Are You A Sounding Board?

I caught a recent 70sec video from a Global Product Manager. The reason I clicked on the link was because because I’d been to where he’s based (IBM, Lexington) and he’s an MBA.

Then, after saying the obvious – that he looks to financials to judge the success of any new product – he remarkably stated that you should,

‘use the salesforce as a sounding board’

This is because they can tell you,

‘what’s good and where it needs to be better’

He termed this the ‘qualitative side‘.

As well as looking at marketing data, he mentioned that someone in his position must find out whether their new product is selling and resonating.

‘you could have a nice product which doesn’t sell, and there’s a lot of those out there’

Sounds like a trap that product managers you work with may well appreciate not falling down.

In your quest to move upwards towards CEOship, where are the alliances you can build that would appreciate your help as the good Ramsey suggests? Help of course which could also help you sell more of the next new product your firm launches.