Great article - I love the small tidbits like pausing and nodding or the graphic at the end. In my experience, once the sales team knows how to demo the product, they don't always want a pm joining a pre-sales demo since they think it could slow down the process. Have you experienced that? If so, what is your advice on how to solve it?
Yes, I see that. At vFairs, our PMs are roped in for very specific customer calls.
That's a good thing. If the sales team is comfortable in giving the demo, a PM doesn't have to be on the call then. In fact, PMs should aim at operationalizing this & training sales to a level that they can independently deliver them. For more complex customers, sales teams will naturally pull in the PM or other technical resources.
This model frees up the PM's time to focus on strategy, data analysis & "deep work".
Now, as far as user research is concerned (first part of this article), note that that demos aren't always equivalent to discovery sessions. PMs still need airtime with customers so they should aim at scheduling discovery interviews with them, with a script to learn something specific along with getting general feedback.
Fair enough - I agree demos aren't the same as discovery. I don't always have time for proper customer discovery so demos can be a nice way to get a pulse on customers.
Great article - I love the small tidbits like pausing and nodding or the graphic at the end. In my experience, once the sales team knows how to demo the product, they don't always want a pm joining a pre-sales demo since they think it could slow down the process. Have you experienced that? If so, what is your advice on how to solve it?
Yes, I see that. At vFairs, our PMs are roped in for very specific customer calls.
That's a good thing. If the sales team is comfortable in giving the demo, a PM doesn't have to be on the call then. In fact, PMs should aim at operationalizing this & training sales to a level that they can independently deliver them. For more complex customers, sales teams will naturally pull in the PM or other technical resources.
This model frees up the PM's time to focus on strategy, data analysis & "deep work".
Now, as far as user research is concerned (first part of this article), note that that demos aren't always equivalent to discovery sessions. PMs still need airtime with customers so they should aim at scheduling discovery interviews with them, with a script to learn something specific along with getting general feedback.
Fair enough - I agree demos aren't the same as discovery. I don't always have time for proper customer discovery so demos can be a nice way to get a pulse on customers.