the company’s top product initiatives to create a defensible content & developer ecosystem and build a specialized data asset to enable the company’s next phase of growth.  Led multiple vendor and acquisition evaluations from opportunity analysis through launch to accelerate time-to-market in key business areas.

Director of Product Management

TrialPay, Inc.

Launched and managed products at a venture-backed alternative payments company. Built and managed a new business vertical to increase conversions through a proprietary incentive platform. Led product efforts to build an e-commerce engine from the ground up. Participated in both early & late-stage sales and business development deals as founding member of the sales engineering team. Worked closely with the founder and executive team.

Senior Product Manager

Yahoo!

Worked on Yahoo's next-generation Search Advertising Platform as a member of the Project Panama Team. Responsible for key backend components (e.g. editorial & geo-targeting systems). Led initiatives to streamline common development processes and improve poorly designed components; received recognition of accomplishments within 6 months of joining the team.

Software Engineer

Oracle Corporation

Worked with the iStore group to provide B2B and B2C e-commerce solutions. Led a high-visibility, high-impact project within 3 months of joining the team. Also worked with the DataGuard group to provide disaster recovery solutions for Oracle databases.

Zaplet, Inc.

Built consumer and enterprise software at a venture-backed software company.  Designed and implemented integral components of the Zaplet enterprise platform using Java, JSP, Enterprise Java Beans, and XML.  Scaled various processes as the business grew (e.g. new-hire training, documentation & coding standards, etc.).

You’re a great Product Manager.

You know you’ll be an even better Product Leader. But...

Why is it so hard to make the leap from PM → Product Leader?

Hard Truth #1:
Opportunities for advancement in product management are scarce. Product teams are typically smaller, and when leadership roles open, the competition is fierce. You need to be primed and ready for when your chance comes.

Hard Truth #2:
The skills that make you a stellar PM won't necessarily make you a stellar Product Leader. Leading 100 people isn't the same as leading 10; it requires a significant evolution of your skill set.

So, what skills do you need? How do you acquire them?

That's where I come in!

I’ve been building products for over 25 years, and have grown from leading a small team of 5 to leading a 300+ org at a top-tier company. I became a Product Leader by navigating the very same obstacles facing you today.  

My mission is to help great PMs like yourself transform into outstanding Product Leaders.

You can do it! There are immediate steps you can take starting today to set yourself on this path.

Follow me here on LinkedIn to discover how.


- - - - -
🔥 If you *really* want to fast-track your career, visit: amplifypm.com/transform

Roshan Gupta

Give me 20 seconds, and I will tell you exactly what kind of PM every company like Google, Meta, and Microsoft fights to hire.

It is not the PM with the most frameworks.
It is not the PM with the cleanest Jira board.
It is not even the PM with the strongest execution record.

Top companies hire the PM who demonstrates one critical trait:
Judgement.

When people trust your judgment, they can trust you with bigger problems, bigger scope, and bigger teams.

How do these PMs demonstrate judgement?
They make their thinking easy to follow.

Here is what these PMs do differently:

1. They lead with the problem, not the work.
They show the stakes first. People lean in.

2. They tell you what the data means, not what the data is.
Anyone can present numbers. Few can turn numbers into direction.

3. They make decisions simple to understand.
Not simplistic, just clear.

4. They shape the conversation.
Without dominating it. Without overselling. Without sounding defensive.

These PMs do not always have the loudest voice.
They simply create clarity everywhere they go. And clarity is what leaders hire.

If you have ever felt like your performance is strong but people still miss the value behind it, this is the skill you need next.

P.S. Enrollment for my upcoming cohort on Persuasive Storytelling for PMs is closing soon. 

Like 100+ thriving PMs I guided, if you also want to build the communication skill that helps you get seen and paid like a leader, register here: https://lnkd.in/dwvXarPH

Follow me to go from PM → Product Leader 🪜 | Founder of AmplifyPM (ex-Google, Meta, Yahoo, startups) | I grew from leading a team of 5 to leading a 300+ org. I'll show you how to do the same.

What Product Managers say V/S what they actually mean. I swear every PM reads these and thinks, “Yeah… that checks out.”

