Sales the Forgotten Lever
Background
I started my career working in a value added reseller; while it wasn’t a job I cherished at the time the experience is just invaluable now in my role as a Product Manager
The Problem
In product development the goal is always to build a product “so good it practically sells itself”. We want to create a product that is completely interpretable by the user, requires little or no interaction to get it to fly off shelves, and is completely identifiable with the target market. There are a lot of tricks that are used to get to this point with a product including: focus groups, targeted advertising, branding, slogans, and Public Relations.
A funny thing happens on the way to the check-out stand though. Product Managers begin to ignore the traditional and some would argue most important part of the sales process: the advocate. It stands to reason as PMs begin to work more and more on the areas they control, and try to get to a more direct interaction with consumers that they would begin to miss areas that are beyond their sphere of influence.
Marketing Tries to Solve the Problem
The types of product positioning I’ve detailed are all centralized around Advertising that is creating a message around explaining the value at a customer. While good advertising creates the appearance of insight into customers’ demands/needs it’s also one sided approach with no adjustment to the individual’s needs. Another major failing of this approach is its impact is extremely difficult to measure.
Understanding these limitations marketers turn to “direct-response marketing” a method heavily relied upon by infomercials, catalogue sales, and search advertising. The idea here is that a customer will self select the product and prompted by an offer will reach out to the company directly to purchase the product. Direct-response is much more cost effective than other forms of Advertising they also tend to breed skepticism in a large audience base, which can limit effectiveness.
Just no Substitute to Sales
Marketing and Advertising by their nature have to scale out as broadly as possible while still maintaining the appearance of being directed at the intended audience. This creates a huge gap in effectiveness as your campaign either needs to be broad enough to hit secondary groups, or you have to ignore them to ensure the primary audience message is delivered (both have drawbacks).
So say we’re targeting a computer at 20 year-olds who are going off to college and need a machine for word processing, internet, and video/VOIP telecommunications. Does that product not also work for the mother of 2 who sells Avon and has routine conferences she must go to? In fact the product might be the perfect offering for her, but because she doesn’t fit the primary audience profiles any commercials and advertising would miss her.
Nothing Like the Human Touch
Going back to our mother of 2 seeking a computer, at first glance this seems like a missed opportunity for our computer maker, but when we introduce a sales channel and arm them with the appropriate messaging to hit a secondary market a chance for success is created.
The importance of a sales force comes across in a dialog with the customer, in this engagement the salesperson is able to understand individual needs and provide a consultative approach to positioning the value. I can’t stress enough how valuable the sales interaction can be, given it allows for a re-messaging to meet the individual customer’s needs as well as a good feedback mechanism to Product Managers in the planning of new products or campaigns.
Where Sales Matters Most
· Start-ups or new products with little to no market penetration
· Companies who lack substantial budgets to run aggressive PR and Advertising campaigns
· With products that are complex or have hard to convey value propositions
· Products with a balkanized customer base
Take-away: The more successful a product is the greater the danger of ignoring the sales aspect of your business. With a strong brand and product category leadership is the disadvantage of falling into “it’s good enough” mentality.
Smart Product Managers will quickly realize that a closer integration with sales will provide a multiplier on the revenues they can expect from a Product Offering.
My drill sergeant had a saying, “you can’t polish a turd”. I think that is very applicable with your suggestion. The problem is not that the sales guy is not doing his job; it is the developer not doing theirs. There are countless examples of companies like Microsoft putting out inferior products, and making a good number of sales. In the long run, the poor product will result in lower ROI for the organization.
Let’s dialog on that “product so good it sells itself…” Perhaps the developer is completely delusional. What about a business NEED for the product? For example, the world runs on iPods and iPhones. Why in the world would MS produce the Zune? It does not matter if it is technologically superior, nobody is going to buy it because the iPod is just a part of your life. May I also suggest that developers think more highly of their products simply because they produced it. Maybe if it sounds too good to be true, it is…
Neither the problem, nor the solution, is marketing or sales. It is quality control. Until American companies quit producing garbage, you really will not see things get better. This can be applied to just about any industry, including car makers, software producers and even the television and movie industry. When we lose Anheuser-Busch and the Budwiser to some foreign company, it only shows just how far the whole thing has gotten.
Perhaps we should take a lesson from post-war Japan?
Honestly I find your argument off-base and irrelevant. You’ve completely missed the point of this article all together. At no point was this article about developers not putting out good product, and the fact you took the time to ridicule it shows a bias and lack of attention to the details expressed in this post.
The phrase “a product so good it sells itself” was my interjection not a developer, so your delusional theory is out the window. As for a business need that should definitely come into play when defining and building a product planning strategy, however it’s not very helpful when you have a finished product.
I think the idea that a business should never even bother to try to create a product because there is a dominate competitor today laughable and foolish. Especially given the war-chest to make the investment going out with a product that is (a) disruptive to the dominate competitor’s business line and (b) fits a market need that the dominate competitor is ignoring is the way you run an effective business and keep your enemies off-guard. Zune is both of these so I’m ok with the Zune.
Your argument around Zune actually underpins my point, the point of the entire article, and the point that was completely neglected in the comment. The Zune has a lot of great services, it has amazing hardware, it has a strong message & positioning statement, it fits a clear need (although we can argue about how broad the customer base is). Unfortunately the sales support, the product placement, and the distribution channels have been poor. You see something you laugh at and call a failure, and I see a missed opportunity.
