Comments on: Tough Times Call For You To Fire Your Customers http://www.theaccidentalpm.com/profit/tough-times-call-for-you-to-fire-your-customers Home Of The Billion Dollar Product Manager Where You Too Can Learn To Be A Wildly Successful Product Manger Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:14:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Dr. Jim Anderson http://www.theaccidentalpm.com/profit/tough-times-call-for-you-to-fire-your-customers/comment-page-1#comment-896 Dr. Jim Anderson Sat, 26 Dec 2009 03:14:11 +0000 http://www.theaccidentalpm.com/?p=1299#comment-896 Jason: you make a great point. What makes a complicated situation even more tricky is when your sales staff (or CEO!) has a relationship with a "bad" customer. This makes the process of trying to prioritize new features tricky as you try to do what's right for your product while at the same time trying not to offend too many important people...! Jason: you make a great point. What makes a complicated situation even more tricky is when your sales staff (or
CEO!) has a relationship with a “bad” customer. This makes the process of trying to prioritize new features tricky as you try to do what’s right for your product while at the same time trying not to offend too many important people…!

]]> By: Jason Garbis http://www.theaccidentalpm.com/profit/tough-times-call-for-you-to-fire-your-customers/comment-page-1#comment-893 Jason Garbis Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:10:45 +0000 http://www.theaccidentalpm.com/?p=1299#comment-893 Thanks for the insightful article -- I have personally worked with a number of customers that, while I wouldn't classify them as "bad", have tried to pull us off-course from our strategic product direction. This, I think, is another angle to this topic -- that rather than just looking at customers from a pure cost and profit perspective, we have to balance their expressed needs and priorities versus those of other customers, and those that we, as product managers, believe need to be done. Knowing which customer requests to listen to, and which to ignore is a truly valuable skill. Prioritizing the wrong features carries an enormous opportunity cost, and can really harm your product's ability to succeed in the market. Thanks for the insightful article — I have personally worked with a number of customers that, while I wouldn’t classify them as “bad”, have tried to pull us off-course from our strategic product direction.

This, I think, is another angle to this topic — that rather than just looking at customers from a pure cost and profit perspective, we have to balance their expressed needs and priorities versus those of other customers, and those that we, as product managers, believe need to be done. Knowing which customer requests to listen to, and which to ignore is a truly valuable skill. Prioritizing the wrong features carries an enormous opportunity cost, and can really harm your product’s ability to succeed in the market.

]]> By: Early Bird … or Not! « Outside-In View http://www.theaccidentalpm.com/profit/tough-times-call-for-you-to-fire-your-customers/comment-page-1#comment-892 Early Bird … or Not! « Outside-In View Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:52:37 +0000 http://www.theaccidentalpm.com/?p=1299#comment-892 [...] about my next post here. I was intrigued by a post written last week by Dr. Jim Anderson on “Tough Times Call for You to Fire Your Customers.”  I did some more research, and had a nice draft written. Just a little clean up and I was ready to [...] [...] about my next post here. I was intrigued by a post written last week by Dr. Jim Anderson on “Tough Times Call for You to Fire Your Customers.”  I did some more research, and had a nice draft written. Just a little clean up and I was ready to [...]

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