• It was a good start to prioritize proposed initiatives on ROI (in annual dollars and time to break-even)
• Moving up a level, add a qualitative measure of the degrees of separation from revenue. 

• What can you do to influence management and team decisions so that more than 20% of your efforts go into the activities that today yield 80% of your results?  That's what I call focus.

Kindest regards,
Charles
charles@...
Bio Business-Growth Ideas: www.myknapp.com

Here's my $.02 worth. My belief is that a direct connection to
bookings is an illusion. Certainly PM is a key in enabling sales
bookings through helping to define the right product and providing
sales the tools to sell. However, assuming you're actually doing PM
(and not acting in the role of a salesperson), you have no direct
control over bookings. Personally, I'm more concerned with the
ability to influence the people who can influence significant
strategy directions in the company. If I have the ear of a VP of
Engineering or Sales, then I can more easily make a contribution to
the strategy which will ultimately be reflected in bookings.

I'm not sure how you're using the word 'delivery.' I think you
mean 'tangible evidence that you had a hand in the customer making
the buying decision.' I believe it's important to have champions in
the sales force that reinforce your value in them making sales. I
also believe that being a member of enough major account pursuits,
that gives you face time directly with big accounts, is important
since you also can't count on your sales champions particularly in a
down economy. They're kind of a grumpy crowd about then.

By the way, in a startup the marketing people often are more like
sales people. That's just fine. The trick is having the same effect
through indirectly influencing large number of sales people to be as
effective in selling benefits as you are. The real trick is then
getting credit for doing it !

I was thinking about how one could discern any of this in an
interview. Perhaps one idea is to just see who does the interviewing.
If there's no one in engineering or sales on the interview schedule,
that probably means an uphill battle in building the relationships
that allow you to have much influence on significant strategies. I
think if these people aren't there, I'd ask to speak with them and
see how they feel about the value that PM brings to their
organizations.

Regards,

Mark
Boulder, CO

Since I haven't posted here before -- my background:
Technical Marketing (software) 1 year
Product Marketing (software) 8 years
Segment Marketing (hardware/software system) 3 years
Product Marketing (hardware/software product) 2 years
Now working on coordinating various global project pursuits

Charles,

We had a similar conversation in one of the other groups. The topic was about
what PMs need to do in this market and are there enough jobs out there for them
(See the whole string in the Puget Sound Yahoo Group).  I've pasted my response
here:

"Hi,

Thought I would weigh in on your discussion. I've also been in Pure Product
Management for the last eight years but as a recruiter. I have seen more talent
on the market in the last year than I did in the previous 7. Some of you have
skills, education & experience that I would have given my eye teeth for and now
I have very few opportunities to present and the one's I am working on are so
cookie cutter that it's ridiculous! (See my article in the database here: Job
Hunting on the Internet".)

I am seeing an uptick in the Industry but I don't see the demand coming close
to equaling the talent for a long time. My crystal ball is in the shop but I'm
looking at other fields to recruit for. I intend to stick to my guns as far as
working the high tech PM market but I'm also working Sales and CPG to pay the
bills. It's not easy but it's probably easier for me than for you guys. We all
know the Healthcare, Biotech market is hot but most of you can't gain entry and
would be wasting your time to try. I've assisted in some Pharma PM openings and
unless you have heavy life sciences degrees (to PhD levels) and would be
willing to work for a third less than what you've been making (not really an
issue since you can't get in anyway)... Forget about it!

Relocation has become a major issue. Very few companies are paying for
relocation. All the positions I've recently posted have been for local
candidates only. But from what I've seen, your area is not hurting any worse
than any of the high tech areas (Austin, Boston, Atlanta, Northern VA).

Ok, enough gloom and doom. Here's the upside. Ever heard the expression
"Thinning the Herd"? Folks are getting out of the business: Yours, mine and
ours. I know many recruiters who have retired and a good friend of mine who has
been in IT recruiting for over 20 years has closed shop and is going back to
school to become a nurse. This lady is in her 50s! A former CEO of high tech
startups in VA is now the GM of a car dealership! (And loving it). A former
hiring manager of mine, pure high tech VP marketing, VP PM, GM is going to run
a small medical transcriptionist contracting company. These folks are happy,
fulfilled and leaving the business. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Two
pronged good news. One: There is life outside of Product Management for you and
Two: As folks leave the Industry, there is less competition for you! There is
also the "Baby Boomer Factor" that I've been reading about that suggests there
will be a dire need as folks start to retire. I don't put a lot of stock in
that one because at 44 yrs old, I'm at the tail end of the Baby Boomers and
don't expect to retire for a long time. Just for the record, Baby Boomers
include anyone born between 1947 and 1957, my brother-in-law and I were born 10
years apart to the day and we are "bookends" to this phenomena. How many folks
do you know between 44 and 54 who are computer illiterate and ready to retire?
It will come to pass but not soon enough to help us out of this market. But
again, the good news is, these baby boomers are still young enough to get out
and start something new. That's good news if you are a Baby Boomer like me or a
20-30 Something who's looking down the road.

