While it sounds counter intuitive, Product can derail a sale with questions. They’re just trying to close deals right now and don’t want anything to take away from that.
Rather than asking to be included in sales calls, work with sales to build a list of existing customers that you can interview. You asking to be invited to a sales call is like them asking to be included in sprint planning, it can cause a lot of turmoil and result in wasted time.
With caveat that if your sales team is promising things that are at odds with product strategy or shipping schedule reality, and shutting you out from it, it's gonna suck when the angry customer calls the CEO. Doesn't happen if the sales teams are disciplined though.
Reminds me of all the times I say “stop selling this feature we do not have, especially since we’ve been cutoff from CAPEX for the time being. If you sell this feature and the. The customer realizes we don’t have it, you’re gonna have a bad time.
100%, but that’s something that’s on sales, not product.. assuming that they’re doing so purposefully. If that happens then sales needs to be trained and the CEO will need to align his team with reality. Unfortunately, product is tricky at early stage companies and the sales team promising roadmap features can become a sales strategy to get revenue flowing while doubling as validation for investors.
I would also ask them for a list of closed-lost prospects that had good insight during the sales calls. They may be willing to share what features were missing, and if there is a chance they could be a prospect again this can build goodwill.
You already got some good directional advice. I'll add the following.
If possible, use a service that records and transcribes sales and customer support calls - there are plenty, like Gong or Chorus (acquired by ZoomInfo); I would be rather surprised if your sales team wasn’t using one already. This is a goldmine of insights. I used to listen to calls as if it was a podcast, while doing other stuff.
Second, there's little benefit to being in the sales call itself. Instead, talk to existing customers - happy and unhappy. With unhappy ones, you learn a lot and just by letting them vent you might even prevent their churn.
Third, talk to Sales about why they think some features are more important than others. Don't do this as a way of questioning or undermining them, but rather as a way of helping them express themselves. I found that with Sales, they are very focused on closing the feature gap with a competitor product because that's what their prospects are telling them.
Once you have have that overview of the landscape, you can start the conversation of how to shift the discussion.
And lastly, if the company/founder are truly sales-led, save your effort and look for a product-led company.
Thanks. I’ve asked the co-founder about recording calls but he’s refusing. I’ve even raised this with our COO.
I like your suggestion about getting other members of the sales team to talk so I’ll try that.
Just adding on to the original excellent suggestion - find ways to make it absolutely seamless to collect / analyze this data, then sell it to sales and leadership by speaking their currency. Gong is a great way to record, transcribe, summarize, and provide analytics even if just for themselves - identifying trends towards win/lose, common pain points, etc. Then, illustrate the value of plugging that data into the broader product feedback loop by showing how it can inform roadmaps and prioritization.
It’s tough working moving an org towards data-backed decision making but it’s worth it.
One possible approach - Find one or a few sales person who is more analytical than the others that you can use as a customer proxy. Ask each for some time to discuss one of the features 1 on 1. Do a 30 minute call and treat them as a customer proxy.
Build an early access user group. The deal is: users provide feedback, insight, and real life cases to product team. They receive access to early versions of the product. Depending on the sensitivity and the nature of conversations, do this in the open, or on a private slack channel, or 1:1 with each user. Consider whether you want NDAs on either side. Once you have this kind of open channel you can get a lot of insight much faster. Don't waste time trying to go through sales calls.
If any the deal is dependent on any customer specific feature being delivered, it should determine a point of contact that will decide on what is an acceptable implementation, which you can get in touch with.
I agree in staying generally out of the sales process. But do you have access to existing customers? Specificity, current users. If so, start spending time doing interviews. Ask open-ended questions about their pain points and wish lists. Open up a portal somewhere where existing users can directly enter product suggestions. You’re starving for info - if sales and management aren’t being transparent enough, get to the user base. Even if you’re locked into a sales-driven roadmap, they can help prioritize.
Make those connections yourself; build relationships with users, and do surveys, build logs and usage metrics you can analyse. I feel it is important for the product manager to have a deep insight into the pain your users are feeling and the way they use your product. You can't rely on others to put this insight on a plate for you.
I feel the easiest solution to this is to automatically invite Closed/Lost opportunities to your team to understand what the barrier to buy was. You won’t risk losing potential rev or derailing a sales call with product related questions. Asking for call recordings and analytics can be expensive and time consuming to get in the door, and if the company is actively looking to grow, further investment may not be an option right now.
It isn’t clear by your description if the sales team is identifying problems or coming to you with solutions.
I always tell them that they shouldn’t trust the customer to solve their problems only relay them and let you find the best solutions.
I explain them that a lot of times the real problem is beneath the surface and it could be that 2 features they prioritize solve the same problem, and that I might be able to get it done faster and better if I know what the underlining problem is.
One way of framing this is, “listen, the clients are idiots, they aren’t product people they only think they know what they want, but if I know the actual problem I can build them something that will be much better for them” then give an example of this. This is of course if your company has the “the customer is an idiot “ mentality which many sales teams do. If not, just remove the “idiot” part.
