the higher they go, - pragmatic instituteevery day, just to do something stupid? employees are the...

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Volume 3 Issue 4 July/August 2005 The Marketing Journal for Technology Product Managers A Pragmatic Marketing ® Publication The Higher They Go, the Stupider They Get Don’t Confuse Sales Support with Marketing: A Case for Buyer Persona Profiling Product Management: For Adults Only Product Strategy Doesn’t Just Happen! You Want to Start a Company. Where do You Begin? The Egoless Company

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Page 1: The Higher They Go, - Pragmatic Instituteevery day, just to do something stupid? Employees are the happiest when they’re working on something that is going to succeed. Something

Vo lume 3 I ssue 4 J u l y / A u g u s t 2 0 0 5

T h e M a r k e t i n g J o u r n a l f o r Te c h n o l o g y P r o d u c t M a n a g e r s • A P r a g m a t i c M a r k e t i n g ® P u b l i c a t i o n

The Higher They Go,the Stupider They Get

Don’t Confuse Sales Support with Marketing:A Case for Buyer Persona Profiling

Product Management: For Adults Only

Product Strategy Doesn’t Just Happen!

You Want to Start a Company.Where do You Begin?

The Egoless Company

Page 2: The Higher They Go, - Pragmatic Instituteevery day, just to do something stupid? Employees are the happiest when they’re working on something that is going to succeed. Something

[ FLEX your software.]

Price. Package. Protect. Update.

The nature of software is evolving. As the leader in Software Value Management solutions,

Macrovision’s FLEXnet platform is uniquely qualified to help you maximize the value of your

software through every phase of its lifecycle.

Copyright © 2005 Macrovision Europe Ltd. and/or Macrovision Corporation.

All Rights Reserved

www.macrovision.com/pm

Page 3: The Higher They Go, - Pragmatic Instituteevery day, just to do something stupid? Employees are the happiest when they’re working on something that is going to succeed. Something

No part of this publication may be reproduced, storedin any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying,recording or otherwise, without the prior writtenpermission of the publisher.

productmarketing.com™ is available free of charge to qualified subscribers. For subscription or back issues call (480) 515-1411; or visitwww.pragmaticmarketing.com/subscribe/

To be removed from the mail list, visitwww.pragmaticmarketing.com/unsubscribe/ or send an email to [email protected]

For advertising rates, call (480) 515-1411.

Other product and/or company names mentioned in this journal may be trademarks or registeredtrademarks of their respective companies and are the sole property of their respective owners.productmarketing.com™, a Pragmatic Marketing, Inc.publication, shall not be liable regardless of the cause,for any errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or other defectsin, or untimeliness or unauthenticity of, the informationcontained within this magazine. Pragmatic Marketingmakes no representations or warranties as to the resultsobtained from the use of this information. PragmaticMarketing does not warranty or guarantee the resultsobtained from the use of this information and shall not be liable for any third-party claims or losses of anykind, including lost profits, and punitive damages.

productmarketing.com is a trademarkof Pragmatic Marketing, Inc.

Printed in the U.S.A.

All rights reserved.

About Pragmatic Marketing, Inc.Pragmatic Marketing, Inc. was formed in 1993 toprovide product marketing training and consulting to technology firms by focusing on strategic, market-driven techniques. Pragmatic’s trainingcourses emphasize business-oriented definition of market problems, resulting in reduced risk andfaster product delivery and adoption. Since itsinception, Pragmatic Marketing has successfullygraduated over 30,000 product managers andmarketing professionals. For more information, visitwww.PragmaticMarketing.com or call 480-515-1411.

Inside this issue:productmarketing.com

16035 N. 80th Street, Suite FScottsdale, AZ 85260

President and CEOCraig Stull

Pragmatic Marketing, Inc.

Managing EditorKristyn Benmoussa

Contributing WritersEd Crowley

Peter LonginiBarbara NelsonAdele Revella

David Meerman ScottKristin Zhivago

Volume 3 Issue 4July/August 2005

productmarketing.com • July/August 2005 • 3

4 The Higher They Go, the Stupider They Get

Working on things that don’t make sense is the single biggest source of job dissatisfaction.Directives from top management shouldn’t end with employees going back to their desks, headsdown, grumbling all the way. So why do intelligent,well-meaning managers make stupid decisions?

10 Don’t Confuse Sales Support with Marketing:A Case for Buyer Persona Profiling

As technology marketers, do you measure time spent onmarketing vs. sales support? Marketers are so focused onsales that marketing is an afterthought. Few marketing toolsrespond to the buyer’s real questions. This article providesvaluable information about identifying and staying focusedon buyer persona profiles.

16 Product Management: For Adults Only

It takes a certain maturity to professionalize technologyproduct commercialization. Learn from a company’s abruptgrowing-up experiences including sharp about-faces in themarketplace and misunderstandings within its ownworkforce.

24 Product Strategy Doesn’t Just Happen!

Discover the need for developing a process to drive thedevelopment of your product strategy in order to achievesustained growth. Explore both the key aspects andmyths of successful product strategy processes.

27 You Want to Start a Company. Where Do You Begin?

Find a problem, solve the problem, tell the world you solved the problem, and sell it—take these four key tips from Intuit® and learn how to be market-driven.

28 The Egoless Company

Award winning companies vary on many dimensions, butthey all share a focus on products and services that solve

customer problems instead of what’s important for

the company.

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WHAT?!!?

WHO HAS

TO DO THAT?

“What?!!? He said that? You’re kidding.You’re not kidding? He actually saidwe have to do that? Starting tomorrow?Does he realize what he’s asking? Oh,of course not. What an idiot! That meansI’m going to have to drop everythingI’ve been working on for three weeksand start running full speed in theother direction! I can’t believe it.”

This conversation, which takes placein millions of hallways across the worldeach business day, ends with everyonegoing back to their desks, carryingtheir cups of coffee, heads down,grumbling all the way. Because ofsomething a manager or manager’smanager said, employees are going tobe working on something that doesn’tmake sense, something that will messup everything else they’re working on, something that will probablyinconvenience customers—or, worse,make customers shake their heads indisgust and go find a company whohas a clue about what they need and how they want to buy.

4 • productmarketing.com • July/August 2005

The Higher

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YOU’RE

KIDDING!!

YOU WANT IT TOMORROW?

$%##!

Working on things that don’t makesense—things that will hurt the companybecause they won’t help the customer—is, by far, one of the biggest problemin business today. It’s an epidemic,and nobody talks about it.

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert,owes a lot of his popularity to the sadfact that the stupidity of Dilbert’s bossrings true for a lot of workers. Everyminute an employee spends workingon something that doesn’t make senseis a wasted minute. You could evencall it a “negative” minute, because 1) the job that should be getting done isn’t getting done and 2) theemployee’s respect for the boss, andhis belief in the company’s future, has slipped down another notch.

Working on things that don’t makesense is the single biggest source ofjob dissatisfaction. Who wants to workon something that is obviously goingto fail? Who wants to fight traffic,spend 8 to 15 hours in a windowlessoffice, answer another 200 emails, andsit through at least 5 boring meetingsevery day, just to do something stupid?

Employees are the happiest whenthey’re working on something that isgoing to succeed. Something that theythink customers will like, somethingthat competitors can’t do or won’t do,something that “fits” with the company’sset of promises (which is, as I explainin my book, a company’s true brand).Something that makes them proud tobe associated with a company that isdoing the right thing.

productmarketing.com • July/August 2005 • 5

They Go,the Stupider They Get

By Kristin Zhivago

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The Higher They Go, the Stupider They Get

Are these top managers really stupid?Nope. The thousands of people I’veworked with in top management were not stupid. They were intelligentand dedicated.

But these same intelligent,well-meaning people makestupid decisions. Why? Because:

1. They aren’t personally talking to customers.

2. Their employees don’t tell them the whole truth.

3. They have to answer to their own“bosses” who are also illogical.

Let’s take these one at a time.

They aren’t personally talking to customers.Lou Gerstner is one of the bestexamples of a customer-centric CEO.If you’re in management, and youhaven’t read his book, Who SaysElephants Can’t Dance? you’remissing a great read—and insightinto what made him so successful.Before he came to IBM®, he was anIBM customer, and a consultant tolarge companies. He knew the trapsthat CEOs can fall into. As a customer,he was fully aware of the stupidmistakes that managers make.

When he first started his job as the CEO of IBM, instead of calling a bunch of meetings with employeesand analysts to discuss His GrandStrategy, he horrified collegeprofessors and reporters by sayingthat the last thing IBM needed atthat point was another “vision.” Worse,he spent the bulk of his first threemonths visiting customers. Hecontinued to spend about 40% of

his time talking to customers duringhis tenure at IBM. How many CEOscan say they do that?

And I’m not talking about spendingtime with big-ticket prospects, closingthe deal. When the CEO is acting asthe company’s Top Salesperson, thecustomers he’s talking to will be justas cagey and close-mouthed as theyare with their regular salesperson. TheCEO won’t learn anything useful in that situation.

What I am saying is that the CEOhas to randomly call customers on a regular basis—not to sell them,but to interview them.

