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

Every PMM wants to become "more strategic".
Here's the simplest path:

Get better at choosing which problems to solve.

Most problems fall into four categories:

Delegation Zone
Quick Wins
Shared Wins
Strategic Levers

The average PMM spends too much time in the wrong one. Strategic PMMs are selective.

Answer these questions to see where a problem fits, and how to prioritize it.

DELEGATION ZONE

- Could someone else do this just as well?
- Would skipping this have little to no business impact?
- Does this require little to no PMM judgement?

If yes, delegate or drop.

QUICK WINS

- Am I particularly good at solving this type of problem?
- Can this be completed quickly with minimal effort?
- Will it create a small but noticeable improvement?

If yes, do it quickly and move on.

SHARED WINS

- Would solving this improve key business outcomes?
- Is another team better positioned to lead this work?
- Would PMM's time be better spent partnering vs leading?

If yes, partner, don't own.

STRATEGIC LEVERS

- Will this materially shape direction or priorities?
- Is PMM uniquely qualified to solve this problem?
- Would the outcome be weaker without me involved?

If yes, prioritize aggressively.

The fastest way to become more strategic is not to just work harder. It's to ruthlessly filter what you work on.

The best PMMs spend 80% of their time in Strategic Levers. The rest spend 80% everywhere else.

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👋🏻 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 my newsletter every week. Click “view my newsletter” to subscribe.

✨ Product Marketing Leadership Coach | 2X VP PMM | I help PMMs master the habits that make them indispensable

If your research isn't landing, it's probably not about the data.
It's about something much bigger.

PMMs spend hours tracking patterns, pulling sources together, analyzing trends.

We get genuinely excited about our findings.

Then we present to product stakeholders or senior leadership.

And... crickets.

No one else seems remotely as excited as we are.

The problem? You're probably stuck in what I call the "observation zone."

Most PMMs present low-quality insights without even knowing it. They describe what happened, but they don't help people understand why it matters or what to do next.

There are three levels of insight quality:

LEVEL 1: OBSERVING

You're describing what happened. Sharing data, maybe a few trends.

"Our competitor updated their homepage."
"We have 10 customer support tickets on this feature."

These are just data points. The business doesn't know why they should care, so they divert their attention somewhere else.

This is where most PMMs get stuck.

LEVEL 2: INTERPRETING

Now you're connecting meaning to the data.

"Our competitor updated their homepage to emphasize AI. This, combined with other changes to their marketing and the launch of their new feature last week, signals a positioning shift we need to respond to."

"Those 10 support tickets all come from our priority customer segment and mention the same point of friction. We need to pay attention before it starts costing us renewals with our best customers."

When you apply meaning, you spark conversation. You give people something to react to.

But interpretation alone isn't enough to drive action.

Because now everyone will ask: "Okay, so what do we do about it?"

LEVEL 3: DIRECTING

This is where you propose a path forward.

"Based on the competitor shift, I recommend we update our homepage messaging by end of month. Here are three positioning angles we could test."

"I've mapped out two options to address the friction point: one quick fix, one longer-term solution. I recommend we start with the quick fix and revisit in Q2."

Three components make this work:

→ Shape options: Determine the potential paths forward.

→ Add a strong point of view: Present the path you recommend (and why).

→ Bring an activation plan: Show how to bring that path to life.

When you move out of observing, through interpreting, and all the way to directing...

That's when you present insights that get buy-in.

And that's the real difference between insights that get filed away and insights that drive decisions.

_____

👋🏻 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 my newsletter every week. Click "view my newsletter" to subscribe.

We just launched our newest round of Cabins inside PMM Camp.

→ 91 product marketing leaders
→ 15 small core groups

Topics spanning AI, B2C PMM, people management, go-to-market strategy, founding PMM, B2B SaaS, and more.

You are the sum of the 5 people you surround yourself with. That idea is the foundation of everything we do with Cabins.

If you're not familiar with Cabins, they're the heart of PMM Camp.

Small groups of 5-8 PMM leaders who meet regularly to tackle real challenges together.

The small group structure is intentional.

When you're surrounded by the right people, solving real problems together, you don't just learn faster. You become better at your craft.

