Product Management University

JANUARY 22, 2025

If you want to make your products easier to buy, they have to be easier to sell. The most common mistake product marketers make with product positioning is they do it without regard for their salesforces ability to deliver it. Making products easier for the salesforce to sell is the single biggest thing product marketers can do to improve sales of their products.

Positioning

Product Management University

JANUARY 9, 2025

Successful sales demos ultimately come down to showing users how youre going to make them quantifiably better at their job and doing it in ways that have measurable strategic value to their organization at the executive (buyer) level. But its a lot easier said than done. Keeping your would-be users in their comfort zone should be top priority in every pre-sales demo.

Demo

Product Management University

NOVEMBER 2, 2017

The B2B Product Manager Magazine October 2017 is now available. In this issue we discuss the value of listening as one of the most overlooked sales skills, and the value of business conversations. We also examine product usability and its impact on revenue, plus sales demo tips. Be sure to check out our brand new lineup of advanced training programs.

Demo

Product Management University

OCTOBER 9, 2024

Unconventional Skills That Simplify B2B Product Management Today, Product Management University announced free training courses for product managers. It’s offering free eLearning versions of its Product Management 101 Basic Skills Courses, an unconventional approach to traditional product management that makes it faster and easier for product managers to deliver products with guaranteed customer value and more easily get stakeholders aligned to their plans and priorities.

Product Manager

Product Management University

OCTOBER 6, 2024

If there’s one thing product managers and product marketing managers wish they had more time for, it’s market research. No sales situations, no customer issues, just pure market research without any agenda other than gaining an unbiased view of the market that makes them more effective in their role, especially strategy and planning. It’s no fun to get scrutinized, questioned and second-guessed at every turn.

Generative AI

Product Management University

SEPTEMBER 18, 2024

What is The Solutions Value Chain? The Solutions Value Chain is a framework that helps you uncover real, strategic value for your customers—from the top of their organization all the way down to the people in the trenches doing the day-to-day work. It’s designed to ensure that your products don’t just help users but make a measurable impact at every level of the customer’s organization, from the C-suite to the department heads to the front lines.

Framework

Product Management University

SEPTEMBER 11, 2024

Learn Targeted Skills in Small Chunks On the Go Today, Product Management University announced the availability of 15 new micro learning courses for high technology product managers in B2B. As workloads grow heavier and product management teams are asked to do more, there’s less time to learn new skills or keep current skills sharp. Training budgets are smaller too.

Product Manager

Product Management University

SEPTEMBER 3, 2024

If you thought there were a million ways to define product management, product strategy might have it beat by a longshot. Forget about the differences from company to company. Just think about how many ways product strategy is defined within your own organization. It’s the number one thing that makes product strategy both challenging and frustrating at the same time.

Product Strategy

Product Management University

AUGUST 20, 2024

September is right around the corner and that means the 2025 strategy season is here for many of us. For all you product managers out there, here’s something that’ll help you energize stakeholders and separate the pretenders from the contenders when it comes to influencing your product priorities for 2025, and it won’t cost you a dime. During the month of September, Product Management University is offering a no-cost, no-strings-attached 1-hour Master Class on how to use our “Solutions Value Cha

Product Strategy

Product Management University

AUGUST 6, 2024

When it comes to presales demos, the endgame is to advance the sales process to the next stage. At a minimum, that means you’ve made the shortlist. Ideally, you’re the preferred solution. The easiest way to get there is to show how your solution makes users quantifiably more successful at their job in ways that have strategic value to their organization, i.e., the executive buyer.

Demo

Product Management University

JULY 15, 2024

I was at a recent Product Coffee meeting and the subject of stakeholder alignment came up. I immediately sensed heightened stress levels in everyone’s voice as the discussion progressed. I know stakeholder alignment has always been a challenge, but the intensity has clearly been ratcheted up as the complexities in product management continue to grow.

Customer Experience

Product Management University

JULY 1, 2024

If I were building a product marketing organization from the ground up, I’d consider myself lucky. Most product marketing leaders inherit a team and then face the task of shaping it to meet their ideal make-up and the desired goals of the organization. Sometimes it works out great, but the tough part is the amount it time it takes to get your team exactly where you want it in terms of people, team chemistry, skills and maturation, not to mention all the unexpected hiccups along the way.

