The Force of creating

Direct Customer Relationships from End User to CEO

Aviv Cohen VP Products and Marketing

EARNIX

Years in the trenches

• 15 years of building products

• Some of which are selling strong to date

• I did a lot of experiments

• …some worked

We Chose a Life of influence without Authority

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Direct Customer Relationships

Product Manager = Jedi

Customer relationships = Light saber

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Direct – Means No Middlemen

Earnix - We’re a Happy Bunch

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Enterprise Software

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We sell to the Head of the Business

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Executives See the Big Picture

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Need just a Few Good Relationships

+1 206 876 5070

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Face to Face is Priceless

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Face to face

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Acknowledge the Barriers

Corporate barriers

Sales / Account managers

Travel budgets

Personal barriers

Fear

Uncertainty

Doubt

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Value based relationship

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All you need is

1. Integrity – you’re there to help them, don’t sell

2. Product knowledge – know your system

3. Market knowledge – a broader perspective

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It Helps if you Build a Personal Brand

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Tips – Getting the Access

Tag along your CEO

Leverage your board members

Create a customer advisory board

Coordinate a roadmap roadshows

Leverage the VP Marketing / Community Manager

Direct approach (leverage the PA)

Conferences

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Tips – Running the Meeting

Agenda: e.g. roadmap, market trends, or specific solution

A little small talk, then straight to the point

Verify and address the customer challenges

Share market information, disruptive trends

Finally – ask 1,2 questions you need answers to

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Company has over $20B in marketing cap

Approached: Chief Actuary (20 yrs experience)

Worked in many of the prime insurers in Europe

We needed to create UI to a new product that models the customer risk analytics process and practices

Recipe:

1 Long & trusted relationship

3 meetings x 2 hours each

Shake well, serve with an olive

Results: PRD defined & verified

Case Study - Financial Arm of a UK Retailer

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PRD

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More Tip

• Respect• Delivering on your promises• Be grateful• Following-up

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Case Study – Mellanox UFM Software

• Network Provisioning Product wasn’t selling

• Product Manager (Tom Thirer, Mellanox) went on an ‘around the world in 80 days’ tour

• Sit down with >10 customers

• Thru Europe and US

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Priceless Input

Vertical A Vertical B Vertical C

Monitoring & Root cause analysis

Device Management

Fabric Provisioning

• Result: shift from Provisioning to Monitoring

• Over 100,000 licenses to date and counting

• Couldn’t have done it without that input

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Summary

Direct Customer Relationships -A Key to Product Manager’s Success

Let’s link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avivcoaviv@earnix.com