He needs to find out what drives themcrazy. He needs to know, personally,what they really want. He needs tounderstand how they want to buy—the questions they need answered,how they need those questionsanswered, and in what order.

He needs to hear them tell him, intheir own words, what they wish his company would do for them that it isn’t doing now. What wouldthey pay good money for? Whatmakes sense to them?

If you’re the CEO, all you have to dois pick up the phone and call. Startasking open-ended questions.

“How’s business? What’s driving youcrazy right now? How do you feelabout our product? Our service? Whatcould we be doing better? Who elsedid you look at before you bought—and what did you think of them?How did they sell to you? Was thereanything about our sales process wecould improve? What promise do you wish companies like ourswould keep?”

These simple questions elicit the kindsof answers that can drive logical,market-conquering strategies.

If you don’t interview customerspersonally on a regular basis, you will fall victim to Agenda-itis.Everyone has an agenda. Maybethey really do want to help thecustomer (there are more of thesepeople, by the way, than mostmanagers assume). Maybe they’retrying to please or impress someoneelse—a manager, a spouse, or eventheir mother-in-law. Maybe they’retrying to do what only one customerwants (the main failing of sales-drivencompanies). And some, sadly, are justgreedy and selfish, doing whateverpleases them.

When the CEO doesn’t talk to at leastseveral customers a month, she’s goingto do what makes sense to herbased on what she hears from non-customers. Her main source ofinformation will be her employees.That’s a big mistake. Because…

Their employees don’ttell

them the whole truth.Here’s a simple example. Let’s lookat a guy named Bill. Bill is in chargeof a project. He’s done the best hecan with something he was asked to do, but it’s not as good as hewanted it to be.

When Bill’s boss asks how it’s going,Bill says, “Good. We’ll be able tomeet the deadline.” What Bill doesn’tsay is that he isn’t happy with howthings are going, that some of thepeople who are supposed to becooperating aren’t cooperating.

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B I L L

productmarketing.com • July/August 2005 • 7

The Higher They Go, the Stupider They Get

Why isn’t Bill telling his boss thewhole truth? Here are just some of the possible reasons:

1.He doesn’t want someone else to get into trouble.

2.He doesn’t want to look like a whiner.

3.He is fighting a political battle with someone and he believes he is going to win. He doesn’t wantto say anything about it until it’sobvious that he has to escalate.

4.He’s afraid of being labeled asnitch, so he doesn’t say anythingabout the people who are resisting.

5.He figures if he can’t get the right people on board, he’ll findanother way.

6. It is taking longer than he thoughtto get certain information.

7. It is taking longer than expectedto do some aspect of the project,but he thinks he’ll be able tofinish it if he can just get someuninterrupted time. Riiiiight. Infact, his day is filled with meetingsand interruptions, so he never getsaround to focusing on the big stuff.

8.He believes that someone is doingtheir part, when in fact their parteither isn’t being done or it isbeing done incorrectly. He willprobably discover this when it’stoo late.

9. As the job is nearing completion,something changed—somethingthat will have a major effect on the job. Bill doesn’t know aboutthe change. Or, he knows about it but figures he can work aroundit. Or, worse, he knows about it and decides to ignore it because he can’t figure out howto incorporate the change intowhat he is doing.

10.Bill screwed up somehow and isdesperately trying to figure outhow to make it right (or cover itup). Meanwhile, he isn’t about tosay anything about it to his boss.

11.The technology, employee,outside vendor, system, orprocess that Bill wanted to usefor his project didn’t work out.He is scrambling behind thescenes to find an alternative.

12.He’s an eternal optimist, and inspite of all the obvious signs to thecontrary, he believes the projectwill “turn out OK.”

We’re up to reason #12 already and the list certainly isn’t complete.Obviously, employees have many,many reasons to avoid telling theirbosses the whole truth.

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Bill doesn’t tell his boss the wholetruth, Bill’s boss doesn’t tell his bossthe whole truth, and so on up the lineuntil the story makes it to the CEO.The larger the company, the less truthis left in the story by the time it reachesthe top. Plus, as everyone in the chainleaves out some of the truth, they adda little more fiction. By the time theCEO hears the story, it bears littleresemblance to reality.

The CEO then makes a carefullyconsidered decision, based on thisfiltered and embellished information,and delivers a decree.

Bill gets the memo and thinks, “What an idiot!”

CEOs who depend entirely on theiremployees (or their kiss-up vendors)for the truth will always make stupiddecisions. Smart CEOs make a point oflooking elsewhere for the truth. Theytalk to customers on a regular basis, aswe’ve already mentioned. This is thesingle most important thing a CEO cando. A customer will say, “Well, I calledcustomer service to solve my problem,but I was put on hold for 25 minutes,and then the rep couldn’t solve theproblem. So last week, when it wastime to upgrade, I bought yourcompetitor’s product. And frankly, I’ve told others how terrible your service is.”

What did the customer service managertell the CEO? “We’re working onimproving the phone system.”

Many CEOs think they get the truthwhen they challenge these vaguestatements. “What do you mean,you’re working on it? What’s wrong?What are you doing?”

This leads to some answers, but theCEO will never hear this: “Well, theaverage hold time is 24.6 minutes, thesystem seems to cut off every 4th callerafter they press ‘4,’ and we don’t haveanswers to 37% of the questions we’re asked.”

Instead, he’ll hear: “We need to hiremore reps to decrease the hold time,which is a little higher than I’d like.And we are testing the system becauseevery so often it drops a call.”

It’s obvious that the CEO who gets thisinformation is going to make stupiddecisions, no matter how smart hemight be. And he won’t realize howmuch business he’s losing becausehe’s not getting the whole truth. Onlyhis customers can paint that picturefor him. Meanwhile, his competitorswill be having a field day exploitinghis vulnerabilities.

If he does interview customers and gets the truth, he has to decide what to do. Another barrier that will keephim from making the right decision:the stupid “bosses” he has to answerto. Which brings us to Reason #3.

They have to answer to their own bosses, who are also illogical.

Every CEO has a boss. In fact, everyCEO has several bosses. At the veryleast, CEOs have to answer to thegovernment. Regulations must befollowed. Anyone who has tried to do his or her own taxes, or changesomething simple in their own town,knows that government regulationsare neither simple nor logical. Whatmakes sense to customers and to thecompanies that serve them may nothave anything to do with what a CEOhas to do to comply with governmentregulations, even if those regulationswere created to protect consumers.

CEOs also answer to investors. Inprivate companies, investors includefamily and friends, business associates,and venture capitalists. Each personhas an agenda, which usually has littleto do with what the customers want.

Maybe the venture capitalists want to get to an IPO as fast as possible.Maybe they want to “flip” the company—grow it and sell it—in the shortestamount of time. Maybe a relative orfriend, who is advising the CEO, hasbeen successful working in anothercompany or industry, and wants toapply the lessons she learned in thatprevious situation to the currentsituation—even if those lessons are inapplicable.

In public companies, the stockholders,analysts, and press put pressure onthe CEO. The CEO makes promisesthat he is expected to keep. When thenumbers come out, if they’re differentthan what the analysts expect, thestock price will suffer. This has adirect effect on the CEO’s own networth, which puts more pressure onthe CEO. All of these brush fires canconsume a CEO’s working day, andstill have nothing to do with whatcustomers really want.

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The Higher They Go, the Stupider They Get

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CEOs who have to answer to illogicaldemands placed on them by their“bosses” often fail to communicate thatthey are being forced into it by a poorpolicy. They don’t want their bosses tofind out they said negative thingsabout the policy to their employees.They also don’t like to admit thatsomeone else is pulling their chain.

But by protecting themselves, they are creating havoc and dissension in the ranks. Better to say, “Look, I don’t like this either, but I honestlyhaven’t come up with a betteralternative. We have to work through this right now, as efficiently as we can.”

This approach makes the employeefeel he or she is part of the solution,rather than a victim of the problem.Employees who feel they are “in theknow” are far more effective andmotivated than those who feel they

are treated like mushrooms (kept inthe dark and fed BS all day). Theyalso tend to sympathize with the CEOand even defend her because theyunderstand what the real problem is.This is far different than the employeewho says to a customer, “Yeah, I knowthat’s stupid. But what can I do? Thisis a direct order right from the top.”

CEOs don’t have to be stupid. Theycan know what is really going on, just by making a few phone calls tocustomers every week. They can make decisions that make sense tocustomers. They can tell employees—and their investors—why they’remaking those decisions, and howthose decisions will help customers.They can know when something hasgone wrong, as soon as it starts goingwrong, and take action before thesituation gets out of hand.

Want to separate yourself from stupidCEOs? Call your customers.

productmarketing.com • July/August 2005 • 9

The Higher They Go, the Stupider They Get

Kristin Zhivago is a“revenue coach” forcompany owners andCEOs. She is president

of Zhivago Marketing Partners, Inc.www.zhivago.com, author of Riversof Revenue, and author of theRevenue Journal blog. She can bereached at [email protected]

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According to Pragmatic Marketing’s

2004 product management survey,

technology marketers spend more than

half of their time on sales support, a

statistic that reflects an alarming state of

confusion about the role of marketing in

our industry. Yet the functions of Sales

and Marketing are easily distinguished;

Marketing focuses on a market full of

opportunities, while Sales focuses on

individual opportunities.