PM says: “We should validate this with data.”
Means: “Someone is going to challenge this, and I need armor.”

PM says: “We are refining the problem statement.”
Means: “Five people said five different things, and I somehow have to piece this together.”

PM says: “We may need more time.”
Means: “This timeline was fiction from the start.”

PM says: “Let’s keep this high level.”
Means: “If we go deeper, we will be here for three hours.”

PM says: “We need alignment.”
Means: “Everyone thinks they are solving a different problem.”

PM says: “This is a simple change.”
Means: “It is not simple at all, but I cannot open that can of worms right now.”

PM says: “I will follow up offline.”
Means: “Nobody agreed, and now I need to calm everyone down one by one.”

We laugh at these, but they are real.

Most of the PM job is translating what you really mean into something people can actually act on.

And honestly, it gets easier when you learn how to structure your message clearly.

Share this post if you find it relatable.

P.S. If you want to get better at communicating your ideas without all the PM decoding, you can learn those skills at your own pace inside Persuasive Storytelling for PMs.

Get it here: https://lnkd.in/d5E3MQ-N

Underrated advice I got as a PM: DO NOT be a good Product Manager.


For years, I thought “good” was enough.
Good strategy
Good execution
Good decisions
Good instincts

But being good does not move your career.
Being good only matters when others can understand why you are good.

And that part is almost always invisible.

Your best work happens inside your head.
→ How you weigh trade offs.
→ How you interpret messy data.
→ How you decide what not to build.
→ How you frame a problem so a team can act.

None of that shows up in Jira tickets or dashboards.
If you do not communicate your judgment, people only see the output.

And output alone does not tell the story of your impact.

That is why many good PMs stay stuck.
Their quality is real, but their visibility is not.

The shift for me came when I stopped assuming people “got it” and started making my thinking explicit.

Instead of explaining what happened, I explained why it mattered.
Instead of presenting data, I shared the meaning behind it.
Instead of waiting to be asked, I led with a point of view.

That is when people started seeing your leadership, not just work.

P. S. More than 100 PMs have already learned how to communicate their thinking clearly inside Persuasive Storytelling for PMs.

Register for the cohort and learn how to tell your story like a leader that gets you noticed, and paid: https://lnkd.in/dwvXarPH

📌 Currently, Maven is offering a flat 25% off on the Cohort for Black Friday. Register now.

Three years ago, I hit a breaking point in my career. So I did something I never thought I would do. I left Google, packed up my life, and moved my family across the world.

I had the GPM title, the compensation, the stability, but none of it felt sustainable anymore.

People called it bold.
It did not feel bold at the time. It felt necessary.

Here is the part I did not expect.

Leaving did not magically fix the habits that burned me out.
- The pace followed me.
- The pressure followed me.
- My need to prove myself followed me.

It took me a while to accept that the real change I needed was internal.

Here are the three things that made the difference for me.

1. Your habits travel with you.
New country, same patterns.
If you want a different life, you have to change the way you operate, not just where you operate.

2. A shift in perspective can be more powerful than a shift in location.
You do not need to move continents to see your work, your career, or yourself differently.
Sometimes a single moment of clarity can do more than a big life decision.

3. Community matters more than we admit.
Moving forced me to build new relationships.
It also showed me how disconnected I had become while trying to “keep up.”

The move did not solve everything.
But it gave me enough space to finally ask a better question:
What kind of life do I want to build, and what habits do I need to leave behind to build it?

If you are sitting with your own version of that question, trust the signal.
Change starts long before you pack a box.

P.S. If you are a PM who's feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure of what the next chapter should look like, book a free discovery call with me here: https://lnkd.in/d6hN7vYv

Let’s build a strategy that gets you from where you are now to the leader that you want to be.

I will never forget the day a VP stopped me mid-sentence and said, “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Roshan.”

He wasn’t angry or dismissive. He just looked confused.
But it hit me harder than if he had yelled.

I remember walking out of that room feeling embarrassed.
Not because I did not know the answer, but because I knew it too well.

