Browsing Tag

pragmatic.

Marketing IS in the Middle: David Daniels

Before I met the next person in the series, I was facing some of the most challenging product management opportunities in my career – a new product, a legacy market and a bunch of customers who needed a little love and David put it into perspective quickly – “Jon sounds like you’re a project manager and not a product manager.” David Daniels was right, I took his advice and put it to work in a practical way, like many organizations product management needed to be redefined under the management at the time.

David now works at Pragmatic Marketing, where I took my first course on how to improve the definition of a product manager with Steve Johnson. I appreciate David taking his time out of his travels to participate in the Marketing IS in the Middle initiative here.

What marketing roles have you had and in what markets?

Product Manager (enterprise software)
Product Marketing Manager (enterprise software)
VP Product Marketing (enterprise software)
VP Marketing (enterprise software)

When you look at your career in marketing, what discipline/component have you found most interesting/challenging?

Product marketing was one of the most interesting and challenging roles in my career. It was the first time I was really forced to think about markets of buyers rather than users. Prior to that my focus was on users of products for which I was a product manager. In the role of product marketing manager my thinking shift from using criteria to buying criteria, and that shift was a significant one.

What do you feel the most important component of a successful marketing gig? (Product, Brand, Positioning)

Hands down the most important component of a successful marketing gig is to be the experts on your buyers: who they are, the different types, their buying criteria and the buying process. Everything else you do in marketing becomes a whole lot easier.

Since you selected something I wouldn’t have listed, how has this contributed to revenue?

Becoming the expert on buyers ties directly to revenue outcomes that are more easily discussed with Sales and the management team. Talking to customers (those that have already bought) rarely give you insight into how to sell more stuff.

What experiences brought you to this conclusion?

People start out being buyers and become customers after they buy. By focusing on who buys and why they buy it becomes much easier (sometimes trivial) to develop a position and message that resonates with the people who have budget to spend. Focusing on features drags you down into the weeds and encourages discussion that is more appropriate after the purchase.

If you could design the perfect corporate environment for a marketer to be successful what would that be?

A couple of things come to mind. First, the head of Marketing should a peer of the head of Sales. To make that work, the head of Marketing needs to be focused on markets of buyers and stop talking about promotional activities. Second, the effectiveness of Marketing should never be measured on the number of leads generated. It’s a useless and stupid measurement that doesn’t align with the real goal – revenue. Third, Sales is not Marketing’s customer. The sales team is an audience that Marketing needs to influence in order to achieve a revenue outcome. Finally, put a firewall between Sales and Marketing. Too many Sales organizations use Marketing in a sales support role, resulting in Marketing resources being spent in Sales not on important Marketing initiatives. I define “sales support” as helping one sales guy one deal. If management understood the real cost of Sales resources they would be stunned. The old saying “everyone’s in Sales” is a load of crap.

How far is this from reality?

Light years.

December 20, 2008 by Jon Gatrell

Marketing IS in the Middle: Ben Cody

Oh development – they HAVE to be the problem, that’s the common believe in a good deal of companies. The next expert in delivering his take on Marketing being in the middle is one the of best technologist I’ve worked with and a development leader writ large, Ben Cody. I call him Benji, mainly in my head, but he is a what I refer to as a practical visionary. Ben transitioned from be being a developer leader with great ideas I depended on for years to an industry leader in B2B technologies and BPM. I trust Ben on every level because he provides input, improvement and access to his ideas and team, not a common thing for a marketer (my opinion) and why I think it is important to get his marketing insights. Ben currently is VP of Product Management at Global360 and continues to change the industry, glad to know him – glad he participated in the interview below.

What marketing roles have you had and in what markets?

Various roles in Product Management, Product Marketing and Field Marketing in the enterprise software markets, with a predominant focus on Financial Services and Manufacturing.

When you look at your career in marketing, what discipline/component have you found most interesting/challenging?

Although not what I do day to day anymore, the field marketing. Demand generation is a challenge – getting people to respond to various programs – was one of the more fascinating studies in human behavior. A given tactic works for one product, but not the other.