So why are marketers so focused

on sales?

There are many answers to this question,but they all net out to the fact thatmarketing has not been a well-respectedfunction in our industry. This excerptfrom a June 2005 CMO Magazine article(“The Ultimate Bug Fix”) describes the historical perspective on marketing at Microsoft®:

During Microsoft’s climb to the top ofthe software industry, rapid-fire productcycles often happened without muchfront-end input from the folks inmarketing. Engineers would developnew software, pack it with bells andwhistles, decide on an acceptablenumber of bugs and toss it over tomarketing for a press release and a launch event.

This problem isn’t unique to Microsoft,they have identified a problem that isepidemic in an industry built with anemphasis on engineering and sales—marketing is an afterthought, just a tactical

Don’t Confuse

Sales Supportwith

Marketing:A Case for

Buyer Persona ProfilingBy Adele Revella

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cog in a production process thatresults in various events, data sheetsand press releases. Marketing is simplythere to announce that Engineeringhas developed this wonderful product(great news!) and the customers aresupposed to line up to buy whateverwe have built.

If the marketing role is so narrowlydefined, who could argue with thelogic of using these resources to helpclose sales?

There is strong evidence that this is allabout to change, and now MicrosoftCEO Steve Ballmer has gone publicwith a commitment to “be excellent in marketing execution.” My sense isthat the technology industry is finallygrowing up and that we are beginningto realize what other mature industrieshave long understood—marketingsuperiority delivers a sustainable,defensible competitive advantage to those who master it.

It won’t be easy to develop the skillsand cultural changes that will enablethis new role. Microsoft estimates thatthey are currently “halfway through whatmay ultimately be a 10-year journey”to reinvent their marketing organization.Where are you in the process? Whatarea of focus would produce the mostbenefits in the shortest amount of time?Here’s one worth considering—howcould Marketing support Sales withoutdoing individual sales support?

Measure the time spent onmarketing vs. sales supportThe first step toward any change is to realize that your current actions,however well intended, aren’t gettingyou where you want to go. It shouldbe easy to see that the time you devote

to a single prospect opportunity (clearlya sales role) steals time that could havebeen used to influence an entire marketabout the value of your solutions (areasonable description of the Marketingjob). This is not to say that sales supportis not important; if sales aren’t closedyour company will not survive. We are only asking you to recognize that sales support is not marketing,and to clearly identify which role you are truly fulfilling.

Think about the last time you spent dayson a presentation, demo or referencestory that helped one sales person workon one deal. Now contrast that to thefunction of Marketing, which shouldbe developing programs that influenceall buyers in a specific role in one of your targeted markets.

Which job is really yours: influencingthe attitudes that drive a single customerto choose your solution (sales support),or influencing the attitudes that drive a market to choose your solution(marketing)? Keep track of your timein each of these categories, for just aweek or two, and see where you areinvesting your time.

Consider what keeps you stuck in sales supportThere are many reasons that Marketingspends its time on sales support, butthese are the three I hear most often:

1. Sales people won’t look for the answers in the tools we’veprovided, they just pick up thephone and call me (“code” for “sales people are lazy”).

2. The sales people don’t understandour products (they don’t take thetime to learn, see reason #1).

3.Or one of my favorites; Sales can’tclose the business without me (salespeople get all the respect, hopefullysome of it will accrue to my benefitif I help with the deal).

I’m not denying that sales people wantto find the quickest way to get the dealclosed, and that most of them wouldbe happy to have you do the work forthem. But one of the reasons that Salesis so dependent on marketing peoplefor help with individual deals is thatthe standard marketing collaterals areof little or no help during the salescycle. Your materials simply do notcommunicate answers to the questionsthe buyers are asking.

If you have accompanied a salespersonon a few calls, you know somethingabout the questions that a buyer bringsup during those meetings. Pretend to beone of those buyers and take a freshlook at your collateral or one of your“standard” presentations. Now consider:

■■Would you read (or listen) to this?

■■ Is it easy to find the answers to thequestions that will help you make a decision?

■■ Is there something about this solutionthat is compelling and distinct fromthe competitors’ offerings?

■■Finally, do you believe the vendorstatements are proof-points wellpresented and convincing?

The fact is that very few marketingtools respond to the real questionsthat a buyer wants answered as theymove through the various stages ofthe decision process. Is it any wonderthat Sales asks you to customizesomething for each prospect situation?

productmarketing.com • July/August 2005 • 11

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Don’t Confuse Sales Support with Marketing: A Case for Buyer Persona Profiling

Identify the need for buyer persona profilesIf you don’t know the people you want to influence, you are not communicating.That’s why the best sales people know thatthe first meeting with the prospect is notthe time to talk about their solution or

show a presentation. This first meetingis their best—perhaps only—chance to really understand that prospect’smost urgent problems. Anexperienced sales rep is skilled at asking questions, learning about the prospect’s concerns anduncovering the metrics that yourbuyer’s management or stakeholdersuse to measure success.

The second meeting is yoursalesperson’s chance to present

your company’s products or servicesas the solution to the problems the

prospect described. If your sales repcan’t connect your products to this

business situation and success metrics,your sales rep may not get another meeting,much less win the business.

This is when the typical sales-supportrequest arrives on your desk. The salesrepresentative asks you to prepare aspecial presentation, demo, referencestory, or worse, to accompany him on the next sales call. The knowledgeinside your head is needed to connect the product to this prospect’s view of theproblem. The standard marketing toolseither describe every conceivable productbenefit or they are so vague that they areuseless for this situation.

Now consider a different scenario. Youhave a buyer persona profile for each ofthe job functions that have the most impacton the purchase decision for your solutions.The profile includes the words that buyerwould use to describe their most urgentproblems and the way that buyer wants to measure the success of the investment.Your personas are built by job title, byindustry, and by size of company—a fewof the characteristics that typically affectthe buyer persona details.

Armed with this insight into the targetaudience, you anticipated the needs of the salesperson and built marketingcollaterals, presentations and other toolsthat connect the company’s solutions tothe problems that are most pervasive andurgent for each of your targeted buyerpersonas. The necessary information is not trapped in your head; it is easilyaccessible in the marketing materials. Nowthe customizations needed for any particularprospect situation involve a few adjustments,not a complete rewrite.

What is a buyer persona?A persona is a short biography of thetypical customer; not just a job descriptionbut a person description. It comments onthe buyer’s background, daily activities,and how they deal with their current setof problems. The more experience youhave in your market, the more obviousthe personas become.

We acknowledge that the idea of “profiling”is politically incorrect, but we also knowthat marketers who understand buyerpersonas find it easy to create well-targetedmessages. The marketing materialsdeveloped from the persona perspective,and not a product point-of-view, are likely to communicate answers to thesame problems that your sales rep willdiscover in his first few meetings with an individual buyer.

Here is an example of a buyer personabuilt by a company that sells software to corporations of all sizes, with ahistorical emphasis on large enterprises.This company’s marketing was veryproduct-focused until they built thisprofile for a small business owner andrealized that his needs were very different.

This guy is an entrepreneur, he thinksdifferently than corporate managers. He is spending his own money, not someunknown shareholders’. He wants toknow how he can make more moneynow, how this will have an immediateimpact on his business. He doesn’t haveto go through a complex process to makea decision—if he sees an opportunity; he

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productmarketing.com • July/August 2005 • 13

Don’t Confuse Sales Support with Marketing: A Case for Buyer Persona Profiling

wants it to work immediately. He wantsto know exactly how much it willcost and when he can see the results.

This guy is very involved in the day-to-day operations of the business,so he doesn’t have time to attendout-of-town conferences. He has onelocal networking group that he meetsfor an occasional breakfast, and heoften asks his associates to recommendsolutions for his problems. The natureof his business gives him access tothe Internet, so he will also searchonline for new products.

This profile went on to identify the mosturgent problems for the small businessperson, with an emphasis on those thatthis company’s solution could address.It defined the kinds of groups thebusiness owner attends, and thekeywords he uses during his onlinesearch for solutions. This companyrealized that their messaging was builtfor their larger enterprise buyers andthat they were not delivering theirmessages in the places this personawas visiting.

Getting started on buyer persona profilesSo who can help you to understandyour buyers? We tell product managersto visit customers and non-customerson a regular basis. If they’ve beenfollowing our advice (and not buriedwith sales support or developmentprojects) they have good data aboutthe most urgent problems facing yourtarget buyers. You will want to focuson the information they collected from non-customers, as these are the people your sales people need to influence.

Your product managers should defineboth “user” and “buyer” personas. Userpersonas profile those people whoactually use, or represent the interestsof the users, of your solution. Buyerpersonas include any other people in the company who influence thepurchase decision.

It may be useful to think of yourbuyer personas in three categories.Economic buyers are those whoconcern themselves with the cost of the investment—“C”-level buyerssuch as the CFO are usually in thiscategory. Technology buyers arefocused on the technical details, such as integration or conversionchallenges. User buyers are those whoevaluate the aspects of the productthat are relevant on a day-to-day basis.User buyers may be the people whowill actually use the system, or theymay be managers responsible for thesatisfaction of a user community.

