You’ve seen the news. The economy is in turmoil. But, the experts tell us that there are ways to capitalize on times like these to have the economy work for you. Here are a few tips from the trenches to keep your product on track.
1) Recessions force businesses to be thrifty. Having limited budgets leads to more creative thinking, healthy forethought about any spend on launch plans, and the need to pay very close attention to inventory levels and sales.
2) Recessions attract commitments. Even when the economy is in great shape, it takes guts to launch a revolutionary product, something to change a marketplace or technology. When the economy is recessionary, new products that meet a market demand – that companies will risk their financial health to sell their benefits – will be either truly groundbreaking or truly serving the needs of the market they are designed for, both of which have their value and their charm.
3) Recessions make product managers develop solid business plans. When start-up capital is easy to come by, the learning curve for new products is less punishing—they have more time and money available to cushion the blow of early mistakes. During recessions, product managers don’t often have the luxury of ample budgets, so they need to make sure from the get-go that they have a solid plan for success, and have investigated the market demand, quantified it, prepared the necessary requirements and insured that the plans are solid and in alignment with the organization’s goals.
4) Recessions can help keep start-up costs low. When other products leave the marketplace, there will always be plenty of supplier discounts, fire sale trade show booths and trinkets for companies to pick up on the cheap. Email marketing can be less costly than direct mail.
5) Good ideas can’t always wait. “A good idea doesn’t wait for the perfect time to emerge,” says Jason Sheller, who resigned as Google’s manager of new business development in 2007 to launch his own Internet start-up. “Being an entrepreneur is all about risk and innovation, not timing the market.” Product managers need to look at whether this is the time to launch that latest whiz-bang gadget. It just might be.
6) Recessions toughen products up. Products that can survive a recession should be able to thrive in better times. If you can launch a new product in a tough market, your chances of success and real growth when things ease off are phenomenal.
7) Recessions teach product managers to create their own job security. The days of lifelong job security and retirement pensions are long gone. The sooner all of us can face the fact that we’re responsible for creating our own job security, the better off we’ll be. As a product manager, your job security comes in managing a successful product – with the necessary homework done and behind you – and the proper management plans designed for moving forward.
Looking in from the outside – now is the time to take control, take ownership, and take chances.
“Marketing is not the same as advertising. Advertising is a tiny slice of what marketing is today, and in fact, it’s pretty clear that the marketing has to come before the product, not after. As Jon points out, the Prius was developed after the marketing thinking was done. Jones Soda, too. In fact, just about every successful product or service is the result of smart marketing thinking first, followed by a great product that makes the marketing story come true.
If someone comes to you with a ‘great’ product that just needs some marketing, the game is probably already over.”
Seth Godin, the marketing guru with a following bigger than the crowds at the Pittsburgh Steelers celebrations this week, makes a commanding case. However, he stops a bit short.
Before marketing can lead to advertising, you need to have solid a product. A product that is designed to solve a market problem. And, that problem needs to defined and verified by uncovering, really discovering, the requirements of the market – those who have a problem that the product solves AND want the problem solved AND have the money to pay for the solution.
Without a market that needs the product, no amount of marketing will help the product.
