Navigating Pathways to the Future€¦ · both successful in selling software and Ed reached his goal of retiring at age forty. On several occasions, I remember how Ed mused about

Vo lume 2 Issue 4 J u l y / A u g u s t 2 0 0 4

Software Product Management:If you can’t define it,you’re doing a bad job at it

Knowledge Transfer: Starting it out right

Put Your Money Where the Value Is

A Look at Clarity in Positioning

Navigating Pathways to the Future:Product roadmaps lead their readers in multiple directions

2 • productmarketing.com • July/August 2004

Rethinking the Way You Do Business

In January 1977, asoftware company salesexecutive named Ed,took the risk of hiringme, a mainframe systems

programmer, to be a software salesrep. Ed spent many hours teachingme how to stop being a nerd andstart being a sales rep. We wereboth successful in selling softwareand Ed reached his goal of retiringat age forty.

On several occasions, I rememberhow Ed mused about how simpleit would be to sell real estate. Ican still visualize him waving hisarms to show how a realtor woulddisplay a home. “On the right, wehave the kitchen. On the left, theliving room.”, he would chuckle. Itseemed that realtors all marched,lockstep, to the same tune.

In the decades that followed, Ioften wondered how much moresuccessful a realtor would be ifthey ran their practice like a realbusiness. What if a realtor built aninfrastructure much like a smallcompany all focused on supportingthis single CEO/agent? And what ifthis renegade agent used the typeof marketing practices that weteach at Pragmatic Marketing?

Well, I have my answer. His nameis Russell Shaw and he is a realtorhere in Phoenix. Russell is associatedwith a realty firm, but that’s wherethe similarity with other realtorsends. He approaches marketing hisservices by understanding the

problems that home sellers arefaced with. If you think about itfor a few moments, the list ispretty easy to articulate:

1. I want my home to sell fast.

2. I want to get as much money as I can.

3. I would like to avoid realtor’scommissions if I can, but Ihesitate to try selling it myselfbecause of the risks involved.

4. If my realtor is not meeting myexpectations, I don’t want to be stuck with a long contract.

Russell offers a package of serviceshe calls the “No Hassle Listing”(nohasslelisting.com). Using thissystem, you can list with him butyou still have the option to sell ityourself and owe nothing (althoughyou still have the option of himdoing all the escrow work for a 1% fee).

He sees himself as being hired byyou to do a job. If you aren’t happywith the job he does, you can firehim at any time with no obligation.Odds are you will be happybecause the average home he lists sells in just 26 days (versus 65 days for other realtors) and mostsell for full price. Compare thispositioning to any other realtor’smessage and the difference is nightand day. Russell knocked out all of your problems.

He is no different than any otherrealtor but he generates so muchbusiness that he has a staff of tensupporting his sales includingthree listing specialists, two buyerspecialists, two escrow managers,two administrators and, are youready for this? A marketing manager!

Finally! A realtor who has analyzedall the problems that a potentialclient faces and has created theperfect solution to solve thoseproblems. He even gives you a listof 14 questions to ask other realtorsthat will stop them in their trackswhen compared to Russell’s system.There’s no reason we can’t selltechnology the same way.

And the results? Russell ranks 28th

in the United States for the mosthomes sold. My buddy Ed wouldbe proud!

Craig StullPresident and CEOPragmatic Marketing, Inc.

Russell Shaw Associate Broker

productmarketing.com • July/August 2004 • 3

Inside this issue:productmarketing.com

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President and CEOCraig Stull

Pragmatic Marketing, Inc.

Managing EditorKristyn Benmoussa

Contributing WritersSteve JohnsonPeter Longini

Jacques MurphyScott SantucciBob Weinstein

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About Pragmatic Marketing, Inc.Pragmatic Marketing, Inc. was formed in 1993 toprovide product marketing training and consulting to high-tech 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 25,000 product managers andmarketing professionals. For more information, visitwww.PragmaticMarketing.com or call 480-515-1411.

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2 Rethinking the Way You Do BusinessA letter from Craig Stull,Pragmatic Marketing President and CEO

4 Navigating Pathways to the Future:Product roadmaps lead their readers in multiple directions

At a recent Pittsburgh Product Strategy Network Roundtable,a group of product strategists shared their benefits as wellas frustrations with the technique of roadmapping.

8 Software Product Management:If you can’t define it, you’re doing a bad job at it

Learn about the importance of product managers and howsoftware companies are screwing up by not capitalizing on their value and talents.

16 Knowledge Transfer: Starting It Out RightKnowledge transfer is the one important thing thatcompanies forget to build into their plan time and timeagain. Read on for tips about putting together an effectiveknowledge transfer effort for each new release of yoursoftware.

22 Put Your Money Where the Value IsMarketing is being asked to participate in the sales process to a degree not seen in the past ten years.Although typically lacking significant sales experience,vice presidents of Marketing are being held accountable for revenue targets.

27 A Look at Clarity in PositioningPositioning is a process that focuses on conveying product value to buyers,resulting in a family of documents whichdrive all outbound communications. Thebest positioning clearly states how theproduct will solve specific customerproblems.

30 Case StudyMarket-Driven Focus a Driving Force Behind Kronos Workforce Management Solutions

Volume 2 Issue 4July/August 2004


By Peter Longini

Not only do product roadmaps fundamentallydiffer from one another in their appearance,scope, time span, and topic, they also differ intheir audiences, their applications, and in theirrelationship to various company functions. Evenso, extolling the value of product roadmaps hasbecome a mantra of strategists and developersthroughout the technology sector. At a recentinvitation-only Pittsburgh Product Strategy NetworkRoundtable, a group of product strategists sharedtheir benefits as well as their frustrations with the technique.

During the past ten years, roadmapping—theplanning discipline involved in formulatingtasks and timelines for product developmentand market launch—has become an integralpart of the tool set for technology productmanagement. Today, its value, both as a processand as a deliverable product, is uniformlyacclaimed in the business community. It is onlywhen the awkward question arises of exactlywhat a roadmap is and what its actual valuemay be, that the uniformity breaks down.

At a recent Pittsburgh Product Strategy Networkinvitational Roundtable, those divisions becameclear as 20 experienced product strategiststraded definitions, perceptions, advantages,and misgivings about roadmapping based on personal experience. The variations cited were exceeded only by the value each claimed to attach to the end result.

Map legends Everyone affected by new technology has theirown view of what a product roadmap oughtto be, Innovation Works associate Jim Jenacknowledged during an opening presentation.Customers, investors, developers, sales teams,and other interested parties each have distinctiveneeds and business interests for knowing whatthe future holds. So there is no consistentformat for roadmaps—they vary in essentiallyevery dimension—and the processes by whichthose maps are formulated and revised vary as well.

NavigatingPathways

to the FutureProduct roadmaps lead their readers in multiple directions



Even so, Jen pointed out, roadmaps arepowerful business tools. For example,they help ensure that the right productgets delivered to the appropriate targetmarket with the right value proposition.They help to build confidence amongkey constituents, both within andoutside the organization, affecting thecompany and its products. And, bypulling key people together inside the producing company, they improveefficiency and help ensure alignmentamong different functional areas.

Roadmaps are also dynamic—subjectto revision in light of experience. In a previous assignment with a SiliconValley software vendor, Jen recalledthe evolution of the product roadmapin which release dates for variousfeatures of the product migrated fromone quarter to another in response tomarket interest, technology sequencing,and development effort. But there werelessons learned. For example, customerexperience with adoption and usewould alter the priorities reflected inthe roadmap; roadmaps which focusedsolely on development could lead to a trap affecting the product’s serviceaspects, and too much selling basedon the roadmap alone could besymptomatic of serious problems in the field.

The key, Jen noted, is for the roadmapto pass several litmus tests. For example,is the roadmap consistent with thecompany’s overall business and productobjectives such as market penetration,new segment entry, servicing currentcustomers, and reducing business costs?Is there a clear basis for prioritizingthe sequence of steps? Is the productactually delivering in terms of thecompany’s business objectives, valuepropositions, and user experience?And who, exactly, is the roadmap’saudience and how well is itcommunicating to them?

Side roads “A product roadmap can’t realisticallygo out much more than three or fouryears because the markets change,”Cellomics’ product marketing directorJudy Mascucci noted. “But it shouldalign with what do you want to bewhen you grow up. Your vision isn’tto be a perfect company next year;your vision is to be a perfect companyin 20 years. This is what we think itwill look like in five years and in ten years,” she said.

“When you lay out the roadmap, itrelieves some of the short-term pressuresto build it all now,” Jim Jen replied. “Ifyou don’t have a roadmap, people aregoing to ask why a particular featureisn’t going to be in the next version. Ifyou show them the plan, and they saythey really want that particular feature,you can ask them: what would theywant to trade off?”

