Comments on: Work effectively with sales

By: power, huang

power, huang — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:18:49 +0000

hi, jeff
your post are great, i learn a lot of knowledge from your article

By: David Daniels

David Daniels — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:00:26 +0000

Great post Jeff. I spent a tour of duty in the field as an SE before becoming a product manager. That experience was invaluable and helped me understand the pressures and joys of being a member of the sales team. It’s vital to have a good working relationship with your sales team.

–Dave

By: Arne Huse

Arne Huse — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 23:57:35 +0000

I agree that sales reps are guilty of asking PMs for products or changes that they have little evidence to support. One of the main benefits of CRM that has been lost through “The CRM Dilemma” is the recording of actual customer feedback collected by sales reps. One of the reasons (Beyond the dilemma) for the lack of feedback, is companies often do not give sales reps access to aggregate feedback data. Having been a sales rep for many years, if sales must substantiate requests to PM’s with customer feedback, AND they are given access to the feedback as it is collected, sales reps will be much more engaged in the entire process, including the sell-in.

By: Tom Grant

Tom Grant — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:54:04 +0000

“However, there is a major downside – sales people are often focused on their latest deal or on why the last big deal was lost. You have to beware of the “If it came in green, I could sell a hundred of these” stories. The truth may be if you build it in green, you might sell a dozen.”

I completely agree. You have to be wary of this pitfall with even the best sales reps.

As strongly as I agree with the original post–PMs must have good relations with the field–there’s a slippery slope. In the research I’m doing right now about how PMs view their jobs, there’s a big gap between the amount of work PMs do on behalf of the field, and the (smaller) amount they feel they should be doing.

Sales enablement can be a bottomless pit, into which I’ve seen more than one PM fall. Hey, if you’re the product expert, why not do the demo for this big opportunity? And so on.

By: Arne Huse

Arne Huse — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:37:43 +0000

Jeff, Excellent points. Product Managers also add to the failure of many CRM initiatives, by asking for “Tick Boxes” to be added to CRM in order to hold sales reps more accountable for promoting particular products. I have conducted research on what I have termed “The CRM Dilemma” that has concluded that any such activity controls in CRM, will cause the sales force to work as a unified team to defeat it. I have presented my research on “The CRM Dilemma” on my blog of the same name if anyone is interested in reading it. My unique research has been getting a lot of attention and has sparked many discussions on the true reason behind CRM failures.

By: Arjun Sinha roy

Arjun Sinha roy — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:35:15 +0000

Hi,

I belong to the IT and Telecom industry and have rotated myself through development, sales and product management. I think in our technology space good product managers need to have a strong orientation in sales, otherwise we end up with the endless debates on product functionalities without understanding whether the whole excercise makes business sense

By: Raj P

Raj P — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:57:22 +0000

This is an excellent post by Jeff (and the related post at Ask a Good Product Manager), and a great discussion by everyone who commented.

I agree with Jeff that Product Managers should engage the sales force closely. One caveat I’d point out is that PMs shouldn’t be completely driven by all the requests coming from the Sales team.

I’ve noticed some companies where Sales drives product requirements almost completely – and the product ends up being a hodge-podge of features needed to win deals-du-jour!

I wrote a more detailed post on this topic at our new Practical Product Management blog.

That said, I agree that PMs should engage the Sales team and work collaboratively, rather than ignoring them.

By: Should Product Management let Sales drive product requirements? : Practical Product Management

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:48:01 +0000

[...] There has been a good discussion over the past couple of weeks at the How To Be A Good Product Manager and Ask A Good Product Manager blogs run by Jeff Lash on the topic of how Product Management can work effectively with Sales. [...]

By: Ron

Ron — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:28:22 +0000

Sales can be a valuable resource in identfying area for product improvement and/or the creation of new products. The key problem is identfying the ‘influential ones.’ These may not be the top revenue generators but understand the problems that your products solve. Determining who these are takes time and interaction.

However, there is a major downside – sales people are often focused on their latest deal or on why the last big deal was lost. You have to beware of the “If it came in green, I could sell a hundred of these” stories. The truth may be if you build it in green, you might sell a dozen.

Sales can be a great source of marketplace ideas but you must do your due diligence to determine if their is a viable business case behind them.

By: Laura

Laura — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:07:36 +0000

The buy-in, insight and input of sales is critical if your product is to be successful and not just because they will have to sell it. They are the voice of the customer. Anyone developing customer-centric products needs sales as a direct channel to the customer. Furthermore, I have found their participation in pre-selling the product a boon for cash flow.

By: Henrik

Henrik — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 23:18:49 +0000

Jeff:
Once again you are spot on, the nrturing the influencial and getting to know all their name is as important with customers as with internal sales.

Gregg: I recognize the us vs them in my office… hard to get rid of once it is built in.

By: gregggallagher

gregggallagher — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:05:48 +0000

Jeff:

Great observations. All too often I’ve seen product managers – particularly the newly minted ones – adopt an “us versus them” mentality as it relates to the sales force.