It is not necessary to profile everyonewho uses or knows about yoursolution in the target market. Start byunderstanding the sales process andonly focus on those who will play an active part. These are the peoplethat your marketing programs willneed to influence.

If Product Management is only visitingcurrent customers, or if they aren’tgetting out into the market at all, youwill need to find another way to getthis information. Many people want toengage a research company or to relyon third-party information such asanalyst reports. You can and should use these resources, but there is nosubstitute for the first-hand intelligencegained from listening to the marketyourself. Start with the data that others developed, then use it to openconversations with your target audienceso that you can hear what they say andhow they say it. At trade shows andconferences, attend the sessions, minglewith the attendees, and use theseinteractions to hone your perceptionsand deepen your insights.

You should also subscribe to and readthe periodicals, newsletters and onlineforums that influence your targetaudience. Pay attention to the trendsand concerns most frequently cited asyou read what your buyers read. Thenrecord any interactions on a profileworksheet, listing the top five painpoints. Soon you will begin to see apattern—this is the time to start to createyour persona profile. It is also a goodidea to save specific quotes that reflectthe words that your buyer uses.

Stay focused on the value of persona profilesConsider the value you could deliver ifthe collateral or series of web pages youhad planned to develop for a productcould be focused on specific buyertypes. The buyer could merely turn tothe page appropriate to his or her rolerather than attempt to glean what theyneed from a jumble of messages.

Before you write anything intended foran external audience, read the buyer’spersona profile and see if what you aresaying is what your audience reallywants to hear.

Your company has a lot of productexperts, but who is the buyer personaexpert? The answer is probably “no one.” So each sales interactioninitiates a request for another custommarketing piece and sales supportcontinues to dominate the time andresources that could have beeninvested in market development.

As you develop your marketingprograms and strategies with a focus onbuyer personas, you will be supportingSales, but you won’t be doing salessupport. Your efforts will apply to a market full of opportunities, which is what real marketing is all about.

Adele Revella brings more than 20 years of technology marketingexperience to the development and delivery of Effective MarketingPrograms™, the Pragmatic Marketing seminar focused on go-to-marketstrategy, execution and measurement. You can contact Adele [email protected]

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Nancy CodyVice President Financial Technology Services Product Management Metavante Corporation

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“At Metavante, our number one

priority is client satisfaction and client

loyalty. Pragmatic Marketing® is giving us

the tools to implement a market-driven

framework that focuses our priorities

in the right place...on our customers.”

If you are trying to leverage your investment in product management

and marketing, the first place to start is with a proven methodology.

Pragmatic Marketing has always focused on the unique challenges

of managing and marketing technology products.

The Pragmatic Framework has been fine-tuned by 30,000 attendees

over 11 years and has been proven to create technology products

that customers want to buy. Pragmatic delivers on the promise in

its name—presenting a practical course of action that really works.

Visit www.PragmaticMarketing.com to learn more.

The Industry Standard in Technology Product Management and Marketing Education

–Nancy CodyVice President Financial Technology Services Product Management Metavante Corporation

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Compared to most leading-edgetechnology companies, Pittsburgh, PA-based Vocollect, Inc. is a venerableinstitution. Founded in 1987 by threeveterans of the nearby WestinghouseCorporate Research Center, the companywas formed to exploit what had by thenbecome the stuff of urban legend—theprodigious ability of Westinghousescientists to produce great inventionscoupled with the chronic inability ofWestinghouse commercial managers toexploit those inventions in the emergingtechnology marketplace.

In the case of Vocollect’s founders, that technology involved voice-directedcomputer interfaces for applications wherethe user’s need for continuous hands-onand eyes-on contact with the workenvironment made more conventionalmethods of user interface clumsy, error-prone, and even dangerous. By replacingclipboards, handheld scanners, portablekeyboards, and other mobile record-keeping systems with a voice-basedcommand system linked to remotecomputers, Vocollect’s technology enabledworkers to make significant increases intheir speed, accuracy, and productivity.

It takes a certain maturity to professionalizetechnology product commercialization.

Goodwill and good intentions simply aren’t

enough for a technology company to succeed

in implementing a product management

function or to reliably target its development

resources on the most promising market

segments. For Vocollect, a rapidly growing

producer of hardware and software for

shop-floor computer interface, transitioning

to professionally managed product

commercialization from a seat-of-the-pants

model took place only after several abrupt

growing up experiences including sharp

about-faces in the marketplace and

misunderstandings within its own

workforce. Company co-founder and

Board Chairman Roger Byford explains.

It takes a certain maturity to professionalizetechnology product commercialization.

Goodwill and good intentions simply aren’t

enough for a technology company to succeed

in implementing a product management

function or to reliably target its development

resources on the most promising market

segments. For Vocollect, a rapidly growing

producer of hardware and software for

shop-floor computer interface, transitioning

to professionally managed product

commercialization from a seat-of-the-pants

model took place only after several abrupt

growing up experiences including sharp

about-faces in the marketplace and

misunderstandings within its own

workforce. Company co-founder and

Board Chairman Roger Byford explains.

Product Management:Product Management:

16 • productmarketing.com • July/August 2005

By Peter Longini

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But over time, even though the system’score technologies evolved in a more or less linear fashion, its marketplaceapplications did not. Board ChairmanRoger Byford, one of the company’sthree original founders, recalls onepivotal re-orientation. “The initialtarget market for the company was for folks inspecting manufacturedproducts, particularly automobiles,” he said. But while its products workedwell, Vocollect’s business model didnot. “In the mid-90’s, we shifted ourfocus to the distribution market wherethe typical application is someone who is essentially running around awarehouse, picking product off theshelves, building pallets or puttingproducts into totes, and getting it to the door to be shipped. But instead of doing that with a paper list, forexample, they’re being talked throughthe process by the unit on their belt.”

TransitionsToday, Vocollect employs more than250 in the U.S. and Europe who serveover 75,000 workers in hundreds of

companies on five continents in thewarehousing, manufacturing, beveragedistribution, and forest productindustries. But the company’s transitioninto those markets came at a time whenit employed only about 20 people.“The concept of product managementwas foreign to us at that stage in thecompany’s evolution,” he said. “Whena company’s very small, everybodywears a lot of hats. And to havesomebody who’s permanently wearinga hat that says ‘Product Manager’on it is probably a little premature at that stage.”

Over time, however, the conceptbecame less foreign. “As the companybegan to grow, it became clear that weneeded to put in place a formal way ofmanaging our product beyond justhaving the techies say, ‘Oh, boy! Thatlooks like something we could build!’,”he said. “There was a growingrealization that the world for us wasgetting more complex. We wanted toturn product development projectsfaster. We had more going on. And wehad a need to be thinking a lot harder

about how we were managing ourproduct life cycles. We had about 50 people at that time.”

Today, using a stage-gate developmentprocess, Vocollect has formalized itsproduct development function. At itsearliest stage, a screening committeelargely made up of product managers,evaluates the concept to determinewhether the idea merits the resourcesneeded to turn it into a prototypesuitable for beta testing and evaluationby the company’s customers anddevelopment partners. Throughout theremaining stages, project teams whosemakeup varies with the nature of theproject, are led by a steering committeewhich always includes the productmanager as well as the project managerand an executive sponsor. The companyalso maintains a marketing andbusiness development organizationwhose mission is to grow Vocollect’sindirect channels and outboundmarketing efforts.

productmarketing.com • July/August 2005 • 17

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Just below the CEOBut it wasn’t until 2001, when both the company’s current CEO and itsMarketing Vice President wererecruited to join after years with ahighly successful maker of industrialprinters, that Vocollect’s current modelof product management began takingshape. “I think it’s a fairly traditionalmodel,” Byford observed. But then,with what may be the understatementemblematic of his native Britain, henoted that Vocollect’s model may notbe all that traditional after all. “Werecently put Product Management andProduct Development under the sameroof, in Product Operations, instead ofhaving them reporting through separatechains all the way up to the CEO,” he said. “The intention was to furtherimprove the communications across the Product Management and ProductDevelopment boundary.

“In the traditional structure, you haveProduct Management reporting upthrough Marketing,” he noted. “ProductDevelopment reports up throughEngineering, and the two don’t meetuntil you get to the boss’s office. That’sprobably not the optimal structure. Theideal thing to do, I hope, is what we’vedone fairly recently, which is to lookfor somebody who can run both the

functions of Product Management and Product Development. In our case, or in the case of a company our size, we do that one level belowthe CEO’s office.”

Why? “There are inevitably conflictsbetween Product Management andProduct Development; you wouldexpect that as part of the process. Butyou surely don’t want to have to taketoo many of those issues as far as the CEO level,” he said. “Giving oneindividual full responsibility for doing that—both creating and thenimplementing the product life cycle—is a good thing.

