Let's talk about the thing everyone thinks about but nobody wants to say out loud: compensation. Nate and John are joined by Rachel Stanley, Portfolio Product Marketing Manager at Red Hat, for an honest conversation about salary bands, equity, bonuses, and what actually matters when evaluating your comp package.

Rachel shares her journey from PR to product marketing—and yes, the significant pay bump was part of the decision. The team unpacks pay transparency laws, regional salary bands that make no sense, how to negotiate when you're already in-role, and why the "hot labor summer" of 2021 feels like a distant memory. They also tackle the components of comp most people forget to consider, from RSUs to the real cost of benefits, and why understanding your band matters more than you think.

Whether you're considering a move, trying to get promoted, or just wondering if you're being paid fairly, this episode cuts through the LinkedIn noise to give you frameworks you can actually use. Plus: why you should absolutely not try to get dates on LinkedIn, and yes, SeaWorld is still a thing.

New Episodes every Tuesday

Videos and clips available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GettintoMarketPod

Your company's investment level in a product fundamentally changes what your job looks like as a PM or PMM. John and Nate break down how your priorities shift across the spectrum: high-growth products chasing new customer acquisition, retention-focused products where stability is king, and that tricky middle ground where the product has value but go-to-market isn't working yet.

Plus, where should you put your most experienced people? On retention products or growth products? What skills do you actually build in low-growth roles?

Side topic: the reality of VP-level context switching—bouncing between three-year vision and this week's execution, across products with completely different business models, while staying sharp for C-suite conversations.

New episodes every Tuesday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, or visit productischange.com for all episodes and YouTube shorts.

New Episodes every Tuesday

Videos and clips available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GettintoMarketPod

Nobody likes having hard conversations at work. Whether it's telling customers the feature they requested isn't going to make it into the product, pushing back on scope creep from other teams, or explaining why you can't take on that "quick favor" that definitely isn't in your goals—these moments are rough. But they're also unavoidable.

This week, John and Nate talk through the two categories of tough conversations that come up in PM and PMM roles: external conversations with customers (outages, delays, bad news) and internal cross-functional battles. We also explore why being honest is almost always the right move, even when it's uncomfortable, and how to navigate the "it's not in my goals" problem without burning bridges.

Also covered: power tool battery platform lock-in, New Year's resolutions, and the fact that John Lennon was an objectively terrible person.

Your job is real, but your role is negotiable.

For video, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXSGm0RUDxo

New Episodes every Tuesday

Videos and clips available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GettintoMarketPod