Each Cabin has its own focus, but they all share one thing: real PMM leaders solving real problems together.

The people in your Cabin become your inner circle. A group of smart and kind people who help shape how you think and work.

None of this happens without our Cabin Leaders.

These are PMM Camp members who volunteer their time to facilitate, guide discussions, and create space for others to grow. They're the reason Cabins work.

Shoutout to our 15 Cabin Leaders this round: Talya Heller G. 💡, Camila Morrison, Ana Conde, Shannon Kearns, Abigail Egle Zilinskaite, Kate Orchard, Paul Ngan, Steffi Li, Martina Havrlent, Amit Alagh, Denny Hollick, Conrad Walsh, Kristin Howland, Sheryl Floyd, Kim Toffan

If you're in one of these Cabin groups, you're in for something special.

You're about to spend the next few months surrounded by people who will make you better.

If you're not, the next round opens in a few months.

Your habits are your future, one day at a time.

I used to set career goals:

"Get promoted to Director."
"Manage a team of 5."
"Become a Chief Strategy Officer."

Then I'd stress about things I couldn't control.

Would my boss leave?
Would the company create that role?
Would there be budget cuts or layoffs?

It was exhausting.

But, at the recommendation of my executive coach, I shifted focus. Instead of chasing titles, I started building leadership habits.

And that's when things changed.

I couldn't control when I'd get promoted to Director. But I could control showing up to every strategy meeting with a clear point of view.

I couldn't control managing a team that didn't exist yet. But I could mentor junior marketers, even when it wasn't officially my job.

I couldn't control the timing of the VP opening. But I could write strategy memos that the CEO actually wanted to read.

The promotion to Director came (early!). The team followed. The VP role was created just for me.

Not because I set those as goals.
Because I built the habits that made me ready when the opportunity arrived.

What if, in 2026, instead of obsessing over outcomes you can't control, you started focusing on the behaviors you can.

Your habits are your future, one day at a time.

What future do you want to build for yourself this year?

I used to think being busy meant being productive.

Turns out, I was just exhausted.

The shift happened when I stopped glorifying hustle culture and started protecting what actually mattered to me.

I've learned the habits that feel hardest to prioritize are usually the ones we need most. For me, that's prioritizing time to take real breaks throughout the day.

What are you prioritizing this year? Vote in the poll below.

___

💌 This week's newsletter digs into intention setting and getting clear about the habits you actually want to build for 2026. Subscribe to get the edition in your inbox: www.pmmcamp.com/subscribe

Which habit are you most intentionally prioritizing this year?

The author can see how you vote. Learn more

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. 💡

Everyone's obsessed with cutting jargon from their messaging.
But that's not why sales ignores your decks.

Clear messaging without a real take still sounds like everyone else.
Give them that and they still end up building their own slides.

Your reps don't need cleaner words. 
They need something f'n interesting to say.


Instead of witch-hunting buzzwords, find the tension you're positioning around.


Your pitch deck isn't a copywriting or design exercise. 
It's a diagnostics exercise.

Imperfect messaging with conviction > 'jargon free' messaging with no edge

Give reps something interesting to say and they'll line up. 
Give them spotless slides no one remembers, they'll have their own 3 slides by Thursday.



ok rant over

I've skipped my yoga studio's January challenge for three years straight. In fact, I despise the January gym crowd. 

But I'm doing it this year. 

Not because I'm suddenly into NY's resolutions (I’m an intentions kinda gal but that's for another post).

Also not because new year, new me (I wish, but at least I'm already there 4 times a week minimum).

It’s because this year's prize is a keychain that lets you bring a buddy for free all of February and March.

Here's the deal:

Last year I finally got H(usband) to start practicing yoga to recover from all the running and lifting he’s into.

He's up to twice a week now (!!) but he'll only go to the J (where he's lowering the average age by a lot lol)

He won’t come to my studio. It’s a big dark space that kinda feels like a night club. They offer mostly heated classes. 

I get it, it looks intimidating. But I want to give him a reason he can’t refuse. 

And, I want to bring on some more neighbor friends, mom friends and linkedin friends. 


So I'm all in. I’m the annoying January crowd now. 