Absolute clarityRegardless of the reportingarrangements, successfully adding a formal Product Management function to an already up and running enterprise requires high levels of tact, diplomacy, and clarity of communications. That doesn’talways happen. “One of the things welearned was that as with adding otherfunctions to a growing organization,it’s important to be as clear as possibleabout understanding what the new roleis and does, not only for the person orpersons who are going to fill that role,but for all the people who have contactwith that function,” Byford said.

“Almost inevitably, somebody or somegroup of bodies, is going to be givingup a piece of what they do today—whether formally or informally. Andwe certainly found from experiencethat not being absolutely clear aboutwhat you’re doing and why and howyou’re not losing a piece of your job,can be a mistake. ‘Your job is growing,so this piece is going to be more thanenough to keep you busy. But take thisother piece and give it to somebodyelse’,” Byford said, paraphrasing a line manager’s speech.

“Getting that straightened out ahead of time is valuable. However, we addedthe Product Management function earlyenough that we didn’t do as good a job of that as we could have done—defining new roles and making sureeverybody understood what a productmanager was and what they did, anddefining how the interfaces shouldwork between the various parties.”

Today, Vocollect’s product managementgroup includes ten full-time employees,organized primarily along productlines. “You have a division ofresponsibilities within that singlefunction, and therefore morespecialization, so you have the need to make sure you’re creatingmechanisms that generate communicationsideways within that function as wellas across to the other functions,” he said.

18 • productmarketing.com • July/August 2005

Product Management: For Adults Only

Page 19: The Higher They Go, - Pragmatic Instituteevery day, just to do something stupid? Employees are the happiest when they’re working on something that is going to succeed. Something

“We tend to have a product managerand a less senior product specialist ineach segment. So those roles differsomewhat in scope of authority. It’s alittle more complicated here becausealmost all of our products interact. Sothat requires strong communicationacross product managers as well as everywhere else. And in somedevelopment projects, we may havemultiple product managers involved in a single development project. Becausemore than one product line, as wecurrently have them defined, may be affected by a single project.”

When to flexAs a corporation, Vocollect likes todevelop leadership from within its ownstaff, according to Byford. About half ofthe company’s product management staffis home grown. “But there has to besome body of experience, or else you’regoing to be grubbing around in the darkway too much,” he said. Beyond that, however, are certain qualities of character that anyone considered for the position has to have.

The most important? “An ability tolead without having the line authorityto do so,” he answered. “The productmanager has no direct line responsibilityover most folks on the productdevelopment team. Nor typically doesthe project manager. Those two have

to be able to work very effectivelytogether. And they have to be able toinfluence the rest of the team on theproject and convey their convictions.There’s a blend of flexibility andknowing when not to flex–when toinsist–and having the ability to insistwhen necessary without getting peopleall riled up,” Byford noted.

“The function that Product Managementcan clearly perform is to make sure a company’s product developmentefforts are not only well-intentioned,but well-directed,” he said. “For acompany like ours, and I suspect forany rapidly growing high technologycompany, the investment in productdevelopment is huge—about 15percent of revenue in our case. Ifyou’re not making sufficient use of that large bucket of dollars, you’re notlikely to be able to stay ahead of thecompetition. Products that miss themark, or are not what the customer is really looking for, that don’t addressthe competitive issues, that don’t get launched effectively into themarketplace—can result in ahuge waste of time and effort.”

productmarketing.com • July/August 2005 • 19

Product Management: For Adults Only

“Products that miss the mark, or are not

what the customer is really looking for,

that don’t address the competitive issues,

that don’t get launched effectively into the

marketplace—can result in a huge waste

of time and effort.”

Roger ByfordCompany co-founder and Board Chairman

Vocollect, Inc.

Peter Longini is theManaging Editor ofInside Product Strategy™

published by thePittsburgh ProductStrategy Network

(www.productstrategynetwork.org).The PPSN is a not-for-profit organizationserving technology and life sciencesproduct commercialization managers in the Pittsburgh region. Contact Peter [email protected]

Copyright © 2005 Pittsburgh Product Strategy Network.All rights reserved.

Page 20: The Higher They Go, - Pragmatic Instituteevery day, just to do something stupid? Employees are the happiest when they’re working on something that is going to succeed. Something

Practical Product Management ®

MarketAnalysis

TechnologyAssessment

Win/LossAnalysis

CompetitiveAnalysis

MarketSizing

MarketResearch

ProductPerformance

MarketProblems

QuantitativeAnalysis

OperationalMetrics

DistinctiveCompetence

Problems. Solved.Do you understand the relationship between product management and product marketing?

Does it seem that product managers are overloaded with tactical activities?

Are you getting the most out of your investment in Product Management and Product Marketing?

Does your Product Management function need more structure and process?

Are product managers spending too much time supporting Sales? Development? Marketing Communications?

Do your product managers and product marketing managers understand their roles?

Are your product managers trailing the other departments instead of leading them by six or more months?

Are requirements a moving target?

Do your product managers rely on the sales channel for product requirements, positioning, name, or pricing?

Are your Market Requirements Documents not providing enough detail to Development so they know what to build?

Do your product managers wander into design in the Market Requirements Document rather than provide the market facts that Development needs?

Are you struggling to keep control during the product planning process?

Is there agreement between Product Management and Development on what to do?

Does your Product Marketing function need more structure and process?

Is your marketing plan just a revised list of last year’s tactics?

Do you want better workflow between Product Management, Product Marketing,Industry Marketing and Marketing Communications?

Is Marketing disconnected from the sales process, generating leads and sales tools that go nowhere?

Is your message and program strategy based on a clear understanding of buyer problems and the reasons they should prefer your solution?

Do you know how to effectively measure all of your programs?

Have you been asked to create a marketing plan, without any guidance on what should be in a marketing plan?

© 1

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Page 21: The Higher They Go, - Pragmatic Instituteevery day, just to do something stupid? Employees are the happiest when they’re working on something that is going to succeed. Something

Effective Marketing Programs

RequirementsThat Work TM

TM

SalesReadiness

ChannelSupport

Innovation UserPersonas

Collateral &Sales Tools

ChannelTraining

BuyerPersonas

ProductContract

"Special"Calls

MarketMessages

ReleaseMilestones

WhitePapers

EventSupport

LaunchPlan

CompetitiveWrite-Up

AnswerDesk

LeadGeneration

BusinessCase Positioning Marketing

Plan

Pricing SalesProcess

AwarenessPlan

Buy, Buildor Partner

MarketRequirements

CustomerAcquisition

ThoughtLeaders

ProductRoadmap

CustomerRetention

ProductStrategy

ProductPlanning

ProgramStrategy

Presentations& Demos

The Industry Standard in Technology Product Management and Marketing Education

Visit www.PragmaticMarketing.com to learn more.

Complete Curriculum for Technology Product Managers

Pragmatic Marketing

seminars introduce a

framework that gives

technology marketers the

tools necessary to deliver

market-driven products

that people want to buy.

We focus on all practical

aspects of juggling daily

tactical demands with

strategic activities

necessary to become an

expert on the market.

Page 22: The Higher They Go, - Pragmatic Instituteevery day, just to do something stupid? Employees are the happiest when they’re working on something that is going to succeed. Something

Solutions.

Visit www.PragmaticMarketing.com

Build Market-Driven

Products byListening to the Market

Pragmatic Marketing has

always focused on the

unique challenges of

marketing technology

products and services.

The framework we teach,

refined and perfected over

20 years, shows specific

processes to find and develop

profitable opportunities, plan

market-focused products and

create winning promotional

and sales campaigns. Each

seminar offers immediate

actionable ideas, templates

and tools.

Practical Product Management is for product managers and those who manage or contribute to aspects of product marketing andmanagement. This two-day seminar fully explores the role of technicalproduct management, providing tools and a framework to help getproducts to market more efficiently.

I. Strategic Role of Product Management• What is marketing?• Definition of the role of product

management• Contrasting product management

and product marketing• Assigning ownership of

responsibilities• Identifying the “first steps” with

gap analysis

II. Market Analysis• Distinctive competence• Market research• Market problems• Technology assessment• Competitive analysis

III. Quantitative Analysis• Market sizing• Product performance• Operational metrics• Win/loss analysis

IV. Product Strategy• Business case• Pricing• Buy, build, or partner?• Thought leaders• Innovation

V. Product Planning• Positioning• Sales process

VI. Case StudyVII. Delineating Responsibilities

• Communicating market facts toDevelopment, Marcom, and Sales

• Drawing the line between ProductManagement and the otherdepartments

DAY 3 Requirements That Work™

(For those who write requirements)

VIII. Building the Market Requirements Document(MRD)• Writing requirements• Implementing use-case scenarios• Programming for the “persona”• Determining product feature sets• Creating the MRD

IX. Analyzing Business and Technology Drivers• Reviewing specifications• Prioritizing the product feature set

X. Getting (and Keeping) Commitments• Product contract• Getting the product team in sync• Getting executive support• Communicating the plan in the

company and in the market

PRACTICAL PRODUCT MANAGEMENT®

Still not sure Practical Product Management is for you?

Attend a FREE 1/2 -day session. See back cover for details.

