With my abundance of spare time lately, I have been picking up some of the books I have on a variety of business topics. Books that I have skimmed or have done some spear fishing for in the past when I needed to quickly get up to speed. As one of the core tasks of product management, pricing has always been somewhat of a challenge. Not the act of setting prices, although at some places I have...
At every company I have been at with some history (more than a decade or two), I have found there to be at least one product that is long beyond the “Milk it” stage. Orders have dropped off, and customers have moved to either a different technology, or into a replacement product. Of course, you still get the occasional batch of orders for it, thus the hesitancy to discontinue it...
The words “Strategic Marketing” evokes grand ideas and concepts. But as with many phrases, there is more than a little bit of ambiguity in the perception of those who hear it. Different groups within the organization will likely have quite different interpretations of “Strategic Marketing” Sales When Sales hears the term “Strategic Marketing,” they think that means helping them sell more to what...
If you follow the #prodmgmt or #prodmktg hashtags on Twitter, and the ever increasing variety of product management blogs, it would seem like every product management job is some leading edge, hyper tech start up product that is positioned to be the next Facebook, (or Dropbox, or {insert cool cloud technology}). However, it is much more likely that you work at a company that has a history, and...
Being in the product management / product marketing game a long time, these are some truths that have been constants across my career. Time and time again, there are the same challenges, and I suspect that many of you have similar or related tales. This is by far not a complete list, but it is a start.
Here goes:
Five little words. “That feature doesn’t sell products“. Seems innocuous enough, but it is the death of product development when uttered by engineering. Product Management is tasked with defining what a product should do, what features are needed, and how to compare/differentiate vis-a-vis with the competitors. We write requirements, and guide them into and through the development process. All to...
The role of Product Manager is demanding in any organization. The list of what it takes to be successful is long, and daunting. A great product manager is a great communicator, has technical chops, can climb enormous learning curves with ease, and can contribute at all levels in the organization, from the production floor to the C-suite. Often I am asked “Where do you find good product...
Next week we have a sales meeting, and I have three hours of presentations scheduled (since I had control of the schedule, I was able to not do 15 hours of presentations in 3 days like the last meeting). Naturally, I am way behind on preparations. This is no surprise. So I am working the weekend. But why is it that it takes at least 15 – 20 hours to prepare the slides for 3 hours? I swear...
I have ranted often about LinkedIn, from their desire to be a destination as often and for as much time as Facebook, a tall order indeed. Many of the people I know in Marketing are hailing it as the B2B marketing platform, praising the blogs, the opinion leaders they have recruited, and the communities that can be created. I naturally have a LinkedIn profile, and I am a member to many of these...
Product management and product marketing are two fields where you can expect to travel often. Unlike sales, who usually have a territory, we cover the world and are called to travel widely. Every one of these jobs I have been in has advertised 25% of travel. And every one of them has underestimated the percentage of travel required. Pro-tip: If they tell you while interviewing that you will...