Better Product Managers, and Product Management

I used to work in downtown San Francisco, and tourists would sometimes point in a direction and ask me, “Is Fisherman’s Wharf that way?”

Now, I could’ve simply answered “yes” — and technically, I’d have been telling the truth — but only a jerk would look them in the eye and not add the critical information: “–but it’s a long hilly walk from here; you’ll want to take the bus or cable car.”

But when we are not interacting face-to-face, we (inadvertently) become jerks.

We forget that there are actual people on the other side of the screen.  We forget that omitting extra information or warnings will have consequences for these people.   We will waste their time.  We will make them late.  We will induce stress and frustration.

When your emails or site or app asks someone a question or prompts them to do something, are you inadvertently being a jerk?

Probably, but don’t feel too badly — let’s blame it on the curse of knowledge and move on to how to fix it.

Look at what you’ve written / your call-to-action / your request / your invitation, and ask yourself:

• What will this person do next?  (Can I make it easier for them?)
• What might go wrong?  (Can I warn them?)
• What will this person be curious about? (Can I share some information with them?)

What will this person do next? Can I make it easier for them?

• Before:  “Have you installed X software on your computer?”
• After: “Have you tried X software?  You can download from [URL]“
• Avoids: making them do extra work, having them put off this task because they have to stop and think about something.

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• Before: “Can we interview you about your Z needs?”
• After:  “Can we interview you about your Z needs?  Here are some available times…” or “Can we interview you about your Z needs?  If so, you can schedule any convenient time on my calendar here”
• Avoids: back-and-forth email chain trying to find mutually-available times, possibly resulting in no interview ever being scheduled

What might go wrong?  Can I warn them?

• Before: “Join our webinar at 1pm PST at [URL]“
• After: “Join our webinar at 1pm PST at [URL].  If you haven’t previously attended one of our webinars, you’ll probably want to arrive 5 minutes early so you can install the required Java applet.”
• Avoids: the frustration of arriving at 12:59pm only to realize you still needed to install software, possibly resulting in them deciding to skip it altogether

What will this person be curious about?  Can I share information with them?

• Before:  “Thank you for helping us revise our interview questions.”
• After: “Thank you for helping us revise our interview questions.  I wrote a blog post about how our interview experience went and the conclusions we drew.”
• Avoids: the person wondering if they wasted their time, possibly resulting in them not doing favors for you in the future.

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I spend a lot of time talking to myself.   Specifically, I read out loud a lot.

Every sentence and every paragraph you’ve read on this blog, I read out loud before I hit the ‘Publish’ button.  Every email I’ve sent out on behalf of KISSmetrics, I read out loud before I hit the ‘Send’ button.  Most (not quite all, but I try) of the copy within our KISSmetrics and KISSinsights apps, I have read out loud before our developers committed code.

Your emails.  Your marketing copy. Your in-app copy.  Your whitepapers.  If you aren’t reading them out loud before publishing, they probably suck.

And that’s killing your business.  Not in a dramatic, noticeable way like absconding with your venture funding or setting fire to your inventory.  It’s more like a slow leak.  Confused prospects who wander off your site — drip, drip.  Leads who stop opening your emails — drip, drip.  Customers who make more mistakes and generate more support requests — drip, drip.  Customers who can’t even explain why, but just have a vague sense of irritation as they use your product — drip, drip.

Reading your writing out loud first won’t make you into a brilliant writer, but it will save you from making some of the most obvious mistakes:

Lack of flow. Something about that expanse of blank white screen seems to encourage people to keep writing and writing without stopping.  Readers need mental pauses the same way speakers need to stop and breathe!  If you can’t read your writing out loud naturally, how can you expect your customers to understand it?

Embarrassing buzzwords. I read so many products that bill themselves as revolutionary, ground-breaking, market-leading… seriously?  Curing AIDS is revolutionary.   Can you really say out loud “Our Product X is revolutionary” without feeling like an ass?  I can’t.  Reading your copy out loud will force you to describe your product in terms that make sense and actually mean something instead of these buzzword shortcuts.

