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Thank you.
Stan Shapiro

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but there is a difference in being in control of P/L than actually doing something useful with it. if you are good – then you are essentially the business unit manager for the product suite and in a larger corporation that can place you at Division level.

that’s where a lot of neat things happen.

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I can also say I would not mind working for a good SVP of Sales and Marketing. the SVP of Sales and Marketing is a “showman” – you have a great role as the #2 guy.

you are the matrix guy…

you are already locked into the engineering and marketing streams, you have a lot of good things to say to the executive team, and by the nature of your job you gain leadership inertia either formally or informally.

if by chance you are able to generate revenue routinely, you are always on time and within budget, as well as creating a great product line at the same time, who is going to complain?

the sales guys will love you for it and the SVP will be proud to call you a friend… and the neat part for you is that you get to do engineering marketing. not a bad combination.

SVP’s of sales and marketing are critical positions. they have a rollodex, are excellent showmen and tag team with the CEO who is all into growing a successful company with great things to say and great numbers on the books.

but an SVP of sales marketing is also an order of magnitude better than one or the other. that’s where there sometime a leadership dichotomy between “sales”…and then “marketing”. they are also an order of magnitude more expensive but what they can do for a company is instant industry awareness.

- it is a pleasure to work for someone that can “dual-role”. as for the thread about working for sales. in a way you already do.. as I said they are your first customer (think infrastructure marketing).

- you don’t have to make them happy… you just have to make them successful. your inside product knowledge as to what is coming down the pipeline is always held at arms length.

- if you bring a great “marketing” and “product line” perspective to the job. they are all going to love you for it. so who you work for… in marketing or engineering won’t matter.

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it is easier to drive thru engineering… but there is so much fun to provide leadership and pull through through marketing. besides you like to win in the market and make customers happpy.

just a few thoughts… I won’t post for awhile. let you mull this over.

thanks for letting me into the group!

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it is much easier “to drive” out of “engineering” than out of “marketing”. there is deep information you get by being in the engineering food chain that you don’t get in marketing.

it is also easier to be good product manager with an engineering background and then to become a excellent “product marketing agent” – than the reverse (i.e. there is no substitute for experience and education).

an mba is great… but its not everything. people gravitate to people just like them personally and professionally. so if you work with engineers you need to talk like an engineer.

on the complementary side, you allow your mba to speak for itself when you improve the flow and the messaging of your marcom and product line activities so things go smoothly for direct sales, telesales and the channel.

- it won’t take long for people to see you are minding the fort.

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the best “product jobs” I ever had were working with the CTO and/or VP of Engineering. then you are in firmly in position as “company evangelist” and by taking ownership (with or without direct line management authority) you have detailed access into the development pipeline, the customer service pipeline and the sales pipeline together.

you are providing a “service” internally that engineering can’t do on it’s own. engineers want to build cool things and sell product. if they didn’t… they wouldn’t be engineers. you help the product become successful.. if the product line isn’t successful there are a lot of unhappy campers out there. and these are all good people who are willing to burn the midnight oil.

- with that said it is very difficult to ferret out where the bottlenecks and “open highway” is during an interview. believe me I know :O)

it may take 1-3 months or just 2-3 weeks in a very volatile organization to separate the formal versus informal chain of command.

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I have also worked quite a few times in Marketing. there is a lot to be said for driving home strategy, messaging and product line success. it makes you feel good.

when you drive through “marketing”… you do have access to the corporate roadmap, the executive road show briefings and usually very confidential data on how the exec team and board are planning to take the company forward. normally only the engineering VP sees this stuff.

many times sales is left out. they have a revenue target to focus on and they just need the tools in place to make them successful. marketing needs a budget… but more so it needs “leverage”, leverage inside the company, with customers, with sales and the channel.

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to be a great product manager, keep your engineering skills and common sense to the forefront and people will come to you in this very matrixed environment for guidance… and especially with a a lot of problems :O)

hope this perspective helps you get through the “glass ceiling”.

its a very pivotal role and you are on the front lines which is exactly where you want to be.

- so the net of my comment is driving out of engineering and/or marketing then doing both. figuring out a way during the interview to find out what the lay of the land is, but more so understanding some of the dynamics withing the engineering and executive team that can make you successful.

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one of the most important issues is “mindshare” within the company. you have as much “mindshare” with the executive team as the amount of revenue you bring in. that can be in product, support, maintenance, and professional services combined.

so if you make $20M in revenue… you have $20M of “mindshare”. the strategic part becomes evident in a different manner. something strategic to the company may not make much revenue until it ramps.

then comes the internal/external bargaining with the executive team, the CFO, the CTO and your partners.

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will tell you though… your first customer is the “sales team”. they need to be incentivised to sell your product suite in their comp plan. with or without $20M mindshare you can still get that to happen.

then you do an outreach program to country managers one at a time and make them successful. as you help each one – they will move serious amounts of product (you are championing your product, you are making them look good, and you are making everyone money :O)

hope this helps… good thread!

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Luca – Great point about the “caretaker” product manager. All PM’s are caretakers to some degree, but as your product ages, the innovator to caretaker ratio changes. Only you know which ratio is best for you.

Greg – Good thought on the separation between Marketing and Product Development. Marketing never wants to spend money on anything but new features, so if they control the budget, care and feeding work will suffer.

Shawn – We should have included a separate point about how your product fits into the strategy. Thanks for bringing that up.

Syed – I agree. Everyone should read “Product Manager Wanted: HR’s Mission Impossible?” It’s one of B2BPM’s best posts. Its actually slated to become an article for Pragmatic Marketing’s magazine!

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