So you want to stay in the biz. What do you do? Focus, network, research. There
are market places that are going to need talented PMs. You've already named
some of them. Internet and data security, Insurance, CPG, location based
services, Medical (I know what I said before but some of you do have the
degrees for it... I know several high tech PMs with zoology, biology degrees).
The Fed market and biohazard is hot. And there are many software companies
servicing these markets. How do you get into these? Well, you don't send your
standard resume and cover letter. Paste, click and send ain't gonna work. It's
the quality not quantity of resumes you send that counts. You research the
company (you all know how to do competitive research, right?), you find out
what their problems are and you offer a solution... You! You have to rewrite
your resume to address their needs. Highlight the experience that most applies
to them and get it to a decision maker. As the old saying goes, you only get
one chance to make a first impression so make it good! I could write pages on
resume writing but that's another subject.

Enough for now. We're all frustrated. We're all feeling the financial pinch. We
all need to vent occasionally. But I think some of the most important assets
you have are not the ones on the resume. Attitude and Friends. Use both
creatively to your advantage. Keep your chin up, a smile in your voice and
Network, Network, Network!!! And please, don't forget how to laugh. Good Luck
folks!"

I was interviewed by a career counselor as a result of this post and you can
read it at:

http://www.bridgewaycareer.com/mary_nurrenbrock.htm

This particular counselor was a PM in her previous life and has a number of good
articles germane to the PM marketplace on her site.

Regards,

Mary Nurrenbrock
Product Management Resources
44 E Parkwood Dr
Dayton, OH 45405
937-277-1212
Mary_PMR@T...
Mary_PMR@m...

A Preferred Member of Top Echelon, (OHAH), The World's Largest Network of
Independent Recruiters

Specializing in the Permanent and Contract Placement of Marketing, Product
Management and Product Marketing Professionals

View my Online Business Card at:
http://www.topechelon.com/obc/aboutme.asp?recruiterid=ohah01


Regards,

Mary Nurrenbrock
Product Management Resources
44 E Parkwood Dr
Dayton, OH 45405
937-277-1212
Mary_PMR@...
Mary_PMR@...

A Preferred Member of Top Echelon, (OHAH), The World's Largest Network of
Independent Recruiters

Specializing in the Permanent and Contract Placement of Marketing, Product
Management and Product Marketing Professionals

View my Online Business Card at:
http://www.topechelon.com/obc/aboutme.asp?recruiterid=ohah01
========================================

From: [swprodmgmt@yahoogroups.com]
To: Outlook Express::[swprodmgmt@yahoogroups.com]

Subject: [swprodmgmt] Digest Number 30
Date: 6/27/02 4:28 PM


To unsubscribe from this group, mailto:swprodmgmt-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Was this message valuable? Please forward it to friends.  To subscribe,
mailto:swprodmgmt-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is 1 message in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

       1. How many degrees are you separated from revenue booking or delivery?
            From: "Charles Knapp" <cknappnews@...>


________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message: 1
    Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 14:09:11 -0600
    From: "Charles Knapp" <cknappnews@...>
Subject: How many degrees are you separated from revenue booking or delivery?

I'm job hunting in the Denver area for another middle to senior
management position... I recently had an interesting conversation with a
former Oracle colleague, now a VP of Sales at a TV-industry start-up.
In the mid-1990s when we worked together, Oracle was very lean on
product management staffing.  If you were not directly involved in
selling, delivering services, or building strong products, your job was
precarious.  Fortunately, I was actively delivering results all three
areas.  His points:

* Product management often is too separated from booking or
delivering revenue, making it even harder today to keep or find a job in
this role than it is for sales or technical development/services.
* If a product manager has suitable abilities, they may be better
off pursuing sales or development/services.

All this gets me to wondering, whether you are looking for a new
position or not:

* How many degrees of separation are there between your personal
efforts and company revenues?
* What can you do to stay positioned close to (have your efforts
directly result in) revenue gains?

Your thoughts?

Kindest regards,
Charles
303-741-2344 *  <mailto:charles@...> charles@...
Bio & Business-Growth Ideas: www.myknapp.com <http://www.myknapp.com/>





[This message contained attachments]



________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

• Product management often is too separated from booking or delivering revenue, making it even harder today to keep or find a job in this role than it is for sales or technical development/services. 
• If a product manager has suitable abilities, they may be better off pursuing sales or development/services. 