Lack of context. I read a lot of marketing emails where, a couple sentences in I think, “wait, what are you talking about?”  We as product owners have the curse of knowledge – we know what we’re talking about, so it’s hard for us to remember that our customers aren’t immersed in our world.    When we have a conversation verbally, we don’t usually just jump into a topic – we naturally use transition phrases like “Remember when we did…” or “Are you familiar with…”   Reading out loud helps you ‘hear’ when you’re skipping that context.

Being boring. A lot of writing advice — use short sentences, use plain words, summarize, use lists — leads to copy that I just don’t care enough to keep reading.  Sure, it’s important to be clear.  But if you have the clearest copy in the world but no one is motivated to read beyond the first paragraph, who cares?   Do you feel like you’re droning on after reading a few sentences?   If so, you’re losing your readers.  Something as simple as adding an interjection or an unexpected word or phrase can make a huge amount of difference in making me want to keep reading.

It’s been a great 2010.  Have a great new year, and make it your habit to kill your bad copy by reading it out loud first.  It’s one resolution you can actually keep!

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The holiday season is in full swing.  Your inbox is probably emptier than usual, you’re unlikely to have your usual resources at hand, and you probably need a bit of a break before you throw yourself back into writing requirements or plans.

Have you thanked your customers yet?

In a year where many companies (and households) are cutting costs, I’m actually quite surprised at how few emails I’ve gotten thanking me for being a customer (either as a consumer or on behalf of KISSmetrics).

It’s not hard.

Just be sincere and specific. You wouldn’t have a product without your customers investing time in using your product, reporting bugs, making suggestions, and recommending you to others.  Recognize those contributions!

Recap or look forward (or both). Remind customers how your product has progressed in the past year (or offer them a sneak peek of what’s coming next year.)   The good end-of-year thank you emails I’ve gotten have made me feel like, “wow, this is a company who cares about continuously improving — they’re probably going to make my life better if I stick around.”

Ask how you can do better. That’s always a given, right?  Never miss an opportunity to get a bit more feedback.  I added a line asking for “must-fix” suggestions for KISSmetrics and got a half dozen responses back.  That’s six more conversations I can continue and use to learn even more.

If you’ve read this far, now it’s my turn to thank you, blog readers.   You’ve asked me challenging questions, given me ideas for my products, and motivated me to keep writing (which, in turn, motivates me to be a better product manager.)

I’ve written a lot about early stage customer development and product management, and in the next year I’ll probably be writing a lot more about later stage customer development — what happens when you have a product, and customers, and revenues?  How do you keep progressing? It’s a different beast, that’s for sure, and I’m figuring it out as we go.

What else do you want to read? What would help you bring more product management thinking to your company?  I’m always open to feedback — much as writing these posts helps me, they’re not much good if they don’t also help you be more productive and get more done.

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Who are the customers of your product?

If you’ve done persona / target customer exercises, you probably have a pretty clear idea (or hypothesis, at least) of who the people are who will be using your product.  You know their pain points, what frustrates them, their highest priorities.

So, in a world where your target customer is 100% empowered to purchase, download/install, configure, and require their coworkers to learn a new tool / adapt to a new workflow, you’re all set.

…Hmm.

For the other 99% of us, there are hidden customers that we need to understand as well.  Do you know the pain points, frustrations, time constraints, and priorities of:

• The boss (who approves spending)
• The developer (who is going to have to install this thing and probably change some configurations somewhere)
• The security/privacy officer (who needs to understand how this thing works and make sure it won’t violate some contractual obligation they have in place with their partners)
• The co-workers (who are going to have to learn this new thing)

These are pretty software-specific, but for any product, there are hidden customers.  You’re asking them to understand something, learn something, or change their behavior in some way — and even if it’s a small way, it is an effort.  Ignoring them is like asking them to sabotage your sales attempts.

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