Focusing on the problem rather thanthe solution can also be advanced byroadmaps. “A lot of stakeholders jumpright to the application model theywant,” Jim Taylor, director of platformstrategy with Strategic ManagementGroup observed. “Try to elevate thediscussion. Instead of saying ‘I needthat report module,’ it would be moreedifying to say ‘I really need to identifythe contract price variance. How arewe going to do that?’ ”

But who, exactly, should thatconversation take place with? Accordingto IBM’s program director Mark Sherman,a lot of people find a key applicationfor roadmaps is communication withcustomers. But to Judy Mascucci, a company’s sales force, despite itsfrequent customer contact, should notbe part of the conversation at all. Why?Because in those conversations, theymay incline toward selling somethingthe company later decides not todevelop.

It is fundamentally a question of howconfident the company is in deliveringthe product envisioned on its roadmap,she noted, and the answer varies.“We actually launched something lastSeptember that will be delivered inJune because we had very highconfidence we’d be able to add it tothe existing product,” she said. “Butthere are other things where we don’twant anything in public until we aremore confident that it would actuallybecome a product.”

Jim Taylor’s company, SMG, shares itsroadmaps with industry analysts, andin rare cases, with specific partners or clients. But those conversationsonly occur at the company’s mostsenior levels. Internally, however, it’s a different story. “For me, it’s been a powerful tool because we have anorganization that’s been through amerger. And with clashing cultures of old and new, it helps everybodysay ‘no, no, no; this is what we’redoing.’ It’s a powerful internalcommunication tool.”

Likewise, Mark Collins, senior productmanager for Cellomics, acknowledgedthat in the past, his company had usedroadmaps to solicit feedback from keycustomers, but only on select portionsof the roadmap.

“The customer probably has a roadmapof his own,” Union Switch & Signal’sBrian Cornish observed. “If what you’reshowing doesn’t at least go in the samedirection as theirs, you may not be ableto support them going forward.”

“In three or five years, a roadmap reallybecomes a positioning tool,” RichHaverlack noted. “Think of it in termsof where your competition is going tobe at that point in time and whereyour customers are going to be.”


The voyage Perhaps symbolically,all of IBM’s roadmapsclimb sharply up andto the right alongtheir timeline. “But it’snot necessarily thedocument itself that’sinteresting,” accordingto Mark Sherman,“The journey is moreinteresting than thedestination. It’s theprocess by which you got thatdocument: Am I serving the right market?Am I delivering at the right time? Whatare my tradeoffs? Is that where we’dlike to go? What questions do I wantanswered in order to build a productroadmap? Features vs. usability? Marketneeds vs. what I need to accomplishinternally? Have I done the segmentselection appropriately so I know thatwhen I build a roadmap, I’m going to the right place? What’s the relativepriority of various streams of revenue?

What’s my marketcompetitive position?What are the gaps infeatures, functions andusability so I can closethose gaps? What themesdo I have associatedwith different phasesof the journey? Whattime frame should Ibe talking about as I carry out this thoughtprocess?”

Another benefit, according to Jim Taylor,is that a roadmap can help you avoidrevisiting decisions you’ve alreadymade—second guessing yourself canparalyze an organization. But to CathyBrennan, IngMar Medical’s productmanager, it’s a matter of using scarceresources more efficiently. “When youhave one person that wears multiplehats, you need to make sure he’sfocused on what really needs to happenfor this next release, not the one he’dreally like to work on,” she said.

However don’t expect too much froma roadmap, Don DeLauder, Medrad’sdirector of product innovation, cautioned.“The map is not the territory. They are just maps. There are a bunch of different roads to get someplace. You create this map and maybe it’s a way to get there, maybe it’s not. You should also do a competitorsroadmap and predict what theirroadmaps are; you might be able to say ‘hey, these guys are going to be here in 2006 or whatever, and what are we doing?’.”

At Medrad, in addition to productroadmaps, a separate type ofroadmapping process has emergedduring the past two years, accordingto DeLauder. “Technology roadmapsthat tell us, outside of our own products,what’s going on in the world oftechnology that could be interesting.We predict which ones are going tobe viable and in what time frame.Then we take those technologies anduse them as opportunities to satisfycertain predicted market needs.

“Five or six years ago, our roadmappingwas simply sales forecasting: how muchof that product is going to be sellingin five years? Now, roadmapping hasevolved to: where are the marketsheaded? And what are we going to do about that?” DeLauder said. “Theworld of technology can leverageopportunities for you. That’s how we started down the path of doingtechnology roadmapping.”

Peter Longini is Managing Editor of Inside Product Strategy™ published by the Pittsburgh Product Strategy Network(www.productstrategynetwork.org). The PPSN was founded in 2002 and serves nearly 800 technology productcommercialization managers and executives in the Pittsburgh region. Contact Peter at [email protected]

Copyright © 2004 Pittsburgh Product Strategy Network. All rights reserved.

“A product roadmap can’t

realistically go out much more than

three or four years because the

markets change. But it should align

with what do you want to be

when you grow up.”

Judy Mascucci

Cellomics marketing director

Navigating Pathways to the Future: Product roadmaps lead their readers in multiple directions

An ill-defined job During the lean and mean recession,product managers found themselveslost within their organizations’ salesand marketing departments. “Companiesdidn’t have a clear grasp of what thejob was,” says Johnson. “In manycompanies the job was loosely describedas anything it takes to make a productsuccessful.

“Or, the product manager job was anarm of sales support. As organizationsgrew, product managers often becamedemo boys or demo girls,” says Johnson.“Companies had no idea how to getproduct management and productmarketing on the same page.”

The typical company isaccidentally market-driven Rather than creating a product to solvea problem, they’re betting on creatinga need. Johnson calls that “possible,but stupid thinking.” Sharper Imageexemplifies that kind of thinking.

“Visit a Sharper Image and you’ll finda lot of people standing around lookingat all this stuff and saying, ‘Wow, isn’tthat neat,’” says Johnson, “but nobodyis buying anything because no oneneeds the gadgets. The company makesall of its money around Christmas, whencustomers are buying gifts for familyand friends simply because they’recool-looking, not because they meet a need or solve a problem.”


Software product management:By Bob Weinstein, SoftwareCEO

Most software companies, and technology companiesin general, don’t understand product management. Theresult is wasted time, money and creativity.

But the companies that know how to harness the talentsof skilled product managers reap big rewards, namelysuccessful products, higher revenues, motivated employeesand, last but not least, smiling CEOs.

Is it easy to get your product-management act together?The answer is no, but Steve Johnson can tell us how to do it. Johnson is an instructor at Pragmatic Marketing,a product-marketing training company in Scottsdale, Ariz.,and also webmaster of productmarketing.com, a Website housing a compendium of free information fortechnology product managers.

Since 1993, Johnson’s mission has been to preach the product manager’s gospel. He does it by runningseminars and making presentations to software companiesthroughout the United States, writing articles and giving interviews.

He was kind enough to take some time out of his freneticschedule to give us a couple of hours to explain theimportance of product managers and how softwarecompanies are screwing up by not capitalizing on their value and talents.

So, what is a product manager? What are companiesdoing wrong? How can they get their product-management act together? Johnson answers thesebasic questions and many more.


If you can’t define it, you’re doing a bad job at it

Product-managementconundrum Product management is in limbo,according to Johnson. “We seem to be in the middle of development,marketing communications and saleschannels. The lines between thesedepartments are very unclear for most companies.

“In some companies productmanagement works very closely with or is part of product development.Unfortunately, the closer we get todevelopment, the further we get fromthe customer and sales channels. Westart getting into designing product,doing usability studies, managing betaprograms and getting into the technicalside of the product, to the detrimentof our exposure to the sales cycle.”

More confusing still, in other companiesproduct management is heavily involvedin the marketing-communicationsdepartment, Johnson adds. “Frequentlymarcom doesn’t really know anythingabout our products. All they know howto do are programs, trade shows andWeb sites. They rely on productmanagement for content.”

Marcom complicates the picture “Often, product management is pulledinto being the content provider formarcom,” says Johnson. “In the pastfew years, product managers havebeen spending a great deal of time

supporting the sales effort—going onspecial calls, explaining the productroadmap and being the technicalencyclopedia on the product to thesales force.”

Let’s get our jobs straight: How to work with developmentand marcom It’s very easy to develop bad habitsand to micromanage, Johnson warns.“Just as product management shouldbring market problems to developmentto solve, we should bring channelproblems to marcom to solve.

“Instead of telling marcom what to do,we need to articulate the problems thechannel is encountering and ask marcomto use their brilliance to solve channelproblems.

“Do you need a Web page, or does a brochure make more sense? Shouldwe go to this show or that one? Theseare all questions marcom can answer.”

Marcom will waste your time if you’re not careful A few years ago, Johnson’s marcommanagers decided that a press tourwas in order. He sat down with themto discuss the positioning of PragmaticMarketing’s new story.

“The next day, my marketing specialistbrought me the presentation she hadcreated from our meeting,” says

Johnson. “She had about 40 slides plusspeaker notes. She knew I planned to talk about adoption of the productcategory in the general market, so she pulled estimates from GartnerResearch to illustrate the point.

