VP Product Marketing at Kajabi | Building PMM Office Hours

Hi, I’m Tamara 👋🏻

I’ve spent my career building product marketing teams, shaping company strategy, and leading big, high-stakes launches. 

I’ve held five PMM leadership roles — 2× Director, 2× VP, and Chief Strategy Officer — and over time, one truth became impossible to ignore:

Great PMM leadership isn’t a solo sport.
And most PMM leaders are forced to figure it out alone.

That’s why I started PMM Camp — a private community for product marketing leaders who want to grow with intention, be surrounded by peers who push their thinking, and develop the habits that make them truly indispensable.

My work today sits at the intersection of connection and leadership development. I help PMM leaders strengthen the skills that actually move their careers forward — thinking more strategically, driving clearer business impact, communicating with influence, developing their teams, and building professional relationships that open doors.

If that’s the journey you’re on, here’s where to start:

✨ Subscribe to the newsletter
✨ Apply to join the community
✨ Shoot me a DM to say hello

Tamara Grominsky

Product marketing is one of the most misunderstood roles in tech.

And I think I know why.

We're actually doing two very different jobs at once.

I first heard the term "inbound product marketing" from a PMM at TikTok. It's how larger companies like Meta and Amazon often divide up PMM responsibilities.

But even if your company doesn't split the role this way, understanding the distinction changes everything.

Here's the breakdown 👇🏻

Inbound PMM is the upstream work:

→ Market research and customer insights
→ Understanding the competitive landscape
→ Influencing product strategy and roadmap
→ Building buyer personas and journey maps

Outbound PMM is the downstream work:

→ Go-to-market planning and execution
→ Campaign and channel messaging
→ Sales enablement and training
→ Launch strategy and product adoption

Many PMMs I know are responsible for both (especially at startups). And that's fine.

But knowing where you naturally lean matters more than you think. Because it shapes everything:

The skills you'll need to develop. 

The stakeholders you'll work with most. 

(Inbound PMMs spend more time with Product, UX, and business strategy teams. Outbound PMMs are embedded with Sales, Marketing, and GTM.)

The way your day-to-day actually feels. 

Understanding this helps you:

→ Make sense of why the role can feel so nebulous
→ Identify where you're already strong (and where to grow)
→ Have better conversations about where to focus your time
→ Design your career around your natural strengths

Which side do you lean toward: inbound or outbound?

_____

👋🏻 I'm Tamara, and I help product marketing leaders master the habits that make them indispensable.

💌 Want my Sunday strategy sessions? Join 9,000+ PMMs who get the PMM Camp newsletter every week. Subscribe for free: https://lnkd.in/g3KdUBg9

✨ Product Marketing Leadership Coach | 2X VP PMM | I help PMMs build leadership range so they can become indispensable

Not all relationships serve the same purpose. And treating them like they do is costing you.

I learned this the hard way at Unbounce. 

We were developing new positioning for our agency segment, and I spent weeks trying to get buy-in from Sales.

I kept presenting to the Head of Sales. Round after round of revisions, I addressed every piece of feedback and still couldn't get approval.

Then I figured out the real problem.

I thought the Head of Sales was my cross-functional partner and the person I needed to convince. But someone else on the team was viewed as the internal expert on agencies. They had deep relationships with that segment and strong opinions about what would resonate.

That person was the real influencer. And I hadn't even identified them.

Once I understood that, everything shifted. 

That experience changed how I thought about internal relationships. I stopped treating them as one-size-fits-all and started understanding the nuance.

Here are four key types of relationships you need to understand as a PMM 👇🏻

1️⃣ Core Champions

The 1-2 exec sponsors who fight for your budget, open doors, and advocate for your priorities when you're not in the room.

2️⃣ Strategic Partners

The cross-functional leads you work with most (probably in Product, Sales, CS, Marketing). They pull you into strategy early and co-create with you.

3️⃣ Key Influencers

The people who sway decisions across the company. They're not always the most senior person, but sometimes they're the one that person relies on. 

This was my stumbling block in the story above.

4️⃣ PMM Adopters

The people who use your work and extend your reach. They share your frameworks, reference your work, and tag you in the right conversations.

Each of these relationships plays a different role in your success.

When you're intentional about nurturing all four, decisions feel easier, your work gets seen, and your influence compounds faster.

Here's how to put this into practice:

→ Map your current relationships. Who fits in each category today?
→ Spot the gaps. Where are you underinvested?
→ Pick one relationship to strengthen this month.

_____

👋🏻 I'm Tamara, and I help product marketing leaders master the habits that make them indispensable.

