PRODUCTHEAD: Product-led sales / product value / context & intent

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every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to

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tl;dr

Switching to a product-led sales movement should not be a hard pivot but a blended transition

The product must demonstrate its own value regardless of whether sales people are involved

Intent adds nuance to the classic “strategic, execution, and planning” cascade

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hello

The articles and podcasts I’ve been reading this week are all thought-provoking in their own ways, although I’m struggling to crowbar them into a unifying theme.

There’s an entertaining chat between Elena Verna and Jason Knight about memes, Lenny-baiting and transitioning — not pivoting — to product-led sales;

Rich Mironov discusses how to avoid undervaluing your product with Mark Stiving; and

John Cutler reflects on context, action, intent, and possibilities and how these affect how we operate in organisations at different stages of growth.

So a couple of bits on product-sales team dynamics and a bit of debugging around how we formulate future product plans. Close enough :-)

Speak to you soon,

Jock

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what to think about this week

Solopreneurship, memes & getting started with product-led sales (with Elena Verna, B2B growth guru & meme queen)

Elena Verna is a renowned growth consultant who has worked at and with a glittering array of well-known tech companies. She’s a strong advocate of career optionality and solopreneurship, as well as the author of a popular growth newsletter, Reforge instructor and popular LinkedIn content creator with her insightful posts and searing memes. Just don’t call her an influencer.

[PODCAST] How to use your product as your acquisition channel for B2B sales

[Jason Knight / One Knight In Product]

How to stop undervaluing your product — and start getting paid what it’s worth with Rich Mironov

In this episode, Rich shares that product managers must define economic value before development. He believes sales teams should communicate, not calculate, value using simple tools. And he advises focusing on broad market data instead of over-relying on top accounts.

[PODCAST] Don’t expect your sales team to be economists

[Mark Stiving / Impact Pricing]

Context, possibility, intent, and action

This post describes some core principles for designing the right mix of rituals, artifacts, frameworks, and cycles for your team or organization. I want to provide some language that goes beyond the standard pyramids and broad language like “strategy, execution, and action.” I will not tell you anything new—you probably know this stuff intuitively—but hopefully, the framing will help you put words to intuitions.

Weaving a tapestry of intent signifiers

[John Cutler / The Beautiful Mess]

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recent posts

What freelance product management is really like with Jock Busuttil

Off the back of his recent article for Mind The Product, Liam Smith interviewed me about my experiences in freelance product management.

We cover topics including:

» Should you hire freelancers in your product team?

» How to be successful as an external hire

+ more :-)

If this doesn’t put you off, nothing will

[I Manage Products]

Is coding in the open right for your organisation?

One of the design principles that underpinned the digital renaissance in UK government was — and still is — ‘Make things open: it makes things better’.

For this article, I’ve focused specifically on the ‘coding in the open’ part. I’ll cover how it benefits public sector organisations, and how — in the right circumstances — it can yield a strategic advantage to commercial organisations also.

Increased scrutiny keeps us all a bit more honest

[I Manage Products]

DevRel and Product Management with Jock Busuttil on the Voxgig podcast

I’m chatting with Voxgig’s Richard Rodger about common challenges in product management and DevRel:

» Why learning by soundbite gives a superficial understanding of the craft

» Why we’re finding it hard to communicate value to our bosses

+ more :-)

Other professions find ‘people stuff’ hard as well

[I Manage Products]

PRODUCTHEAD is a newsletter for product people of all varieties, and is lovingly crafted from spring warmth and cardio.