I dumped every detail.
Every assumption.
Every data point.
And I thought that made me sound prepared.

It did the opposite.

He couldn’t see my thinking. Just the noise around it.

That day forced me to look at my communication with uncomfortable honesty.

I had to learn how to think out loud in a way people could follow.
- How to strip away what was interesting and focus on what was essential.
- How to get to the point without rushing.
- How to sound clear without dumbing anything down.

And here’s what I learned:
People don’t assume you’re smart because you think deeply.
They assume it when they can understand your thinking quickly.

Once that clicked, everything about how I showed up as a PM changed.

P.S. If this feels a little too familiar, you’re not alone. More than 100 PMs have learned the same skill inside Persuasive Storytelling for PMs.

Register for the cohort, if you want to be the PM who gets heard, and paid like the leader you already are: https://lnkd.in/dwvXarPH

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Talks about #leadership, #storytelling, #productmanager, #productmanagers, and #productmanagement

The biggest PM career myth I believed for half my career is the same one holding many PMs back today.

I used to think promotions were about scope.
Bigger surface area.
More teams.
More responsibilities.
More everything.

So I kept taking on more. And it never moved the needle.

Because promotions are not based on how much you carry.

They are based on how well you carry it.
They are based on how much people trust your judgment.

Scope is not the signal. Trust is.

The moment this clicked for me, everything about how I worked changed.

I stopped trying to impress people with how much I was juggling.
I started focusing on how I made decisions, how I communicated them, and how clearly I could help people understand the path forward.

You do not get promoted because your workload grew.
You get promoted because leaders believe you can lead others through uncertainty without losing clarity.

That is the part no one teaches you.
Not in onboarding.
Not in PM books.
Not in bootcamps.

But once you understand it, you stop chasing more scope and start building more trust.

And that is when your career starts to move.

P.S. If you want to build the communication and decision clarity that actually earns trust, you can learn those skills at your own pace inside Persuasive Storytelling for PMs. 

Get it here: https://lnkd.in/ept7B9Rr

Product Managers with this skill make $30K–$70K more than an Average PM.
Same title, same company, and same years of experience. 

I’ve seen this happen at FAANG and startups alike. Every performance cycle, two PMs with identical results end up with very different outcomes.

It’s not luck. It’s perception.

Because at senior levels, impact doesn’t speak for itself - you do.

One PM presents their work tactically:
“We improved retention by 12% after optimizing onboarding.”

The other frames it strategically:
“We know churn has been a problem for the company. We decided to start with onboarding. So far, we’ve increased retention by 12% by helping more users reach value faster.”

Same data, but:
Different framing.
Different promotion packet.
Different comp band.

Storytelling isn’t “nice to have”. It’s how you connect your work to what the business values most - growth, trust, and momentum.

And it’s how good PMs turn performance into perception, and perception into promotion.

P.S. If you’ve ever been the PM doing great work but still getting overlooked, check out Persuasive Storytelling for PMs - the system that’s helped 100+ PMs communicate with clarity, win buy-in faster, and accelerate their next promotion.

Don't just do the good work, make sure it's visible. 

(Link in comments.)

If I ever got the chance to restart my PM career, I would avoid the 4 mistakes that most Product Managers repeat every single day.

These mistakes looked harmless at the time.
Some even felt like good habits.
But they slowed my growth more than any lack of skill ever did.

Here is what I wish someone had told me much earlier.

Mistake 1. Clarity is not the same as detail.
Early on, I thought adding more context made me sound prepared.
In reality, it buried the message.
People follow PMs who get to the point, not PMs who take the room on a tour.

Mistake 2. Staying quiet does not make you thoughtful.
I used to wait for the perfect moment to speak.
By then, the decision had already formed.
What people want from a PM is a point of view, not perfection.

Mistake 3. Information without interpretation is noise.
I brought clean metrics, polished decks, and complete updates.
But leaders do not remember information.
They remember what the information means for the business.

Mistake 4. Trying to impress people usually pushes them away.
I overexplained.
I tried to sound smart.
Influence has nothing to do with impressing people.
It comes from simple, confident explanations that make others feel grounded.