(Mixing up heated flow, nasty sculpt classes, restorative and sound baths so I don’t get burnt out or injured, which at my age happens every time I reach too far). 

Count with me to keep me accountable - it's January 7 and I'm 6/30 in (8/30 by the end of today)

And if you're in Austin or visiting in Feb/Mar, I’m your buddy pass. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll bring back the Beyoncé flow by then🤞


(But fair warning I do look like a monster after most classes)

Most consultants gatekeep their best advice.
I gave mine away for free to 6 companies last month.

I ran an advisory giveaway and ended up giving free mini sessions to runner-ups, because sure.

Here's what happened:

-Reviewed 2 sales decks (both solid, neither fantastic - more on this soon)
-Untangled a messy product launch
-Worked through a gnarly competitive situation
-Helped a scale-up figure out their repositioning strategy before a major product launch

They came back with something like this 👇


(Will I run another giveaway? Not sure. But I'm definitely working on more ways to make my brain more accessible to y’all (if you dare 💀)

Who here loves a good explainer video? 

🙋🏻‍♀️

Last time I was working on one, I was in house. 

The freelancer was dope but it was a pretty big lift that took a lot of my time. 

So when I figured I should probably work on one now, I found every reason to drag my feet. 

Until one day the folks from Sway One  slid into my DMs.

Great offer, perfect timing. 

Now, I’m a skeptic. My LinkedIn inbox usually attracts the worst bait-and-switchers. 

(ugh the time I wasted taking calls… I could’ve made 3 explainer videos from scratch. But I digress). 

We met and I liked them immediately. You know how you can tell someone is a pro and also passionate about what they do? And like, also a nice human? That was it. 

Well LFG, I guess we’re making an explainer video. 

And they delivered. Sergey. Ross  apparently reads minds because I gave him my website, the interactive guide I built for my Win Map™ system, my intake form and one example I liked…

And he gave me an almost perfect script and later, a video that nailed my brand on v1. 

Am I happy with the video? Yes.
Was it a pain to get it done? Nope.

Great reminder that being easy to work with matters, a lot. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was a pleasure. He even gave me advice about web hosting and YouTube and a bunch of stuff I know nothing about. 

I'm so happy with how it turned out, it’s already on my homepage. 

Check it out: DowntoaT.co

And check them out (I already recommended them to a head of marketing friend)

No alternative text description for this image

Everyone keeps telling you to "just ship it."

New platform? Ship the deck.
New messaging? Update the site.
Launch in 6 weeks? Better start cranking out assets.

But here's the thing: 
Speed is only valuable when you know what needs to change in the room.

I keep seeing marketing teams hit this same wall. 
Everything needs to be built at once. 

It's not poor planning. 
It's the reality of inflection points.

You get funding. 
The market shifts. 
Leadership changes. 
Suddenly what got you here won't get you there.

So they do what feels productive and start making stuff.
Decks. 
One-pagers. 
Demo scripts. 
Website copy.

Except sales doesn't use them because they don't actually help close deals.

A 30-slide feature dump doesn't give your rep something to say when the prospect goes quiet.

What does?
→ A sharp insight about why their current approach is costing them
→ A pointed question that makes the buying committee realize they're thinking about this wrong

Figuring out what shifts the conversation in your favor feels like slow work.
But it's what makes everything else work.

When you're rebuilding everything at once, the bottleneck isn't your output. 
It's whether what you're making gives sales a reason to use it.

all I needed was gas and toilet paper 🙈

The faster you try to launch, the longer it actually takes.

Sounds backward, right?

But I've seen it happen more times I'd care to admit:

Teams who treat their positioning like the last checkbox to tick end up relaunching 2-3 times.

Teams who invest more than a couple of weeks in strategic positioning launch once and scale fast.

Everyone thinks speed is the advantage.
Speed is the trap.

Here's what most leaders miss:

Positioning doesn't slow you down.
But positioning shortcuts destroy your timeline.

The conventional wisdom says: "We can't delay launch for messaging work. Let's launch and iterate."

Reality says something different:

Companies that save this step for the last minute and rush through it spend months post-launch fixing their story.

Companies that invest upfront spend 2 weeks optimizing what already works.

Now which timeline sound faster?

I used to believe in "ship fast, learn fast" too.
And I still do, but not for strategy.