💌 Want my Sunday strategy sessions? Join 9,000+ PMMs who get the PMM Camp newsletter every week: https://lnkd.in/g3KdUBg9

If you're saying yes to everything but still feel like you're letting people down, this might be why.

You're stuck in a leadership danger zone.

Many PMMs think good leadership means protecting the plan at all costs. Others think it means staying flexible and saying yes to everything.

Both are wrong.

High-impact leadership lives in the middle.

On one end, you have the Rigid Leader:

Won't adjust the locked roadmap
Says no to anything unplanned
Misses opportunities when the business shifts

They confuse focus with inflexibility, and as a result, they're seen as out of touch and difficult to work with.

On the other end, you have the Pinball Leader:

Changes priorities weekly
Shifts the roadmap with every new request
Can't protect their team's capacity

They confuse responsiveness with helpfulness, and as a result, they appear chaotic and reactive.

The PMMs who actually earn trust, protect their teams, and drive real impact do something different:

They know when to hold the line and when to adapt.

High-impact Activators don't pick a side. They shift how they prioritize based on what the moment requires.

That looks like three things in practice:

1️⃣ They evaluate before they react

When a new request comes in, they don't default to yes or no. They ask:

→ Does this change our priorities?
→ What's the real cost of saying yes?
→ What would we need to stop doing to make room?

2️⃣ They make tradeoffs visible

They don't just absorb more work. They communicate:

→ If something new comes in, something else comes out
→ The "why" behind every prioritization decision
→ What the team can and can't take on right now

3️⃣ They protect capacity without blocking progress

They stay flexible enough to adapt when it matters, but firm enough to:

→ Shield the team from constant context-switching
→ Ensure commitments actually get delivered
→ Build a reputation for follow-through

Prioritization becomes a leadership skill, not just a planning exercise.

This ability to create clarity and focus for your team is one of the most important habits PMM leaders need.

Which side do you default to more often?

_____

👋🏻 I'm Tamara, and I help product marketing leaders master the habits that make them indispensable.

💌 Want my Sunday strategy sessions? Join 9,000+ PMMs who get the PMM Camp newsletter every week. Click “view my newsletter” to subscribe.

I've been feeling overwhelmed lately.

And I know many of you have too.

Block announced they're laying off 40% of staff (citing AI). More companies are doing the same. 

New tools are coming out faster than any of us can track, let alone master.

There's a lot of fear right now. And even more unknowns. 

So, this weekend, I took a deep breath and went back to something that always grounds me: Stoicism.

Hear me out on this one.

Ryan Holiday writes about this idea that we can't control what's happening around us. But we can control how we respond.

So I've been asking myself: what can I actually control right now?

Two things keep coming back to me.

1️⃣ Getting 1% better at the tools every day, and letting that progress compound.

For me right now, that's building Claude skills and tinkering with connector tools to see how I can create more of an ecosystem.

2️⃣ Leaning into connection...primarily how I spend my time and who I spend it with.

Because I deeply believe that our relationships won't be replaced. They might be the very thing that helps us get through this uncomfortable chapter and leads us into what's next.

There's no call to action here. Just a gentle reminder that we're all figuring this out together.

And an invitation to focus on what you can control and try to release what you can't.

❤️

There's one tool that touches more parts of my business than any other.

And no, it's not a chatbot.

Last week I mapped out the messaging test for my PMM Camp community page. On Monday, I designed a carousel to promote our first-ever AI Challenge. Back in January, I ran my entire annual planning session on a whiteboard.

And somewhere in between all of that, I removed the background from approximately 147 images. (If you know, you know.)

Every single one of these happened inside Canva.

It's the platform I open for almost everything. Which is why, when I got intentional about brand partnerships this year, Canva was at the top of my list.

I'm not interested in promoting tools I've never opened. I want to partner with brands I actually use and tools that are genuinely woven into how I work.

So when I was approached about a longer-term partnership where I actually get to share my perspective on the product, I said yes immediately.

Here's my first tip 👇

Connect Canva to Claude immediately.

Monday's carousel post was built right inside Claude:

→ I gave it the event details 
→ Asked it to use my brand guide and template (already stored in Canva) 
→ It generated a full carousel draft in minutes

From there, I hopped into Canva to polish it up. The whole thing took maybe 20 minutes.

Over the next few months I'll be sharing the real ways I use Canva as a product marketer.

For now, I'd love to know: what are you building with the new Canva / Claude connector?

