Dr. Mark, I am a frustrated salesperson. I am out there selling our product but my prospects are asking for features which we don’t have. Our Product Managers (PMs) listen to me but they say they can’t stop and change course. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Sir WantsToSellAlot
Thanks for your e-mail Sir WantsToSellAlot.
I don’t blame you for being frustrated because quite obviously, if you don’t sell, we don’t eat.
Let’s take a closer look at your analogy that product managers are like some men and they don’t stop and ask for directions. Just as it’s not good to generalize every man as unwilling to stop and ask for directions, let’s assume that there are a just a few PMs who prefer to work on their own instincts and experience. For those individuals, their methods and thoughts may go something like this:
“If I stop and change course, I will lose credibility with engineering, the exec team will feel that I didn’t thoroughly analyze the market demand. The competition will laugh at me, and our existing customers won’t love me anymore.”
Substitute spouse for engineering and customers, family for exec team and friends for competition, referenced in that sentence and you might have your analogy for some insecure men drivers out there. If that’s the case, you have a definite gripe. They are definitely not doing their job and are not thinking of how the company can benefit from this new data you have presented. Give me their name and badge number and I’ll have their PM license revoked immediately!
However, let’s assume that old analogy isn’t applicable here. You said that you’ve spoken to your PM team and they have listened to your feedback. These days, no self respecting PM team backed by an exec team and organization who understands the critical nature of roadmap planning and product management, would shy away from input from the field. In fact, many organizations now take a technical and structured approach to PPM (Product Planning and Management). Given this, your requirements are probably being evaluated in the context of many other priorities and outside influences. I recently answered a question from an equally frustrated PM and offered a 12 Step Program for Product Planning which can ensure that every new capability or product can be proposed, evaluated and prioritized. In fact there are even software products now available to help with the PPM process. A colleague of mine Christine Crandell recently joined a company Accept Software that offers On-Demand Innovation Management Software a powerful tool for capturing and evaluating requirements, kinda like a GPS for navigating releases and roadmap, only much much more powerful. So if your PM team is following a process, with or without technology, it’s likely that you’re specific feature or capability request has been superseded by other items for the resources needed. You should trust that your PM team has determined that in the longer term this will benefit the company more.
I realize that this doesn’t help you fill your quota this quarter, so the next step should be for you and your PM team to determine how to address this need via a work around or alternate solution. They might also be able to insert the requirement and make visible the possibility (no promises) that it may appear in the roadmap in the future which might satisfy your prospect as well. Meanwhile, at the very least, your PM team should have communicated where your request has gone and assured you by showing you the roadmap that they ARE stopping and asking for directions. The best thing you can do is sell on current functionality, while continuing to provide feedback as you are doing. Ultimately you will benefit much more via your stock options, as the company will be much more valuable to everyone in the long run, with an agreed release and roadmap process.
If you are interested, here are the other posts in my Dr. Mark Eteer series. Thank you for reading and keep the questions coming.
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About Dr. Mark Eteer
Mark Eteer was born in the UK in 1966. He studied computer science at the University of Essex and after 8 years as a programmer, moved into marketing. He obtained his PhD entirely online. His success marketing for major corporations and minor startups, combined with his no nonsense straight forward guidance on all matters marketing, has led him to be sought out by some of the most well known marketing stars in Mollywood. Although unsubstantiated, he claims that he was the marketing/PR mind behind Tom Cruise’s behavior on Oprah, although he admits that Tom took it a bit too far. He currently lives in an exclusive suburb of Mollywood.
As a leading provider of scalable, enterprise-wide, high ROI marketing ideas, Dr. Mark uses his cloud-based, next-generation approach and solar-powered, game changing methodology which leverages social media to answer paradigm shifting questions about marketing and product management.
Dr. Mark would like to thank Ramon Chen for allowing him to be a guest blogger here on Cloud ‘N Clear and understands that Ramon disavows any knowledge of any bad advice he might offer.