One of my favorite roles in my career as a marketing professional is the time I spent as a product manager for a software company. The sense of order to the process of creating good software really appeals to me. Each step is well-defined. Every one of them is important to a good final product. Skimp on any one of them and things go awry.

The wisdom of Pragmatic Marketing helped me work with the development team to produce good solid products that sold well. It also helped developed me as a professional by helping me understand how to deliver a product that was designed for the customer’s needs and not my own.

But, the laws of product management apply to more than just software. I was thinking recently about career management and found it interesting to view this through the eyes of the product manager.

First you have to accept that you are a product. You are hired to solve a problem or fill a need for your customer/employer. Your job, as manager of product “you”, is to create the right product for your customers. You can apply many of the concepts for successful product management to product “you” just as you can with any other product you manage.

Know your customer

As with marketing any product, you have to know who you’re selling to. You have at least two customers in this category.

The first is the company or division that you work for. For my team, this includes the sales team for whom we produce deliverables. This customer needs us to produce leads and materials that help them deliver to their goals. We work with them to define what they need. After all, sales people don’t always know. Then, we make sure that we deliver what we agreed to and when we agreed to deliver it.

Your current customer list should also include your immediate boss. What does this individual need from you? Yes, he or she needs you to deliver to the goals of the organization, but they need more. This differs from boss to boss and is often dependent on the culture of the corporation and the style of the boss.

For example, the organization may be highly contentious with a lot of finger pointing. In that case, make sure your boss has the details of everything that you’re doing and how it contributes to the goals of the organization. Don’t wait for them to ask you for it. And, fore heaven’s sake, don’t let your boss be blind-sided by anything in this corporate culture.

Finally, most of us are realistic enough to realize that we probably won’t be at the same company throughout our career. Therefore, your customer should also include any prospective employers and the type of role you want to develop (pun intended) into. To successfully develop your career you should be thinking about these potential customers long before you start any sort of job search. The features you need to acquire to get the kind of job you want may take months or even years to develop.

The answer is not in your building

This truism from Pragmatic Marketing certainly applies here. In my experience, most high-level marketing executives are hired from outside the company. If you Google them you’ll see that a good number of them have held positions of increasing importance in several different companies. Linked In, and sites like it, makes it increasingly easy to study an executive’s career.

The lesson from this is that your ultimate dream job, unless you have it already, is probably not going to happen at the company you are in. Therefore, if you’re going to research what companies look for in the role you are developing for, you should talk to people outside your own organization.

Don’t be shy about asking questions at networking functions. It’s a great conversational topic for any marketing event. You just need to be sure that you aren’t crossing the line between job hunting and research. It’s the same as a product manager doing research who steps into “sales mode.” Your audience will quickly detect it and the conversation will end.

Build to your customer’s needs

Once you understand your current and prospective customer’s requirements, build to those needs. Maybe you hate budgeting work, but your research tells you that you need to have experience managing budgets. In that case, you should be doing everything you can to get that experience. You may even need to consider making a lateral career move to develop the necessary skills.

I spent a considerable amount of my early career making lateral career moves to cover a wide variety of marketing disciplines. I didn’t move up as fast as some of my more aggressive colleagues, but I built a good base of knowledge to draw on. This was certainly helpful in one company where I was hired to develop a channel program. Then, when the marketing director, I was able to show that I could easily fill the vacant position.

A lot of individuals immediately jump to the MBA as a requirement. If that fits into your aspirations and life style go for it. It will certainly open more doors for you. However, there are many employers out there that believe experience counts. Just make sure you don’t sacrifice one for the other.

Always be working on the next revision

Product managers are always planning for the next revision. In software, and probably most other industries, if a product isn’t being improved it’s dying. The same is true for our careers. If you are not continually developing new skills you are going to be obsolete before you know it. Develop a product plan for yourself complete with milestones. As with any product plan, be realistic about the features that will be included in the next revision. Personal development takes time.

Your opinion is irrelevant

Another great quote from Pragmatic Marketing! We’ve probably all seen product managers who are too close to the product. They will defend the greatest weaknesses. They will promote the most trifling of features. This can easily happen when we try to market ourselves. Be honest with yourself when you assess your weaknesses. And, when talking about your strengths, always ask yourself if this strength is relevant to the customer.

It’s helpful to get opinions from others. If you have regular reviews with your boss, that’s an excellent place to start. Your mentors and other trusted colleagues can also be helpful. I recommend that you don’t be too needy. Guiding a younger employee who is always asking about his or her career can be trying on the nerves. It makes me wonder whether they have the company’s best interests at heart.

It also helps to remember that the pieces of advice you receive are just data points. Even the most successful executive will only be passing along what’s worked for him or her. You may even get conflicting opinions just as you would when asking for feedback on your other products. You have to decide what’s right for you.

Don’t bloat the value proposition

If you’ve done the research and continuously enhanced your product, you should have plenty to talk about when an opportunity comes to sell yourself. Don’t let your value proposition becomes a collection of features. Pick the main points that you want people to remember about you. These should be “features” that sell who you based on the needs of your customer. Then make sure that any “evidence” you provide supports those points.

Don’t cloud your message with irrelevant information. If you talk about every experience you’ve had from the time you started your career your message will be confusing and not very memorable.

Keep your brochure up-to-date

Finally, you wouldn’t try to sell a product with an outdated or poorly written brochure. Why would we think we could sell ourselves if our own brochure isn’t top-notch? Make sure the collateral for your #1 product is something you are proud of.

I wish you the best of success with your #1 product. May you live up to all of your potential!

Melissa Paulik heads the marketing department at SoftBrands, Inc. You can visit her blog at www.themarketingsurvivalist.blogspot.com where she focuses on practical advice for marketers. Or, you can reach her for comment at melissa.paulik@softbrands.com.