• How many degrees of separation are there between your personal efforts and company revenues?
• What can you do to stay positioned close to (have your efforts directly result in) revenue gains?

Kindest regards,
Charles
303-741-2344 ¨ charles@...
Bio Business-Growth Ideas: www.myknapp.com

I am looking for people who are currently working in international
projects and are responsible for Project Management, Product
Management, Alliance Management, Marketing, Business Development and
Sales. Working in international projects is a huge challenge in
terms of technology, language, communication, culture or ethical
differences. We would like to exchange the experience in order to
achieve the highest possible success in these projects and identify
the critical success factors. We will assemble the results of the
discussions and your experiences in a white paper. The white paper
will be distributed for FREE to everybody who contributed to the
discussion.

Please feel free to contact joerghuser@... directly to share
your experience and personal success factors.

Thanks,

Joerg Huser
joerghuser at yahoo dot com

Hi All,
I provide an initial analysis checklist for new custom database software
systems.  It represents many years of experience in the successful
delivery of these systems.  View and print the list at:
http://www.21stsoft.com/database_software_21st_century_coldfusion_visual_basic_c\
onsultants-services.asp?page=4

I find this forum to be practical with very insightful input in
comparison to others I monitor.
Thanks.
--
Michael A. Cordova, President
21st Century Technologies, Inc.
http://www.21stsoft.com
michaelc@...
(303) 744-2178  Voice/Fax
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clark, The Lost Worlds of 2001
-------------------------------------------

• Focus on the prospect's needs
• Assure that you clearly articulate your advantages from the prospect's point of view
• Identify hidden, possibly deal-killing internal prospect politics (which will help suggest solutions)

Kindest regards,
Charles Knapp
Helpful Business Growth Ideas: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/swprodmgmt
charles_knapp@...

I'm new to this list and I hope it's appropriate to jump right in.  I'm
getting ready to start working again after taking time off with kids, and
this question made me realize how much I'm looking forward to getting back
into things!

Dealing with the healthcare industry is especially interesting because the
end users are not the financial or systems decision makers, especially if
it's a product for the clinical end user.  Clinicians and CIOs have very
different priorities, though they know that they need each other's support
to get the right systems in place.

We treated the CIO/systems people and the end-user clinicians as two sets of
customers, and as lead product manager for the product I had to move the
process on both fronts simultaneously.  When focus groups were appropriate
(high level at first, then later feature- or process- specific), I ran them
with these two sets of customers specifically.

To use focus groups to best effect, I made sure that I knew who I was
targeting and then I made sure that I was absolutely clear about what my
specific questions were that I needed to answer.  (To get to the answers,
there were a lot of different methods and exercises to force prioritization,
for example.)  If I couldn't articulate 3 important questions to which I
needed answers (and one question could be to prioritize features 1-10), then
I wasn't yet at the right stage for a focus group.  To test this, I made
sure that I thought through if I would consider the focus group a success,
and if it would provide solid information to support decisions that would
move the process along, if I got those 3 answers and nothing else.

Heather O'Neil
h-joneil@...


----- Original Message -----
From: "softwareproductmanager" <charles_knapp@...>
To: <swprodmgmt@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 4:06 PM
Subject: [swprodmgmt] When to use focus groups?


> As I recounted in one of our earliest issues, I once ran into a
> situation where our product seemed highly valuable to prospective
> users.  I think the results would have been the same with an end-user
> focus group.  Our software product was at that time ground-breaking
> in the healthcare industry. However, we found by trying to sell the
> product that it took a much different sales approach to succeed with
> budget managers.  We did not know this by merely meeting with
> prospective end-users.
>
> Questions: In your experience,
> 1) When does it makes sense to use a focus group?
> 2) How do you use one to best effect?
> 3) What caveats or gothas (and solutions) have you found?
> 4) Any other words of wisdom?
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group,
mailto:swprodmgmt-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.
>
> Was this message valuable? Please forward it to friends.  To subscribe,
mailto:swprodmgmt-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>

A little levity for the group. Job seekers can relate: Odd Todd, the
story continues at http://oddtodd.com

Warning: not for the PC or easily offended

As I recounted in one of our earliest issues, I once ran into a
situation where our product seemed highly valuable to prospective
users.  I think the results would have been the same with an end-user
focus group.  Our software product was at that time ground-breaking
in the healthcare industry. However, we found by trying to sell the
product that it took a much different sales approach to succeed with
budget managers.  We did not know this by merely meeting with
prospective end-users.

Questions: In your experience,
1) When does it makes sense to use a focus group?
2) How do you use one to best effect?
3) What caveats or gothas (and solutions) have you found?
4) Any other words of wisdom?