Every time I stop and tell someone about the Zune Pass there is excitement, an interest that wasn’t there before a 30 second pitch is now evident in the follow up questions they ask. Unfortunately, you have product groups focusing in on hardware and ignoring the services aspect because they’re trying to beat Apple at their own game.
Listen to sales, listen to your audience. If the vast majority of your install base is ordering the subscription then that’s really what you’re selling not the player. If customers show you the value your product is giving, you need to listen or you’re done. This is exactly what fostered this article after I listened to a Product Manager tell me their target market was the one that wasn’t buying anything from them, and the people who are buying a lot of the product shouldn’t be because their isn’t as much of a value proposition for them.
Ok, let’s listen to sales. How many zune units have been sold compared to the number of iPod units?
As I noted in my comment, the Zune is a superior product; however, their sales numbers cannot touch the number of iPod units that have been sold. Your myopic focus on promoting Microsoft’s products has obscured your objectivity in the matter.
Their strategy is flawed. Instead of focusing on the market needs, like Office for example, they throw hundreds of ideas out there and see which one sticks. For example, they tried to sell medical billing software in the late eightees. The attempt was amateurish at best.
This is completely relevant to the discussion. You make the argument that marketing and sales is the problem; however, I counter with the argument that product quality is the problem. It is a problem with Microsoft, Apple, HP, IBM, and just about every other tech company out there. We could discuss that piece of garbage named Apple TV as another relevant example. They continue to try to modify that product, but again, they are just polishing the turd.
May I suggest that you recognize your personal bias in the discussion, and that you consider this subject from an objective perspective. American companies are not CONSISTENTLY producing quality products. That is the real problem in this discussion.
I disagree with you on this point strongly, but there’s no point in going back over it. Additionally the argument itself dilutes from the core message I’m trying to send. Saying there is a problem with product quality and then ignoring the problem with sales that I covered in the article just seems like you’re implying the sales and marketing is fine.
It’s not look at the example given in the article.
Maybe product quality or doing 1 thing and do that 1 thing well are good topics for another day, but that’s not the focus of this specific article.
You cannot apply a general statement to every single case. This is very situational. In some cases, sales and marketing may be a factor; however, I would challenge you to find an American tech company where quality control is not an issue. Microsoft has spent a lot of money marketing the Zune, and Apple has spent a lot of money marking Apple TV. The problem is not the marketing and sales; it is the quality of the product.
Actually, the psychology behind your answer is very revealing. Given your position on this thread, along with your responses in other threads, are very telling. You seem to avoid dialog that conflicts with your opinion, and you want to place the blame (and focus) on sales and marketing. My position is that American companies ARE really good at selling you things, even things that you do not need or want. We write the book on sales!
If you want to open yourself up to criticism by posting in a public blog, then you need to be able to take opposing viewpoints on in a rational discussion, regardless of the source. The message you are sending is that you do not want to THINK. If you want to provide your opinions on an article, then be ready for a discussion that will make you think.
And for the record, the Zune is a DAMN good product.
Actually the psychology is even more interesting than that. I perception is that activity on the blog from users is a key way to increase the value of the blog, and retain eyes that hit the page. My concern is more about alienating potential re-posters and keeping the dialog going for maximum impact on the business.
We can argue that maybe by not going head to head so much it’s a missed opportunity and I’ll consider that. At the same time I am in an org. driven by product development based decisions vs. sales based decisions so my reality is a little different than what your experience is.
Thanks for your words about Zune. Here’s why I think its sales and marketing that are the problem with the Zune specifically. If I can convince someone to spend $299 and $15 a month, in 2 conversations that were no longer than 10 minutes each time, then that is a product that could be sold easily. The fact we’ve focused in on the device aspect, when that is a stronghold of Apple, is very concerning. The Zune Pass is a disruptive force that can be difficult to present as customers are not used to that model with music.
How I was able to position it effectively is say “well it’s like Netflix, I mean they don’t let you keep every movie yet you pay them $15 a month”. This plus the 10 songs a month is such a value I’m blown away we don’t lead out with that.
What I’d love to see is Zune Pass on Xbox360. Forget people buying the player for an additional $10 a month you can play any music while you play your favorite game. Play to your strengths in this case market-share on Xbox360 and Xbox Live.
Ah, now you are talking about a completely new market and a new opportunity. As I have said in other postings, the Xbox is one of Microsoft’s greatest products.
Putting the Zune Pass on the Xbox would be an excellent opportunity in an arena that Apple cannot compete. That would be a hell of a lot better then trying to get folks to throw away their iPods in favor of another device. They could even change the Zune Pass to include downloading of copies of Xbox titles and even movies. This would be a direct challenge to the whole iTunes, and it has the potential to achieve what Apple was trying with Apple TV. The difference is they already have the technological infrastructure in place with all of those Xboxes and the Xbox live connections.
The key would be to keep it focused. Don’t try to make this thing a cell phone, web browers, makes your coffee type of device and simply present it as a game console that can serve as a media center. That would keep it popular with the gamers, while simultaneously giving the older crowd a reason to buy a game console under the guise of a media center.
Damn.. you were able to bring it back to marketing….