In a previous post, I wrote about passionate customers, but before you have passionate customers, you have to have people inside your organization that are passionate about your product. And that starts with the Product Manager.Product Managers are in a position to evangelize, motivate, and energize their company about their products. They are the product champion. They speak out at Sales meetings about the product roadmap and upcoming releases. They provide in-depth demos and answer the complicated questions for prospects. They stand in the trade show booth and regale visitors with all of the capabilities and how the product can solve problems that are mission critical.
It’s a lot like being a cheerleader, but with less jumping and shouting. Actually, maybe that’s not true.
There’s a great post over at Creating Passionate Users from a couple of years ago about not being risk averse with your products (NOTE: while CPU is a great blog, it is no longer active due to some issues with commenters and threats. Historical posts and comments are still available and continue to make the blog a great resource). In the post is an image that sums up why passion is so important. The original image refers to customers, but the same concept applies to Product Managers.
If you passionately love your product(s), you will be able to communicate that passion to others and passion is contagious. If you are frustrated by your product(s), then you can channel that energy into making it better. That may entail elevating your concerns about the product strategy, implementation, technology or positioning or whatever you feel is amiss with the product.
Product Managers have to be passionate about their products in order to energize others about it. Passion can come in a variety of flavors, but no matter how you feel about your product(s), you have to be passionate if you expect others to be.
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Ivan, I couldn’t agree more that people inside the company have to be passionate, especially the product managers. I see many PMs who are naturally passionate about their work, and others who just seem to go with the flow. The passionate survive and prosper, they motivate their product teams to go above and beyond the call, and they love what they do. While some PMs come by it naturally, there’s definitely room to work and improve.
No matter what our product (or service) is, communicating with passion will always be a huge asset. -Michael
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