#CanvaPartner

Brand partnership • ✨ Product Marketing Leadership Coach | 2X VP PMM | I help PMMs build leadership range so they can become indispensable

This is who you're asking for product marketing leadership advice.

Curious. 
Had a mind of her own. 
Always accessorized in pink.

Really, not much has changed.

Little Tamara would be proud of how far she's come.

Everyone's rushing to build AI agents. Most are skipping the step that actually makes them work.

Context.

Your customers, your messaging, your positioning, your brand voice all loaded into AI so what it produces is actually useful to you.

It sounds basic, and it is. But that's exactly why most people skip over it (or do it halfway). 

You jump straight to automation, workflows, and agents without giving AI the information it needs to actually help.

And then you wonder why the outputs feel generic.

Context is the foundation. Once you have it in place, the more advanced use cases actually work.

That's why, alongside my AI mentor Denny Hollick, I'm running PMM Camp's first-ever AI Challenge.

Over four weeks, we're each going to build our own AI context system, together.

→ Week 1: Customer research and foundations
→ Week 2: Messaging and positioning
→ Week 3: ICP profiles, case studies, and social proof
→ Week 4: Brand voice, then generating a real end-to-end deliverable

We kick off March 19 with a live session where we'll walk through the approach, tour the tools, and get your first project set up. 

From there, it's async. Everyone building at their own pace while sharing progress and learning from each other inside the community. 

Denny will make sure we stay on track and provide advice, support, and feedback along the way (bless him).

And, of course we'll wrap with a community Show and Tell at the end.

You could do this on your own. But doing it inside a community of PMM leaders makes it genuinely better (and, dare I say, more fun?).

You'll see how others structure their systems, borrow approaches you wouldn't have thought of, and actually finish because there's accountability built in.

The challenge is only available inside PMM Camp.

We open our doors once a month, and right now we're accepting new Campers from March 1–5. 

If you want to join us for the AI challenge, now is the time to join (new spots won't open again until April).

👉 Apply at www.pmmcamp.com/community to build alongside 280+ PMMs

P.S. PMM Camp is the only private community built exclusively for product marketing leaders. You must be a Senior, Director, or Head of Product Marketing to join.

PMM AI Challenge

Being a solopreneur means wearing every hat.

I'm one part product marketer, one part product manager, and one part CEO.

This means the feedback loop between insight → decision → action is quite short (wayyyyy shorter than working in tech).

And lately, I've been inspired by my friend Collin Mayjack, who's been sharing the decisions he's making and the things he's building at work. It's been fun to follow along and it pushed me to start doing the same.

So, here's what I built yesterday 👇🏻

One of the main differentiators for PMM Camp is that it's a community full of leaders. But that term can feel vague. "Who's actually inside Camp?" is probably the number one question I get asked.

So I decided to answer it directly by adding a new section to the sales page.

I downloaded all my member data and broke it into a few key areas:

Seniority Level

→ 34% are Director
→ 20% are Lead/Head
→ 8% are VP

This backs up my value prop that this is a "leader-level" community.

Geographic Breakdown

→ 66% USA
→ 18% Canada (shoutout to my fellow Canadians 🇨🇦)
→ Growing presence in the UK, Europe, and beyond

This makes it clear you're joining a global community with diverse perspectives and experiences.

Company Size

→ 42% mid-market
→ 38% enterprise
→ 20% startups

PMM responsibilities and problems vary greatly based on company size. This helps prospects see if there are members at a company similar to theirs.

PMM Team Size

→ 42% of members have a PMM team with 4+ PMMs

These are leaders building real teams.

Nothing groundbreaking about adding this section. But I think it'll help people answer a simple question: Am I the right fit for this community?

And it paints a more complete picture of who's actually here.

In less than 24 hours I took my most frequently asked question, built a solution, and shipped it.

To measure the impact of this work, I'll be looking at:

1️⃣ Increase in application rate
2️⃣ Increase in quality of applicants

(Currently only about 52% of applicants are accepted...but I suspect it's because it's unclear what the criteria actually is)

Stay tuned and I'll share how it performs!