“If your marcom people cannotduplicate this feat, you need newmarcom people.”

Integrated marketing is acomplete campaign, withbrochures, mailers, advertisingand Web-site updates “Effective marcom people bring theentire campaign, with concepts,benchmarks, expected results andtarget lists, Johnson explains. “Theyget one approval for the entirecampaign instead of one approval per individual piece.”

Be clear about departmental functionsIt can’t be stressed enough: “Marcomis the specialist in communication, andproduct management is the expert in the market—but not in marketcommunications,” says Johnson.

How should product managerssupport sales channels? Johnson’s golden rule: “Productmanagement helps sales channels;sales engineering helps individual

salespeople.” Product managers should create sales toolsand marketing programs that assist all salespeople, alongwith creating new products for the channel to sell,according to Johnson.

“Product management supports sales channels; salesengineering supports individual sales efforts,” he adds. “In fact, many companies would be better served hiringfewer product managers and more sales engineers.”

Sales engineers cement technical sales “Sometimes called ‘systems engineers,’ ‘pre-sales support’ or ‘field consultants,’” Johnson explains, “SEs act as the‘technical encyclopedia’ during the sale, representing thetechnical aspects of how the product solves specificcustomer problems.

“They perform technical presentations for the product. They own the demonstration script for the product. Withadequate staffing of trained SEs, product managementshould not go on sales calls and customer demos.”

Create buyer-user personas Buyers and users are two different animals, and it’s the smart product manager who knows it. “Our developers are at the far edge of technology adoption,” says Johnson.“With product management creating a definition or abiography of users who buy and use our product, we have a clearer view that we, the company, may not trulyrepresent our buyers.

“This is why it’s important to have a user-buyer persona.For most technology companies, users don’t buy the productand buyers don’t use the product. The CIO or the IT managermay do the buying and then dump it on the user.

“How many company employees get to choose their laptops?It’s more like, ‘Welcome aboard, here is your laptop, here isMicrosoft Office. We bought it for you on your behalf, andwe didn’t ask your requirements.

“Microsoft estimates that only 20 percent of the functionalityof their products is ever used. It’s because of this buyer-user dynamic.”


Software product managementGet to know your customers byrunning customer advisory boards

You can’t know enough about yourcustomers, Johnson asserts. It soundsobvious, but you’d be surprised how manycompanies give lip service to that essentialbusiness commandment.

“A proven way to validate that your productdirection is in sync with your customers’technology and business plans is by puttingtogether a customer advisory board (CAB),which is a representative group of customersthat meets periodically to offer advice onthe product and company direction.”

How to put a CAB together “Schedule meetings twice a year at yourcompany or a nearby hotel so that as manyemployees can attend as appropriate,” says Johnson.

“An annual user group meeting is an idealforum for holding smaller advisory councils,since the customers are already there.

“Three or four vendor employees, led byproduct management, can facilitate themeeting. Development leads, and productarchitects are also involved; they’ll be amazedat how real people perceive the products.

“Salespeople usually want to be on-hand if their customers are invited. Try to get the company president or general managerto stop by and kick off the team building.It makes for a great start.”

There is no such thing as a typical product manager Each year, Pragmatic Marketing conducts a survey of product managers, marketing managers and othermarketing professionals. Last year the survey wasmailed to 5,000 marketing professionals. Here aresome of the results, which provide a confusingpicture of the average product manager’s job:

Product managers work in the following departments: • 23 percent are in the marketing department

• 15 percent are in the product-managementdepartment

• 15 percent are in development or engineering

• 10 percent are in the sales department

Reporting relationships • 43 percent report to a director

• 30 percent to a VP

• 27 percent report directly to the CEO

Working requirements The majority of product managers are researchingmarket needs, writing requirements and monitoringdevelopment projects.

• 72 percent research market needs

• 55 percent prepare business cases

• 24 percent perform win/loss analyses

• 85 percent monitor development projects

• 79 percent write requirements

• 50 percent write specifications

How product managers spend their time • The average product manager receives

65 e-mails a day and sends about 33

• The average product manager spends roughly two days a week in internal meetings (14 meetingsper week)

• 30 percent attend 15 meetings or more each week,and 25 percent attend 19 or more meetings


Software product managementEight tips for planning a CAB agenda

CAB tip #1: Start by introducing company personnel and customers. Ask that the customers not only introducethemselves, but tell a little bit about how they are usingyour product.

CAB tip #2: Present each adviser’s strategic technologyplan. Ask each adviser to present three or four slidesabout where his or her company is headed strategically,perhaps as it relates to your product, including plannedshifts in technology, projected changes in employeeheadcount and any new business initiatives that mayhave an effect.

CAB tip #3: Discuss current challenges. Before you starttalking about your strategy, take the time to listen! Whatchallenges are your customers facing when dealing withyour product and company?

CAB tip #4: Present an overview of the product line.Don’t assume that your customers know about yourcurrent product line. Give a brief overview of the featuresand benefits of your current products. Customers maylearn that you have solutions to their problems.

CAB tip #5: Outline the roadmap of product plans. Theobjective is to get your customers’ feedback on the productplans. Ideally you want to give as much information aspossible and include a demonstration of a prototype, iffeasible, to maximize the feedback you will get.

CAB tip #6: Open the floor to discussion. A goodfacilitator can make an open discussion very productive;without a facilitator, this often turns into a complainingsession. Have a list of items for discussion, such asfeatures ideas, new products suggestions and newtechnologies that your customers are using in conjunctionwith your products.

CAB tip #7: Organize breakout sessions to get feedbackin smaller groups. There may be certain discussion areasthat are more interesting to some than to others. By using more focused sessions you can get more detailedfeedback.

CAB tip #8: Review the main points from the day. Askwhat they liked and disliked about the session. Solicitsuggestions for improvement.

Warning: Avoid making commitments in a customer advisory meeting “This is an input session, not a decision-making body,”adds Johnson. “And it’s not a good idea to continue to hold additional meetings if you haven’t delivered on the designs revealed in past meetings.”

What companies should do “They must start thinking aboutproduct management in a strategicway so it’s separate fromcommunications, development andsales,” answers Johnson. “Technologycompanies should start looking at a product horizontally through an organization.”

“To accomplish that, they must gettheir business acts together. Fiftypercent of companies have productplans, according to the PragmaticMarketing survey. It’s incredible tothink that every other product has aproduct plan. That means 50 percentof software companies wing it, theydo what feels good, or they run theircompanies as if they were hobbies.”

The envelope, please: Productmanagement defined “Product management’s primary role is to define and quantify products in the market and then deliver theinformation to development in theform of requirements,” explainsJohnson. “Then development has a clear problem to solve.

“In my experience, developers andengineers are inherent problem-solvers.Yet marketing, product managementand sales executives have becomefeatures-speakers. They’ll come to ameeting and say, ‘Here is the problemin the market; we need the features.’

Or, ‘Our competitor has the features;we need them too.’ So developmentbuilds the product, then it’s taken tomarcom who tells us it’s scalable. Andthen it’s on to the salespeople whofind a way to translate the featuresinto benefits. And they’re all spinningwheels and going nowhere becausethey are missing the root problem.”

Successful startups that get it,understand the marketplace The good news is that the firstproduct of many start-ups Johnson hasencountered is a brilliant idea becauseit is grounded in the reality of themarket. “Typically, the president hascreated a product to solve a problemin a real job,” he says.

But startups that blow it, guess Conversely, “many products failbecause the president has createdsomething really cool he thinks otherpeople need,” Johnson adds. But theproducts languishes or dies, and thecompany goes nowhere—or foldsbecause the president is making weakassumptions about customer needs orthinks he can create a problem.

Product managers’ mostimportant function is strategicrather than tactical “Organizations that thoroughlyunderstand their market supportproduct management’s strategic effortsrather than supporting their tacticaltasks,” says Johnson.

What should the job descriptionof the ideal product managerlook like? “Broadly, product managers must beable to build products from existingideas and help develop new ideasbased on industry experience andcontact with customers and prospects,”says Johnson.

Additionally, they should have someor all of the following qualifications:

Unique blend of business andtechnical savvy

That’s a “big-picture vision and thedrive to make that vision a reality,”says Johnson.

“Product managers must enjoyspending time in the market talkingto customers. They have tounderstand customers’ problems in order to find innovative solutionsfor the broader market.”

Ability to communicate with allareas of the company

“It means working with anengineering counterpart to defineproduct-release requirements,” saysJohnson, “and with marketingcommunications to define the go-to-market strategy and help themunderstand the product positioning,key results and target customer.

Additionally, product managers must be the internal and externalevangelists for a company’s products,occasionally working with the saleschannel and valuable customers.”


Software product management: If you can’t define it, you’re doing a bad job at it



Summing up, Johnson winds downwith 10 rules for successful productmanagers to live by. Some stressearlier points; others are more foodfor thought.