...a possibly useful lead from a pioneer web community I highly recommend
joining, www.4martereers.com. -- Charles
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Davis [mailto:kendavis@...]
Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 1:21 PM
To: Charles
Subject: 4marketeers--Searchable competitive information from 74
technology journals

Hi Charles,

Information overload--the internet has made it even worse. It was hard
enough in the past for marketeers to find the time to gather and analyze
competitive information and news about their targeted accounts. The
folks at True Query are giving personal 5-10 minute cybertours and then
a Free Five-Day pass so marketeers can gain a competitive advantage by
researching 74 journals in a fast comprehensive way.

Best regards,
Ken Davis, Organizer

http://www.4marketeers.com Click "Join Us", it's free
Worldwide Community & Portal
for Marketing Professionals
Tel: (+1) 408.206.0309
email: mailto:kendavis@...

**********************
HERE IS THEIR MESSAGE
**********************

Tech Marketers, Uncover a New Competitive Advantage

Information can be a competitive tool, but because there is just too
much irrelevant content on the web mixed in with the good stuff it takes
a long time to find what you really need.

So what’s the secret?

To uncover a significant competitive advantage you can leverage the army
of diligent, dedicated, experienced, plugged-in people covering the
technology market – they are professional technology journalists. In the
past, the value of their work has been hard to leverage because it has
been locked up in different print publications, and sometimes equally
difficult to access, companion web properties.

True Query has unlocked this asset by re-purposing this content to
satisfy the additional needs of marketers to do research in a fast
comprehensive way. With our web based service you can go to one place,
do one search and get just relevant, recent, qualified documents from
trusted sources.

Our service combines content from InformationWeek, InfoWorld, eWEEK, and
69 other leading trade publications in a single web based service. The
content is the key, but True Query also makes the content easier to use
so you can access the info you need quickly and feel more confident that
you got what you need without spending half the day (or night) browsing
for the answers.

Our terms are easy to live with, too. You can distribute the value of
the content to those in your company that need it the most.

True Query has done the hard work in bringing this content together and
surrounding it with time-saving features, now everyone can unlock the
information compiled by these journalists and use it to gain knowledge
and a competitive edge.

To judge for yourself I can give you a Free Five-Day pass to our site.
Here's what you'll have to do; go to our site following the link below,
enter your company information and one of our specialists will contact
you and provide a ten-minute personal tour so you can see all the
time-saving features we’ve created to help you access this hidden
advantage. At the conclusion of the 10 minute tour you will be left with
a user name and password good for five days so you can explore on your
own.

To claim your Five-Day pass and qualify for the special 4marketeers.com
offer go to http://www.truequery.net/form.html and use your TQI code of
4M4-4U for exceptional savings on subscriptions up to 45%.

*****************************************************
   For free notices of marketing jobs, marketing
   seminars, webinars, speaking opps, networking
   functions, marketing tools, alliance & biz dev opps,
   Click http://www.4marketeers.com/membmgmt/joinusform.asp

*****************************************************
If you want to email your job description
to our more than 8000 members please go to
http://www.4marketeers.com/jobform.htm

*****************************************************
To change your selections for email subjects,
geographical areas, job levels, email address,
password, title, employer, address, etc.,
or to unsubscribe, please log in at
http://www.4marketeers.com/membmgmt/memblogin.asp

Targeted selling is a crucial business discipline that helps you
focus on and get in the best doors.  Nevertheless, I have often seen
experienced sales and marketing teams overlook this discipline.  I
have sometimes not acted on it myself!

What is targeted selling?  In my opinion, it goes beyond just picking
market niches that seem a good fit.  In a nutshell, you identify and
prioritize a handfull of companies that could be a good and lucrative
fit for your products and/or services.  Put another way, you are
committing to spending most of your time on prospective accounts that
have a pretty good probability of closing, and for a pretty good-size
commitment.

A common alternative (often chosen by default) is to pursue seemingly
low-hanging fruit.  For example, one Internet firm I was with was
actively seeking B2C Web firms to partner with with our B2B ASP
solutions.  As our marketing activities spread the word about our
offerings, we had many inbound requests.  It was easy to use a large
portion of our business development bandwidth on marginally-viable
accounts (meaning, several of these firms talked a good line but soon
went under).  It was easy to define but hard to put in practice a
good internal qualifying process to size up and prioritize inbound
prospects.  As a result, it seemed to me that we had intermittent
difficulties as a team staying focused on our top, chosen prospects.

Let's say you like this idea of targeted selling.  Watch out for a
very common gotcha.  Many early-stage vendors aim too high when (in
the prospect's view) they are not "ready for prime time."  Do you
already have very large, referenceable (satisfied) accounts?  Who is
in those large accounts now with your kind of solution?  What is the
risk to your prospect of choosing poorly? Can you tell a compelling
story of why executives with competing agendas should trust you?