The Industry Standard in Technology Product Management

and Marketing Education

Page 23: The Higher They Go, - Pragmatic Instituteevery day, just to do something stupid? Employees are the happiest when they’re working on something that is going to succeed. Something

Requirements That Work is an intensive one-daycourse that introduces a straightforward method forcreating product plans that product managers canwrite, developers readily embrace, and that producesolutions the market wants to buy.

Effective Marketing Programs explores the roles and processesthat align outbound marketing with strategic business andsales goals. This two-day workshop is filled with practicaltools for product marketing, industry marketing and marketingcommunications managers who are tired of wasting time on tactical “list” marketing.

or call (800) 816-7861 to register

TechnologyAssessment

Win/LossAnalysis Innovation

CompetitiveAnalysis

BusinessCase Positioning

MarketSizing Pricing Sales

Process

MarketResearch

ProductPerformance

Buy, Buildor Partner

MarketProblems

ThoughtLeaders

OperationalMetrics

DistinctiveCompetence

I. Defining Roles and Methodology• Understand the source of conflict between

Development and Marketing• Define clear roles and responsibilities• Introduce a product planning methodology

II. Gathering Input• Channels of input to product planning• Organizing product ideas• Quantifying market needs

III. Building the Market Requirements Document • Writing requirements• Implementing use-case scenarios• Programming for the “persona”• Determining product feature sets• Creating the Market Requirements

Document (MRD)

IV. Analyzing Business and Technology Drivers• Reviewing specifications• Prioritizing the product feature set

V. Getting (and Keeping) Commitments• Product contract• Getting the product team in sync• Getting executive support• Communicating the plan in the

company and in the market

I. Roles and Responsibilities• Differentiate the roles of product management

and outbound marketing

• Distinguish sales support from marketing

• Overview of strategic outbound marketing process

• Workflow between product management, productmarketing, industry marketing and marketingcommunications

II. Target Audiences• Build useful audience profiles

• Influence the buying process

• Create high-impact market messages

• Select the right programs for your audiences

III. The Strategic Program Plans• Develop clear market strategies

• Create the right budget

• Relate plan elements to company and sales goals

• Build the business case for marketing investments

IV. Align with Sales• Respond to endless tactical requests

• Collateral and tools that impact buying decisions

• Measure and improve sales tool productivity

V. Goal-Oriented Program Execution• Manage lead quality and throughput

• Integrate programs by target audience• Build and measure positioning awareness

• Influence customer retention

• Measure progress, with or without CRM

VI. Start Immediately• Prioritize next steps

• Apply the process to current programs

• Continuously measure and improve

REQUIREMENTS THAT WORK™

EFFECTIVE MARKETING PROGRAMS™

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What is a successful product strategy?A successful product strategy is theuse of a firm’s product-related resourcesin such a way as to maximize growthand profitability opportunities. Soundseasy doesn’t it? In reality, developing theproduct strategy is one of the toughestchallenges that companies face.

Product strategy developmentThere are several challenges indeveloping and executing productstrategy. The major challenges include:

■ The product strategy consists of botha planning (defining the strategy) andexecution (developing the products)phase. If either planning or executionis flawed, the product strategy is likely to fail;

■ The development and execution of the product strategy takes placewithin a complex market environmentand success can be heavilyinfluenced by external variables(the competition, the economy, and even regulation); and,

■ Developing a realistic productstrategy involves multiple functionswithin the company, and closecollaboration between these functions.These functions often have conflictingobjectives (for example: Developmentwants to meet schedule whilereducing cost, however, Marketingmay want to add features which willincrease product cost and increaseschedule risk).

I believe that most individuals involvedin the New Product Development (NPD)process will agree to these challenges.However, my next statement may notfind as much agreement. I believe thatwithout a process for managing theproduct strategy, 99% of all productstrategies are doomed to failure! Andwithout a successful product strategy,most businesses will ultimately fail.

What do I mean by a “process formanaging the product strategy”? In its simplest form, this process is arepeatable, measurable methodologyfor defining and managing thecompany’s product strategy andproduct portfolio. Firms will oftenhave a “product roadmap” whichundergoes annual reviews among a few key executives during whichtime resources are allocated andpriorities are set. However, having a roadmap does not constitute aproduct strategy process.

24 • productmarketing.com • July/August 2005

ProductStrategyDoesn’t

JustHappen!

By Ed Crowley

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productmarketing.com • July/August 2005 • 25

A product strategy process must be measurable, have definablecheckpoints, and must involve all of the stakeholders in the process. In addition, it must have mechanismsfor incorporating the external factors(competitor strategies, new productannouncements, market trends, andmarket forecasts—the “marketingintelligence” function) and internalfactors (funding, human/developmentresources, access to technology, andpaths to market) which will impact the success of the product strategy.

Product strategy traitsIt’s very important to recognize that“one size doesn’t fit all” when it comesto product strategy. Depending on the competitive intensity within yourindustry, the intellectual propertylandscape, and your internal resources,your product strategy process may bevery simple or it may be very complex.The product strategy process must becrafted to suit the needs and abilitiesof your specific organization. However,I believe that most successful productstrategy processes share severalcommon traits:

■ They have a method for incorporatingexternal market information early inthe process as a basis for setting basicproduct strategy priorities. Goodproduct strategy processes are not formed in a vacuum. Theyincorporate a keen understanding ofthe market needs, market dynamics,and market trends.

■ They encourage collaboration amongcorporate functions includingDevelopment, Marketing, SupplyChain/Manufacturing, and Finance.This implies that the process is well known, and understood by allfunctions. Additionally, there must be amethod for resolving disagreementsand conflicting priorities in aconstructive manner.

■ Someone “owns” the product strategyprocess and holds final responsibilityfor ensuring the strategy is complete,and that all parties are in agreementto the final product strategy. I haveseen this work successfully wheneither development, marketing, orcorporate strategy groups are the“owners” of the product strategy.The key issue is to ensure there isan “owner” who is responsible forgaining consensus and publishingand maintaining the product strategy.

■ Successful processes are followedreligiously and are gates/foundationsto other corporate processes. Whilethe strategy itself may change duringthe year based on internal or externalfactors, the product strategy processhappens every year according to apre-defined time table. Other keydeliverables (such as the annualbudget) depend on the completionof this product strategy definitionbefore they can occur.

Product strategy mythsWhen developing a product strategyprocess, it’s important to avoid fallinginto the trap of believing commonmyths regarding the product strategyprocess, including:

Myth 1Product strategy is only for

large multi-national companies with massive budgets and “armies”

of internal resources!

Unless you have a product/servicewhich doesn’t have any competition(and never will have), you need aproduct strategy process—regardlessof the size of your company. Youmust be constantly adapting yourportfolio to achieve or sustain acompetitive advantage.

Myth 2I have a product roadmap—therefore,

I have a product strategy process.

Wrong! While a product roadmap is a valuable deliverable from theproduct strategy process, much ofthe value of the product strategyprocess comes from assessing the market on a regular basis,collaborating with the differentfunctions to develop the “best”strategy, and rigorously validatingand revalidating your assumptionsabout the market. You can have aroadmap without having an effectiveproduct strategy process.

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26 • productmarketing.com • July/August 2005

Product Strategy Doesn’t Just Happen!

Myth 3Our company ________ (founder, visionary, development guru… you fill in the blank) knows exactly what

products we need so he/she can define the product strategy without theneed for a product strategy process.

This is one of the easiest and mostdangerous myths. Regardless of howintelligent this individual is, they arenot infallible. And, as time goes on,the original founder, visionary, etc.,often becomes less effective andmore subject to being blindsided by“disruptive” competitors because theyhave a significant tendency to focuson those customers/products/servicesthat made them successful in the first place.

Myth 4An outside consultant cannot

help with our process because they don’t know our company/industry.

Okay, many consultants probablydeserve the rap they get for bringingin a “cookie cutter” approach tosolving each business’ issue withoutreally understanding the firm’s businessor industry. The truth is no consultantwill ever know your company aswell as you do. However, they canbring a keen understanding of themarket and a different set of eyesfor a fresh perspective (note, I didn’t say unbiased. Let’s face it,everyone brings their own set ofbiases to the table). Most importantly,they can assist in developing theprocess itself because of their abilityto assess how your current process(or lack thereof) is working withouthaving a stake in the “turf wars” oftenfound inside companies. A goodconsultant will focus on what youwant to achieve with your process (asopposed to selling you a “canned”approach) and will take ownershipin ensuring the process is a success.

Myth 5A good product strategy

process will use X software or X number of steps (refer back to Myth 4 and the bad rap some

consultants have).

A good product strategy processdoes not have to be complex, orhave a certain number of steps, or use a certain piece of software. A good product strategy process will “fit” your organization, yourorganization’s culture, and willdeliver measurable results. Thismeans that one size doesn’t fit all and your process will need to be designed to fit the uniqueaspects of your firm.

The goal for any business is to driveprofitable, sustained growth over thelong term. Meeting this goal requires aproduct strategy process, regardless ofyour company size. Keep in mind thatthis article addresses the issues facinga “manufacturing products” firm, butsimilar challenges face the servicescompany, too, although some of the dynamics are different.