Product managers’ rule #1:The best product managers followthe Pragmatic Marketing maxim:Your opinion, while interesting, isirrelevant. Always use market factsto decide the best course of action.

Product managers’ rule #2:Product management is a not a“natural” fit for everyone. A goodproduct manager has a technicalbackground with business savvy.Software engineers and programmers,for example, can make a smoothtransition to product managementbecause they’re starting off with astrong technical background. Buttechnical smarts alone won’t cut it.

Product managers’ rule #3:In “Crossing the Chasm,” Geoff Mooresays that product management is asenior, business-oriented role andtypically fails because we staff it withjunior, technically oriented people.

Product managers’ rule #4:Credibility comes from being able tomanage the business of the product.Otherwise, product management getsrelegated to a technical support role.

Product managers’ rule #5:Product management is aboutdelivering what the market needs.Good product managers spendmore time in front of customers andpotential customers; they spend lesstime on sales calls and in theircorporate offices.

Product managers’ rule #6:Product management is notnecessarily about delivering whatthe customer asks for. The bestproducts solve the customer’s problems

and no more. A product managerhas to observe and understand whatthe customer needs in order to solvethe problem, rather than buildingthe features the customer requests.“The old guys at Home Depot dothis well,” says Johnson. “They don’task you what you want to buy; theyask you to describe your project sothat they can tell what you need to buy.”

Product managers’ rule #7:Mature companies value productmanagement and enjoy shorter timeto market. According to a surveyPragmatic Marketing conductedwith softwareminds.com, companies that consider product-managementbusiness critical cut their time tomarket in half. This results frommore focus on the product and less last-minute reaction to salesdemands du jour.

Product managers’ rule #8:Product management usually failswhen organized in the developmentor engineering team. Technicalmanagers do not consider productmanagement a value-add to theirteams and relegate them to projectmanagement and scheduling.

Product managers’ rule #9:Similarly, product management failsin sales departments. Naturally, salesmanagement considers productmanagement a sales resource andallocates 110 percent of its time for supporting salespeople.

Product managers’ rule #10:It seems counterintuitive, butproduct managers who spend a lotof time supporting salespeople findthat they are not valued by theircompanies. Invariably, the productmanagers who have been laid offare the ones who are closer to sales.

Powerful advice and ideas for product managers

What are a product manager’smost important responsibilities? Johnson lists the top four:

• To manage the entire product-linelife cycle from strategic planning to tactical activities.

• To specify market requirements for current and future products by conducting market researchsupported by frequent visits tocustomers and non-customers.

• To drive a solution set acrossdevelopment teams (primarilydevelopment/engineering andmarking communications) throughmarket requirements, productcontract and positioning.

• To analyze potential partnerrelationships for the product.

What are the ideal jobrequirements for a productmanager? • 3-plus years of software-marketing

product-management experience

• Understands technology

• Computer-science or engineeringdegree or work experience a strong plus

Bob Weinstein writes Tech Watch, a weeklytechnology/career column, published indaily newspapers throughout the U.S. He’swritten 12 books, his articles have beenpublished in the Boston Globe, The NewYork Times, The Washington Post, ChicagoSun-Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,to name a few. And his technologycoverage has appeared on Web sites,SoftwareCEO, TechRepublic, brainbuzz,gantthead, and ASPstreet.

Copyright © 2004, SoftwareCEO Inc. This articleoriginally appeared at www.SoftwareCEO.com.

Reprinted with permission.

Phil Myers, President and CEO, Cyclone Commerce

“To make marketing a strategicweapon in your business,

Pragmatic Marketing’s Framework is your blueprint. I have used it

for ten years and it works.”

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 high-tech products.

The Pragmatic Framework has been fine-tuned by 25,000 attendees

over 10 years and has been proven to create high-tech products that

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

name—they present a practical course of action that really works.

– Phil MyersPresident and CEOCyclone Commerce

Visit www.PragmaticMarketing.com to learn more.

The Industry Standard in Technology Product Management Education

Effective knowledge transfer benefits fromcombining the elements below in a way thatworks best for your company.

Selecting the right trainersMost, if not all, of the individuals who will beexplaining the new capabilities will come fromthe Development department. While some ofthe more technical explanations may requireengineers or coders, if the documentationfunction is integrated into Development, use the documentation writers as the best candidatesfor clearly explaining new features in a way thata non-technical audience can understand.

You may need to punctuate the explanationswith descriptions by engineers, and haveengineers on hand to field more technicalquestions.

Of course, if the knowledge transfer session isaimed at technical architects and programmers,you’ll need a programmer to explain much of the material at the right level for the

audience.

It may be helpful to back up a technically-qualified

presenter with a secondperson who can jump in

with clarifications for those moments when thepoint is not getting across and the explanationscould stand a little simplifying.

Materials that are just rightThe knowledge transfer doesn’t have to haveextensive training materials to back it up.That’s the job of the training department, andcomes later. But it does benefit from someformal materials, perhaps a written outline or a few slides.

The main purpose of the materials is to helpthe audience keep track of the subjects you arecovering and the progress of the knowledgetransfer session.

The right deliveryThe idea of conducting solid knowledgetransfer inevitably begins to fall down whenyou start to consider the costs of travel andhotel accommodations to get people together in the same room for standup training. It’s toobad that people seldom do the math andrealize that the boost in productivity is wellworth the expense, but that’s life.

If you are not able to bring people from two orthree locations for standup training, as a fallbackplan you can send a trainer, or two, to those twoor three locations. However, that’s often seen astoo costly as well.

This is where webcasts can be particularly cost-effective. They can reach people in scatteredlocations without a need for training facilities.

If webcast technology is not available, remotetraining can take the form of a conference call,but backed up in that case by some good writtenmaterials that everyone uses together.

RepetitionIt can be hard to schedule sessions so thateveryone can attend. You may be better offholding a series of sessions, scheduled at aregular time, such as every Monday afternoon.This helps people remember to attend andhelps make sure that everyone who needstraining gets a chance to attend.

KNOWLEDGE When a new version of the product is in the

works, and the product manager and the rest of the team is making the checklist of everything that needs

completing for the product launch, it’s easy to remember some things. Usually documentation and online help get done

on time, as do press releases, maybe some sales training, and perhaps updates to collateral. But there’s one important thing that companies forget to build into their plan time and time again: knowledge transfer.

It seems like a basic thing that after a whole lot of work is done to build great capabilities into the software, there will be an organized andthorough effort to roll out an understanding of those new capabilities tothe entire organization. Yet I have rarely seen this to be the case.

It’s as if Development was focusing on existing and future externalcustomers as the only customer, when a major group of customers arethose people at your company who serve its external customers: trainers,consultants, custom programmers, customer care reps, and sales engineers.

Read on for tips on putting together an effective knowledge transfereffort for each new release of your software.


by Jacques Murphy

The right focusKnowledge transfer is a pretty all-encompassing term. There’s a lot ofknowledge you need to transfer fromDevelopment to all the other areas of your company. You want to focusthe effort.

First, focus in terms of number. If youwant participants to have the chance to productively ask questions, limit the number in one session to about ten people.

You may be required to focus in termsof the total number of people at thecompany who attend. If you can onlyhave one or two sessions, you may haveto choose one or two representativesfrom each department. It will be theirjob to roll out the knowledge to therest of their department.

You can also focus these sessions interms of time. You’re better off withmultiple sessions that are only one totwo hours, because people can onlyfocus for so long, particularly if trainingis via webcast.

Focus your presentation in terms oftopics covered. While it would be great to cover everything that is new,break sessions into manageable sets of topics, organized by theme, ratherthan providing a long laundry list of features.

Finally, if you have variousaudiences—Training and Support,Marketing, Professional Services—focusin terms of technical level. Try toprovide a business-oriented session for those on the business side. Savethe technical detail for a sessionfocused on technical attendees.

Don’t forget documentationMuch effort has been invested in thedocumentation and online help. Justlike you would train attendees in thenew capabilities, train them in whatthe manual and online help contains.

Give them a good orientation of thetypes of explanations and how to find them. The aim here is to showeveryone how they can helpthemselves.

The goal is an introductionA knowledge transfer session is not intended to be an exhaustive and exhausting training session ineverything you ever need to knowabout the software. It’s intended as an introduction to what’s new, anorientation to the new capabilities. Ifyou could aim for one goal, it wouldbe to have everyone leave the sessionknowing what they need to learn morecompletely on their own, as opposedto feeling like they learned it allcompletely. The bulk of the learningeffort is still up to the attendees, after the session.

Encourage follow-up within the departmentAfter the session, it’s time for membersof individual departments to worktogether to learn the material in moredepth. It may be that only a couplepeople within the department attendedthe session. Each department mustcomplete its learning on its own,focusing on the aspects that are most important to it.

Handoff to the right people: trainingMembers of Development who provide the training are not required to be the best trainers. This is not theend of the training required. It’s just the initial handoff of knowledge toother departments.