Product Marketing

Product Management University

JUNE 12, 2024

Customer Advisory Boards (CABs) are still the best bang for the buck when it comes to “customer discovery,” not to be confused with user or product discovery! More on that later. Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of facilitating numerous customer advisory boards for my clients. There are two common denominators in every meeting. The discussions between your customers are invaluable because of the rich context you’d never get in one-on-one discovery meetings with those same customers.

Product Research

Product Management University

JUNE 3, 2024

It’s refreshing to see so many discussions and articles themed around product management outcomes. After all, it’s the reason we product managers do what we do, right? But not all outcomes are created equal. Here’s a look at the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to product management outcomes. THE GOOD When it comes to getting your product management and product development teams focused, nothing beats well-defined outcomes that are clear, concise and measurable.

Weak Development Team

Product Management University

MAY 20, 2024

In its simplest form, strategic account planning is your ability to help customers define success in measurable terms, then lay out a roadmap that leads them to their definition of success. If you’re a customer success manager, there’s nothing worse than feeling like you’re in constant reaction mode with a never-ending to-do list, hence the value of a well-structured strategic account plan.

User Testing

Product Management University

MAY 15, 2024

There are countless tips and tricks that make for great presales demos. But there’s one foundational tactic that’ll set you up to crush your demos and further amplify the finer tips or tricks you wrap around it. Typical Presales Demo Formats Most presales demos fall into one of two formats. The most common is a walk-through of features and the benefits of those features.

Demo

Product Management University

MAY 2, 2024

When it comes to managing your product enhancement list, there’s one thing you know for sure. The list is going to grow a lot faster than you can deliver the enhancements. Managing the product enhancement list is one of the most frustrating parts of your product manager job. There are so many perspectives and so many ways to justify the priority of any one feature over others.

Customer Experience

Product Management University

APRIL 17, 2024

If you want to create a revenue plan with sales that gives you a more realistic chance of hitting your revenue targets, give some thought to a broader market strategy where each product plays a role versus a marketing plan for each product. If you’re in product marketing, you know all too well how this works. Sales signs up for a number and then everyone does whatever’s necessary to hit the number.

Reporting Tools

Product Management University

APRIL 8, 2024

There are a million and one things that go into creating a market leading company. But products are the nucleus, and that means market leadership starts with product management. There are the obvious things product management does. Everyone knows what they are, so there’s no need to rehash them. A simple ChatGPT inquiry will give you everything you need.

Leadership

Product Management University

MARCH 14, 2024

If you’re looking to grow user adoption on your products, a few more tools in your arsenal beyond traditional release announcements and in-product reminders will help your cause. Put yourself in the shoes of your users. They’re short-handed, carrying heavier workloads, and they’re overwhelmed with the amount of information coming at them from every direction, both internally and externally.

Customer Experience

Product Management University

MARCH 6, 2024

A great 30-minute conversation with Paul Heller , Chief Evangelist at Sopheon. But we didn’t discuss the process itself. We talked about value-driven product management, what it takes to get the rest of the organization on board and how to help other disciplines see the benefit to them. 30 minutes never went so fast. It’s definitely worth a listen.

Product Manager

Product Management University

MARCH 5, 2024

The definition of product management has been changing and evolving over the past 10 years and I’m not sure it’s for the better. I make it a regular habit to have conversations with product management directors and VPs. Most of them are not our customers. It keeps me current on the landscape of the product management profession without any slant or bias to what we do.

Definition

Product Management University

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Competitive demos are stressful, especially when you’re operating on very little knowledge or hearsay information about your competitor’s weaknesses. Here’s the thing about focusing on your competitor’s weaknesses. Just like you, they know their own shortcomings and there’s a good chance they’ve been schooled on how to neutralize them with some clever positioning or avoidance tactics.

Demo

Product Management University

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

If you’re looking to climb the product marketing career ladder faster, here are five things you can do that’ll accelerate your climb. 1. Track Record of Year-Over-Year Product Revenue Growth Not to state the obvious here, but product revenue is always top the priority. You already know that. As a product marketer though, this is more about your strategy and execution tactics that lead to year-over-year revenue growth.

Product Marketing

Product Management University

FEBRUARY 1, 2024

You followed the textbook process for uncovering an unmet market need, justified the financial investment and successfully released product version 1 to market with great success. So, what’s the problem? The problem is you’re just getting started while the majority of your stakeholders are blissfully dusting off their hands thinking it’s done and eager to tackle the next product idea with carbon-copy expectations of success.

