The Secrets of Product Management Podcast by Nils Davis

10 Tips For Product Managers

12.13.2019 - By Nils DavisPlay

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Take Action Today With These Product Management Tips

A few of the last episodes – #331 and #329 – were pretty abstract, about mental models and how it’s hard to predict in advance who’s going to be a great product manager (“Product Managers Are Unicorns.”)

But this episode is a little more grounded, a little more concrete – it’s all tips you can start using today!

These are 10 of the most powerful actions you can start doing today to become a better product manager, get your sales people to love you, win more deals, and watch your profits soar.

I provide context for each tip and mention the article or podcast where I talk a lot more about the idea.

The Top 10 Things To Start Doing Today

I list the 10 tips briefly below, including links to blog posts on the Secret Product Manager Handbook blog (https://secretpmhandbook.com) and to related episodes you can find on this site.

* Reduce the perception of risk: I have multiple podcasts episodes and articles about managing the prospect’s perception of risk and what I call “the Value Inequality.” Check out episodes 306 and 307 for more.* What Problem? What does your product do? It solves a problem for someone. A problem that’s so bad that your prospects are willing to pay real money for the solution. Episode 311 has more on this topic, as well as my articles on Value Propositions and What Does A Product Manager Do.* Build in Knowledge: Your customers don’t want to buy capabilities, they want to buy solutions and knowledge. Episode 319 has an interesting take on this as well.* Find market problems: The most important activity we have as product managers is finding market problems to solve. Episode 308 is all about “getting out of the building” to talk to the market.* Learn To Tell A Story: I’m sure you know that stories are the most effective way to communicate with people. Make sure to get emotionally compelling stories from your customers. You can listen to my episode on how to elicit and tell great customer success stories for more guidelines.* Reposition Agile: Many executives have a hard time understanding “agile” (actually, many people at all levels of the organization do). Here’s my article on a better way to talk to your execs about agile, focusing around the outcome – delivering value to market faster.

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