While it sounds like a no-brainer toinclude the trainers in the knowledgetransfer, I’ve seen times where thatdidn’t happen. One of the first goals of knowledge transfer should be to train the trainers. These professionalsunderstand how to impart information

to individuals at different levels ofbusiness and technical expertise. Theycan develop more elaborate trainingincluding certification for everyone in the company who needs it.

Question and answerPeople who are not in the habit oftraining others—who are often the onestasked with the knowledge transfer—have a tendency to hurry through thematerial and leave no room for questions.It’s important to cover the topics at apace that allows for questions, withpauses and prompts to encourageparticipants to speak up when theydon’t understand.

The right measurementNothing tells you how well Developmentdid at imparting information like a popquiz. And nothing gets people to paycareful attention during knowledgetransfer like hearing that a quiz will be given at the end of the session. So whether it’s a surprise or it comeswith advance warning, quizzing theparticipants is very useful.

A quiz makes for a good ending to agood start, your knowledge transfer.

TRANSFER: Starting It Out Right

Jacques Murphy has over 15 years of experience inthe software industry. Hewrites an email newslettercalled PRODUCT

MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES thatfocuses on increasing softwareproduct momentum in terms ofdevelopment, marketing, sales, andprofitability in order to improve theproduct’s competitive position. Toregularly receive helpful tips forsoftware product management, sendan email to [email protected] with“subscribe” in the subject line.

Reprinted with permission from PRODUCT MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES, a Weekly

Newsletter of Tips For Companies that Develop Software.Copyright © 2003 Jacques Murphy. All rights reserved.


Practical Product Management

RequirementsThat Work

STR

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MarketAnalysis

TechnologyAssessment

Win/LossAnalysis Innovation User

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CompetitiveAnalysis

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MarketSizing Pricing Sales

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MarketResearch

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Buy, Buildor Partner

MarketRequirements

MarketProblems

ThoughtLeaders

ProductRoadmap

QuantitativeAnalysis

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Visit www.PragmaticMarketing.com to learn more.


Effective Marketing Programs

TACTIC

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SalesReadiness

ChannelSupport

Collateral &Sales Tools

ChannelTraining

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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 factsthat 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 Marketing need a consistent process to build and deliver market messages that influence each of our target buyers and markets?

Do you need a process for selecting and designing programs that produce strategic results?

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

Can you accurately measure marketing’s contribution to the company’s goals for revenue growth, customer retention and positioning awareness?

Do the people who plan and implement go-to-market activities need to know how their individual roles fit together?

Practical Product Management™

Practical Product Management is for product managers and those who manage or contribute to aspects of product marketing and management. This two-day

seminar fully explores the role of technical product management, providing tools and a framework to help get products 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 to Development,Marcom, and Sales

• Drawing the line between ProductManagement and the other departments

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

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Visit www.PragmaticMarketing.com or call (800) 816-7861 to register


Requirements That Work™

Requirements That Work is an intensive one-day coursethat introduces a straight forward method for creating

product plans that product managers can write,developers readily embrace, and that produce solutions

the market wants to buy.

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

Effective Marketing Programs™

Effective Marketing Programs is a two-day seminar designed for those responsible for planning or execution

of programs and tools that build market share in high-tech markets.

This course explains how the most successful high-tech companies plan, execute, and measuremarketing programs and sales tools.

I. Roles and Responsibilities• The Pragmatic Marketing® Framework• The Effective Marketing Programs Process• Role definitions & skills assessment

II. Buyer Personas• Positioning by type of buyer• Creating buyer personas• The sales channel persona

III. The Strategic Programs Plan• The business case for marketing programs• Supporting sales goals• Metrics that engender management support• Building the right marketing budget

IV. High ROI Sales Tools • Writing useful, high-impact collateral• How to generate success stories• Real thought leadership in whitepapers• Building a strategic website

V. Goal-Oriented Program Execution• Controlling lead quality and throughput• When to use online marketing• Measure results without CRM• Program priorities for each goal

VI. Start Where You Are• Prioritizing next steps• Start with existing programs• Setting measurable goals

Why has market developmentgotten so hard?At executive staff meetings, it is notuncommon to hear CEO’s say any or all of the following:

• “Branding is nice, but I needrevenue.”

• “We have to manage to costs, let’scut Marketing’s budget again.”

• “What are we getting for ourmarketing investment? Let’s spendmore on sales instead.”

• “What is Marketing doing to helpgenerate sales?”

Let’s face it; today it’s all about ROI.

Sales are lagging, and although theeconomy appears to be recovering,your company still has monthlyexpenses it has to meet. All investmentsare getting scrutinized.

Marketing is being asked to participatein the sales process to a degree notseen in the past ten years. Althoughtypically lacking significant salesexperience, vice presidents of Marketingare being held accountable forrevenue targets.

This has led to four categories offrustrations among marketing executives:

1. Difficulty securing required budget

In the current financialenvironment, the budget forMarketing is being treated like adiscretionary expenditure ratherthan a critical business function.Existing budget items are beingslashed, and getting new fundsapproved requires an expectedreturn—something most marketingorganizations cannot demonstrate.

While many departments are doing a good job of measuringexpense-related metrics, they arehard pressed to produce evidencethat shows objective relationshipsbetween marketing investmentsand revenue. Not able to defendbudget requests, marketing executivesare now faced with doing their dailytasks (brand building, PR, collateraldevelopment, etc.) with the increaseddemands of assisting Sales…all witha smaller budget.

2. Lack of results from traditionallysuccessful vehicles

In addition to increased budgetscrutiny, marketing vehicles thatwere the “old standbys” in the past are no longer viable, or areuncertain. There is a lot of confusionabout the best way to spendmarketing resources. According to a recent study of pre-IPOtechnology companies by LaunchPad, (a California-based incubator)advertising, trade shows, directmarketing, and promotionalinvestments are falling out of favor;while public relations, corporateweb sites, and collateral areconsidered the most effectiveinvestments. It is interesting thatthe tools which are passive, lesspredictable, and least likely togenerate new leads, are the areasconsidered most effective.

Advertising can be an excellentvehicle to promote brand, generateawareness, or promote visibility.However it is very difficult to showhow your products solve a tangibleproblem and what the return mightbe. Participation at trade shows hasbeen dropping since 1997, andwith the current state of travel, thissituation is not likely to improvesoon. Direct marketing (mail or

teleconferencing) isn’t generatingthe expected results, nor do manyIT vendor marketing executiveshave much effective experience withthese vehicles. New technologiessuch as webinars are promising, butbandwidth limitations are provingthem to be more of a distractionthan an effective marketing vehicle.

As the pressure mounts, executivesare searching for marketing vehiclesthat produce results. However,despite their efforts, each path theypursue seems to be a dead end.

3. “Sales is from Mars,Marketing is from Venus”

Sales and Marketing professionalstypically have very differentperspectives on market development,and at times can feel like they arespeaking different languages. Thisoften results in Marketing havingpoor credibility with the salesforce—making it difficult to getSales to engage in, or cooperatewith marketing programs. Evenwhen Marketing tries to reach out and ask the sales force whatthey need to be more effective in their jobs, the results are oftendisappointing. Either Marketing has a hard time understandingwhat Sales needs (resulting in afrustrated sales force), or Sales willmake vague requests (“I need awhite paper”) and then complainupon delivery that what wasproduced is not what they askedfor (resulting in a frustratedmarketing organization). And theseproblems are in the firms whereMarketing and Sales are trying towork together. In many companies,Marketing thinks the salesorganization cannot sell, and Salesthinks Marketing is a completewaste of money.

Put Your MoneyWhere The Value IsBy Scott Santucci


4. Sales is not following up on thehard fought leads generated

Considering the effort and resourceit takes to generate leads, it can be extremely frustrating to watchhow leads are often handled. In arecent Harvard study of marketingexecutives, they found that as muchas 80% of all leads produced arenever acted upon by Sales. This isusually a symptom of the “credibilityissue” mentioned above—salespeople assume that leads whichcome from Marketing are poorlyqualified and will be a waste oftheir time. Considering typicalconversion rates for the leadswhich ARE worked, it’s nearlyimpossible to achieve any returnon marketing investments in leadgeneration unless this problem is rectified.

To make matters worse, mostmarketing organizations do notknow how many of the leads theyproduce are actually being followedup on by Sales. Once a lead isproduced and handed over toSales, it is often never heard fromagain. Without an effective leadtracking process, it will be veryhard for a marketing organizationto demonstrate its contribution to that (or any) sale.

To summarize, marketing budgets areunder increasing scrutiny and executivesare being asked to contribute more tothe sales effort. But, the tried and truemarketing vehicles that have beeneffective in the past are not deliveringthe same results. Marketing executivesare struggling to identify the programswhich will produce the best results. Yet,regardless of what they do, they can’tmake a positive impact on sales if theydon’t improve their credibility enoughto get Sales to engage in the process.


