Jeff Lash wrote a great piece this morning about how the need for metrics is about measuring the impact of the product change.
That works well in products. Tangible items. But, what about in services?
This is a challenge I have been facing for nearly 9 months. What are the right measurements when you are the product manager of services?
You can measure the financial impact. But, you have a less distinct measurement. I’ve had to review the services that were purchased and make a determination if they were related to the service theme. Not very scientific, and leaves a lot of room for discretion and interpretation. That means inconsistency.
How about sales awareness? Again, I can look at the number of opportunities that were presented to potential clients, and do the same retrofit analysis; but, yet again, I’m left with inconsistencies and interpretations.
So, what’s the best practice when your product is controlled by a single developer who is also the person that represents the product? The measurements around that individual can be obtained, but they don’t represent the “product” metrics that aresought, only the “individual’s” metrics of productivity and engagement.
Ideas? What metrics mattter? How do you get an objective measurement?
Anyone who has worked in marketing has worked for managers with a myriad of titles. It’s just a fact of the role. But, what do those titles really mean?
Marketing as a discipline has many definitions. For the sake of this discussion, I will define marketing as the ability to connect products and customers. [I used to employ a simpler definition – “to generate interest in something for sale.” But it was pointed out to me that definition was focused on my view, not the market view.] If marketing is done right, all parties will be happy, and the product will be accepted and purchased by the market
Simple and direct. Yes, of course there are so many other definitions that provide more details, make it more of a science, make it more of an art, and make it more complex. But, let’s focus on the simple definition.
If marketing as a business discipline is about connecting products and people, why do so many companies have a VP of Sales and Marketing? Sales is about the actual selling of the item. A salesperson (by whatever name he is called) is concerned about one thing, and one thing only. If any sales person disputes that, then they are not really in sales. What is their one concern? Simple – it’s about closing that deal today to put money in their pocket. Sales people are all about that one single deal, regardless of size (though they prefer the large ones obviously.) Marketing is about making that product and generating interest to the masses.
It’s a simple equation: Sales = n=1; Marketing = n=many
To be truly effective in marketing, you have to understand the larger market, not the single deal. Unless you’re doing 1-to-1 campaigns, which few companies can afford. The larger market you have targeted has a profile; it has characteristics that are more general. Yes, you need to understand who is in that market, and to what they respond; but, it’s not just about the single entity. So why then do so many companies put the two at-odd disciplines into one management structure? This creates an inherent conflict for not only resources, but direction. When a marketer is forced to ask the sales team for feedback about a campaign idea or strategy, it’s a single viewed response. The sales team thinks about how this will affect that one sale they are trying to close. They are not looking at the overall objective, and how the campaign will attract the interest of the larger market.
There have been some posts by Steve Johnson, Saeed and Adam Bullied about where the role of product management should fit in an organization. I think the problem stems from step before that discussion – that is, how you separate functions from the beginning. Companies that are looking at the management structure in a common combined way are missing the boat. Separate the functions. Let them each focus, through strong leadership, on what they are individually charged to attack.
Looking in from the outside it’s a simple fix really. Let sales sell. Let marketing generate the interest. Let product management find the market problems to solve. Let development find the solution to the problems. In other words, let people do their work.
When faced with a personal choice, to whom do you turn? Your mother or your best friend?
The answer is, of course, it depends on what the choice is about. Seriously, if you are trying to work through a wardrobe issue, do you really turn to your mother? On the other hand, which one is better to understand your marital problems?
It’s no different in product management.
When you are faced with understanding the product, where do you turn? As the product manager, you are supposed to be the product owner. You are the go-to-guy/gal. But, where do you turn when you don’t understand?
If you are in an engineering-driven firm, product managers typically turn to their resources in development. After all, these are the people who built the product. They know the gizmos and gadgets that are inside of it. They know why they put that button on the interface where it is. Or, do they?
If you are in services, do you turn to the content owners (i.e. developers,) to make the suggestions? After all, these are the thought leaders who drive whole industry directions.
In either case, the better product managers will turn to the market to answer the product questions. If you manage product development well, you gave the development team a set of problems to fix, not buttons to create. You gave the consultants feedback you heard on their situations. Products should solve problems. If you didn’t give the product development team a problem, yet they build that button anyway or decided they liked a concept to market, why did you release the product?
The answer lies in the market. Remember that. Looking in, I don’t remember that last time the developers bought their own products to solve problems or consultants hired themselves.
(Exceptions to some consumer software and product lines, of course, where developers may be PART of the market.)
No sooner did I post my thought for the day, only to have a much more wiser blog appear from Guy Kawaski.
Guy wrote about a new book “Escape Corporate America.” Read the blog, it’s good. Read the book, it’s better. It’s relevant.
So, I have a friend who is a successful marketeer. (Anyone else immediately get an image of a person with big Mouse ears?) For four years she has killed herself doing a great job in her current position at a small-ish software firm. Over the time she has been there she was recognized as an important element, and lured along with promises of promotions, even replacing a member of the executive team.
Now, I’m not saying that she shouldn’t have kept doing her best. She genuinely loves what she does. But after four years, how many of you think the promises made by her management team have occurred? Okay, for those of you who voted yes, please look at the bridge I am selling; for the rest, of you, you’re right.
So, that leaves her where? She now has woken up and sees the toxic environment that is around her at work. She recognizes that all the hours she worked killing herself when no one else was, only hurt her. And, she still hasn’t gotten the promotion with which she was lured.
Did she do it to herself? Partly. We all know that. She could easily have seen that after the first 21-18 months there were no changes, and started to look for something else if that was what she wanted. But, she trusted in the management, and stayed.