Ed Crowley is a Sr. Marketing Manager for Lexmark International. In addition to his duties at Lexmark, Mr.Crowley has founded the Photizo Group (www.photizogroup.com) as a consulting resource for clients whoare focused on driving sustained business growth. Mr. Crowley has over 20 years experience in the high techmarketing field including positions with Lexmark International, Texas Instruments, IntelliQuest, and VTEL.You can contact Ed at [email protected]

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productmarketing.com • July/August 2005 • 27

Find a problem, solve the problem,tell the world you solved the problem,and sell it.

If you’re market-driven, find a pervasiveproblem people are willing to pay tosolve, don’t over-engineer the solutionbeyond what people are willing to pay,tell a well-defined set of prospectivecustomers, and sell it profitably.

Even Intuit®, a multi-billion dollarsoftware company, started with only two guys: Scott Cook, who cut histeeth at Proctor & Gamble® and TomProulx, a Stanford engineering student.Intuit is one of the most market-drivencompanies I know.

The idea for Quicken®, the first product,came to Cook when his wife wascomplaining about balancing hercheckbook. But he didn’t rush out and build a product.

Find a problemCook used firsthand customer data tosupport his intuition. Before writingthe first line of code, he called peopleto find out whether they dislikeddealing with personal finances. Herandomly called people in twocommunities representing upscaleconsumers likely to buy PCs. He hiredhis sister-in-law to call hundreds moreto get a deeper understanding.

As Intuit grew, they institutionalizedfirst-hand customer research. In 1989,six years after Intuit was founded, theycreated “Follow Me Home.” Peoplethroughout the company regularlywatched consumers use the productsin their natural habitats. The motto,“We Are Not Our Customers” was bred into the company culture.

Solve the problemIntuit designed a system that looked the way people do it manually. Quicken was the firstproduct to use the checkbookmetaphor. The user interface emulated what consumers werefamiliar with and didn’t ask them to change their orientation.

Intuit didn’t lead with technology. Cooksaw the potential of the exploding PCmarket, but didn’t try to “create a need.”The technology was not an end, but a way to improve customers’ lives bymanaging the tedious task of managingpersonal finance. They beat thecompetition by having a much deeperunderstanding of the problem throughdirect customer research. In fact, there were 46 competitors when theylaunched Quicken. Cook and Proulxused to joke about having 47th moveradvantage. But the competitors didn’tunderstand the fundamental problemand created hard-to-use products,focused on features, not customers.Intuit understood that their maincompetitor was a pencil, not other software.

In order to beat a pencil, the goal was that a PC novice would be able to write a check within 15 minutes of opening the package. The goal was achieved.

Tell the worldWith Cook’s solid grounding inconsumer marketing, he knew heneeded to not only build the rightproduct, but that he needed goodmarketing. It didn’t happen overnight(they almost ran out of money beforesucceeding). He knew it was critical to focus on consumers’ problems(“End Financial Hassles”). Intuit used testimonials, direct-marketing(magazine and TV ads), and engagedpress and industry analysts to helpspread the word. Marketing testedeverything from response rates toobserving how customers reacted to packaging in the stores.

Intuit knew “we build it, they willcome” would fail. They invested inmarketing from the beginning.

Sell it In order to reach critical mass, Cookknew he had to leverage distributionchannels. He forged strategic allianceswith banks to distribute the product to their customers. He knew the retailchannel was a critical component, butuntil customers began requesting theproduct, the stores wouldn’t carry the title. In order to successfully sell, the marketing efforts had to go hand-in-hand.

So what have you learned about startinga company? Find a problem, solve aproblem, tell the world, and sell it.

Barbara Nelson is an instructorfor Pragmatic Marketing. She has 21 years in the softwareindustry, including VP of Product Marketing for a leading provider of business

and accounting applications. Contact Barbara at [email protected]

You Want to Start a Company. Where Do You Begin?

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The Egoless CompanyBy David Meerman Scott

“We focus on what’s important for our customers,not what’s important for the company. We’re an egoless

company rather than an egocentric company.The egocentric one puts out what the company thinks

is best rather than what the customer wants.”

Laurel Toubyfounder & cyberhostess

mediabistro.com

28 • productmarketing.com • July/August 2005

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productmarketing.com • July/August 2005 • 29

As a judge in several of the categoriesof the 20th annual Codie Awards,sponsored by the Software &Information Industry Association (SIIA),I recently completed the daunting taskof sifting through many interestingcompanies, services, and products tofind those that should be recognizedfor this year’s awards. As I looked atthe brash upstarts and well-establishedcompanies competing for this year’srecognition, I kept thinking: Wow, somany are worthy of a place. The varietyof organizations amazes me.

Established in 1986, the Codie Awardsis the longest-running awards programin the software and information industry.The program acknowledges the industry’smost innovative products and servicesthrough a combination of journalist andpeer review. After working on this andother awards programs and “best of”lists over several years, I can see thatthe winning companies vary on manydimensions, but they all share a focuson products and services that solvecustomer problems.

It’s not about you,it’s about your buyer Recently I had the pleasure ofinterviewing Laurel Touby, founder & cyberhostess of mediabistro.com. In a wide ranging discussion abouthow she’s built her successful company,Touby described her approach in such

a succinct way that I repeat herwords here: “We focus on what’simportant for our customers, notwhat’s important for the company,”

Touby says. “We’re an egolesscompany rather than an egocentriccompany. The egocentric one putsout what the company thinks is best rather than what thecustomer wants.”

So what can product marketers doto create an egoless company? Theprocess starts with marketers whowork extensively with the market tounderstand their problems. Too often,companies design and market theirproducts in a vacuum, cobblingtogether a set of features andfunctionality because they can orbecause it would be cool. Without inputfrom the target market buyer, an offeringis doomed to mediocrity at best.

A critically important aspect of anegoless company is designing a userinterface around the way people think.A UI should be intuitive and easy touse. As part of the Codie Award process,

I tried out several applications for thefirst time. Two in particular stood outbecause of egoless UI design. In eachcase, I downloaded the applicationand started to use the product withoutreading any documentation orinstructions. The UI was organizedaround me and my problems. When Iwanted to use a particular functionality,the buttons were where I’d expect themto be and did what I wanted. Productmanagers at those companies managedto organize their offerings in the waythat I think.

The egoless company pays closeattention to its marketing and salesapproach. A quick look at a company’smarketing materials, its website, andpress releases, can be very telling. Isthe focus on the problems customersface? Or do the materials simply describeproduct offerings from the company’sperspective? Here’s a simple test offeredby MarketingSherpa.com to answer thisquestion for your company: Count thenumber of times you see the words“We,” “Us,” “Our,” or your company’sname on your website or a direct mailpiece. Then count the number of timesyou see “You,” “Your,” or the job title of your prospects. Which countwins the contest? If it’s the former,MarketingSherpa says you’ve got a copywriting problem. But I’d gofurther to say that this is a symptom of the egocentric company.

A similar comparison can be applied topress releases. Are they written aboutthe customer problems solved? Orsimply about what the product purportsto do? Extend the test to the company’ssales professionals and their approach:Are they so busy selling the merits ofyour offerings that they forget to findout the buyer’s needs first? The oldsaying, “you’ve got two ears and onemouth and they should be used in thatproportion,” doubles as a sales ego test.

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30 • productmarketing.com • July/August 2005

The Egoless Company

Focus on your customer’s problemsTechnology marketers can learn a lotby emulating the publishing industry,which knows that their business is allabout getting the readers’ attention.Like a publisher, work first to understandthe audience and then use that insightto decide how to satisfy your prospects’informational needs through effectivemarketing programs. Your online andoffline marketing content is meant todrive action, which requires a focus ondescribing answers to your customer’smost urgent problems. Too often,marketing and communications materialssimply describe what an organizationor a product does. While this might be valuable to a subset of your visitors,what people really want to see are the issues and problems they face, and then details on how yours is the best solution.

Your marketing is meant to be thebeginning of a relationship that makesit easier to sell your products andservices. That relationship begins whenyou work at understanding your targetaudience and figure out how theyshould be sliced into distinct buyingsegments. Once this exercise iscomplete, identify the situations inwhich each target audience may findthemselves. What are their problems?What keeps them awake at night?

What do they want to know aboutyour solution? Now you’re ready tocommunicate your expertise throughvaluable white papers and case studies.

Every marketing tool is a chance totell your prospect how your offeringprovides ideal solutions to their mosturgent problems. At each stage of thetarget-market identification, problemarticulation, and solution process,useful, well-organized marketingprograms will lead your buyersthrough the sales cycle. Marketing is developing buyers who are ready tomake a purchase or other commitmentto your organization.

Show, don’t tellA particularly valuable way to createmarketing that addresses your customersproblems is to apply the “show, don’ttell” rule. Novelists and actors use “show,don’t tell” all the time; they use actionrather than stultifying narrative tocommunicate. To make a reader feelthat a character is happy, a novelistcould tell us that the character is happythrough narration or have that characteruse dialog to say: “I’m happy.” Whileeither one gets the point across, theseapproaches are not nearly as effectiveas words that show that the characteris happy, such as: Her eyes sparkledand she danced a little jig.