B2B

Product Management University

JANUARY 17, 2024

When you’re onboarding customers, the end game is to improve the job performance of your users in ways that have measurable value to their organization. If that goal sounds familiar, there’s a good reason. It’s the exact same goal product managers aim for when they’re building new features and products. Onboarding Customers With a New Purpose For all the great benefits of SaaS subscription models, the one downside or ripple effect is the heavy emphasis on just getting the customer up and running

User Testing

Product Management University

JANUARY 10, 2024

I learned a lot about product positioning long before I ever stepped into a product marketing role. For the first four years of my software career, I was a pre-sales solution consultant, a.k.a. demo guy! I think of demos as verbal product positioning. The difference is demos are a two-way dialogue with buyers whereas product positioning in a pure marketing sense is typically a one-way monologue where potential customers are reading, viewing or listening to something you’ve published.

Positioning

Product Management University

JANUARY 8, 2024

For all of you pre-sales solution consultants and sales engineers looking for new ways to differentiate your demos, step away from your products for a quick minute. Sure, the product is what prospects are buying in the literal sense, but with few exceptions, the biggest thing that’ll differentiate your products and your organization in the sales process is…YOU!

Research Software

Product Management University

JANUARY 2, 2024

If you ask 10 different product managers to describe strategic product management, you’ll probably get at least 10 answers, maybe more. Here’s the one thing they’ll all have in common though. Every description will be something related to the product manager’s job responsibilities, and that’s why the definition of strategic product management varies so widely from one individual to another, and even more so from one organization to another.

Product Manager

Product Management University

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Your first 5 to-do’s as a new product manager! You’ve somehow landed in a product manager job and have no experience or formal training. You’re completely overwhelmed, drinking from the firehose! What do you do first? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Join Jackie Flake , Founder of Option 1 Partners , and John Mansour , Founder & President of Product Management University , for a webinar designed exclusively for new product managers like you!

Product Manager

Product Management University

DECEMBER 8, 2023

The word roadmap usually conjures up thoughts of a product roadmap for people in a technology product company. For customer success managers though, the intent of a customer account roadmap, while similar, is bit more surgical than a product roadmap when it comes to defining success and leading customers to it. Think of the customer account roadmap as the perfect blend of account strategy, execution tactics, and a metrics dashboard that simplifies everything for both the customer success manager

Roadmap

Product Management University

DECEMBER 5, 2023

Here’s the easiest way to marry company strategy and product strategy. The first order of business is to make a clear distinction between your company’s financial goals and strategic goals. They’re often conflated. Financial goals are just that. While meeting those goals is critical to your organization’s success, financial goals themselves aren’t the same as strategic goals.

Strategy

Product Management University

DECEMBER 5, 2023

Here’s a simple three-step approach for your product demos that will help you sell solutions versus products. It’ll make differentiation easier and improve your sales win rates. In many cases, the product silos that exist within product management become transparent to buyers during the sales cycle, creating the perception you’ve got a bunch of fragmented products instead of integrated solutions.

Demo

Product Management University

NOVEMBER 29, 2023

To all of you product marketers out there, you totally understand this situation! When it comes to positioning value, sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to say. A good friend of mine is leaving his corporate job and going out on his own as a consultant with an amazing track record of success. He put up a website and asked me to give it a look.

Positioning

Product Management University

OCTOBER 23, 2023

In most B2B organizations, it’s more the exception than the rule that customer success managers inherit accounts where they’re in a position to play offense because the customer is thrilled with your products. Let’s dream for just a minute. It Starts With Product Management Product management consistently does discovery at a level that makes them more knowledgeable holistically on the markets and customers than all other disciplines.

User Testing

Product Management University

OCTOBER 19, 2023

The best product launches are like the cream cheese frosting on a decadent chocolate cake! You’ve just built some cool new A.I. enabled product or feature set and everyone’s totally energized over the upcoming announcement and marketing launch activities. The new product is going to boost your differentiation in the competitive space. Existing customers have greater confidence you’re keeping pace with or staying ahead of the technology curve in ways that benefit them.

Product launches

Product Management University

OCTOBER 17, 2023

Nothing eludes the ripple effect of your product management model, and sales enablement is no exception. Sales enablement encompasses a lot, but there’s one thing that still matters more than anything else when you’re a salesperson in the throes of the sales process. It’s the conversations you’re having with buyers at all levels, from users to the C-suite, and from the first discovery conversation through to contract negotiations and the transition to customer success.

Product Research