As I will detail in a future posting, very large companies often
require a much more sophisticated sales approach over a much greater
period of time, potentially with much lower closing ratios than the
mid-market prospects.  So, consider working on mid-size and smaller
companies until you have a good track record.

Has anyone used a focus group facilitation partner in the Boston area
recently?

"When we stand back to look at the rise and fall of great corporations
over the long course of history, we find that technology is an
accelerator of greatness already in place, never the principal cause of
greatness or decline."

Thinking about this may give you some ideas on how to better position your
products and target key accounts.

Jim Collins is author of “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the
Leap... and Others Don’t.” He runs a management research firm in
Boulder, Colo.

Read the rest of the article: http://www.msnbc.com/news/741580.asp

Kindest regards,
Charles Knapp
* Helpful Business Growth Ideas:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/swprodmgmt

Hi Charles,

I have this survey for B2Bi products for my capstone project at CU, Boulder. Can I put this survey on the sw product management group mailing list?

Regards,

surendra

303-894-3485

(For the Capstone project for Surendra Chauhan as a part of partial fulfillment of ME(Engineering Management) at Lockheed Martin Engineering Management Program, College of Engineering and Applied Science,  University of Colorado at Boulder.)

Do you have Questions? Contact Surendra Chauhan [chauhansu@yahoo.com].

List of the products Categories

1.        B2B exchange(for medium size retailer, auto dealer)

2.       XML importer/Exporter

3.       B2B Information Exchange tools

4.       Real Time analysis and reporting

5.       B2B internal exchange tools

Please provide your assessment of the marketing, sales, technological and competitive aspects of these five B2B product categories.

A.     Product failure causes

A product can fail by overlooking the most common factors in product failure, please evaluate the 5 products against each of the failure reasons on a scale of 1-10. More points for an product in an area means the product is more likely to fail due to the failure reason.

B. Market positioning

A product can fail if it is more technology driven than market driven or more market driven than technology can support (or outdated technology focused). Please evaluate these 5 products against each focused area for the product on a scale of 1-10. More points for a product in an area means more success in that area for the product.

C. Success probabilities

Please assess theses product for the probability of success on a scale of 1-10. More points for an product in an area means more success in that area for the product.

Product description:

1.       Build a B2B exchange (For medium size retailers, auto dealers, manufacture (up-to 250) employees). The B2B exchange can be used to exchange the B2B information over the network. This is comprehensive exchange and not a tool, as it involves business standards and logic and may contain some of the tools mentioned below.

2.       XML importer/Exporter. XML is new standard for the data exchanges between the different systems. An XML importer/ Exporter would be excellent tool for B2B integration system.

3.       B2B Information Exchange tools. This tool can be build on the top of the XML importer/ Exporter tool and should have business logic for the exchange of the information.

4.       Real Time analysis and reporting. This tool will be useful in information analysis based on the real time data, and can be used as a decision support tool, e.g. for the analysis of the stock data.

5.       B2B internal exchange tools. This tool could be useful in integrating the internal systems in an organization to the external business network. By integrating the internal systems with the business systems, full advantages of the B2B integration can be achieved.

Explanation of some of the terms:

 Most of the terms are self-explanatory, but the explanation of some of the terms is below.

1.      Technological driven: The product more relies on the technology sophistication, rather than the actual market appeal and the product are more likely to fail.

2.      Focused but technologically weak: The product has good marketing focus, but the technology is outdated, weak and less likely to appeal to the customers.

3.      High budget, shotgun: The product is targeted to the high potential, high competitiveness, with a premium market, and product itself is less focused, little technology oriented, less market research.

4.      Low budget, conservative: The product is Weak in technology, spent little on R&D, high synergy in production.

5.       Marketing and technology integrated: The product is well integrated in marketing and technology, and more likely to be successful.

• pay per click-driven purchases (yes, I have been able to negotiate these kinds of terms -- some highly-confident executives will put enough 'skin' into the game to make sure real revenues result), or
• pay per link clicked, which TripAdvisor prices as a "cost per click (CPC)." 

1. Establish a process for identifying new product or service opportunities, AND immediately assess their potential.
2. Talk to target customers, talk to more target customers, and then talk to even more of them!
3. Conduct an abbreviated, but sound business case evaluation of each new opportunity. [move forward only the best]
4. Minimize the number of new products or services pursued at any one time.
5. Avoid "scope creep" by being dogged about the stability of product requirements and specs.
6. Use devoted [staff time allocated to team] cross-functional teams, commit the necessary resources up-front, and be resistant to changing the commitment.
7. Use the stage-gate development process, and make entry to the next stage truly a "go or kill" decision.
8. Conduct the development of critical, high-risk components earlier in the development process [when you fail, fail cheap, early].

