Creativity and fear – daily realities for product managers We product managers are inventing stuff most of the time. Whether it’s new features, or designs, or go to market materials, or just making decisions. And that means we are going to have creative blocks. A lot. That is, except for those times when we can steal stuff from others. Unfortunately, we can’t steal as much as I’d like! And in fact, it’s not just creative blocks, it’s a form of chaos. Last week I finally had an epiphany...

What stories can I tell? Everyone knows that “stories are fundamental tools of persuasion.” At least, that’s what everyone says. But what does it actually mean? It’s clear that they’re not just talking about any story, right? So, what stories are they talking about? And the answer is actually very simple, even if you’re not an amazing storyteller. In fact, it requires almost no imagination to find the right story. It’s the story of your customer, or your prospect, and how they’re...

Why do product managers need to know about sales funnels? I’m not successful if my product doesn’t sell. And I’ve argued before on this podcast that I have a lot of influence – as a product manager – over the success of my product. And my framework, what I call the Secret Product Management Framework, has three pieces: Finding market problems worth solving. Creating the solutions to those problems. And taking the solutions to market. I.e., selling them. I don’t do the actual...

“Your team is failing” This episode is inspired by a story a friend recently told me. In an interview, he got the question I used as the title, “Your team is failing. What do you do?” I thought, “Well, I have some opinions on this question!” (And note, I also incorporated his very good answer into the episode!) Links I mentioned a few other podcast episodes in this episode, as I always do: * On motivating your team; The V.A.L.U.A.B.L.E. Rubric for Writing Better Requirements * On...

Russ Meek on (over) simplifying a business presentation My guest on this episode is Russ Meek, a product manager in the travel and hospitality industry. For many years he was with Sabre Corporation, focusing on Hotel Property Management. After several years of working on a very successful product line there, he volunteered to take on an additional product line. This one had had some challenges, and he wanted to see if he could help it out of its doldrums. As part of that process, he...

What’s the best way to learn product management? Can you learn product management from bullet points? Well. no. Or yes. Maybe? If you follow me or other product management people on LinkedIn, you know there are a LOT of posts about product management. They are short and pithy, often presented in bullet points. (Including my posts, of course.) In this episode, we decide whether bullet points are a good way to learn product management, and why or why not. Links * To sign up for the...

Authenticity is great – if you can fake that, you’ve got it made! Confidence is often a big challenge for product managers, because so much of the time we are in the realm of uncertainty. But to be persuasive we need to be confident – our audience is more likely to be persuaded by a confident person. So what do we do? We act confident. But that’s not authentic, is it? I don’t care. It’s effective. And authenticity is overrated and misunderstood. More on confidence and persuasion *...

How to Make an Impact As A Product Leader In this episode, how to accelerate your career growth by developing your leadership skills. Practical advice and actionable steps for product managers looking to advance in their careers. There’s a difference between management and leadership. John C. Maxwell said, “Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.” And this is fundamentally how product managers must operate anyway, since normally we...

Managing Your Cognitive Resources To Be More Effective As a product manager, one of your most precious resources is your “cognitive storage tank.” It’s like a real fuel tank – when it’s exhausted, your cognitive abilities stop working well. And when that happens, it means you can’t be as innovative, you can’t be as creative, and your decisions get worse. To improve our effectiveness as product managers, one key step is managing the cognitive storage tank. In this episode I describe...

​Increasing your luck surface area “Chance favors the prepared mind.” From Louis Pasteur, the famous 19th century biologist and biochemist. Having a “prepared mind” is one way to increase your luck surface area. It gives you  “more opportunities to be lucky.” And it can have a big payoff! How do you make your luck surface area bigger? In this episode I share a lot of ways to do it! Books * I mentioned a whole list of books in this episode, and most of them are on my “Books I...

Dan Balcauski, the product pricing guru (part 2) Dan’s interview is excellent – and long. It’s going to expand your mind on how to think about pricing – so much so, in fact, that I have to air the interview in two parts! And this is part 2. (Find part one at 134: Dan Balcauski on Pricing For Product Managers.) JJ Rorie introduced me to Dan a few months ago. She’s a product management thought leader, consultant, and author of The Five Immutable Truths of Great Product Managers, and of course...

Dan Balcauski, the product pricing guru Dan’s interview is excellent – and long. It’s going to expand your mind on how to think about pricing – so much so, in fact, that I have to air the interview in two parts! JJ Rorie introduced me to Dan a few months ago. She’s a product management thought leader, consultant, and author of The Five Immutable Truths of Great Product Managers, and of course was my guest on this show in episode 98. In this interview Dan goes over * The Three C’s of...

Rerun of episode 108 This episode is a rerun of episode 108, Learning From Failure, and you can find the complete show notes at https://secretsofpm.com/108. Rerun of episode 108 This episode is a rerun of episode 108, Learning From Failure, and you can find the complete show notes at https://secretsofpm.com/108.

