You’ll hear me say that Product Management is a critical role in any business; after all they are defining the product or service that you’re bringing to market. The very success of the business depends on getting the product right and unless what you’re selling is so totally unique that you have no competition, your product or service is going to be an iteration (or an improvement) of what others have done before.
Lets imagine you want to enter into the toaster business. It’s a crowded space and you’re after a slice of the everyday toaster market, so you’re not going to be making a swanky and expensive design. But if you’re going to grab some market share then you’ve got to offer some thing new. “Same old” isn’t going to cut it.
As the Product Manager the question you’ve got to ask yourself is what are the Key Drivers for a toaster? What are the five things that customers want from a toaster, and so the five things you’re going to have to be better at than the competition if you’re going to steal their share?
Your Key Drivers might be:
1. Making a perfect piece of toast every time.
2. Using less electricity than your competitors’ toasters - making it cheaper to run.
3. The amount of bread you can toast at one time.
4. The ease with which it can be cleaned of all the little bits of toast.
5. The price, which means having the lowest ex-factory cost.
You may think of other Key Drivers, but whatever they are, there are five things you’re going to need to excel at to have the best toaster. Now you can start writing your product description.
If your developers can meet the challenge then you can see there is a huge amount of scope for the marketing team to create a fantastic story around your new toaster to excite your customers. They will want to sell the value, not the price, so they’ll be selling the World’s best toaster that toasts up to four full slices at a time, produces the perfect result (never burnt) with three accurate toasting settings, uses less electricity than any other toaster (according to an independent test) and cleans itself of all bread crumbs. The design is amazing, with different colour and texture treatments and (finally) the price is affordable and competitive. It’s the best value toaster on the market.
As the Product Manager who has properly investigated the market, you’ve created a toaster that is easy to market and one where the sales team are simply answering the phone taking orders because it’s flying off the shelves.
If you haven’t done your homework and the product has nothing new to offer then it’s you who will be toast.
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