Q&A: “What’s the most helpful part of business school for product marketing?”
Product marketing is a common career for those entering or exiting business school. As a business school graduate (go Kellogg!), I’m often asked what the most helpful parts of business school are for product marketing intenders.
Many will say that you don’t actually learn anything from business school; that it’s only for networking.
I disagree.
This might be true for those who already studied business school in undergraduate courses or those who came from management consulting.
But for the rest of us — who studied non-business subjects and/or who worked at a variety of professions prior to entering business school — business school can be very worthwhile both academically as well as non-academically. The concepts I learned in my marketing strategy, market research, and influence classes are ones I use to this day. (Not to mention, of course, that you will get as much out of it as you put in.).
Here’s the rundown on what will be helpful if you’re pursuing a product marketing job:
Academics:
- Classes: marketing strategy, market research, business strategy, statistics, financial modeling, leading and managing teams, influence and persuasion, negotiation, anything tech marketing related (depends on school)
- Here, you’ll learn hard skills by textbook and both hard and soft skills in applied learning. There is no better way to learn about how to effectively work with different types of people than when you’re thrown into randomly selected teams, and your grade depends on just a few deliverables with that team. Spoiler alert — you learn quickly.
Non-Academics:
- Everyone in business school is involved in a gazillion clubs (that’s an official stat), and the reason is for both networking and to demonstrate leadership.
- Networking probably doesn’t need much explanation — the more people you meet and get to know, the bigger (or stronger) your network can be later in your career when you’re in need of jobs, partners, or advice. I’ve tapped into my immediate business school network more times than I can count to gain advice on different areas of the business that I wasn’t as familiar with yet.
- Taking on leadership roles in clubs is important to demonstrate your interest in those areas (for product marketing, choose marketing or tech clubs, or create your own). This is particularly important if you are switching careers from non-tech or non-marketing.
And I can’t talk about what to do in business school without talking about socializing.
Going out of your way to meet different types of people with diverse sets of opinions and backgrounds will help you be more empathetic and understanding as you work with a wide variety of people in product marketing. And you’ll have more understanding to help build connections with others to facilitate the creation and development of relationships, which are crucial for cross-functional influence. Not to mention it can be really fun (never forget that as a goal).
One more — you’ll become a time-management master. You’ll be running a mile a minute between classes, recruiting, clubs, and socializing so prioritization is key. Since I was unlikely to deliver well on all of those areas at the same time, I used to choose one of those four areas as my focus for a given week based on deliverables, optimize for that focus that week, and then rotate through the rest. It’s not an approach for everyone, but it worked for me.
It’s not for everyone, but going to business school was one of the best decisions I made, both for my product marketing career, and my life. What’s on your business school hit list?
If you’re just starting out in product marketing or considering a career transition, check out my product marketing classes:
- Product Marketing Bootcamp class for new and aspiring marketers to learn the essentials of end-to-end strategic product marketing so they can launch with confidence. Learn more.
- Product Marketing Resume Boost is the only online course that teaches you how to tailor your resume specifically for product marketing manager roles. Learn more.
Read more:
Q&A: What is the typical career path for a product marketing manager?
Q&A: “How do I transition into product marketing?”
Boost your Product Marketing Resume
What is Product Marketing Strategy?
What is a Product Marketing Plan?
What does a Product Marketing Manager do?
What does the Day-to-Day of a Product Marketing Manager look like?
Q&A: “What is the difference between Growth Marketing and Product Marketing?”