What do you think?

• Easy to Try and Prove -- can pilot and prove on a small scale before making a large commitment to change.  This is especially important if the product is very expensive.
• Implementable in Segments or Phases -- can ease into it, switching one modest step at a time from current approaches.  This is not only a way to reduce barriers to purchase, but also is (of course) an excellent way to manage projects, reduce risks of failure, and increase buy-in by showing early and continual wins. 
• Easy to Undo -- while you might want to "link and lock" the client into your product line, as Microsoft has repeatedly done, this is a way to reduce the fear of disastrous and irreversible failure.
• Tangible, Valued Benefits -- not just sizzle such as on-screen eye candy, but real results that the customer values highly.
• Fits Prior Investments -- makes use of currently owned physical assets and knowledge.  For example, if my employer already uses Microsoft SQL Server, it will be a hard sell to bring in or build an application that needs Oracle.
• Familiar -- leverages current staff experience, skills, business processes, and comfort levels.  For example, early SAP implementations were famous for jarring, extensive process reengineering at the expense of employee resistance; implementations commonly were mandated from the top down, rather than enthusiastic bottom-up user buy in.
• Fits Customer Strategy -- doesn't conflict objectionably with customer priorities.  For example, when I recently evaluated technology partners for a B2B ASP/e-commerce firm, a few vendors gave the impression that they would try to bypass us after we had gotten them in the door of our clients.  That is one way to work yourself out of a job!
• Positive Publicity Value -- while PR external to the business consumer may not happen, your offering needs to make the decision makers look good internally as a minimum. 

• Leverage your current strengths.  OK, like much of product management, that's obvious.  But as one example, if your competitor has no performance record in this space, that can make a deal-making difference in customer comfort.
• Address your differences in terms of business and customer experience benefits.  What will a customer see or experience that is better with your product?  For example, in one competitive situation, my company had a complete outbound e-mail marketing program to drive Web traffic, where competitors had only the Web site content and commerce. For some B2B clients, this was a crucial differentiating benefit that would help them build business more than our big name competitors.
• Reinvent your firm' s solution set.  I'm talking about framing your solutions -- what is your unique value proposition?  I think it is hard to truly achieve the mantra of defining your product so uniquely that there is no competition.  Nevertheless, any factual, high-value, low competition redefinition of your value proposition could help, and it may not require a change in features or technology.
• Partner with service or technology vendors.  This is related to the previous bullet.  Partner with other firms to broaden and improve your value proposition.
• Partner with distribution vendors. Leverage other firm's existing relationships and marketing programs.  This is a very good choice if you can't make your product distinctly better.  For example, in the 1980s and 1990s, Microsoft contracted to distribute its wares with major PC manufacturers, who could have chosen arguably better products from other software vendors.  Although these contracts have been alleged to have had many arm-twisting clauses, the point is that Microsoft was able to out-maneuver and eventually lock out more established firms such as Digital Research (remember CP/M, MP/M, and DR-DOS?), Lotus, WordPerfect, and Novell. 

What do you think?  What have you seen keep large new players on the sidelines in a given market space?

Kindest regards,
Charles

• Remember that there is no singular specification of product manager knowledge and job responsibilities. 
• An excellent summary of the range of skills and knowledge to learn can be found within this discussion board.  See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/swprodmgmt/message/7.
• Identify useable skills you already have -- and their benefits to an employer.  Examples from people asking me recently about making the move:
• business analysis -- identify and prioritize needs and functional requirements.
• technical writing -- convey the technical details of how a product is used to get important things done.
• sales -- convey the benefits of a product offering.
• Fill gaps in your knowledge. That is why this discussion board exists! Another idea: get a few of the highly rated product management books listed at www.amazon.com.
• Volunteer to work on product management tasks, in addition to your core job responsibilities -- if working.  If not, volunteer for an internship.  Sweat for referenceable experience.

• Financial, e.g. "We haven't fully depreciated the cost of our current tools" (one CFO told me we couldn't change until an application was 15 years old!) / "We haven't recouped our sunk cost in our current tools" / "We don't have a budget allocation for a new system, regardless of its returns" / "The switching costs for infrastructure, consulting, and training are too high" / and my favorite from several SMEs in various industries, "I can do THAT with Excel|Access|whatever for a fraction of your price."
• Experiential, e.g. "Tried your products before and they were terrible" / "Tried that technology before and it was terrible" / "Tried that consulting firm for assistance and they were terrible" / "Don't know how to use and support that technology" / "We are waiting for vendors to shake out, then we will go with one of the dominant survivors" / "We are waiting for the technology to mature."
• Risk aversion, e.g. "We can't afford the risks of project failure" / "The users won't like change" / "If it isn't broke, don't fix it" / "Will you be in business in a year?"

