BTW, product managers and PROJECT managers are the same thing to me.

Recently, I’ve started to really see the value of having strong (detail-oriented) product managers in a company. Until a year ago, “I” or my “second-hand woman” product managed everything. We were certainly bottle-necking our business.

Then, earlier this year, we launched our first product that I had personally had ZERO involvement in. The launch went through flawlessly and the product was far better than what I could have made it. It was then that I learned the importance for product managers.

Since then, we’ve slowly been growing and focusing in on product managers. Something happened though and as of the last month, product managers have engrossed my life!

About 2 weeks ago, we were able to successfully hire a part-time contractor to now become a full-time, on-site product manager for one of the most important products we’ll launch this year (Q4).

Then, about 3 days ago, I get a series of e-mails from our lead technical outsourcing team that they TOO are implementing project managers. I was pretty excited to hear this because it was going to start making communication easier. Easier communication means faster work!

As if that was not enough, TODAY, we just brought on another amazing product manager to start managing a new product we’re launching soon that has tremendous un-charted territory value for our long-term business.

The more great product managers I bring on, the easier MY job (as a CEO) becomes and so do the jobs of everyone else in the company (since things get organized).

However, hiring the WRONG project manager can also be a nightmare leading to MASSIVE losses. I’ve hired a few of those too in my time

Here are some tips to hire top-notch project managers:

1. Make sure they are detail oriented.

2. You’re looking for OPERATIONAL people, not really strategic or marketing (although sometimes you get lucky and get both).

3. Have past experience (CRITICAL).

4. Versatile. The person must be at least somewhat familiar with many aspects of the project.

5. People Person. A product manager’s main job is to manage people and the delegated tasks. If they don’t get along with the team, that’s a miserable failure waiting to happen.

6. Firm & Authoritative Personality - This is critical because in many ways, they’ll be the “true boss” of the project. If team members can easily fool them or “push them around,” the project will never get done.

To know if they’re firm enough, ask yourself this question: “Would I promote this person to top management?” If your answer is no, I’d think twice about their ability to be a good product manager.

Moral of the story? If you run a company with many product offerings and you really want to see growth, get yourself and your business organized with product/project managers.

Popularity: 38% [?]

As you know I don’t do much corporate work (yet), but our company is getting into it more and more.

I recently wrote a sales proposal and the feedback I had to it led to an “AH HA” moment.

Business or Sales Proposals Are Really Sales Material…

What do I mean by that? Just because a company agrees and says “send me a proposal” does NOT mean that they are convinced or sold.

I recently made that assumption. All I sent back on the proposal was “what they’ll get” and “how much we would charge.”

The response was… “wait…what exactly are you doing and how does this help me?”

It was then that I realized a sales proposal is really just another addition to your arsenal of sales materials. Even though it’s a proposal, you can’t forget to SELL in it.

The proposal we are re-doing now has the following:

- Detailed list of BENEFITS from what we’re doing (not just what we’re doing).

- A complete detailed picture of HOW we’re going to do it (so they understand that it’s not really all that easy).

- ITEMIZED costs (this is critical, you can’t just throw numbers at them, make sure they understand why the numbers are there to begin with).

FINALLY…(my biggest tip).

We did our OWN “cost/benefit analysis” FOR them. How?

A good sales person is one who gets as much data from his potential customer first. You should have enough data to fully understand how your service will impact that company.

Let’s use an example to really understand:

Assume the company you’re selling to currently has $10,000,000 in sales and they convert at 10% at an average sale price of $100,000.

So, this means they’re talking to 1,000 companies, they close 100 of them and that’s how they hit $10,000,000 in revenue. Now, let’s assume YOUR service can help they close 20% better (of course you have to have some proof to back this).

** ANOTHER BIG TIP: Pick VERY conservative numbers. Numbers that even they cannot argue with. This way, they see it and say “WOW, if just this LITTLE change can have such a large impact, imagine if…” SOLD!

Now this means that with your service, they’re conversion rate will go up to 12%. If they went back and talked to the same companies, they should now close 120 at $100,000. That would mean that they’re total revenue would be $12,000,000.

An increase in revenue of $2,000,000!

Let’s assume that your service cost $100,000. If IN your proposal, you were to provide this example, can you imagine how much more powerful your proposal would be?

How can someone say no to a service that costs $100,000 but returns $2,000,000 (worst case scenario)!

If you really want to close the sale fast, have a face to face meeting, gather as much data as possible and do as much of the “cost/benefit analysis” for the company as you can.

You’ll shave weeks if not months off the sales cycle.

Popularity: 40% [?]

I was just listening to the Audio Book - Good To Great and had an amazing idea at the beginning of CD #3. The chapter talks about the concept of putting your best people on OPPORTUNITIES, not problems.

The example he uses is Phillip Morris, back when they were not doing much business internationally (only 1% of their business was international), the CEO decided that it was time to grow the business world-wide.

The CEO took the company’s BEST executive who was leading the US operations and put him on the international project. He took him from where the revenue is 99% of the company and put him where it’s only 1%!

It almost felt like a demotion to some…

However, a few years later, Marlboro was the #1 selling brand world-wide (3 years before it ever became #1 even in US). The moral of the story is that put your strongest people on the opportunities that have the potential of having the most impact on your business and you double, triple or even quadruple your chances of the opportunity materializing.

Wasting quality people on “solving problems” can become a big waste. Your best people are your biggest asset, use them properly!

By the way, I highly recommend Good To Great. Click here to pick up a copy yourself, I recommend the audio series because he goes into much more detail and you can listen to it in the car or pop it on your ipod.

The idea was so good that I’ve been forced into looking into my own organization to see if I’m making any mistakes?

Popularity: 37% [?]