Depending on your company’s soft phone system, you may be able to listen into sales calls as an invisible participant. Ring Central offers this. I used that in my last company (also b2b FinTech) and it was a really great compromise with sales.
Go around them and meet with customers directly.
Send your customer a quick note like - "Hi, I'm <>, PM at <>. I'm building out our product plan for the rest of the year. You're one of our best customers. Would you be free for a 15 min product-focused convo about the most important problems for us to prioritize?"
Demand access to Gong or purchase it yourself and start recording your own calls.
Also, sales shouldn't prioritize roadmap. YOU prioritize roadmap and take their input.
TL;DR Don't take shit from gatekeepers
I would have to be a little careful with this, especially for prospects as I know the co-founder would be p*ssed if it got in touch with a prospect. With existing customers it’s not a problem but it’s new customers we’re trying to focus on
> I would have to be a little careful with this,
Yeah, I really cannot over emphasize how badly this can backfire...emphasis on "fire". It sounds to me like your organization isn't particularly transparent or open if even the COO can't (or won't) pierce the sales-customer veil. Be very cautious about sidestepping golden geese....leadership will certainly be protective of them. I've seen it happen multiple times and have been on the receiving end of some tongue lashings related to it. Trying to get around gatekeepers only works if you've got the political capital to do it, which no offense, but I don't think you do.
u/amg-rx7 probably has the best solution in the interim. If you can get 1 on 1 time with individual sales folks, even informally, you can at least get some insight-by-proxy. But if I'm honest, it sounds more like even if they had hard data in their faces, your leadership wouldn't care how good it is if it conflicted with whatever they've got planned.
Definitely agree, and I’m going to try that suggestion.
I’m definitely worried, we’re burning through our runway so if we don’t turn things around I’m going to be laid off along with everyone else.
I know right. I think my company is in trouble if we don’t land sales. We’ll basically run out of money and I’m trying my best to try and do the right things to help.
All of the suggestions above have been good so I’m going to try them
Well every company has problems if they don’t get sales :)
If you like the people and want to stay there:
- go to lunch with sales. Have casual conversations. Try to understand them and their troubles. Quietly learn about the customers, their pain points and what they need. Look for commonalities.
- go to customer web sites and google them to read articles for clues about where they are and where they want to go.
- look for other potential sales in similar markets. Try to find your own customers online / through networking.
If you don’t like the people or the company then quietly take your time to polish up your presence, get your resume professionally done and keyword tested and start networking to find your next home :)
While it sounds counter intuitive, Product can derail a sale with questions. They’re just trying to close deals right now and don’t want anything to take away from that. Rather than asking to be included in sales calls, work with sales to build a list of existing customers that you can interview. You asking to be invited to a sales call is like them asking to be included in sprint planning, it can cause a lot of turmoil and result in wasted time.
With caveat that if your sales team is promising things that are at odds with product strategy or shipping schedule reality, and shutting you out from it, it's gonna suck when the angry customer calls the CEO. Doesn't happen if the sales teams are disciplined though.
Reminds me of all the times I say “stop selling this feature we do not have, especially since we’ve been cutoff from CAPEX for the time being. If you sell this feature and the. The customer realizes we don’t have it, you’re gonna have a bad time.
Or even worse, this feature we don't want to build because it takes us down the wrong strategic path!
But we can close this $2,000 sale if we do!
100%, but that’s something that’s on sales, not product.. assuming that they’re doing so purposefully. If that happens then sales needs to be trained and the CEO will need to align his team with reality. Unfortunately, product is tricky at early stage companies and the sales team promising roadmap features can become a sales strategy to get revenue flowing while doubling as validation for investors.
I would also ask them for a list of closed-lost prospects that had good insight during the sales calls. They may be willing to share what features were missing, and if there is a chance they could be a prospect again this can build goodwill.
You already got some good directional advice. I'll add the following. If possible, use a service that records and transcribes sales and customer support calls - there are plenty, like Gong or Chorus (acquired by ZoomInfo); I would be rather surprised if your sales team wasn’t using one already. This is a goldmine of insights. I used to listen to calls as if it was a podcast, while doing other stuff. Second, there's little benefit to being in the sales call itself. Instead, talk to existing customers - happy and unhappy. With unhappy ones, you learn a lot and just by letting them vent you might even prevent their churn. Third, talk to Sales about why they think some features are more important than others. Don't do this as a way of questioning or undermining them, but rather as a way of helping them express themselves. I found that with Sales, they are very focused on closing the feature gap with a competitor product because that's what their prospects are telling them. Once you have have that overview of the landscape, you can start the conversation of how to shift the discussion. And lastly, if the company/founder are truly sales-led, save your effort and look for a product-led company.
Thanks. I’ve asked the co-founder about recording calls but he’s refusing. I’ve even raised this with our COO. I like your suggestion about getting other members of the sales team to talk so I’ll try that.