• fear (identify the prospect's pain and the value of making it go away. The cancer doctor doesn't have to put up with patients shopping around on price)
• greed (so, make a compelling case on the returns on investment)
• lust (so, make your offering appealing.  Look at how much is being spent on Playstations and XBoxes, because what they do looks so cool)

• faster (nice, but make sure there is a strong business case on the returns)
• better (you stand a chance if you can quantify the value of any current pains, i.e. commissions due but never paid by suppliers)
• cheaper (proverbially a slippery slope, but look what Sam Walton did with the concept at Wal-Mart)

• features (but will the features matter enough to cut a check? Or will they later be called worthless bloatware?)
• quality/service (monetize the value of being better)
• price

• product enables the user to do something that was not possible before (not that common, but real examples include the pager and spreadsheet)
• product enables the user to create higher-quality work products (e.g. Windows applications let users get fancier with formatting than DOS applications, previewing results immediately on screen)
• product enables the user to accomplish more work in the same amount of time (e.g. talk on the cell phone while driving between sales calls, as long as you are staying out of accidents!)

• While potential hospital users loved the application, budget decision makers saw no obvious value in the software.  Therefore, no sales -- despite aggressive and well-executed cold calling and demos!

• Result: We started selling packages, and typically for four times its previous street price. 
• Lesson 1: Make a compelling, believable financial case when pitching expensive products.
• Lesson 2: Examine alternatives to traditional pricing models and what your competitors charge.

Hello all, Dear Charles,

I agree with what you say, just wanted to add a couple more

* Is the problem real and realized by the target user
The end user may not perceive the problem (the problem is not
critical/burning) or if she perceives the problem she doesnt view it
as an important problem(I can live with it!!)  The 80-20 rule needs
to be strictly followed to avoid this!!

* Does the solution address the entire problem space or just a part
of the bigger problem
Solutions often tend to solve a small problem without providing an
integrated solution to the entire problem (especially true of
enterprise software products).

* Delivery and Reaction to market
Requirement changes in software are tough to delivery and so ability
to react to changes and delivery market requirements seems to be the
key to sustained product success.

Regards,
Shailesh.



-----Original Message-----
From: swprodmgmt@yahoogroups.com [mailto:swprodmgmt@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 5:35 PM
To: swprodmgmt@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [swprodmgmt] Digest Number 4


To unsubscribe from this group, mailto:swprodmgmt-
unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--

There is 1 message in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

       1. Re: Critical Success Factors?
            From: "softwareproductmanager" <charles_knapp@...>


______________________________________________________________________
__
______________________________________________________________________
__

Message: 1
    Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 13:57:49 -0000
    From: "softwareproductmanager" <charles_knapp@...>
Subject: Re: Critical Success Factors?

Here are a few of the top factors I see:
* The product and value proposition have to be COMPELLING
   * better usefulness than other options, and/or
   * better service than other options, and/or
   * better value proposition
* The distribution method needs to effectively get the word out

Why?
"* The product and value proposition have to be COMPELLING"
If it is a me-too product with insiginificant advantages, why would
anyone want to buy it?  Can marketing overcome your product's
weaknesses? Winston Churchill once penned in the margins of a famous
war-time speach, "Weak point.  Pound podium here!"  Your marketing
and sales staff will have to pound the streets.  Not that that ever
kept Microsoft from succeeding, but they had the marketing budget and
distribution channels to overcome in several cases weak product value.

Notice that I did not say you need to be "first to market." See the
articles at http://www.redherring.com/mag/issue82/mag-
second-82.html and http://www.upside.com/Story/3966118c0_yahoo.html.

"* "better usefulness than other options, and/or"
As Pat Porach of Coors IT says, if it doesn't do something for
the user that makes their life better, you have no right to
expect them to use what you're delivering. You're setting up the
project to fail."

"* better service than other options, and/or"
A friend in PC/LAN support for a large company has been telling me
about his recent experiences with poor Dell technical support and
excellent Gateway support.  Guess which brand he is telling his
friends about?

"* better value proposition""
Customer loyalty is the widely touted end-game in CRM.  However, when
someone else demonstrably beats your value, how long until your
customers switch?  I can tell you from my experience with a travel
dot-com that for expensive commodities, especially in an economic
down-turn, people really shop around.  And it is not just about
price.  I turn to Amazon first for books because part of what I value
is the time-saving search experience.