Understanding how Sales sells,and customers buyWhy does Marketing find itself facingthe seemingly impossible task ofcontributing to the bottom line withfewer resources, less effective vehicles,and no support from Sales?

The problem can be broken into twobasic categories:

1. A lack of understanding of thecustomers’ buying process

There is a major disconnectbetween how large (Global 2000)companies buy IT products andservices and the way they aremarketed. To begin with, anyvendor selection typically involvesa variety of stakeholders. Dependingupon the offering, these stakeholdersmay include: a selection committee,an executive sponsor, a projectmanager, architects (enterprise,software, and infrastructure),technical specialists, and end-users.Each one of these stakeholders willevaluate the merits of your offeringfrom a different perspective, andagainst different criteria. Marketingmaterials should (but rarely do) helpthese various stakeholders evaluateyour offering in their specific context(i.e., help a network specialistunderstand if/how the network will be impacted). Without theappropriate information, thesestakeholders will demand moreresource from the sales executive—or even worse, get informationfrom other sources that threatenyour influence in the buyingdecision.

In addition to identifying the peopleinvolved in the customer buyingprocess, we must understand whataspects of your solution each willwant to analyze. For example,companies often review the totalcost of ownership (all the investmentcosts required to solve their

problem with your solution alongwith the ongoing operationalmaintenance costs), how scalableyour offering is, and how well itconforms to the companies existingarchitecture and infrastructure.Perhaps most important, if themoney is not already in the budget,they will examine how critical theproblem your offering addressescompares to other problems thecompany faces. This point is oftenoverlooked, as most marketingmaterials are geared to a buyerwho has already determined heneeds what you are selling. Veryoften your competition will not beanother provider of your solution,but a completely different way thecompany might use the money.

Another factor to consider is that organizations have differentsensitivities at different stages ofthe buying process. Very early, thefocus is on identifying the businessproblems associated with youroffering. However, over time the focus will shift to issues suchas price (what you charge), toidentifying the “whole” solution (all the resources required to executeyour offering), and to risk (whathappens if…). Since prospects nevergo through all of these stages in a single meeting, tools should bedesigned to help your customersachieve the milestones necessary to advance to the next stage intheir buying process.

All too often, the extent of marketingtools created to support all of thesevariables will include: a corporatebrochure, a technical white paper,a product brochure, productspecification sheet, and a productdemo—all designed with an eye toa technical audience and focusedon the features of your product.These deliverables fall short ofmeeting the organizational needs,and therefore the onus is placed on

the sales rep and his/her championwithin the account to articulate thebenefits of your solution for thatgiven organization.

2. Marketing’s limited understanding of the sales process

A solid understanding of the salesprocess is critical for any marketingexecutive. Everything that Marketingdoes should support the range of ways in which the companyengages with prospects. Considerbrand development. Your salesforce communicates your brandwith the prospects they meet. As a whole, they have a greaterinfluence over the perception ofyour company than Marketingdoes. Marketing cannot control themessage, as each sales person hastheir own sales presentation, writestheir own letters, and has theirown conversations with customers.Additionally, as mentioned earlier,the success of many marketingprograms requires the participationof the sales department.

The best way to establish credibilitywith the sales organization is todemonstrate a firm grasp of thesales cycle, and to predict the kinds


Put Your Money Where The Value Is

of resources that would be helpfulat each individual stage. While salespeople tend to focus on deliverablessuch as white papers, salespresentations, and product collateralsheets, there are a wide variety oftools and resources they require.These include: custom engagementtools, assessments, need creationand identification tools, internalselling tools, ROI calculators,prospecting vehicles, buying visionaides, follow up letters and e-mails,account profiling tools, objectionhandling statements, compellingdata points, reference stories,business problem training, etc. It’s nearly impossible for Marketingto identify which tools are needed,or even to understand what Sales is asking for when they make arequest, without an understandingof the sales process.

Another common source ofmisunderstanding is the timesensitivity issue. Sales peoplewould often prefer to get a “workin progress” they can tweak for a given account, than to wait forweeks while the final deliverable is polished and fine-tuned. Asanother example, many marketing

departments will wait until all leadsfrom a given campaign are processedbefore turning them over to Sales.This can take up a month, duringwhich time the prospects have likelyforgotten why they were interestedin the first place. In order to establishcredibility, Marketing needs todemonstrate the level of urgencycommonly associated with Sales.

Finally, on the topic of leads, the“worst case scenario” can often bewhen Marketing qualifies the wrongtype of stakeholder as a lead. Forexample, a low-level technologyperson (no matter how interestedthey claim to be) is more likely to be a “tire kicker” and consumevaluable company resources toeducate them on your offering. A sales person would rather workwith people with decision-makingauthority than waste valuable timewith someone who is not in aposition to buy.

Cultivate your prospects into clients, don’t solicit themMarketing has a tremendous opportunityto help their organizations developmore predictable, higher-value, andaccelerated revenue streams. To do this,Marketing should develop structuredand measurable programs, campaigns,and tools which add value to prospectswhile advancing the sales cycle.

Focusing on the buyer is the keydifferentiator between effective andwasteful campaigns. If a salesperson’srole is to facilitate their customer’sbuying process, then Marketing’s roleis to help Sales engage new customersin buying discussions and to help keepexisting prospects engaged. Focusingmarket development efforts on thecustomers buying process by designwill do just that.

Too often, marketing materials go forthe jugular. However, as discussedearlier, IT buyers go through a series

of phases and involve different peoplethroughout the buying process.Therefore, break down their buyingprocess into a series of steps andcreate the right materials and programsfor each one. For example, a programto make decision-makers aware of theirproblems is dramatically different thanone helping them figure out how tosolve that problem. Both of these arerequired stages before a customer willbuy a solution, yet most marketingprograms assume they are past thesestages and ready to select a product.All that does is make them feel “soldto” and confused—and confusedprospects never buy.

With the customer as the design-pointbeing the pre-requisite, there are fivecritical success factors to effectiveprogrammatic marketing campaigns:

1. Have a finite, specific,and measurable purpose

As we’ve said, complex buyingprocesses go through stages.Marketing should identify thetypical stages their customers go through in making a buyingdecision, determine their customer’sneeds throughout the process, andestablish specific objectives andmilestones in each stage. This allowsyou to create the content yourcustomers need to achieve eachkey milestone and advance theirbuying process. Additionally, itallows you to set up performancemeasurements, which will help you steadily improve each program,capture performance metrics, andcommunicate your results internally.

2. Add value to your customers or prospects

Many sales methodologies andtraining programs teach salespeople that their job is not only tocommunicate the company’s valueproposition to the prospect, but toalso add value through the sales



process. However few sales people have the expertise to be able to bea “value add” on their own. Rather,it should be Marketing’s role toprovide tools which Sales can useto deliver value while interactingwith prospects.

The most common way for Marketingto help Sales “be valuable” is to provide them resources foreducating customers and prospects.If a sales rep can be seen as beingthought-provoking—helping aprospect understand a complexissue and how it impacts theircompany—rather than “salesy”, the rep will gain more credibilitywith that prospect and be in abetter position to facilitate thebuying process.

3. Enable sales people to uncoverand diagnose business problems

Whether we care to admit it or not,people buy from people. Salespeople play a key role in marketdevelopment efforts. All of theemotional drivers learned in businessschool are secondary in a business-to-business sale. Organizations buysolutions to business problems. Theydo not buy software, consultingofferings, or services. They areinvesting in your firm to realize the benefits of your solution. Thebetter you can equip your salespeople to find business problemsand bring them to your prospects’

attention, the shorter the salescycle and the larger the averagedeal size.

4. Have tangible impact on movingaccounts through stages of thesales pipeline

The sales funnel is the lifeline of anycompany and should be a focalpoint throughout the organization.Most marketing dollars are investedto create awareness or generate leads,and focus on filling the top of thefunnel. However, these investmentsshould be more balanced across all stages of the funnel becauseincremental improvements in eachstage of the sales process can havemultiplicative effects on revenue.For example, if you have a fivestage sales process and you improvethe percentage of opportunities that advance from each stage to the next by 5% points, you canmore than double your revenue.Plus, marketing campaigns focusedon supporting later stages in the

sales process serve to reduce thesales cycle time and increase closerate, which are much more likelyto impact revenue than generatingmore low-quality leads.

5. Arm your advocates inside aprospective account to sell for you

It is estimated that up to 80% ofthe buying decisions about youroffering are made without arepresentative from your companyinvolved. With that much of thedecision on the line, how are you equipping your internalchampion to accurately representthe compelling business solutionyou are providing? Sales people,who present your offerings everyday for a living, have a hard enoughtime incorporating all of the keyselling points of your solution oneach sales call. You must provideconcise and topical materials thatwill help internal advocates makeyour offering relevant to thatorganization.



