Do Sales People Need to Product?

Are sales leaders responsible for how well their product serves their clients?

Nathan Latka, podcast superstar and founder of an alternative startup funding source asked me a great question about my CV last month: Tell me more about this: "Ensured client feedback and buy-in for v2 launch"?

Launching a digital product’s v2, or second version, is often gut wrenching and similar to a hit musician’s second album curse. 18 years to get the first one right and 18 months to ship the second. Overpaid producers, big egos and too many cooks in the kitchen.

Any surprise second albums #fail?

Seth Godin, legendary author and marketing maven, is clear about marketing’s role:

“Some CMOs and marketing types simply do ads and promo. Give them average products for average people and some money, and they’ll do the ad thing…

Sooner or later, the story you tell needs to be true. Which means…

That your main job is persuading the people you work with to ship great stuff. No junk. No shortcuts.

My only objection to Seth is the VP Sales is also responsible! I’d even extend that responsibility into the sales org itself. Even if they want to abdicate their duty to improve their product in the interest of immediate sales, a poorly executed product launch and unfulfilled promises will cost them both sales and career progression.

While Do Product People Need to Sell? is a great question. I’m convinced the opposite is also true. Sales people need to Product! 

10 ways sales can improve product launches

Pre-launch

1. Take responsibility for your clients engaging early.
   Don’t wait for product to come knocking. Bring clients to your product team. At Intralinks, we sold cloud storage SaaS for IPOs and M&As. Despite grueling 90 hour work weeks, I persuaded 25 bankers to attend pre-launch lunch and learn demos to gather their feedback. If it makes their life easier, an hour is a small ask.

1. Buy-in from the top, feedback from the bottom.
   Your clients’ executives may know your brand, but they won’t know your product. So don’t ask them for product feedback! Do get their buy-in on why it is important for their team to dedicate time to making your product better. For example, at Intralinks I focused on how the v2 provided better analytics and business intelligence. My ask was to forward my meeting invite to their team with me on copy. Note, I never asked managers for product feedback, only the users, and I didn’t abuse the emails they provided - I spoke directly to one team member who sent an internal reminder the day before the demo.
   

2. Always start your demo at the end
   Start your demo by showing your final results forces you to focus on value and the pain it solves, not on the process. If they don’t agree on your destination, how you get there doesn’t matter. Whereas when people agree on the value, they are more generous with their feedback.
   

3. Triple team
   Group presentations are most efficient use of your product team’s and clients’ time. But and it is a big but, most people won’t risk asking a “stupid” question even when they see something blatantly wrong. My suggested Sales x Product meeting format is 2x product people in front and the salesperson gives a short intro and then sits down in the 4th or 5th row to put themself in their client’s shoes.
   
   Keep an eye on the crowd and if there is unease or uncertainty don’t let it pass. Jump in and ask people what they think or how they would prefer it? Questions are less intimidating when it comes from the audience than the presenter.
   
   Similarly when new or key features are presented don’t hesitate to ask probing questions to specific people then and ask the group if they agree. All three people should take notes and compare at the end of each session.
   

4. Go asynchronous
   Another great technique to solicit feedback from 50+ people is to switch from in-person product presentations to recorded Loom videos. This is a game changer. Unlike a presentation, people can watch asynchronously and at 1.5x speed. Second, unlike Powerpoint, it is video so glitches and performance problems can’t hide behind the bullet points. Third, Loom enables viewers to react on the video's timeline with emojis and comments. This increases the number, specificity and clarity of comments.
   

5. Market research
   Sales leaders are held accountable every quarter. To ensure Product is pointed in the right direction, make sure you or Marketing does market research on the size and health of the vertical before you launch. Take it one step further and use Product as a reason to invite prospects into your office to discuss upcoming features.

Pre-Launch and Launch

1. “Wouldn’t it be great if…” should be politely placed directly into … the garbage
   If sales people want a great product they must take responsibility for filtering out unqualified feature requests. Dangerous client suggestions come in two flavors:
   
   “My advice is so good you should pay me.”
   A well-meaning prospect who throws a random idea against the wall, often with no intent of paying. The prospect has spent 30 seconds thinking about something that took months, if not years to build. At this stage, it is crucial that the salesperson qualify the requested feature’s impact on the prospect’s business and determine if they have a budget to pay for it?
   
   “You might build this feature. I won’t buy until it is live.”
   This version is even more pernicious. A prospect requests a feature, the salesperson says “maybe” then goes back to speak to Product, who pushes back. Sales wants to close the deal asap. Product is juggling an already overwhelming product roadmap. A recipe for a fight that escalates to senior leadership with no winners.
   
   One underrated skill in both Sales and Product is the ability to say no. We don't have that feature right now, however we can do XYZ - based on what you said the value of those for you $ZZZ - is that right?
   
   Sales need to do discovery on any new feature request even before they say “maybe”. Prospects can convince themselves on the importance of their idea, and know their negotiating leverage is higher before they sign a contract, so a “maybe” can slowly build into a huge deal blocker and put Sales and Product in an adversarial relationship.
   

2. Notifications, permissioning, invoicing, API documentation and integrations
   These topics rarely fall into a product demo but are essential for customer success. Reducing churn makes everyone’s life easier - so make sure your set up and modification UX are easy and well tested. Simple stuff that makes your life much easier the month after launch. 

Post-Launch

1. Get Customer Success at the table
   In addition to getting client feedback, Sales needs to ensure the Product properly engages Customer Success as a serious stakeholder. Customer success is responsible for delivering on sales and marketing promises. To ensure great customer experience CS needs to be empowered as the voice of the customer.
   
   

2. YOU ARE NOT DONE WHEN YOU SHIP
   After you ship, you have just started! Sales needs to ensure there is money and dev resources to improve the v2 post-launch. All code has gremlins and your customers will notice. Sales must ensure resources continue post-launch or everyone (including your revenue) will suffer.

This month I started a new role as HubSpot’s first EMEA App Partner Manager. I’ll work with European SaaS companies to get great products in front of HubSpot’s 143,000+ global customers. I’m hugely excited to put my learnings to work as a catalyst for sales, product, partnership and marketing teams to deliver outstanding value to clients through better integrated products.

As I go about the role, I’m convinced Sales and Customer Success deserve a seat at the Product table. Product manager speak to clients 5 times a week, at best. Sales and CS do 10-100x that. Don’t get too caught up in the “Product Driven Growth” hype and ignore client insights by not engaging Sales and Customer Success. Who will hear about a product problem or new opportunity first?

To quote Xavier Lecoquierre, friend, former colleague and Senior Product Manager at SpaceFill “Especially in startups, your customer base will generally represent less than 1% of the market you are targeting. Yet more than 80% of the product effort is often focused on them. And that is why it is elemental for sales and product to build a strong relationship.”

I had great opportunities to learn from product managers first hand and want to shout out the folks who taught me how to be a better partner to them. 

Bryan Mannetta @ Intralinks

Reza Nia and Paddy Dewhurst at Euromoney 

Tom Gaechter, Sandra Donier and Xavier Lecoquierre at OCUS

If you want to dig further into the topic, I’d recommend checking out Richard Banfield’s great Medium article Do Product People Need to Sell? For fellow podcast listeners, you can hear a 2022 update of “product as a non-human salesperson” when Richard chops it up one of the best sales podcasts out there, Make It Happen.