Chris Reid writes,
As a Product Manager, you typically spend your time performing Strategic activities (probably not enough time) and Tactical/Technical activities (probably far too much time). In fact, I'd wager that you spend so much time doing Tactical/Technical activities that it's what you're most comfortable doing, and that you find yourself slipping into technical jargon whenever you talk with your co-workers.
There's nothing wrong with technical jargon - until it comes time to train your Sales team on the latest version of your product. If you are training your Sales Engineers, or Tech Support, talking technical is what they need, and is also what they most easily understand. Your Sales team, on the other hand, are quite likely to run screaming out of the office once they realize that they're stuck in a meeting room with you for an hour, and you are going to do nothing but spout technical mumbo-jumbo at them.
It's critically important to realize that your Sales team doesn't want to hear the technical details of what's been created, no matter how cool you think they might be. What your Sales team wants for you to do is arm them with the knowledge they need to win deals.
What is that information, you ask? That's easy - it's the Market Problems you discovered when you first started researching what should go into your latest release. Those Market Problems aren't just for your consumption, or for explaining to R&D what you're trying to achieve - they are the little nuggets of gold that your Sales team is dying for you to tell them. I'd suggest that a Sales training meeting should look like the following:
1. Review what the new product version is, when it will be in Beta, and when it will be released to the public
2. Review (as high-level bullet points) the Market Problems the new product version fixes
3. Review each Market Problem in detail:
a) The Problem itself
b) How much prospects will value your solution
c) What sort of solution (if any) your competitors have for this Problem
d) How to position your solution to the Problem against your competitor's solution to the Problem
4. Give a quick, sub-5 minute demo (in total) of the new features, and make sure that you emphasize how easy to use the new features are
5. Answer any questions the Sales team may have
6. E-mail a summary PDF to the Sales team - this PDF should include the description of the Market Problems, the solution found in the new version of your product, how to position the new version of your product against your competitors, and should also list the answers to the top 3-5 questions that were asked during the training session
That's not so bad, now is it? Trust me - if you train your Sales team by showing them the Market Problems your latest version fixes, they'll immediately see the value in the product, and will have exactly what they need to close new deals.
Contact Chris at Chris Reid <creid@n-able.com>
