One of the duties that frequently falls to Product Managers is to train the sales force, getting it prepared to sell the product. As the person who has scrutinized and measured the market opportunity, as the person who has heard the needs of customers and prospects, as the person who has prioritized the benefits required ...

For the many Product Managers and others out there who have given software demos, you know just how badly things can go wrong. I have decided to write a lighthearted holiday issue reminiscing about some of my own and my colleagues' most unusual demo experiences. Read on to realize that you're not the only one for ...

Product Managers provide a unique role in a software company, something that may include skills in Sales, Marketing, and Development, but reaches well beyond the scope of any of those three functions. It's a role nobody else fills. Yet because of their in-depth understanding of the market and the reasons people want and need their ...

In small and large software companies alike, Product Management is usually the critical factor in creating an effective sales toolkit. That's because Product Management marries the strategic goals coming from the management team with the level of detail needed to support the sales team. Product Management takes its understanding of everything from the business model ...

For any of you who have been closely involved in a sale where your product was competing directly against another product, you know that selling against a competitor is tough. Product Managers, as part of supporting the sales force, need to provide guidance and support in selling against the competition. But there is no formal body ...

One important contribution that Product Managers make is to play a key role in developing tools for the sales force that qualify prospects and reduce the sales cycle. This is a natural outcome of the Product Manager having deep familiarity not only with the product and benefits but also with the needs and goals of the product's users. When a business buys ...

On www.productmarketing.com, there's a survey of product managers which covers salary and job duties. One interesting section of this survey is called Comments for the VP of Sales. And the very first comment is this: "Product management is not sales support" This is a telling sentence. Specifically, what it's telling us is that Product Managers frequently suspect ...

Product Managers often bridge the gap between technical understanding of the product and the ability to present its benefits to non-technical individuals. Therefore the sales force calls upon their assistance to present the product during visits to prospects. If you find yourself a member of a team that is calling on a prospect, you can provide ...