Scott Santucci is a leading expert in developing business developmentexecution models for B2B companies to help improve their sales and marketing effectiveness. A former META Group executive, he founded BluePrint Marketing in 2002 where he has developed a business development framework based on unparallel access to G2000 technology buyers and the vendors who provide services

to them. Santucci has worked with such organizations as: Unisys, Sungard,Bearing Point, and BMC. Contact Scott at [email protected]

©2003. Blueprint Marketing. Ashburn, VA. All rights reserved.


Positioning is a process that focuseson conveying product value to buyers,resulting in a family of documents whichdrive all outbound communications. Yetin recent years, it seems as if positioninghas “devolved” into a document ofvague superlatives that convey nothingas they attempt to trick the customer intobuying the product. The best positioningclearly states how the product willsolve specific customer problems.

The why of positioningAgencies report that companies whohave completed positioning documentswill save 30% to 50% of their agencycosts. Just as your local video storeprofits from late fees, the hidden costsof agency work come from all the re-work. Agencies often include anup-front cost allocated for discerningpositioning from executive interviews.They interview the VP of Developmentand learn about company innovation;they interview the VP of Sales andlearn about customer intimacy; theyinterview the company president andlearn about stock performance; theyinterview the product managers andget product specifications. From thesevarying viewpoints, they attempt towrite a campaign theme. On seeingthe campaign, the executives say,“That’s not it. I don’t know what Iwant but I’ll know it when I see it.”

Does this sound familiar?

Positioning results in a series of well-crafted documents that focus on the buyer and how our solutionsimprove his life.

The trick to positioning is to understandthe value of the product to the buyer.In other words, what problems canyou solve for the buyer? Do you knowthe benefits your customers achievewith your products and services? Not sure? Ask.

Insincere positioning

“The great enemy of clear

language is insincerity.”– George Orwell, 1984

Much of the writing we see inmarketing materials seems obscuredue to insincerity. It’s as if the writerwants to fool the reader into thinkingthe product is more important than itis, or that the product solves problemsbetter than the competitor’s when itdoesn’t really. If your product isclearly inferior, you cannot fix it with positioning. A product must be adequate for the market need tosucceed; no amount of marketing canovercome it. (I can hear some of youthinking about Microsoft®. Remember,Microsoft products are not inadequate;they are wonderfully adequate, andbacked by strong marketing.)

For those who are stuck in writingjargon and buzzwords, DeloitteConsulting offers Bullfighter™, an add-into Microsoft Office that rates your writingfor its “bull.” It’s particularly handy as anon-partisan comment on the writing ofothers. Run your company and productmessages through Bullfighter to seehow much is content and how muchis nonsense.

Many organizations create cute or clevertaglines that don’t convey meaning. Butcute doesn’t work in B2B (and maybenot in B2C either). What does GeneralElectric Company (GE) expect us tothink about their “Innovation at Work”tagline? Can we use GE products to be innovative while working? Are theirproducts only good in the workplace?Or perhaps are they working to beinnovative in the future? A Google™

search for this phrase generates over5,000,000 pages. How meaningful is thephrase to consumers of GE products?

Does anyone believe an enterprisesolution will “make your dreams cometrue”? A Google search for this phrasegenerates over 3,490,000 pages.

For what it’s worth, I think that SAP doesmessaging pretty well: “The Best-RunBusinesses Run SAP” and “InnovativeSolutions to Innovate Business.” Thelatter phrase results in fewer than 5000Google hits, all related to SAP.

Solving problems versusspeaking specsAs an industry, we wallow in technicaljargon and assume that the reader canconnect the specs to their problems.Or we hope that our sales people canconnect the dots. How unfair to bothbuyer and seller! The positioning, andthus the marketing materials and salestools, should explain the value and usespecifications to support our promises(if necessary for the buyer).

Compare these two product descriptionsposted on eBay® for the same product:

First the specification-oriented listing:

“This is a trailer mounted z-boommodel # is TMZ-34/19. This is a2000 model Genie. This is a greatvalue and innovation in the trailer


A Look at Clarity in PositioningBy Steve Johnson



mounted boom market. It is allelectric, which is economical, it has4 new batteries and new tires. Ithas a spare tire. The working heightis 40 feet. 19 ft horizontal reach,articulating jib has 130 degreeworking range, Compact 34 inchwidth, 500 lb lift capacity, Large 8in outrigger footpads,Junction box,shelf and tie down attachment pointsto accommodate generators up to2500 W, Non-marking footpadcovers, AC outlet in platform. Italso has Surge Brakes, ParkingBrake, Horn.

I am the original owner and thishas only been used about 40-50times It is in excellent workingconditions. I own a sign shop andhave used it when working onbillboards. If you have anyadditional questions you can callme during the day or email me andI will get back to you. I will also bewilling to meet someone within a300 mile radius of [my hometown]if purchasing with either cash orcashiers check.”

Now a problem-oriented listing (forthe same product):

“This is a great lift because youdon’t have to maintain a gas orelectric engine. You just hook it up to your vehicle and tow it intoposition, drop the four outriggersand up you go. Great for trimmingtrees, construction, or any job whereyou need a 40-foot reach!

This unit is a 1999 model that wasfactory refurbished (including newbatteries) in 2002 and has beenstored inside a hangar since then.It has been used about 10 hourssince it was overhauled. The tireshave about 300 miles on themincluding a new spare tire. It looksand operates like new.

This lift has a 500-pound capacity butis narrow enough to fit through manyman doors. Plug it in, charge it up,and you are ready for a full day of power lifting!

You can pick it up or I am willingto tow the lift to one of the shippingfirms in [town name] who can flatbed it to your location. All shippingarrangements and fees are theresponsibility of the buyer.

For more details and specificationsgo to <link to manufacturer’sproduct page>.”

You don’t have to look too closely tonotice the specification and jargon inthe specification-oriented listing versusthe listing talking to the buyer in buyerlanguage. The problem-orientedmessage left the specs out but provideda link to the manufacturer’s spec page.

And the results? The specification-oriented description was listed for two weeks with no bids. Theproblem-oriented listing sold for the same price as the competitor’sminimum bid in four days and three hours.

Focus on the buyerMost technology companies use atemplate—and often a formula—forpositioning. The best positioning isput in the context of solving a problemfor a specific buyer. That means that there are multiple positioningdocuments, each conveying productvalue in terms that resonate with thespecific buyer.

Start with the generic problem in theindustry and the ideal generic solution(which is basically what your productdoes). Then provide a short primarymessage, 25 words that you want thebuyer to remember, followed by a moredetailed product description, again interms of the buyer’s need. Finally,describe the three to five features thatare relevant to this buyer profile.

It takes many different people withinan organization to make a purchasingdecision for a complex product.Typically, we see a financial buyer, a technical buyer, and one or moreuser buyers. Each of these buyers has a different primary goal and seesproduct information through a differentlens. The user buyers want to knowhow the features will make their dailyjob different and better. The financialbuyer obviously wants to know howthe product will save money for thecompany, while the technical buyer is primarily concerned with how theproduct will fit into the existingtechnology environment. Of course, all buyers want to be assured that theproduct will satisfy the needs of theusers of the product.

How can we use one message tocommunicate to multiple buyers?Obviously we cannot. We’ll needdifferent articulations of our messagethat resonate with each buyer type.

In Pragmatic Marketing’s PracticalProduct Management™ seminar, we illustrate the differing viewpoints in positioning with a sales forceautomation product. A positioningdocument written for a salespersonshould emphasize the features thatreduce his paperwork while thedocument for the sales manageremphasizes the value of centralizedterritory data.

Company, family, productpositioningOne company quadrupled sales ofservices just by positioning them usingthe same process. In fact, aren’tservices products just like softwareand hardware? Services should bedefined as repeatable offerings that areconsistently communicated, sold, anddelivered—just like software.

Products and services, as well asfamilies of products, all follow thesame method. Within the company’s

As a high-tech executive, are you unclear about the strategic role of product management?

Does the role of product manager in your company need to be defined to the CEO so support can be given tostrategic activities?

As a product manager, do you strive to lead the organization rather thanreact to it?

This half-day session is a subset of

the Practical Product Management™

seminar and introduces the industry

standard for high-tech marketing,

the Pragmatic Marketing Framework.

Refined over ten years and implemented

by hundreds of technology

companies, this framework shows how

Product Management and Marketing

personnel can move from tactical

activities to quantifiable, strategic

actions that deliver tremendous value

to the company. This session includes

immediate actionable ideas about

how to best establish the role of

Product Marketing/Management and

define market-driven products that

make customers want to buy.

The Strategic Role of Product Management™

Seats are limited, so early registration

is recommended. Seeavailable dates on

back cover.

This seminar is open to anyonecurrently employed in high-techmarketing, including seniormanagement, product marketingmanagers, and product managers.

There is no fee to attend,but registration is required via our website.www.PragmaticMarketing.com

seminar!

The Industry Standard in Technology Product

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overall message, we articulate how theproduct, service, or product family solvesproblems for each type of buyer.

For example, I assume that Microsoft haspositioning documents for Microsoft Word(product), Microsoft Office (product family),and Microsoft Corporation (company). Itmust be true, as each positioning messageis so clearly consistent with the others.

