Natalie Cervantes

Read the Room: Decoding What Your Stakeholder Actually Wants

Microsoft

Cruise

Toptal

Former Microsoft PM, Cruise EM, 20 years in Product Leadership

Whether it is from fear, an unknown constraint, or a misaligned goal, you'll be able to asses the reason, in real time.

Identify the real reason a stakeholder is pushing back

Ask three key questions in any alignment conversation that surface unstated concerns before they kill your initiative.

Learn the 3 key questions to ask

Reframe on the spot when a conversation goes sideways, so you can move a stalled initiative forward without escalating.

Actively reframe to win

Stop executing others' roadmaps. Build strategy executives fund, speak the language of business, and win stakeholder buy-in.

VP Product. 300+ PMs Stuck to Strategic

Deloitte

PRGX Global

FinThrive

Healthmine

Brennan Collins

Startup & Enterprise Product Exec. Coached 300+ PMs from Stuck to Strategic

Jan-Feb 2026

March 2026

AI can write your PRD in 30 seconds. But it can't figure out which problem to solve, get buy-in from your VP, or connect your feature to revenue targets executives fund.You're competent. You know the fundamentals. But you're stuck in delivery mode, executing roadmaps you didn't create, managing requests you can't push back on, watching less capable PMs get promoted because they learned to speak the language of business.The gap isn't talent. It's significance.You produce work that disappears. You need work that registers as strategically important to people with power. AI won't fix this. It'll just help you execute faster on things nobody notices.This course teaches you both: master the craft that makes you significant, then sharpen the tool that multiplies your impact.In 4 weeks, learn frameworks AI amplifies but can't replace:<ul><li>See how it's done: Live examples showing good → better → best execution</li><li>Practice on your work: Multiple exercises per session, immediate application</li><li>Build then sharpen: Create artifacts Monday-ready, get prompts that 10x them</li><li>Know when AI's enough: High-stakes strategy needs your judgment. Repetitive work doesn't.</li></ul>Stop being invisible. Start being significant.

Master Your Craft First.  Then Let AI Multiply Your Significance as a PM Leader

Think like a business owner, not a delivery manager

Map customer needs to business metrics executives care about

Craft a vision that inspires and a strategy that creates confidence

Transform stakeholder feature demands into defensible strategic moves

Build a Business; Not just a Product

Position yourself for promotion and lead with executive presence

This is not an entry-level course.  These are advanced topics.  See my free content for PM foundations and breaking into product management.

3 to 10 years experience in Product Management

No one-and-done projects here.  You need to have felt the joy and pain of good and bad decisions (yours or someone else's).

Experience shipping multiple iterations of the same product

Not just your salary (but that comes with it)... You don’t need to be a Director of PM yet, but you should want to become one.

An intrinsic desire to grow your responsibility & challenges

Mid-career PMs stuck in delivery mode who want to think more strategically and earn a seat at the decision-making table.

Experienced product managers who want to speak the language of business and defend their roadmap with metrics executives respect.

PMs ready for promotion or exploring product leadership who want to operate like strategic leaders, not order-takers.

Transform from L&D order-taker to strategic business partner using proven frameworks that secure executive buy-in.

Think and Execute Like a Learning Leader

Dr. Christie Vanorsdale, Ed.D, Ms.Ed.

Doctor of Education with 15+ years building evidence-based learning ecosystems.

Cohort 1

Cohort 2

Break Out of the “Order-Taker” Role in L&amp;DMost L&amp;D professionals get stuck taking orders—creating courses without influence over strategy. Even with strong skills, they struggle to: • Connect learning to business results leaders value • Gain buy-in or budget for ideas • Navigate organizational politics • Break through the ceiling that limits growthThis 4-week course gives you the tools and language to operate as a strategic partner. You’ll learn to audit learning ecosystems, build executive-ready business cases, map stakeholder influence, and design phased implementation plans that prove impact.What to Expect A 4-week blend of self-paced lessons and live collaboration:<ul><li>Week 1: Learning Ecosystem Audit</li><li>Week 2: Building Business Cases (+ Live)</li><li>Week 3: Stakeholder &amp; Implementation Planning</li><li>Week 4: Capstone Presentations (+ Live)</li></ul>Projects &amp; Community<ul><li>Project 1: Audit a real training request</li><li>Project 2: Create a Strategic Implementation Plan </li><li>Takeaway: Build a portfolio with audits, business cases, and influence maps—plus a positioning statement showing your readiness for strategic L&amp;D roles.</li></ul>

Transform from L&D order-taker to strategic business partner with C-suite access

Shift from executor to strategist by framing learning in business terms.