If you saw yourself in even one of these, I want you to know something.
There is nothing wrong with you.
You simply were never taught the skills that actually move PM careers forward.

I learned most of these lessons the hard way. You do not have to.

P.S. More than 100 ambitious PMs have already used Persuasive Storytelling for PMs to communicate with clarity, influence decisions, and show up as leaders.

If you're ready to grow your career as a leader, register for my cohort: Persuasive Storytelling for PMs.  https://lnkd.in/dwvXarPH

P.P.S Currently, Maven is offering a flat 25% discount on the Cohort for Black Friday, and it'll end soon.

After coaching PMs across Meta, Google, & early-stage teams, one pattern keeps showing up again and again. (It is the same thing I noticed years ago when I was leading PMs at Google.)

They are smart.
They work hard.
They ship real impact.
But their ideas do not land the way they should.

Not because the ideas are weak, or the room is biased.
But because the way they communicate does not match the strength of their thinking.

This is the part no one tells you about becoming a senior PM.
People do not just need your answer.
They need to understand the reasoning behind it.
They need to trust how you think, not just what you deliver.

A PM from Meta joined my program recently, and after the first week, he said something that stopped me for a moment.

He told me, “I finally understand why my ideas were not getting the response they deserved. I was explaining the work, not influencing the room.”

He did not need more frameworks.
He needed a clearer way to express his judgment so people could follow it.

Once he made that shift, the response from his team and leadership changed almost immediately.

There is nothing more powerful than when your communication starts reflecting the quality of your thinking.

That is the moment a PM stops sounding like a contributor and starts being seen as a leader.

P.S. Enrollment for my upcoming cohort on Persuasive Storytelling for PMs is closing soon. 

Like 100+ thriving PMs I guided, if you also want to build the communication skill that helps you get seen and paid like a leader, register here: https://lnkd.in/dwvXarPH

The gift I wish someone had given me early in my PM career.


It is the ability to communicate my thinking in a way that people can actually follow.

I spent years doing the work, carrying the weight, owning the roadmap, and still wondering why my ideas were not landing the way they should.

Looking back, I was not missing effort.
I was missing clarity.
I did not know how to take what was in my head and translate it into something others could trust.

It took me far too long to learn that your career grows when your communication grows.
Because that is what creates trust.
That is what makes people believe in your judgment.
And that is what turns a strong PM into someone others want to follow.

If I could go back, that is the gift I would give myself.

A skill that would have saved me years of frustration and helped me grow faster without burning out.

P.S. Many PMs wish they had learned these skills earlier. If someone comes to mind while reading this, you can gift them the self-paced Persuasive Storytelling for PMs. And if that someone is you, you can begin here:

https://lnkd.in/ept7B9Rr

I quit my job as a Group Product Manager and started AmplifyPM because I was tired of watching talented PMs get stuck for the same reasons I once did.

When I look back at my own journey, the moments I struggled the most were not about product strategy or frameworks.

It was the pressure of speaking in rooms where every word felt like it carried weight.

I was trying to explain a decision and realized halfway through that no one was fully with me.

It was seeing my work land on time, on target, yet still feeling like I had not earned the kind of trust I needed to grow.

I tried fixing it by doing more.
Taking on bigger projects.
Working longer hours.
Saying YES to everything.
None of it changed how people understood my impact.

Eventually, I figured out how to navigate these obstacles.
And my career took off.

But over time, as I coached more PMs, I saw the same pattern repeating.
Bright people.
Serious work ethic.
But missing the invisible skills that help others recognize their leadership.

That realization is what led me to build AmplifyPM.
To give PMs the skills I wish someone had given me years earlier.
To help people step into leadership without losing years to trial and error.
To make sure talent is not wasted simply because the message does not land.

P.S. Just like Neha, more than 100 ambitious PMs have used Persuasive Storytelling for PMs to communicate with clarity, influence decisions, and show up as leaders.

P.P.S Currently, Maven is offering a flat 25% discount on the Cohort for Black Friday, and it'll end soon. 

Register here: https://lnkd.in/dwvXarPH

You have been getting the wrong advice for your entire career. Hard work is the slowest way for a PM to get promoted.

