The Accidental Product Manager
Home Of The Billion Dollar Product Manager Where You Too Can Learn To Be A Wildly Successful Product Manger
Most of the products that we product managers are responsible for are made up of many different parts. Even if you are in charge of a service product, I’m willing to bet that there are a number of different “parts” that go into creating the product that you offer to your customers. Here’s a very … Read more
Why is it so hard to create new products both on time and under budget? Your management ignores the product development definition process and is always pushing you to get it done while at the same time they never seem to give you enough resources to make it happen. When they push, what do you … Read more
Put yourself in the shoes of a Microsoft product manger for just a moment. You’ve got a bit of a challenge: you work for a very large and a very powerful company that has lost its cool. In every category where once you ruled supreme, you now have pesky competitors showing up who product are … Read more
2009 is dead, long live 2009. Ok, so it’s not quite dead yet; however, even as your sales teams are running around trying to close the year out on a high note you as a product manager need to start to set your sights on what you’re going to do to get ready for next … Read more
If you were going fishing, how much luck catching fish do you think that you would have if you didn’t use any bait on your hook? Sure, there are probably some either dumb or near-sighted fish that might still bite, but you’re going to be doing a lot of sitting around waiting. Is it possible … Read more
Just shut-up and buy my product! In fact, while you are at it, buy a lot of my product. If only we could really tell our potential customers this then life would be so much simpler. However, try this little verbal outburst just once and then you’ll have a chance to sit back and spend … Read more
I don’t care if your product turns lead into gold, if your salespeople don’t go out there and do a good job of selling your product then you won’t be a product manager for long. I’ll agree that you are not running the sales department, in fact you are probably not even part of the … Read more
It’s expensive to create, market, deliver, and support a product. Having customers who make your life more difficult and the whole process more expensive does not help matters. Since we’re bright, smart product managers it sure seems as though when we spot an opportunity to change something about our product that will benefit everyone we … Read more
Whenever I stop at a 7-11 with my kids in tow, they start instantly clambering for me to allow them to get a soda. On those occasions that they have worn me down enough that I’ll do almost anything to get them to shut-up, I’ll give in and let them. What they proceed to do … Read more
This post is an invitation for you to come along with me as I work with one of my clients to help them get ready to present their solutions to a customer in the hope of getting them interested enough to start to move forward towards a sale. You’ll recognize a lot of what we’re … Read more