Irene Yu is Helping Product Managers Become More Technical (Without Learning To Code) Irene is a former developer turned founder of SkipLevel, a consulting and training company focused on improving the interface between product managers and developers. Specifically, by helping product managers become more technical (but not teaching them to code, because that’s not useful.) In our interview she shares her perspective on where product managers are often letting down their dev teams, her path...

Leading impactful product teams If you’re a product leader, then you probably have a few goals for yourself and your team: * Having a big impact on the business. * Increasing sales, revenue, and profits. * Perhaps you aspire to be a gifted, charismatic leader. But what if the team isn’t meeting the potential? It’s not having the impact you want and that you know it could have. In this episode: how to make product management teams more impactful. This isn’t about being a better...

5 Ways Product Managers Can Make More Money Software product managers are responsible for $5-$10 million in new revenue over the next 12 months. How do you get that? There are five ways your revenues can increase: * Your market grows, and you grow with it naturally * You beat your competitors more in your existing deals – that is, you increase your win rate * You get into more deals and win them at your normal rates – that is, you increase your sales velocity * You extend your...

A look back, a look forward for the podcast In this episode I look back at 2022 and its highlights on the podcast, and what you can expect for 2023. Episodes I mentioned * 121: Andrew Bowker on “Build Your Own Product” * 106: Product Management And The Smart Sales Method, with Joe Morone * 98: The 5 Immutable Truths of Great Product Managers with JJ Rorie * 123: Value Proposition Considered Problematic? * 116: The Impact of Getting Better at Product Management * 111: How To Master...

Putting knowledge in your product creates happier customers and great differentiation Even if it’s basic knowledge that everyone knows, putting it in your product will make your product more valuable. And of course, the more knowledge you can embed, the better. Links * The article this episode is based on – Customers Don’t Buy Capabilities, They Buy Knowledge. * A related post (that also includes something from Kathy Sierra) – 5 Surprising Ideas That Will Make Customers Love Your...

ChatGPT is surprisingly knowledgeable about product management I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT, a new conversational AI that has been the talk of Twitter and other social media sites. Basically, you ask it questions, and it responds with very well-written answers. You can think of it as a front end for an Internet search that takes the answers it gets and compiles them into well-formed text. So I asked it a bunch of questions about product management, like: * What challenges do...

The goal is a repeatable sales process, but… One of the goals of a relatively early stage company is to establish some sales and marketing traction. This is often called “a repeatable sales model.” Which means that a trained sales person – trained on how to market and sell your product – can successfully sell the product to qualified prospects. Sounds simple. But… lots of companies struggle. Why? In my experience, there are five main reasons. (My experience is mostly from enterprise...

The Value Inequality is about Risk vs Price vs Value This is the second of two episodes (here’s part one) centered around what I call the Value Inequality. It’s a way of thinking about your customer’s perception of risk versus cost and value of your product. This episode is a bit wider ranging than the last episode. I start out talking about some of the basics of product management: finding and validating market problems, with some ideas for how to make sure there’s a need for you to build...

The Value Inequality is the reason your juicer is in your closet This episode is about a new way of thinking about pricing, value, and the customer’s perception of risk. I call it the Value Inequality. It’s powerful, and it applies everywhere, including juicers, as well as enterprise software. Of course, the first rule of pricing is: Your product must cost less than the problem costs the customer. No customer will pay more to solve a problem than the problem is costing them. Corollary: If...

Product Roadmaps – can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em Facts about roadmaps * They are predicting the future * As Neils Bohr said, “Prediction is hard, especially about the future.” * A roadmap is interpreted as a commitment * This is a cognitive bias of your audience * You must manage it * The audience doesn’t really want to know what you are working on anyway * They want to know any of a bunch of other things * They think that learning what you are working...

Is the Value Proposition problematic? Shreyas Doshi wrote in a post on LinkedIn a few months ago: In product management, it is easy to BS yourself (and others) when framing a proposal in terms of “Value Proposition”. Any proposal with the right business speak can be made to sound compelling that way. This happens all the time, in nearly every company. It is much harder to BS yourself (and others) when you are forced to frame a proposal in terms of “Customer Motivation”. If you’ve listened...

You Can’t Test Quality In In this episode, some thoughts about quality: * Two different ways of thinking about quality and its flipside, waste * Fit for purpose vs lack of defects * Mura, Muda, and Mira – the 3Ms of Japanese industrial engineering – waste (mura), inconsistency (muda), and overburden (mira) Links * Shigeo Shingo * A very thin bio on Wikipedia * The Sayings of Shigeo Shingo. This book may be out of print, so it’s not cheap! But you can rent the Kindle version,...