The same “show, don’t tell” rule appliesas an effective way to create marketingmaterials that specifically addresscustomer problems. Where previouslyyou might have listed target-marketsegments and the customers yourorganization has in these categories,you could instead create a library ofcustomer stories that demonstrate inreal-world scenarios how organizationsmake use of your product. You couldalso include photos of the product inaction. Marketing materials that showhow your organization solves customerproblems are vastly more effective thansimply listing products, or writing allsorts of copy that tells how yourproduct works.

Winning your company an awardCan you influence winning yourcompany a Codie Award, gettingnamed to “best of” lists, and garneringother prestigious industry recognition?Sure: just become an egoless company.Create a 100% focus on your customers(and buyers) throughout 2005,communicate it effectively throughoutthe year, and see what happens whenthe awards are announced in 2006.

30 • productmarketing.com • July/August 2005

David Meerman Scott is a writer, consultant, contributing editor at EContent Magazine, conference speaker and seminar leader.David’s latest book Cashing In With Content: How InnovativeMarketers Use Digital Information to Turn Browsers Into Buyers is a riff on using Web content to drive revenue and other actionfrom website visitors. He is also the author of Eyeball Wars:

a novel of dot-com intrigue. Contact him at www.davidmeermanscott.com

Page 31: The Higher They Go, - Pragmatic Instituteevery day, just to do something stupid? Employees are the happiest when they’re working on something that is going to succeed. Something

New Go-to-MarketBusiness Models in the Software &Services Industry

The Software 500 Marketing PerspectivesConference & Expo

Increase your knowledge about high-

tech product management and product

marketing disciplines. Visionaries and

experts in product management, market

management, marketing communications

and public relations will leave you with

ideas to bring back to your company.

You will: � Network with other high-

tech product and marketing managers

� Discuss new business models for

delivering software products and services

� Share industry best practices

Conference Program Tracks

� Product Management

� Market Management

� Marketing Communications and

Public Relations

� New Business Models: Software

as a Service and as Outsourcing

For more information and to register for the event, go to: www.smpevent.com

October 10-12, 2005Hyatt Regency Cambridge

Cambridge, MA

Alan Armstrong has over

a decade of experience in

enterprise software products

from design to develop-

ment, and from product

management to product

marketing. He has had

product management roles

at Sybase, Sitraka, Quest

and Wily Technology.

Andrew V. Fitzpatrick,

Principal of Cambridge

Consulting Solutions, has

over 24 years of marketing,

sales and business devel-

opment experience in the

computer and consumer

products industries. He is

a co-founder of Cambridge

Consulting, which counts

among its clients Hewlett-

Packard, Microsoft, Nokia,

BEA Systems, Veritas, Cisco,

Novell and RSA Security.

Jim Geisman,

Founder and President

of Marketshare, Inc.

and Principal of the site

www.Softwarepricing.com

is an expert on software

pricing. He will speak on

implications of software

as a service subscription

models on software pricing.

Attendees will gain

greater insights into how

the SaaS model can be

used and how to avoid

some of the pricing

implementation traps.

Robin Lowry, Vice

President of Product

Management with Ryma

Technology Solutions,

developers of FeaturePlan,

has extensive experience

in helping to build high

performance product teams

in new and emerging

markets.

Seth Nesbitt, Director

Regional Marketing,

Amdocs, and head of the

U.K. Product Management

Assn., will speak on how

to structure the product

marketing function and

assigning responsibility

for product requirements,

analyzing competitors and

product positioning. He will

draw from work towards

a masters degree from

Oxford University.

Hugh Richards, Vice

President of Products at

Quadrus Financial, is

responsible for strategic

and tactical product man-

agement and customer

and partner support for

the firm’s risk technology

products. He brings over

a decade of experience

to the business.

David Meerman Scott,

Principal of Freshspot

Marketing LLC, is a writer

and consultant in marketing

high-tech products and

services and author

of Cashing in With Content

and Eyeball Wars. He

plans to speak on how

to shorten the sales cycle

with marketing programs

that deliver revenue faster.

Gopal Shenoy,

Manager, Product

Definition, SolidWorks

Corp., is responsible

for understanding future

requirements of customers.

He plans to speak on how

to understand market needs

through customer visits.

Keynote Speakers include:

Larry Weber, CEO, Allied Communications Group, Interpublic,

one of the industry’s foremost visionaries in applying technology

to marketing, is now focused on building a set of marketing

services designed to meet the communication needs of

21st-century organizations.

Kristin Zhivago, Founder and President, Zhivago Marketing Partners, has clients

from thriving start-ups to Fortune 500 firms including Dow Jones and IBM. Author

of Rivers of Revenue.

Steve Johnson, Instructor, Pragmatic Marketing®, is an expert on product

management and marketing in high-tech companies. He conducts Practical

Product Management® and Requirements that Work™.

EVENT BONUS

Take the Pragmatic Marketing

Certification test. This 60-

minute, 40-question proctored

exam is offered free for the

convenience of Practical

Product Management alumni.

Our Premier Co-Sponsors

Our Product Management Association Partners include:

Boston PMA www.bostonproducts.org � Silicon Valley PMA www.svpma.org � Toronto PMA www.tpma.ca Vancouver PMA www.productmanagement.ca � United Kingdom PMF www.ukpmf.org.uk

REGISTER

ONLINE

www.smpevent.com

Session Speakers include:

Ryma Technology Solutions, developers of

Page 32: The Higher They Go, - Pragmatic Instituteevery day, just to do something stupid? Employees are the happiest when they’re working on something that is going to succeed. Something

16035 N. 80th Street, Suite FScottsdale, AZ 85260

PRSRT STDUS POSTAGE

PAIDPHOENIX, AZPERMIT 995

productmarketing.com™

Registration for this free seminar is required via our website:

www.PragmaticMarketing.comAug 18 ....................Research Triangle Park, NCSep 15 ....................Boston, MASep 15 ....................San Francisco, CASep 22 ....................Vancouver, British Columbia, CanadaSep 29 ....................Atlanta, GANov 17 ....................Bedford, MADec 8........................San Francisco, CA

A subset of the two-day Practical ProductManagement seminar, this session introduces the industry standard for technology marketing.Shows how Product Management andMarketing personnel can move from tactical to strategic activities.

The Industry Standard in Technology Product Management and Marketing Education

TechnologyAssessment

Win/LossAnalysis Innovation

CompetitiveAnalysis

BusinessCase Positioning

MarketSizing Pricing Sales

Process

MarketResearch

ProductPerformance

Buy, Buildor Partner

MarketProblems

ThoughtLeaders

OperationalMetrics

DistinctiveCompetence

PRACTICAL PRODUCT MANAGEMENT® REQUIREMENTS THAT WORK™ EFFECTIVE MARKETING PROGRAMS™

Introduces a framework that gives product managers the tools to deliver market-driven products that peoplewant to buy. Focuses on the practical aspects ofjuggling daily tactical demands of supporting the channel with strategic activities necessary tobecome expert on the market.

Aug 1 - 2 (3)*. . . . . . . . . . . San Francisco, CAAug 8 - 9 (10)* . . . . . . . . . Boston, MAAug 15 - 16 (17)*. . . . . . Research Triangle Park, NCAug 22 - 23 (24)*. . . . . . San Francisco, CASep 12 - 13 (14)*. . . . . . Boston, MASep 12 - 13 (14)*. . . . . . San Francisco, CASep 19 - 20 (21)*. . . . . . Vancouver, British Columbia, CanadaSep 26 - 27 (28)*. . . . . . Atlanta, GAOct 3 - 4 (5)* . . . . . . . . . . . San Francisco, CAOct 17 - 18 (19)* . . . . . . Bedford, MAOct 24 - 25 (26)* . . . . . . San Francisco, CANov 14 - 15 (16)*. . . . . . Bedford, MANov 14 - 15 (16)*. . . . . . San Francisco, CA

* Requirements That Work, Day 3

Provides a repeatable method for product planningresulting in a Market Requirements Document that others read and use. Establishes clear roles for product planning team members and teaches a process that creates an executable plan that delivers solutions that sell.

Aug 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . San Francisco, CAAug 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Boston, MAAug 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research Triangle Park, NCAug 24 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . San Francisco, CASep 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Boston, MASep 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . San Francisco, CASep 21 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vancouver, British Columbia, CanadaSep 28 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Atlanta, GAOct 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . San Francisco, CAOct19. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bedford, MAOct 26. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . San Francisco, CANov 16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bedford, MANov 16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . San Francisco, CA

Delivers practical tools and processes forproduct marketing, industry marketing andmarketing communications managers whowant to improve their strategic contributionand align with the sales organizations.Learn how to develop, build and measureprograms that are more than a revised list of last year's tactics.

Aug 3 - 4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . San Francisco, CASep 14 - 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Boston, MAOc 5 - 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . San Francisco, CANov 16 - 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Boston, MADec 7 - 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . San Francisco, CADec 14 - 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Boston, MA

Upcoming Pragmatic Marketing SeminarsCall (800) 816-7861 or go to www.PragmaticMarketing.com to register!

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NovemberS M T W TH F S

The Strategic Role ofProduct Management™