Better Product Managers, and Product Management

Customer development and lean startup techniques have been so loudly touted by, well, startups, that many people in non-startup or non-technology companies think these tools don’t apply to them.

“The rules are different when you’re talking to large enterprise customers,” they say.  ”This doesn’t work when you’re dealing with customers who are already using your products and have certain expectations,” they say.

Yes and no.  YES, the techniques I write about on this blog WILL work on your customers.    NO, you can’t blindly apply them in the same way to all types of customers.

While I’ve worked in technology startups throughout my career, I’ve actually spent much of that time working with large, traditional, non-technology corporations.  I’ve launched a few new products to new audiences — but I’ve also managed product redesigns and new features while working with outspoken and change-fearing existing customers.

There are some pretty big differences between these segments:  Consumers, Non-technology SMBs, Technology startups, Large enterprise customers, Existing customers.

This week I’ll talk about the first 3:

Consumers

• “Cold contact” methods are much less effective. Consumers tend to be more suspicious that you’re trying to sell them or scam them; they can also be fearful that a cold email means their privacy has been violated somehow.
• More likely to be polite than honest. Talking to a person in a consumer context is seen as more of a social engagement than a business one — and most people have been trained to be pleasant and avoid conflict in social situations.   Any question that can be answered with “yes” — will be.  ”How” and “why” questions will allow consumers to be more honest without feeling uncomfortable.
• Cost is more likely to be a big decision-making factor. In this context, your idea isn’t ‘validated’ unless you’ve seen concrete purchasing intent.  You can easily get consumers to identify their problem, give you details, and loooooove your solution… and then not pay you $5 for it.
• Time is undervalued. Most people are terrible at estimating how much time they spend on a certain task, how much time they waste, how long they spend on various activities.   In a work environment, we are more likely to have deadlines, be paid hourly, fill out timesheets – any of those activities make people at least somewhat more aware of their time usage.
• Don’t forget about “external stakeholders”! Just because a consumer doesn’t need to seek approval from their boss or finance department doesn’t mean there aren’t additional people who can and will veto your product.  Family members may refuse to use a new product; friends may express disapproval of changes.

Small and mid-sized non-technology businesses

• Be specific. Asking about specific tactical activities and outcomes is more likely to engage SMB folks than aspirational/”vision” concepts.
• Less motivated by “feeling smart”. Consumers, tech nerds, and people within larger companies are often happy to talk about a subject just because they care about it / are a subject matter expert.  I’ve found this to be less the case with SMB folks.  Offer them value like answering questions, sharing data, sharing curated content, making introductions for them.
• “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mindset. If consumers are more likely to say “yes” (even if they don’t really mean it), SMB people are more likely to say “no”.  There are fewer people to absorb the impact of a learning curve or cleaning up a failed experiment.

Technology startups

• Harder to keep them focused on PROBLEM not solution. We can’t help it.  We spend our days building and designing, so we naturally slip into talking about solutions.  You’ll need to actively refocus the conversation, maybe many times, on the what/when/why questions.
• Easiest to reach via “cold contact” methods. As long as you’re brief, non-spammy, and respectful, you’ll get a high response rate from emails, Twitter, and follow-ups from finding people on social media/topical forums.
• Overly optimistic/aspirational. We set really high goals for ourselves, which often means we’ll tell you about all the things we want to do, intend to do, aspire to do … but never actually get around to.    Like the consumer segment, if we can answer ‘yes’ to a question, we will.
• We like sounding smart AND information. You can get an initial conversation with a technology startup person just because we love talking and thinking about stuff.  But you can build an ongoing relationship by following up with a summary of your learnings, intel on what other companies are doing (anonymized, of course), or offering us sneak previews of what’s coming next.

Next week I’ll cover the different beasts: large enterprise customers and existing customers.

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