Ideally, a product positioning must amplifythe company positioning. It may not matterif you do product or company first, butthe product positioning must support the company positioning. Every productshould integrate with the companymessage—or the product should be spun off into a different company.

Positioning has two main benefits. Theone obvious to all marketers is theconsistency of message. Each marketingand sales piece communicates exactly thesame message. A less obvious benefit, butperhaps the more important one, is thatthe positioning process forces ProductManagement to identify and spell outclear benefits for each type of buyer.Without a clear message, most productsare doomed to failure.


Steve Johnson is an expertin technology productmanagement. He works for Pragmatic Marketing®

as an instructor for the top-rated courses PracticalProduct Management™ andRequirements That Work™

as well as onsite courses. Steve is also a frequentpresenter for various technology marketingforums throughout the United States andEurope, author of many articles on technologyproduct management, and is the webmaster ofhttp://productmarketing.com—a website devotedto technology product management. ContactSteve at [email protected]

In many businesses and manufacturingplants around the world, a time clockstill hangs on the wall. Developed byKronos Incorporated and launched inthe late-1970’s, those clocks representbreakthrough technology that automatedthe front-end process of collecting timeand attendance information.

Today, after decades of ongoinginnovation, Kronos has become a $397 million workforce managementcompany, with a suite of humanresources, payroll, scheduling, andtime and labor solutions that improvethe performance of people and business.Kronos’ customer roster includes manyof the world’s most recognizedorganizations. Every day, 20 millionpeople use a Kronos solution. Equallyimpressive, Kronos boasts almost aquarter-century of consistent revenuegrowth and nearly 70 consecutivequarters of profitability. This sustainedrecord of success, through goodeconomies and bad, speaks volumes—both about corporate leadership andthe company’s unrelenting ability tostay ahead of market demands.

“This is a company that has been ableto reinvent itself several times,” saysPeggy Drew, Director of Timekeeping

and Data Collection ProductManagement for Kronos. “We have a senior management team that iscontinually looking for new ways toinnovate and solve important customerproblems. We continue to build on morethan 25 years of growth and success bycreating innovative solutions to solvecomplex employee-related issues.”

It’s about timeThat commitment to innovation isevidenced by the fact that Kronos investsnearly $50 million each year on researchand development—with productdirection driven largely by customerfeedback. Responsibility for translatingthose customer needs into productrequirements rests with the Engineeringproduct management team.

According to Drew, “At Kronos, we have numerous product managers across the organization. There areProduct Marketing Managers, ServicePlanning Product Managers, andEngineering Product Managers.Marketing defines the high-levelmarket goals, and Engineering developsthe product. Our Engineering productmanagers work hand-in-hand withDevelopment to execute the vision.”

Today, the relationship between Kronosproduct managers and developers isstrong and steady, based on mutualrespect and credibility. That solidworking partnership has been builtover the last several years. The drivingforce was strong product managementand an emphasis on helping productmanagers create product plans thatdevelopers readily embrace and producesolutions the market wants to buy.

Case Study

Market-DrivenFocus a Driving

Force BehindKronos Workforce

ManagementSolutions



To feature the product management success at your company, contact [email protected]

Product requirements document as art form“Writing good product requirements is truly a skill,” remarks Drew. “In fact,I’d say it’s almost an art form. If we go back a few years, there was a bitof a disconnect between our developersand product managers. We realizedour Engineering product managersneeded to learn and implement bestpractices for developing a ProductRequirements Document (PRD) thatour developers could understand anduse. Toward that end, we begansending our product managers to theRequirements that Work™ course fromPragmatic Marketing®.”

The course helped Kronos establishclear roles for team members and adoptrepeatable processes to create productplans that yield solutions that sell. The course drills into the details ofarticulating market requirements andhelps extend Pragmatic Marketing’smarket-driven methodologies throughoutthe entire product team.

“We wanted to give our peopleguidance about how to write goodrequirements and better manage throughinfluence, so that those requirementswere accepted by the developmentteam. A strong set of requirements is the foundation for the functionalspecifications, which in turn becomethe foundation for the Quality Assurancetest plan. The requirements also drivethe Performance test plan and helpour cross-functional launch team considerhow to get the field up to speed onnew functionality. A good requirementsdocument is the foundation from whichproduct success springs.”

Market-sensing makes good senseWhen it comes to building a softwareproduct the market wants to buy, there’sno substitute for domain knowledge.“Actual market data is the key to agood product manager’s credibility,”Drew emphasizes. “We need to beable to speak confidently about businessproblems and market needs. We needto establish our folks as the customerexperts. That knowledge and credibilitycomes from the market-sensing we doday in and day out. We have investedconsiderable time in ensuring that our people visit customers. And wecoordinate customer advisory boardsfor each of our product releases. Wecan say with confidence that we arecustomer focused.”

She adds, “With this approach, ourrequirements are based on marketfacts versus opinion. With everyrequirement that we ship, we describea real, live market-use case; we presenta business case for why that particularrequirement is necessary. As a result,we’re sure that what we’re building is ultimately what the market wants.Beyond that, we have a very strongteam—one that can manage throughinfluence, that can discuss a broadrange of market needs, that can takewhat we have learned and extrapolatefrom there.”

In building the business case for itsproducts, the Kronos team has maturedinto persona-based development.“When we describe the market-usecases, we talk about the targetedpersonas for that particular release and what business problem it solvesfor a particular persona,” Drew explains.

“It’s typical for us to ask, ‘What wouldDon Gormley think about it?’ He is ourInformation Systems Manager persona.Now we are not concentrating orfocusing product efforts on any onecustomer, but rather on an amalgamationof what is necessary to address a broader business need.”

The proof is in the productLearning about best practices forrequirements definition is well andgood; deploying them successfully isanother thing altogether. Kronos hasmastered both challenges.

“Within the latest release, we delivered a brand new scheduling product. Thenew solution was fully developedusing this model for writingrequirements,” says Drew. “And thereception from the marketplace hasbeen extraordinary. We have heardfrom customers and prospects alikewho said, ‘This is exactly what I need.’ That enthusiastic endorsementreinforces the effectiveness of ourmethodology.”

Drew concludes, “The most importanttakeaway from the Pragmatic Marketingcourses was: The answer is not in thebuilding. Their instructors have drilledinto us that you have to keep a pulseof the market. We found synergy withthe instructors because they understandour unique needs. When it comes toworkforce management, people thinkof Kronos first. When it comes tostrengthening our market-driven productdevelopment approach, we think ofPragmatic Marketing first.”

Practical Product Management™

September 13 – 15*................................Santa Clara, CASeptember 20 – 22*................................Boston, MASeptember 27 – 29*................................Austin, TXOctober 12 – 14* ....................................San Francisco, CAOctober 25 – 27* ....................................Boston, MANovember 8 – 10* ..................................San Francisco, CANovember 15 – 17*................................Chapel Hill, NCDecember 6 – 8*....................................Boston, MADecember 13 – 15*................................San Francisco, CA

* Requirements That Work, Day 3

Requirements That Work™

September 1........................................Toronto, OntarioSeptember 15 ....................................Santa Clara, CASeptember 22 ....................................Boston, MASeptember 29....................................Austin, TXOctober 14 ......................................San Francisco, CAOctober 27......................................Boston, MANovember 10 ................................San Francisco, CANovember 17................................Chapel Hill, NCDecember 8 ................................Boston, MADecember 15 ............................San Francisco, CA

Effective Marketing Programs™

September 22 – 23 ............Boston, MAOctober 14 – 15 ..............San Francisco, CADecember 8 – 9..............Boston, MADecember 15 – 16........San Francisco, CA

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Illustrates a practical process fordelivering programs that measurablyimpact revenue, market positioningand customer retention. Productmarketing and marcom professionalswill clearly understand how theycontribute to the company’s strategicand tactical goals.

Call (800) 816-7861 or go to www.PragmaticMarketing.com to register!

Provides a repeatable method forproduct planning resulting in a MarketRequirements Document that othersread and use. Establishes clear rolesfor product planning team membersand teaches a process that creates anexecutable plan that delivers solutionsthat sell.

Introduces a framework that givesproduct managers the tools to delivermarket-driven products that peoplewant to buy. Focuses on the practicalaspects of juggling daily tacticaldemands of supporting the channelwith strategic activities necessary tobecome expert on the market.

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

PRSRT STDUS POSTAGE

PAIDPHOENIX, AZPERMIT 995

productmarketing.com™

The Strategic Role ofProduct Management™

Free

September 16 ....Santa Clara, CASeptember 23 ....Boston, MAOctober 15 ........San Francisco, CANovember 18 ....Chapel Hill, NC

A subset of the two-day Practical ProductManagement seminar, this session introduces the industry standard for high-tech marketing.

Shows how Product Management and Marketing personnel can move from tactical

to strategic activities.

Registration for this free seminar is required via our website:

www.PragmaticMarketing.com