From the moment you enter the industry, you are told the same story:
Work hard
Be dependable
Deliver results
Do whatever it takes

And for a while, this works.
You get hired. You get praised. You become the PM everyone can count on.

Suddenly, the same habits that got you here stop moving you forward.
You put in more hours.
You take on more ownership.
You pull off miracles no one ever hears about.
Yet nothing changes.

You start to wonder if you are doing something wrong.

But here is the truth.
You are not doing anything wrong.
You are following advice built for the first five years of your career, not the next fifteen.

Early career rewards hard work.
The leadership path rewards judgment.
Presence
Clarity
The ability to make people trust your direction, even when the answer is not obvious.

That is the shift no one teaches.
You get promoted for how you think, not how much you do.
You get promoted for how you influence, not how many tasks you close.
You get promoted for how you move teams, not how you manage projects.

Most PMs never learn this.
They keep solving problems instead of showing how they think about problems.
They keep doing the work instead of shaping the narrative around the work.
They keep trying to earn promotions through effort instead of leadership.

And they stay stuck.

If you are in that place right now, it is not because you lack skill.
It is because no one ever taught you how senior PM careers actually grow.

This is exactly what I teach inside.
How to communicate your thinking like a leader.
How to show judgment, not just output.
How to make people trust your direction.
And how to break out of the hard work trap.

If you're ready to grow your career as a leader, register for my cohort: Persuasive Storytelling for PMs. (Link in comments.)

I could have never turned a $20M budget into $120M at Google if I had framed it the way most PMs do.

Early in my career, I used to think influence was about having the right answer.
That if the idea was strong, people would see its value.
But that is not how decisions are made at senior levels.

Most PMs still frame their proposals like this:
Here is the feature.
Here is the timeline.
Here is the cost.

It sounds responsible and clear.
But it is the fastest way to make leaders think about constraints instead of possibilities.

The turning point for me came when I realized something that changed my entire approach.
People do not respond to information. They respond to meaning.

So when I walked into that meeting, I did not talk about backlog, resourcing, or technical scope.
I started with the outcome the business cared about. Not the work required.

The question I opened with was simple:
What growth target do you want to hit next year, and how fast do you want to reach it?

That shifted the entire energy in the room.
Leaders stopped thinking about price tags, and started thinking about opportunity.

Here is the part most PMs miss.
It is not your idea that gets rejected.
It is the way you talk about your idea.
Your language either expands the room or shrinks it.
It either creates momentum or triggers hesitation.

This is why communication is not a soft skill.
It is a force multiplier. It takes what you already know and turns it into influence.

If you know your ideas deserve more support than they get, look at how you frame them. That is where the real leverage is.

P.S. More than 100 ambitious PMs have already used Persuasive Storytelling for PMs to speak with this level of clarity and influence. 

Register for the cohort, and build the influence you need for leadership roles.
https://lnkd.in/dwvXarPH

📌 Currently, Maven is offering a flat 25% off on the Cohort for Black Friday, and it'll end soon. Register now.

These three habits are slowing down your promotion. You know them well, but you still have not fixed them. (Even I made these mistakes as a new PM.)

1. Explaining too much when you speak.
You want to be thorough.
You want to show your thinking.
You want to make sure nothing is misunderstood.

But long explanations signal uncertainty, not clarity.
When you speak for too long, people assume you are still working through the problem.
Short, structured points signal confidence and make you sound more senior, instantly.

2. Waiting for someone to ask for your opinion.
You tell yourself you are being respectful.
You want to give others space.
You want to be thoughtful.

But silence reads as hesitation.
Hesitation reads as “not ready.”
Leaders notice PMs who enter the conversation early, not the ones who wait to be invited.

A clear point of view delivered at the right moment changes your presence in the room.

3. Giving updates instead of interpretation.
You report progress.
You share metrics.
You walk people through what your team delivered.

The problem is, updates do not help leaders make decisions.
They need meaning, not information.
They need to know what the numbers imply for the business, the risks, and the next step.

