📕 B2B Product Management Strategy; How To Hire During Fast Growth; Beating Product Debt…

Republished By Plato

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💰 Product managers have a tough job because there are lots of stakeholders (the CEO, sale team, and engineers to name a few) who hold differing opinions on the decisions they make. B2B PMs have their own unique set of challenges, which Sid Arora recently detailed in the Product Coalition. The first he lays out is probably the most common amongst B2B software – companies often only care about one metric, and that’s revenue. So sneaking in important but undervalued projects like bug fixes or refactoring code can come with scrutiny. Tying these “unsexy” projects to a dollar amount (for example, how much money will you prevent from churning with a bug fix) is the best way to make your case.

⚰️ Product debt is a topic that isn’t often discussed but can be a silent killer of growth. The debt is incurred when companies try to optimize their product at all costs without having a real vision of how those improvements will solve their customers’ problems. To grow your product in the right way, your roadmap needs to include fixing short-term needs and keeping where your industry or vertical is going in mind. You want to make sure you don’t become a feature factory – companies who focus on churning out new features often get into a habit of building things their customers don’t need. Eliminating these low traction areas of your product is a great starting point for managing product debt.

🔐 You can’t define marketing success without measurement, which is why we all track simple metrics like engagements, clickthroughs, conversion rates, etc. But we tend to give those easily trackable metrics a disproportionate amount of attention because simply put, we are too lazy to explore new and more challenging ones. That’s called the measurability bias, and it occurs in a wide range of areas that extend far beyond marketing and SaaS. So what can you do about it? Try to have an open mind towards less familiar metrics. They could end up being key to unlocking a new level of effectiveness in your marketing.

👷 Revenue growth can pick up quickly, and if you aren’t prepared with a plan to scale your team, that growth can halt just as fast as it started. Tomasz Tunguz makes a case for planning at least six-months out when it comes to hiring. Using a hypothetical dev department, he shows how important it is to evenly distribute workload between department heads, managers, and employees. You should also plan how different job functions will evolve with your company. But the real key to successfully scaling your team is knowing the type of people you want to hire during this stage. Software is a unique industry, people who are hungry to learn and adaptable to the quick (and sometimes seismic) shifts we face will do best..

🥶 No one ever gets excited when they hear the word audit (sorry CPAs who didn’t plan on waking up and catching a stray). That’s because financial audits are long, expensive, and anxiety-inducing, but one type of audit shouldn’t give you chills – the marketing audit. This is different from your regular marketing reports because it takes a comprehensive view of all your activities and compiles them into an actionable resource. You’re able to identify areas to become more efficient and cost-effective and hopefully discover new areas for growth. Remember to keep them honest and unbiased, consistent, and actionable to gain the most value from your marketing audits.