What do you feel the most important component of a successful marketing gig? (Product, Brand, Positioning)

I came out of development, so I’m definitely a Product person. The product is the hardest one to change and takes the longest to build right. The right product with the right capabilities which solves problems is all that the market can ask for. But this often isn’t the product that marketers are positioning. Buyers see through lipstick on the pig these days like never before, so stretching capabilities in a data sheet or simply polishing the UI doesn’t work in a competitive marketplace. Too many were burnt in the last big wave of enterprise IT spend back around the turn of the century, so Product is the key component.

What experiences brought you to this conclusion?

I’ve worked multiple markets, in various stages of maturity, from new markets to laggards and with varied targets, such as the SMB or Enterprise. To that end, I’ve spent a good deal of time taking legacy products and repositioning them has taught me the hard way that lipstick wears off. Not that much fun, profitable, but not fun.

If you could design the perfect corporate environment for a marketer to be successful what would that be?

I’ve worked multiple markets, in various stages of maturity, from new markets to laggards and with varied targets, such as the SMB or Enterprise. Along the way, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some industry leading, incredibly innovative solutions, as well as my share of also ran’s and legacy products. No matter how hard you try, lipstick wears off and the pig over time, and the pig will show his real face. In many ways it’s like cooking, if you don’t start with quality ingredients, you won’t be satisfied with your meal in the end. If you could design the perfect corporate environment for a marketer to be successful what would that be?
It’s the leadership and how they view investment, market pursuit and strategic planning. Leadership starts at the top, so in my experience the #1 thing by far is that the CEO needs to have a vision for the market and the company that they pursue above all else. And that vision needs to be something more than a targeted earnings per share. Typically these leaders come from sales. They do occasionally grow up through the product ranks as well. What I’ve seen fail is a pure P&L oriented mentality that is typical of leaders that grew up in the finance office. In fairness I’ve known a one or two finance types that were good CEO’s. But finance types are the ones who ran GM, Ford and Chrysler for the last 20 years. These are the leaders who didn’t feel there was enough $ in hybrid cars (forget the environment) or that “good enough” quality was good enough. – need I say more?
How far is this from reality?

It is the reality today in successful companies…

December 15, 2008 by Jon Gatrell

And the CUSTOMER WINS!

So I was browsing around at Pragmatic and found an interesting piece by Barbara Nelson on Agile and politics. Here is the somewhat interesting open:

The Politics of Agile
In the world of agile software development, it seems like Marketing and Development are in a race for control of “the product.” Who will win? The flakes in Marketing or the geeks in Development?

I’ve never thought of it as who wins, rather what the revenue, the competitiveness of a solution and do customers like it. Nelson then sets up the piece with the following 3 career alternatives, albeit slightly weighted options:

While developers sprint through development cycles, one of three things happens to product managers. 1) They are ignored. 2) They are dragged deep into the development cycle. 3) They lead the team to build products people want to buy. The first two situations are lethal to a product manager’s career. The third alternative can lead to successful products and successful careers.

Oh the age old politics of PM…. ? Hurray! A new set of methodology based scapegoating techniques for the marketplace. Clearly talking to people helps with the process and the goal is for the customer to win. Faster, Better – more effective… “NASA development” regimens, while rigorous and needed for space travel are not necessarily needed for software.

I’ve always thought effective product management was politics-like – engage the people, earn trust and deliver on what is promise. I know the later is theoretical in politics, but product managers are effectively diplomats trading favors. Agile methodologies help drive personal interaction and tightens relationships throughout the team by partnering on delivery. I’ve always seen agile methodologies as a way to “formalize” the dev process in context of the customer. Pragmatic is a strong revenue “front end” for agile development, since it is market focused and innately iterative from the customer perspective. If the customer doesn’t win, no one wins – there is this whole revenue thing which drives future builds and development.

Wouldn’t index cards be perfect for customer meetings?

“Just a second Mr. Customer…. so what’s that you need again? …I needed to get a index card from by briefcase to bring it back for the ‘board’…”

February 28, 2008 by Jon Gatrell