Interpretation is what signals judgment, and judgment is what gets promoted.

When you shift from
“Here’s what happened.”
to
“Here’s what this means and what we should do next,” your communication becomes decisive, strategic, and trusted.

If any of these habits feel familiar, it is not a flaw. It is a gap in training.
But this gap is going to hold you back from promotion.

The moment you fix these communication patterns, the way leaders interpret your impact changes immediately. 

P.S. More than 100 ambitious PMs have already used Persuasive Storytelling for PMs to communicate with clarity, lead conversations, and show up as the leader they want to be. 

Register for the cohort and learn how to tell your story like a leader who gets you noticed and paid. 

→ https://lnkd.in/dwvXarPH

I’ve been a GPM for 6+ years,  and there’s one lesson I learned far too late.
If I had understood it earlier, I would’ve made bigger bets, spoken up louder, and grown faster.

"You do not grow by collecting frameworks.
You grow by mastering a few leadership principles that actually change how people experience you."

Most PMs try to learn everything at once.
But every great PM I have worked with became GREAT because they leaned into one strength and led with it.

For some, it was a vision.
The PM who could walk into a room and help everyone see a future that did not exist yet.

For others, it was communication.
The PM people trusted because they made complex decisions feel simple and logical.

Some led through data.
Not by showing charts, but by making the numbers mean something.

Others led through ruthless focus.
They were the ones who said no without hesitation because they knew what mattered.

And some led through resilience.
The ones who stayed steady when everything around them changed.

The mistake is trying to be all five at once.
The shift happens when you pick one strength, master it, and let it become the anchor for how you show up as a leader.

That is when people begin trusting your judgment.
That is when you stop sounding like a task owner and start sounding like someone who can lead a team through uncertainty.

Great PMs are not defined by how much they know.
They are defined by how well they apply their knowledge.

P.S. If you want to master the communication part of leadership, more than 100 PMs have done that inside Persuasive Storytelling for PMs.

P.S. Enrollment for my upcoming cohort on Persuasive Storytelling for PMs is closing soon. 

Like 100+ thriving PMs I guided, if you also want to build the communication skill that helps you get seen and paid like the leader you are, register here: https://lnkd.in/dwvXarPH

This slide has personally attacked every PM at least once.


Metrics go up: “Yep. That was me.”
Metrics go down: “Okay but hear me out… there were a LOT of external factors.”

I’ve said both of these sentences. Probably in the same review cycle.

The funny part is not that we do this. It’s why we do it.

When things go well, we want credit.
When things go sideways, we want fairness.

Both are human.

But somewhere along the way, most PMs learn the wrong survival instinct:
Either take full credit or fully deflect.

What actually earns trust is neither.

The PMs leaders trust most are the ones who can say:
Here’s what I pushed.
Here’s what helped.
Here’s what hurt.
Here’s what I would do again.
Here’s what I would change.

No theatrics. No over-defending. No pretending everything was intentional.

Just clarity.

That is the difference between reporting numbers and owning outcomes.

And yes, it is a skill that most of us were never taught.

If this made you laugh uncomfortably, you’re not alone.

After 6+ years as a GPM at Google, I’ve learned that anyone promising a “magic bullet” for PM success is lying to you.

There’s no framework that magically creates alignment.
No template that guarantees promotions.
No perfect process that removes ambiguity.

When I started, I used to look for those shortcuts too.
I wanted the cheat code.

The reality I saw, again and again, was much less exciting and much more useful.

The PMs who grew fastest weren't the ones who memorized the most frameworks.
They were the ones who could think clearly when things were messy and explain that thinking in a way others could follow.

They didn’t wait for perfect data.
They didn’t hide behind a rigid process.
They didn’t let a framework make the decision for them.

Instead:
They made the hard calls.
They owned the trade-offs.
They explained why a decision made sense, even when it was uncomfortable.

That isn’t a magic bullet.
It’s judgement.
It’s a skill.

And skills are harder to sell than a template because they take practice, repetition, and feedback.
But they compound in a way shortcuts never do.