Use systems thinking to design learning that drives organizational impact.

Communicate learning value in ROI-focused language leaders respect.

Apply proven frameworks to link learning strategy to measurable results.

The Frustrated Senior ID Senior instructional designers tired of being order-takers who want strategic influence and leadership advancement.

The Ambitious L&amp;D Manager L&amp;D managers seeking C-suite access and organizational influence to drive business impact.

The Strategic Learning Professional Learning professionals ready to transition from tactical execution to strategic business partnership.

Learn how to use influence strategies and negotiation skills to achieve what you want at work, and create value for others in the process. 

Lifelong learner & teacher. Ex-HBS Prof

Francesca Gino

Ex-HBS Professor, with 20+ yrs of experience teaching & practicing negotiation. 

Managerial and executive success requires the ability to negotiate. Whether you are influencing a team project, forging an agreement with suppliers, trying to ink a deal with potential customers, raising money from investors, managing a conflict inside the firm, or tackling a dispute that is headed towards litigation, your ability to negotiate will affect your performance.The course will allow you to test your analytic ability and your tactical skills, and to experiment with new ideas. This approach allows us to:1) Introduce a negotiation framework that will help you analyze, prepare for, and execute negotiations more systematically—and hence, more effectively—in a wide variety of contexts.2) Build a negotiation toolkit that consists of strategies and tactics for creating and capturing value in negotiation, and which can be put to use as soon as the session is over.3) Create an environment which helps diagnose your individual needs and allows you to identify techniques for mitigating your weaknesses and leveraging your strengths.

Negotiation is a human skill key to success

Design agreements that maximize joint value while capturing an appropriate share

Learn to navigate complex, high-pressure, and multi-party negotiations

Manage disputes and respond effectively to emotional or challenging behavior

Managers interested in developing a negotiator’s lens for diagnosing and resolving business problems.

Professionals looking to build influence or navigate collaborative work.

Ambitious learners with 3-5 years of full-time work experience.

Master an SE specific influence playbook to diagnose stalls, move deals, and become the trusted strategic partner leaders rely on.

Executive Coach & Ex-Salesforce Director

Salesforce

EPiServer

Advanced Chemistry Development

Seneca Polytechnic

David Fung, Leadership Coach

Leadership coach for SE & tech leaders, Prev. Salesforce SE Sr Director

Sales Engineers live in the mess between customer reality, sales pressure, and product constraints. You see risks and better options before anyone else, yet in deal discussions your input often lands as noise. You receive vague feedback like “be more strategic” without a playbook, and left wondering what "secrets" there might be for influencing your peers.Generic leadership training does not help. Leadership books and generic communication training don’t teach you what to say in a live deal review, how to mitigate a risky sales promise, or how to fight for a feature that keeps getting bumped. It feels disconnected from the pressure of real quarters.This course matters because it starts in your world. I don’t use hypotheticals, I help you work on a live deal or initiative you own right now. You get a simple framework to diagnose why stakeholders ignore you, plus concrete scripts, written communication rewrites, and a reusable 30-day influence plan. The goal isn't to change your personality. It is to operationalize your expertise, transforming you into the trusted strategic operator leadership relies on for big decisions.

Get the influence skills SEs and SE leaders need to grow your career

Understand Resistance and Influence

Handle Conflict Without Drama

Create a 30-Day Influence Plan

Communicate to Drive Decisions

Strengthen Your Professional Credibility

Become a Trusted Strategic Partner

Sales Engineers at any levelGet a seat at the table shaping deal strategy and product direction instead of just running demos.

Sales Engineering LeaderTransform your team from reactive support into strategic drivers of deals and product direction.

Product or Customer Success PartnerTurn your customer insights into product reality and drive deeper adoption on strategic accounts.