But, partly it was that management that didn’t get it. Management promises of growth, money, and fame seldom will lead you down the right path. How about this? Why don’t we get management to recognize us and create development paths? Wow. Novel approach. And it’s even working in a whole lot of companies. Why does it work some place and not others?
Simple, there are still management teams that believe you can keep dangling the carrot and we will follow. Eventually these people need to change their behaviors, it does hit a point where it is not us. Management needs to look at their own actions, and how they treat people. Again, in some companies, this is not a concern. but I’ve seen it way too much in the small-smallish software world, to believe it is/was just me and my behavior.
Management teams need to invest – and believe – in the programs to help them build successful teams. These programs need to recognize and reward talent and achievement with realistic carrots, that you actually receive. They need to look from the outisde and see how they are really treating their employees, before the good ones – like my friend, and me before that - finally wise up and take their talent elsewhere.
Saeed says he has made requirement decisions – when all things are equal – so people will “get off his butt.” And, he says he was honest. But, he shouldn’t apologize. Anyone who has been in product management has done the same thing.
Even in the short time I’ve been in service pm, I have done the same thing. If there is a content owner who is more cooperative, responds in a timely manner and generally doesn’t beat me up on every call, e-mail or IM, and I have a content owner who is nasty, demanding, and uncooperative – guess whose work I favor?
Yes, requirements should be prioritized. And, yes, this prioritization needs to be driven from market information. But, if all things are easier, don’t we all tend to add a human element into the prioritization process. Saeed chose one over the other to get people to leave him alone; I chose one over the other because it would be less confrontational to finish the work. Haven’t you not returned to a restaurant because the service was poor? I mean, the server had to prioritize, and you lost.
Will Saeed and I pay the price later? Maybe. Does it mean we ignored the market needs? No. Looking in from the outside, aren’t product managers allowed a little room? Developers take it. Management takes it. We’re just claiming a little piece.
The simple answer is no.
But, as you would expect, there is always a caveat with a simple answer.
The magic bullet in marketing is the understanding of the market that the product serves, not the list of features, and how the product solves a problem that is shared in the market..and, here is a semi-magic bullet… and wants to be solved.
In the past, a classical approach has been advocated for our go-to-market programs. An approach routed in strategy. And, it starts with the right positioning information from the product management team to identify the product, its key message, description and features. Use this information to understand the target segment, and the specific buyer personas that those segments identify. Only after identifying what drives a buyer, what motivates them and how they respond can you move forward in action. (And, remember, identify if this problem that the product/feature addresses wants to be solved!) Once the persona is understood, understanding the buying/sales process is a too-often critical element that is overlooked. However, to enter the creation of a new marketing program, without being able to match the buyer’s need with an identified sales step, often results in a stopping of the process without a positive result. The next step in the strategic approach involves looking at the persona and sales process and defining the right marketing program, artifact, which will solve the need to move forward in the process. This program should be reflective of the need, and not driven by a delivery mechanism, electronic or traditional.
Adele Revella has done some incredible work on “understanding the buyer persona.” Her blog can be found at http://www.buyerpersonas.com. It is highly recommended that you read her information before taking another step in your next marketing campaign.
It is highly recommended that you read her information before taking another step in your next marketing campaign.
Is there a magic bullet? No. But, with better understanding about the buyer you are targeting, do you really need magic?
So I woke up this morning to find out a speaker I had arranged for needed to cancel due to health reasons. While I am sympathetic to his plight, and wish a speedy recovery, it raises the question again of what to do when the product is embodied in a person?
Yes, there is a backup available. And, yes, the backup is of the same quality; but, the two do not have the same experiences to share. If the audience receives different experiences depending upon who the speaker is, is this really a repeatable product?
Looking in from the outside, at what point do you say that a service product is repreatable? Is delivering 65% the same repeatable? Is 80% good enough? How do you market the product if the experience is even 1% different?
So, it’s easy to sit here, on the outside looking in and making comments about life. Much harder to remember to say thank you when you see a good job.
I belong to a religious organization. For years there was no “formal” woman’s group as part of this organization. Last year a woman stepped up and took command. She brought together a lovely group of woman who had the same desire. But, not all of us can make the same time commitments in and out.
From the outside looking in, it’s easy to be critical and note what didn’t go well, who should have asked for help, what programs should be considered. From the inside, this small group of women who are making a significant commitment are trying to just put some wheels on a movement to get it going.
Kudos to this group, and the leader specifically.
Have you looked in and remembered to say thank you?
There are some really good places out there to get help when working in product management. Pragmatic Marketing, 280Group, and AIPMM are a few of the more popular places.
All really good … IF you are working with products and features.
But, what if you are working with services? Where do you turn.
For nearly nine months, I’ve been working on defining a product management lifecycle for services. Sounds easy enough, use the lifecycles that others have defined: define it, package it, educate about it, and market it.
But, the services are more than products, they’re people.
In my case, the products I’m trying to create are inherently part of the people who are creating them. What I mean is, when a person leaves the company with their domain knowledge, then my product process falls apart. I have to start all over.
Frustating? yes. Impossible? Jury still out.
In the nine months, there has been some movement, but more stops and stalls. Fire fighting always seems to take place first. And, there is the eternal question: Aren’t we developing products from the inside out? All good product management training says to identify the problem the market has, solve that and you win. But, with people being the product, you need to capitalize on the domains you already own. These people were hired because they have an expertise that was needed/wanted by the market.
But packaging people is no easy feat! A simple lifecycle doesn’t apply, and when it does it changes rapidly before you can truly achieve the end goal. Any ideas from the outside?