Decks Sales actually use | Helping CMOs + Marketing VPs look like heroes | 18 yrs aligning product, marketing + sales in tech and startups | Former HP + Military Intelligence

Your sales assets suck. Sales rejects them because customers don’t speak like that.Product says the messaging isn’t technical enough.Marketing swears they followed the brief.And somehow, you’re the one explaining to the CEO why no one’s telling the same story.That’s usually when I get the call.I’ve spent 18 years walking into that same chaos — from HP to startups — and spotting what’s *actually* broken.It’s never the deck. It’s the disconnect.The military taught me to see patterns under pressure.HP taught me what happens when alignment collapses at scale.Startups taught me how to fix it — fast.Here’s why my approach is different: I don’t need seven workshops to find the truth.Three honest conversations tell me everything I need to know about where your story fell apart and how to rebuild it.I’m a product marketer who genuinely likes sales.I translate between engineers, marketers, and sellers who don’t speak the same language — and turn that into assets people actually use.But I don’t stop there.I built a system that finds what’s broken, fixes it fast, and makes the fix stick.Because a new deck means nothing if the story behind it doesn’t hold when things get messy.The outcome:Marketing finally earns sales’ trust — and leadership stops asking what marketing actually does.Because your sales assets shouldn’t suck. They should sell.If you’re done explaining why your deck doesn’t work, let’s fix what’s actually broken.

Talya Heller G. 💡

The best looking sales deck can have zero ROI.
Google Slides templates can win deals. How?

Most think good sales assets are about:
→ Design polish
→ 17 case studies
→ Comprehensive feature lists

But production value isn't the problem.

The best assets aren't winning one person.
They’re winning the buying committee.

CXO buy-in increases close rates by 44%*.

Your champion doesn’t buy alone.

Most assets don't land because they answer the wrong questions.

Here's a better way.

I call it a "Champion Deck".

It's made for internal selling.

Because most of the cycle we're not in the room.

A champion deck has to pass 4 tests:

TEST 1: Can a champion use this without you?

→ Self-running story 
→ Email-forward ready (context)
→ Credible sources (not just "trust us")

TEST 2: Does it answer skeptical exec questions?

→ Real tradeoffs (not just upsides) 
→ Names risks + mitigation strategies 
→ Quantifies risks + gains

TEST 3: Does it land with different audiences?

→ Variety of metrics 
→ Clear use cases (not feature dumps) 
→ Shows how it fits their existing ecosystem

TEST 4: Is the "why this approach" > "why us"?
→ Accurate problem reframe  
→ Approach > Vendor positioning 
→ Backed by evidence (not vague claims)

Top performers spend 39% less time talking about product features*. This deck should reflect that.

---

Check the infographic for the bad version of these.

It's not about polish.

It's whether champions look smart when they forward it to 10 people.


Which of these 4 you find most challenging?

*Data from Jen Allen-Knuth+Gong+30MPC research on exec buying cycles.

Not sure if this encourages or deters you but yes I’ll be there

(Tickets @ exitfive.com/drive)

Me, opening my copy of Wizdom from Wizards in the mail

Alma (6): “cool mom, did you get a book?”

Me: “Yes, I’m in it!”

Alma: “Whoa did you write this??”

Me: “No I’m only in a couple of pages. Wanna see?”

Alma: “Oh. No thanks”
(goes back to playing)

I’ll come back to her after writing my own book but meanwhile, I’m kinda stoked I was a part of 2 books last year:

The Multiplier by Avner Baruch (B.Eng') - one of the most comprehensive sales enablement guides out there. He pulls from his own experience and POVs from sales and customer success leaders, CEOs, and somehow, yours truly.

Wizdom from Wizards is Nitin Kartik’s collection of short, actionable takes from practitioners he interviewed over the years. Anything from pricing, launches and competitive strategies - it’s there.

She might not be impressed, but you should check them out.

Also, Alma - you have boogers.

No alternative text description for this image

When your 6-year-old reviews your career:

Me: "Alma, do you know what I do for work?"

Alma (6): "You're a marketer!”

Me: "Yes! What do you think it means?"

(She runs to her room)

Her big sister (11) tries to help: "Alma think of the word. Market is literally in it"

Alma: "Oh! You work in a market?"

Me: "Sure, but I'm not selling tomatoes."

Alma: "..."

Me: "Ok, what do you think I do all day?"

Alma: "You work. Unless you're on a break."

Me: "Right, but what do I actually DO when I work?"

(Runs away to the other room again)



Ouch. At least she’s ceo material, clearly.



What does your kid think you do all day? I need to know if I'm alone in this 😳

There are 5+ people to win over in every deal.
Most PMMs are only aiming for 2, maybe. Here's how to win all.

The higher your ACV the more people involved in the purchase.
>$250K closed-won deals involve up to 17 buyers vs. 5 in closed-lost (Source: Jen Allen-Knuth + Gong analyzing 1M exec sales cycles)

...Yet most PMMs think the answer is buyer research.

→ Longer surveys 
→ Detailed persona documents
→ More interviews with champions 

But researching one person harder is the wrong focus.

