Product Marketing Blog

Friday fun: "I don't know how to do that."

Steve Johnson — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:07:06 -0400

This may be one of the best commercials ever made. And I think about it often as we attempt to incorporate agile methods in a market-driven world. Or while we're implementing product management in an agile world.

PS. In a similar vein, one of the worst commercials claims that you are a child and are too stupid to do your jobs.

Steve at Agile 2008

Steve Johnson — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:26:40 -0400

If you're gonna be at Agile 2008 in Toronto next week, be sure to come to my session. I'll be using this slide to explain product management and agile.

Come lend me your support at 2:00 on Tuesday.

Inspiration: Last lecture

Steve Johnson — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who became a YouTube phenomenon with his "Last Lecture," died Friday of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 47.

He gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. As of today, the YouTube video has been viewed 3,241,377 times. In his moving presentation, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.

What would you do differently if you knew you had only a short time to live?

Friday Fun: Titles are a mess

Steve Johnson — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 03:50:00 -0400

In case you didn't see it, the Cranky Product Manager rails against a sales guy who has a title of product manager. With product managers like this, no wonder the rest of us struggle to get credibility with developers and others.

The fastest way to lose credibility (and about a 10% reduction in salary) is to say "I'm not technical."

Productcamp Toronto

Steve Johnson — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:00:00 -0400

I had dinner on Monday with the organizers of ProductCamp Toronto. ProductCamp is a collaborative unconference about Product Marketing and Management. The camp will be held on a Saturday in October. Details to follow.

As I ranted elsewhere, an unconference is about real people discussing about real topics rather than vendors making pitches. I'll be there, speaking on product management in an agile world. Whether you're agile or not, the techniques of agile can make you a better product manager.

ProductCamp only works if you get involved--that means speaking or leading a roundtable. Add your proposed session here or learn more at ProductCamp Toronto.

Losing your customers

Steve Johnson — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:00:00 -0400

Quick! Which is better? Keeping your customers or losing your customers?

They say that it's ten times cheaper to keep a customer than to get a customer. (At least, that's what Ryan said on The Office.) Why do we lose customers? It's not price; it's not features; it's not any of the reasons we hear from sales people.

In The reason customers leave, Kristin Zhivago explains,

It's hard enough to get customers. In tight times, the last thing you want to do, after you've gotten a customer, is to lose them. Not a good idea. But, it happens all the time to lots of companies. Why?

One reason. Yes, that's what I said: ONE reason. In every situation, for every type of product or service, in all the thousands of customer interviews I've conducted, it's obvious that there is really only one reason why customers leave. The reason:

"You stopped caring about me."

(It's true for employees too.)

In our frenzy, particularly in economic downturns or company mergers, there's so much to do and so little time to do it. So we focus on the urgent instead of the important. Isn't it odd that the same clients seem to have emergencies time after time. Maybe they've learned that the best way to get attention is to cry "Wolf!" and your company responds.

(It's true for employees too. I knew a guy who quit with great fanfare every year. And every year, the VP of International Sales would woo him back with more money and more perks. What lesson did he learn?)

Have you contacted 100% of your customers this year... without asking them for money? Maybe you need to spend some time maintaining customer relationships.

What are you doing this year (and next) to keep your customers?

PS. Another incredible comment in the article. Kristin wrote: "...in all the thousands of customer interviews I've conducted..." Talk about being able to speak with authority. This lady has some serious NIHITO.

Friday Fun: The Watershed EP

Steve Johnson — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:30:00 -0400

If you've known me for a while, you probably know that my son plays for a fine band, The Alternate Routes. For some weekend fun, you'll want to download their newest offering The Watershed EP. These songs lean a little more bluesy than the alternative rock of Good and Reckless and True. Both sets of songs are great. Download 'em and recommend 'em to your friends!

update on Tuned In

Steve Johnson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:34:16 -0400

Phil Myers, president of Pragmatic Marketing and co-author of Tuned In, was interviewed on Fox Business. Watch the video here.

If you haven't read the book yet, maybe you can win one! Our friend Heather Hamilton at Microsoft is giving away copies of the Tuned In book on her blog. Just come up with the new tagline for the top of her blog. Check it out here.