I started noticing a pattern.
Every failed launch followed the same 4-week death spiral:

Week 1: "Launch is in a couple of weeks, let's do a quick positioning refresh
(We're about to discover our foundation is cracked)

Week 2: "Hmm, this messaging doesn't quite capture it" 
(Our differentiation was never clear)

Week 3: "Let's explore other directions" 
(We're realizing positioning is actual strategic work)

Week 4: "Should we pause and do this properly?" 
(We just wasted a month avoiding the real work)

Here's what nobody wants to admit:

You already know your positioning needs work.
You're hoping a quick refresh will be enough.
(Spoiler: It won't)

That's why you're nervous about the launch.
That's why sales keeps asking for "better assets."
That's why your messaging doc has 17 versions.

The discomfort you're feeling is your instinct telling you the foundation isn't solid.

Listen to it.

The most successful launches has a team behind them that doesn't want to burn that market moment. 
And rightfully so - there's a lot of time, attention and $$ that go into big launches.

The launches that flopped all "couldn't wait."
Yet they keep everyone at the company fixing what they rushed for months.

Here's the real choice:
1️⃣ Invest strategic time upfront, launch with conviction, optimize fast
2️⃣ "Launch fast", then spend quarters rebuilding while competitors learn from your mistakes. Ouch.

It's not that speed doesn't matter.
But the market rewards patience in strategy, urgency in execution.

And most teams do the opposite.

They rush strategy (positioning).
They overthink execution (launch tactics).
Then they wonder why nothing works.

If your launch timeline doesn't include real positioning work:
You're not planning a launch.
You're planning a very expensive learning experience.

The question isn't whether you can afford the time.
It's whether you can afford not to take it.

Us marketers think positioning and messaging are separate exercises…

But are they?
Or is it different phases of the same thing?

What we usually do:
→ Positioning workshop with a super secret ‘strategy’ committee
→ Product marketing builds messaging frameworks
→ Whoever is the least busy that week ships the deck
(each gets reviewed, rewritten 3 times, approved)

And then sales ignores it 🫠

Someone asked a couple of weeks ago in a pmm community:
"How do Value Drivers fit with positioning and messaging frameworks?"

Every answer was about which box goes where in the stack.

But no one dared to say that if your sales team is asking how to USE your Value Drivers, you have an alignment problem, not a framework problem.

If the value drivers are so disconnected from your messaging and positioning;
or if the value drivers you came up with don’t line up with what closed the last 3 deals

... It’s not going to pass sales’ bs meter.

So yeah, they won’t use that deck.

Value Drivers should describe what buyers actually care about achieving.
The specific pain that makes them willing to change vendors, rethink budget, or blow up their current process.

Positioning should answer: "Why us vs. them for solving that exact pain?" 

→ Most teams workshop a statement that sounds great in the room. 
(then a buyer asks "why not just use [alternative]?" and the whole thing falls apart)

Messaging is pinpointing that to something that connects the two and survive real objections

→ Most teams build it as a standalone artifact
(so sales builds their own "simplified version" because the official one doesn't match what's working for them)

This is uncomfortable, but:

↳ If your deck needs three rewrites before every sales call, your Value Drivers weren't grounded in reality
↳ If sales built a shadow version of your messaging, they don't trust the narrative marketing handed them
↳ If your CRO keeps asking why sales and marketing aren't aligned, you're treating symptoms, not the disease

All because we tend to building these frameworks in sequence. And probably without testing them against real buyer conversations until it's way too late. 
By the time you get to "messaging outputs," you're polishing a story that might not be worth telling to begin with.

18 years of walking into this exact mess taught me this: 

The teams that win aren't the ones with the best frameworks. 
They're the ones where product, marketing and sales agree on three things: 

1️⃣ What buyers care about (not what we wish they cared about) 
2️⃣ Why we're the right answer for that specific pain 
3️⃣ How to say that in a way that makes them feel seen and survives real objections

Frameworks, hierarchies, documentation are just scaffolding for that alignment.

When you have a shared understanding of your audience, everything else works. 
SHARED. Call it alignment if you want, I call it conviction.

When you don't, even the sharpest deck dies in the field.

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