The best PMMs are doing something else.

They don't start with research.

They start with diagnosis.

They talk to the teams who live in deals.

Because the buying reality won't become clear from another survey. 

It's hiding in plain sight:

→ In your win-loss data
→ Your deal reviews
→ Your support queue

Here’s what I do before executing anything:

Step 1: DIAGNOSIS

Reality checks with teams who see buyers and customers on the reg

1. Sales Reality Check 
2. Alignment Audit
3. Customer Success Reality 

Check infographic for details on what to look for.

Step 2: BUYING COMMITTEE TRUTHS

Map the actual humans involved in won deals.

Who needs to be bought in?
Who lives with it after the sale?

Then document for each:
→ Pains: What they get blamed for 
→ Goals: What they care about most
→ KPIs: Metrics on their performance review

Step 3: GROUND IT IN THEIR LANGUAGE

Pull exact phrases from: 
→ Win-loss interviews 
→ Support tickets 
→ Sales calls 
→ QBRs

Save 1-3 verbatim per persona.
This is how you force precision.

This makes it way easier to have a narrative that resonates with your buying committee.

And, create assets your sales team actually uses.

Sales isn't ignoring your content because they're lazy. (not even because they hate you).
They're ignoring it because it doesn't help them win.

Here's what's up:
→ You built it without them 
They weren't in the room when you wrote the messaging, fine. But you also didn't get their take before jumping on it. Now it doesn't match what buyers actually say, and they can tell.

→ It answers the wrong questions 
You ran calls through AI and got a summary. Useful, but it flattens nuance. The real objection isn't "pricing concerns" — it's "my CFO won't approve anything over $50K without a business case." AI won’t catch that. You have to listen.

→ It makes them look dumb 
Nothing kills trust faster than a slide that confuses the buyer. Reps won't risk looking unprepared, so they DIY it

→ They can't find or trust it 
You've got a content hub, a custom GPT, a Notion wiki. Doesn't matter. If reps don't trust that what's in there is current, accurate, and actually useful mid-deal, they'll go rogue.

The solution isn't more content. It's better process.

→ Involve sales before you build, not after 
Even one 30-minute call with a top rep will change what you create.

→ Build from real objections 
AI summaries are a starting point, not the answer. Pick a few deals and watch all the calls in it. Read the lost deal notes. Sit in on deal reviews.

→ Make it trustworthy, not just findable 
Reps need to know: this is up to date, this works, and this won't embarrass me. That's a curation problem, not a search problem.

→ Test it before you launch it 
Have a rep use it on a real call. Watch what happens and iterate.

Sales doesn't need more assets.
They need assets that make them look good in front of buyers.

Knowing where it breaks is step one. Find out how deep the gap runs at your company in a 2-min self assessment https://lnkd.in/gmTgxBMd

Everyone feels behind on AI. LinkedIn's own data says there's something else you should catch up on.

LinkedIn 2026 Skills on the Rise report just dropped. AI is the #1 skill, which is a surprise to no one. But what’s rising alongside it kinda is.

(If the panic of seeing this didn’t send you straight to your terminal to spin up another AI agent, keep scrolling)

Leadership communication, stakeholder management, cross functional collaboration and public speaking are rising just as fast.

The market isn't saying "learn AI or die."

It's saying AI handles execution but human judgment is still needed.

Take skill #2: Operational Efficiency. Process optimization, workflow automation. Sounds… vintage. But automating the wrong thing faster is still waste. Knowing *what* to automate? That's not an AI call.

AI can summarize your call transcripts.
It can do your research. 
It can draft emails.

It can’t read a room, decide which battle is worth fighting, or convince a skeptical exec to greenlight a budget they didn't want to approve.

Everyone's getting fluent in talking to machines. Almost nobody is getting better at talking to humans.

That gap is widening — and your competitors aren't touching it.

Your edge isn't just knowing the tools. It's mastering the skills AI can't replicate, then using AI to execute faster.

So before the next time you’re setting up an MCP — ask yourself when did you last deliberately work on your stakeholder communication?

That skill isn't disappearing. It's going up.

And if you're not sure where your team stands on it, make sure whoever's shaping your positioning has this down to a T.


(Full report: https://lnkd.in/gCJGUNVV?)

taplio

The Battle

Tamara Grominsky

Talya Heller G. 💡

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreTamara Grominsky's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreTalya Heller G. 💡's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Tamara Grominsky

Talya Heller G. 💡

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Tamara Grominsky's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreTalya Heller G. 💡's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreTamara Grominsky's LinkedIn Performance