Thank You!
Thank you very much for signing up for The Accidental Product Manager Newsletter. You will now automatically receive the next copy.
If you have just a moment, I’ve got one quick question for you. The blog, the newsletter, and everything else that I do is all done with one goal in mind — to make your life as a product manager better.
The only problem with this is that you and I haven’t had a chance to sit down and have a talk. If we had, then I would have asked you what’s the one thing about product management that you’d like to know more about?
This could be anything from how best to make something happen, how to get other people to do what you want them to do, or maybe it’s more specific about some detail that will make your product more successful. Give it a thought and once you’ve come up with what you’d tell me, then tell me! Click on this link and send me a quick email with your thought. I’ll reply to it and you will have helped me to make The Accidental Product Manager just a little bit better!
Welcome to the family!
- Dr. Jim Anderson
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
How do I know if I’m in the right role? I came from Sales but I wanted a role with more significance and influence in the company, so now I’m a transaction banking product manager handling 2 product categories (with around 5 products each) by myself. Enjoying, but feeling overwhelmed at times.
Allan: Good news — product management nirvana is just as you described it: enjoying your job, but feeling just a bit overwhelmed at times. The key here is that what makes you happy today won’t make you happy forever. You need to carefully study the products that you are responsible for today and understand what parts of the product management job appeal to you the most. As you progress in your career, you will probably want to be able to more closely focus on those products or services that primarily involve the type of work that really appeals to you. Congratulations on making the right career decisions so far…!
Hi Allan:
It seems like many of the PM positions I’ve applied for or want to apply for are asking for specialized experience in a particular category. My feeling is that the skills are transferable unless the position is very technical. Wanted to get your opinion.
Mike: You are exactly correct that product manager skills are transferable. While you can’t do anything about not having had a job in a given industry before, you can do your homework before submitting your resume. Research the industry and identify some of the key challenges that they are facing. Include a discussion of some of these issues and how you can help the company deal with them in your cover letter. At the end of the day, the company is simply looking for a product manager that will help them to make their product a success. If you can show them that you are the one, then you’ve got a shot at the job!
Good luck!
Hi Jim,
Thanks for this enlightening post. I worry though that I might pass the interview for being an impressive communicator, and not because they saw that I am apt for the job. Or should I not worry about it, and let it be the interviewer’s problem. Should I just trust that I am right for the role if the interviewer deems me worthy?
Hi Mike,
I agree with you that skills are transferable, but you also have to like (love is better) what you’re getting into. I am not inclined to go into just any industry unless I have an affinity for the product/industry or the company, and have clear ideas on what I would like to do to improve it. If the position is technical, you would have your work cut out for you — but if your interest is there, you should be able to learn quickly. In the end, trust the company to make a good decision — if they hire you, they probably saw something in you that they can build on. Experience and skills can be gained, but creativity and drive will set you apart.
I work in samsung company as an electronics engineer.I just want to improve on my work level and more. Where do I start from? thanks.
Favour: Congratulations on working for a great company. In order to improve your position, I would suggest that you take the time to learn more about how Samsung makes it’s products from start to finish. I’m willing to guess that very few workers really understand how the entire process works. If you can study where the supplies come from, how they get used and how the final product gets into the hand of the customers then you’ll have very valuable knowledge that the company will greatly value. Take the time to learn this and watch your career take off!
Nothing makes me more angry that a website that offers up a 30 page career document after signing up for the subscription and then never provides information on how to get said document.
The insult to injury is to ask for more information (see start of second paragraph) after non delivery.
Kurt: I suspect that the follow-up email is probably in your email spam folder! No matter, I’ve sent you an email with the 30-page product manager career guide attached to it. Happy reading!
How do you define Product Marketing vs. Product Management?
Mike: it seems as though every company does this just a bit differently, but it really comes down to what you spend your time doing. Product management has a lot to do with defining and creating the product — what features does it have and what problems does it fix. Product marketing has to do with selling the product — what should it be priced at, what channels should be used to get it into the hands of customers, what advertising / trade shows should be used.
In smaller firms, these two sets of activities are generally combined into one job. Great question!
I worked for Philips as Product Manager and Consumer Marketing Manager, which were basically the same job with different function names. Now I am working as Product Manager for Group LCX and from my point of view this new job is more or less a mixe between buyer function and Product Manager function. Do you also have such big difference of Product Manager activities between companies ?
Sorry to ask, how do I get the links to the free 30 pages document ?
Batista,
How very interesting! Generally speaking, a buyer has a different set of responsibilities and skills than a product manager does. I’ve not see these two jobs combined before! I would think that trying to evaluate your performance at the end of the year would be very difficult. A buyer get rewarded for keeping costs low while a product manager gets rewarded for boosting sales. These are two very different worlds!
If you’d like a copy of the free 30-page product manager career guide then follow this link, provide your email and I’ll send it to you:
http://www.theaccidentalpm.com/subscribe-to-the-accidental-product-manager-newsletter
Agree, buyer has a different set of responsibilities, by the way, it is a complementary job of the Product Manager, as the second is identidying the good product and the first one is identifying the competitive prices. The biggest issue is lead by the time needed to achieve correctly both jobs ! You are right when you say how it could be difficult to reward a product manager that is also a kind of buyer, two different worlds…but only one director !
I already provide my email for the free 30 pages, but I haven’t get the way to achieve the downloads. Thanks for reading and for your answer.