If you are still looking for that "one trick" that will unlock everything, I promise - you’ll stay frustrated.
But if you focus on building your judgment and the ability to communicate it, your career changes quietly, but permanently.

P.S. There’s no magic bullet, but judgment is a real skill you can build that compounds over your career. I’ve helped 100+ PMs develop that skill to earn trust and move their careers forward. 

If you want to see if this support is right for you, start here: https://lnkd.in/dEPvPYvu

Are you getting the recognition you deserve?
You have the skill, strategy, and vision. ALL the things.
So why aren’t people listening to you?

I hear this from PMs every single week.

You do the work.
You solve the problems.
You deliver the results.
You show up prepared.
You care about doing things right.

And yet...

Your ideas don’t land.
Your projects don’t get prioritized.
Your budget gets cut.
Your promotion gets delayed (again).

Meanwhile, someone far less capable somehow gets every “yes” you can’t.

It’s maddening.
And it’s not because they’re better than you.

It’s because they understand something most PMs never learn:

People don’t act on information.
People act on emotion – then justify with information.

That’s why your strategy docs, your decks, your logic, your data aren’t enough.

You’re speaking the right language – but in the wrong order.

If you want people to take action, you have to make them care first.

And when you do?
Everything changes.

This is the skill that took me from a team of 5 → to leading a 300+ org at Google...
the skill that helped me secure 9-digit budgets…
the skill I’ve now taught to 100+ PMs through my top-rated Maven course.

🚨 And in 3 days, enrollment for my next cohort closes.

If you’ve been feeling unheard, overlooked, or underestimated –
this is the work that unlocks the next stage of your career.

Persuasive Storytelling for PMs – starts December 8.
⚡️ Live.
⚡️ Tactical.
⚡️ Built for ambitious PMs who want to lead.

And yes – I back it with a 100% tuition-back guarantee.
If you take the full course and don’t feel a meaningful shift in how you persuade, I’ll refund every dollar.

No risk. Only upside.

Enrollment closes soon.

👉🏽 Enroll here: https://lnkd.in/gWc7t4sc

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In the workplace, nobody cares about you.

They care about themselves.

That’s not a bad thing – it’s human nature.
And if you understand it, you can use it to become incredibly persuasive.

Here’s the mistake most people make:
They tell the same story, the same way, to every audience.
They assume facts and logic will win people over.

But that’s not how decisions are made.

People decide with emotion – then use logic to justify it.
If you want people to take action, you have to make them care.
And different audiences care about different things.

Master that – how to reframe your message to trigger the right emotion – and you’ll change how you lead, influence, and drive results.

That’s exactly what I teach in my live Maven course:
⚡ Persuading People: The PM’s Edge in the Age of AI

Maven is offering a massive 25% discount, but it ENDS TOMORROW.

If you’ve been waiting to enroll – this is it.
Join me and learn how to get buy-in, approvals, and commitment on demand.

👉🏽 Enroll here before the discount expires: https://lnkd.in/gWc7t4sc

Maven

Black Friday rant:
Why do companies bend over backwards for new customers...

...and treat their existing customers like they don’t exist?

Every year, my inbox fills with massive “NEW CUSTOMERS ONLY!” Black Friday deals.

Deep discounts, multi-day campaigns, slick landing pages.

And what do loyal, long-time customers get?

Nothing.
Not even a “thanks for sticking with us.”

I get the business logic – Black Friday is great for acquisition.

But here’s the problem:
👀 When you market loudly to one audience, your other audience is listening.

And the message they hear is:
“Your loyalty doesn’t matter.”

It’s such a missed opportunity.

There are smart, simple ways to win on Black Friday *and* make existing customers feel valued:

▶️ Offer early renewal discounts

▶️ Offer multi-year renewal savings (“Renew for 2 years, save 10%”)

▶️ Give loyal customers early access or bonus perks (new customers will see this)

▶️ Create upgrades or add-ons just for them

These moves increase LTV, strengthen trust, and make your best customers feel seen.

Because here’s the truth:
👉🏽 Acquisition drives growth. Retention funds the business.

Companies forget this every November.

What’s the worst Black Friday marketing moment you’ve seen? 👇🏽

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