Friday, January 22, 2021

Three SuperPowers Every Marketer Should Develop

Why Paranoia, Customer Intimacy, and Peripheral Vision are key skills for Product Marketing Management

If you’re going to be in Product Marketing - or in any company leadership position - I’ve found that the same 3 “superpowers” keep recurring in successful careers. These aren’t operational or functional skills per se. Rather, they are persistent perspectives that leaders with insight always keep in the back of their minds.

First, there’s always maintaining a healthy dose of Paranoia.  That is, you haven’t drunk the product Cool-Aide, that your product/company must be the best. Second, there is the requirement for customer closeness and intimacy - knowing your core buyers inside-and-out. Then finally, there is what I call Product Peripheral Vision - understanding your product/service in a greater customer and competitive context.

Embody these, and you’ll always add value to the company, to your product, and to your customers.  

1. A Super-Healthy Sense of Paranoia

Andy Grove - of Intel fame - literally wrote the book:Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.”  In this he famously pointed out that "Business success contains the seeds of its own destruction... Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive”.  He narrowed-down this statement to 6 Forces, but in my opinion, a good PMM focuses on the following paranoia:

  • Competition - assume they’re always trying to be better than you - and perhaps they already are. Don’t be complacent or simply dismiss the competition. Take them seriously, and always question whether you’re really more compelling to customers.
  • Alternatives - your biggest disruption won’t necessarily hit you head-on. Customers always look for alternatives, including “good-enough” solutions that can invisibly displace you.  Always be on the look-out for the closest alternatives customers use… and why.
  • Differentiation - while you probably *think* you’re differentiated, you’re likely not (at least, not as much as you think).   Take a cold-hard look at how really different you are from a customer’s perspective, and push to modify your offer as well as your marketing.
  • Industry changes - while you’re focused on segment or category “A”, there’s always the possibility that a completely different industry imperative will shift customers to different categories. Be ready to adapt.

2. Super Closeness to the Customer, Customer intimacy

As a marketing leader - ensuring that your product has proper market fit with your target customers, you Must be the SuperPower expert about your customers. And you need to communicate these learnings back into the company, specifically back to marketing, product management, and sales.  

  • Know the customer at every level - Know the decision-makers vs. buyers vs. users. The tactical reasons they buy, as well as the strategic business reasons. 
  • Why they bought - You’ll need to get inside their heads regarding why they chose your product, how they evaluated it, how they use it - on a daily basis.
  • Know Alternatives - Similar to the Paranoia topic above, you’ll need to know what alternative (and competitors) they considered during the process - and *why*. What was attractive to them, how they got the names, whether they’re *still* considering the alternatives.
  • Ask the critical question - “How would you feel if you *didn’t* have this product?” The answer will be telling - indicating how well your “fit” is to the customer, how much they value the uniqueness, and how critical your product is to the customer’s outcomes. 
  • Intimacy vs. Focus - There are subtle differences between customer intimacy and customer closeness.  Ensure you develop the right insights and relationships so you can serve -- and even better -- anticipate their needs. 

3. Maintaining Super Peripheral Vision

One of the best SuperPowers you can develop as a marketer or businessperson is the ability to see out beyond the myopia of your own product, technology, and even industry segment.  Always be looking for (worrying about?)  adjacencies, routes-to-market, partnerships, and the “Whole Product” aspect of your offering. 

  • Think “Whole Product” - That is, partners, ecosystems, channels. Most B2B products simply don’t exist in a vacuum. They are bought with, or through, other technology partners, value-add ecosystems and channels. Every product exists and abuts other products and technologies.  Every decision you make has to take these realities into account.
  • Focus on indirect competition / alternatives - The notion of maintaining peripheral vision also applies to alternatives and competition.   What other distant adjacencies are (or will be) intersecting with your own market? Are any of them potential partners - before they become competition? 
  • Consider similar (but different) market plays - I always like to think about product and marketing analogies in different markets that either worked or failed… and whether those analogies apply to product /market.  Do they help reframe product positioning? Value propositions? Routes-to-market? 
Got any other suggestions on critical "Super Powers" ? let me know!



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