"* The distribution method needs to effectively get the word out"
Many company executives respond to downturns by cutting marketing and
sales efforts, thinking that there is too much "fluff."  One B2B dot-
com that I know faced a short fall in revenues while building out
their infrastructure to meet the expected demand.  So, while cuts
were made in both sales and IT, the sales staff was cut about 50%.
After this, revenues continued to miss targets.  Al Dunlap of Sunbeam
and many others have proved the obvious: you can't simply cut your way
to growth.  Instead, at reasonable customer acquisition costs, keep
your transaction "lead pipeline" full.

Get the word out on things that matter to prospects!  A late-starting
dot-com I know consistently undercut the high-visibility names on
price.  However, they did not make a big deal out of this.  Even the
employees looked first at other sites for their purchases of this
product! So, the consumer did not have a clear reason to think of
this dot-com's prices as competitive or market-leading, and did not
have a clear reason to shop with this dot-com first.
*****************
So, these are a few of my MOST critical success factors and a summary
of why I think they are important for a successful product.  What do
you think?

Here are a few of the top factors I see:
* The product and value proposition have to be COMPELLING
   * better usefulness than other options, and/or
   * better service than other options, and/or
   * better value proposition
* The distribution method needs to effectively get the word out

Why?
"* The product and value proposition have to be COMPELLING"
If it is a me-too product with insiginificant advantages, why would
anyone want to buy it?  Can marketing overcome your product's
weaknesses? Winston Churchill once penned in the margins of a famous
war-time speach, "Weak point.  Pound podium here!"  Your marketing
and sales staff will have to pound the streets.  Not that that ever
kept Microsoft from succeeding, but they had the marketing budget and
distribution channels to overcome in several cases weak product value.

Notice that I did not say you need to be "first to market." See the
articles at http://www.redherring.com/mag/issue82/mag-
second-82.html and http://www.upside.com/Story/3966118c0_yahoo.html.

"* "better usefulness than other options, and/or"
As Pat Porach of Coors IT says, if it doesn't do something for
the user that makes their life better, you have no right to
expect them to use what you're delivering. You're setting up the
project to fail."

"* better service than other options, and/or"
A friend in PC/LAN support for a large company has been telling me
about his recent experiences with poor Dell technical support and
excellent Gateway support.  Guess which brand he is telling his
friends about?

"* better value proposition""
Customer loyalty is the widely touted end-game in CRM.  However, when
someone else demonstrably beats your value, how long until your
customers switch?  I can tell you from my experience with a travel
dot-com that for expensive commodities, especially in an economic
down-turn, people really shop around.  And it is not just about
price.  I turn to Amazon first for books because part of what I value
is the time-saving search experience.

"* The distribution method needs to effectively get the word out"
Many company executives respond to downturns by cutting marketing and
sales efforts, thinking that there is too much "fluff."  One B2B dot-
com that I know faced a short fall in revenues while building out
their infrastructure to meet the expected demand.  So, while cuts
were made in both sales and IT, the sales staff was cut about 50%.
After this, revenues continued to miss targets.  Al Dunlap of Sunbeam
and many others have proved the obvious: you can't simply cut your way
to growth.  Instead, at reasonable customer acquisition costs, keep
your transaction "lead pipeline" full.

Get the word out on things that matter to prospects!  A late-starting
dot-com I know consistently undercut the high-visibility names on
price.  However, they did not make a big deal out of this.  Even the
employees looked first at other sites for their purchases of this
product! So, the consumer did not have a clear reason to think of
this dot-com's prices as competitive or market-leading, and did not
have a clear reason to shop with this dot-com first.
*****************
So, these are a few of my MOST critical success factors and a summary
of why I think they are important for a successful product.  What do
you think?

-----Original Message-----
From: greg crawford [mailto:bigdad1369@...]
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 10:18 PM
To: swprodmgmt@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [swprodmgmt] Product development

Hello, interested in learning what the core functions
are of a product manager, and what do companies look
for in a product manager? What is the difference
between product manager and product development if
any?

Thanks,

Greg

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Check out Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctions for all of
your unique holiday gifts! Buy at http://shopping.yahoo.com
or bid at http://auctions.yahoo.com


To unsubscribe from this group, mailto:swprodmgmt-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

Hello, interested in learning what the core functions
are of a product manager, and what do companies look
for in a product manager? What is the difference
between product manager and product development if
any?

Thanks,

Greg

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Check out Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctions for all of
your unique holiday gifts! Buy at http://shopping.yahoo.com
or bid at http://auctions.yahoo.com

• Why would someone want what I am offering, over other options?
• Why Not?

• Identify the most important factors -- show stoppers and critical success factors where you need to execute well.
• Come up with a work plan -- what do you need to do to deliver on these critical success factors?