Geisman on Pricing

Steve Johnson — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:00:00 -0400

My friend Jim Geisman is offering his Software Pricing Workshop next week at The Hyatt Harborside Hotel in Boston. He explains,

Pricing is important today because products change frequently, competition is intense, and software development and delivery costs are shrinking. New software business models, such as on-demand/SaaS (Software as a Service) delivery, are threatening traditional software companies. Whether you adapt to these new models or address them another way, a tactical pricing error will hurt your company.

Product, category or need?

Steve Johnson — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

You gotta worry about products where you have to create the need. Ugh. You can do it, but it's hard and takes too long. In "What are you selling? Product, category or need?", Gopal Shenoy puts it this way,

A product sell is basically where a prospect walks in and says “Give me this product” - the customer knows that the product solves a well known problem.

Which type of product is yours?

PS. Gopal, congratulations on becoming a US citizen!

on conference events

Steve Johnson — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Seth Godin makes an interesting point in "saying thanks in a conference presentation." He writes,

Not only is this a total waste of time for most attendees, it doesn't even satisfy the core objective, which is thanking and rewarding the folks who helped. And it certainly doesn't encourage others to look forward to helping out.

It seems to me that conference organizers know almost nothing about organizing conferences; they seem to lose sight of any of the conference objectives. Conferences are usually designed around papers delivered by speakers yet they often don't provide printed proceedings and they typically do not provide support for the speaker--such as the ability to see the slides without turning around.

Maybe that's why conferences are often so expensive and yet so poorly attended.

Alas, organizers seem to focus mostly on the logistics and the exhibitions. They get everything in the right place at the right time and they make sure that the sellers have a place to hawk their wares. But in my experience, these organizers do a poor-to-fair job of promoting the conference, do a poor job of supporting the speakers, and do a poor job of supporting those who attend.

Perhaps that's why "unconferences" were born. Rather than suffer a glitzy but empty traditional conference, people who are actually interested in the conference topics have started their own conferences. Many of you in the Austin area participated in the Austin ProductCamp last month. I'll be speaking on The Strategic Role of Product Management at Agile 2008 in Toronto next month.

If you are a conference organizer, actually watch the sessions at your next conference. You'll see dozens of ways to improve the experience for the speakers and attendees.

Friday Fun: typos

Steve Johnson — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:46:56 -0700

Got an offer for USB sticks in my email this morning. But I don't have enough to buy a mimimum order. Dang.

Everybody makes mistakes which is why you should always have someone else review your work before it goes out!

on firefighting

Steve Johnson — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

I agree with the forestry service: we should let some fires burn. Many will just burn themselves out; others will get really interesting. But what about the people who dropped the ball and let these fires begin in the first place?

In Why a good PM will never be Employee of the Quarter, Saeed writes,

Kind words are usually reserved for those who take a nasty operational situation, and help alleviate the problem through significant personal sacrifice.

Remember the old cartoon in your admin's office? "Lack of planning on your part... doesn't constitute an emergency on my part." Alas.

As Product Management Thursday approaches, can you set aside firefighting for one day and identify ways to prevent fires? Here are a few ideas:

schedule some work-at-home-and-get-something-done days
schedule some customer visits
perform some win/loss analysis
identify and articulate your buyer and user personas
map out a repeatable sales process
reorganize your sales tools on the intranet so people can find stuff

What can you do to prevent some fires instead of just fighting them?

Friday Fun: customer advisory survey

Steve Johnson — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:41:25 -0700

Using a customer advisory board is one way of listening to the market and keeping your product focused on solving real problems. The trick, of course, is that you should be listening more than talking. Nature gave us two ears....

CAB Exchange is conducting the first best practices survey of Customer Advisory Programs. Our friend Bill writes,

I'd like to invite your clients to participate. Those who do so will receive a free copy of the completed survey results and analysis (a $200 value). In addition, they'll receive a discount on the registration fee to next month's CAB Exchange Summit.

Take the survey here.

Learn about the CAN Exchange Summit.

on beta testing

Steve Johnson — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:29:37 -0700

Quick! What's the second word in "beta testing." If you said "testing", you're right. That's why beta testing should be run by the testing people in QA. However, as Paul Young writes,

If you run Product Management, especially in a smaller company, you may find yourself running the beta program. This is a tactical activity, and you will be knee deep in beta user qualification, feedback, administration, possibly even support, but you can take positives from a good beta.

Product managers are often involved with beta testing because product managers want to validate the usability of the product (hint: do it much sooner), they want to show the product to some key customers, or maybe they just know more customers than the QA people. Read Paul's description of 5 types of beta. Great stuff. Are there more?