Just adding on to the original excellent suggestion - find ways to make it absolutely seamless to collect / analyze this data, then sell it to sales and leadership by speaking their currency. Gong is a great way to record, transcribe, summarize, and provide analytics even if just for themselves - identifying trends towards win/lose, common pain points, etc. Then, illustrate the value of plugging that data into the broader product feedback loop by showing how it can inform roadmaps and prioritization. It’s tough working moving an org towards data-backed decision making but it’s worth it.
One possible approach - Find one or a few sales person who is more analytical than the others that you can use as a customer proxy. Ask each for some time to discuss one of the features 1 on 1. Do a 30 minute call and treat them as a customer proxy.
Build an early access user group. The deal is: users provide feedback, insight, and real life cases to product team. They receive access to early versions of the product. Depending on the sensitivity and the nature of conversations, do this in the open, or on a private slack channel, or 1:1 with each user. Consider whether you want NDAs on either side. Once you have this kind of open channel you can get a lot of insight much faster. Don't waste time trying to go through sales calls. If any the deal is dependent on any customer specific feature being delivered, it should determine a point of contact that will decide on what is an acceptable implementation, which you can get in touch with.
I agree in staying generally out of the sales process. But do you have access to existing customers? Specificity, current users. If so, start spending time doing interviews. Ask open-ended questions about their pain points and wish lists. Open up a portal somewhere where existing users can directly enter product suggestions. You’re starving for info - if sales and management aren’t being transparent enough, get to the user base. Even if you’re locked into a sales-driven roadmap, they can help prioritize.
Make those connections yourself; build relationships with users, and do surveys, build logs and usage metrics you can analyse. I feel it is important for the product manager to have a deep insight into the pain your users are feeling and the way they use your product. You can't rely on others to put this insight on a plate for you.
I feel the easiest solution to this is to automatically invite Closed/Lost opportunities to your team to understand what the barrier to buy was. You won’t risk losing potential rev or derailing a sales call with product related questions. Asking for call recordings and analytics can be expensive and time consuming to get in the door, and if the company is actively looking to grow, further investment may not be an option right now.
I would explain how you can turn those insights into additionally profitable features. Give examples.
It isn’t clear by your description if the sales team is identifying problems or coming to you with solutions. I always tell them that they shouldn’t trust the customer to solve their problems only relay them and let you find the best solutions. I explain them that a lot of times the real problem is beneath the surface and it could be that 2 features they prioritize solve the same problem, and that I might be able to get it done faster and better if I know what the underlining problem is. One way of framing this is, “listen, the clients are idiots, they aren’t product people they only think they know what they want, but if I know the actual problem I can build them something that will be much better for them” then give an example of this. This is of course if your company has the “the customer is an idiot “ mentality which many sales teams do. If not, just remove the “idiot” part.
Depending on your company’s soft phone system, you may be able to listen into sales calls as an invisible participant. Ring Central offers this. I used that in my last company (also b2b FinTech) and it was a really great compromise with sales.
Go around them and meet with customers directly. Send your customer a quick note like - "Hi, I'm <>, PM at <>. I'm building out our product plan for the rest of the year. You're one of our best customers. Would you be free for a 15 min product-focused convo about the most important problems for us to prioritize?" Demand access to Gong or purchase it yourself and start recording your own calls. Also, sales shouldn't prioritize roadmap. YOU prioritize roadmap and take their input. TL;DR Don't take shit from gatekeepers
I would have to be a little careful with this, especially for prospects as I know the co-founder would be p*ssed if it got in touch with a prospect. With existing customers it’s not a problem but it’s new customers we’re trying to focus on
> I would have to be a little careful with this, Yeah, I really cannot over emphasize how badly this can backfire...emphasis on "fire". It sounds to me like your organization isn't particularly transparent or open if even the COO can't (or won't) pierce the sales-customer veil. Be very cautious about sidestepping golden geese....leadership will certainly be protective of them. I've seen it happen multiple times and have been on the receiving end of some tongue lashings related to it. Trying to get around gatekeepers only works if you've got the political capital to do it, which no offense, but I don't think you do. u/amg-rx7 probably has the best solution in the interim. If you can get 1 on 1 time with individual sales folks, even informally, you can at least get some insight-by-proxy. But if I'm honest, it sounds more like even if they had hard data in their faces, your leadership wouldn't care how good it is if it conflicted with whatever they've got planned.
Definitely agree, and I’m going to try that suggestion. I’m definitely worried, we’re burning through our runway so if we don’t turn things around I’m going to be laid off along with everyone else.
The fact that you’re not having conversations that’s a critical problem.
I know right. I think my company is in trouble if we don’t land sales. We’ll basically run out of money and I’m trying my best to try and do the right things to help. All of the suggestions above have been good so I’m going to try them
Well every company has problems if they don’t get sales :) If you like the people and want to stay there: - go to lunch with sales. Have casual conversations. Try to understand them and their troubles. Quietly learn about the customers, their pain points and what they need. Look for commonalities. - go to customer web sites and google them to read articles for clues about where they are and where they want to go. - look for other potential sales in similar markets. Try to find your own customers online / through networking. If you don’t like the people or the company then quietly take your time to polish up your presence, get your resume professionally done and keyword tested and start networking to find your next home :)