What does your sales team think of you? Does customer success enjoy their conversations with you? Or do you feel animosity and tension with them?
And what about with customers?
How about the squeaky wheel who sends in feature requests regularly, or the enterprise customer with contractual promises?
Product management is about relationships.
One of the biggest mistakes I see otherwise good product managers make is not managing internal and external stakeholders well.
Rather than building collaborative relationships, where everyone feels like they’re on the same team heading in the same direction, they sow seeds of tension.
As a product manager, any communication issues fall on you. It’s your job to build bridges, even on challenging terrain.
You can do that through a variety of tactics:
- Product advisory boards, and regular check ins with key customers.
- Peer 1 on 1s with key sales, customer success, account management, and other department leaders.
- Regular updates, training, and collaboration on collateral creation for new and updated features.
- Following the timeless of advice of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Throughout those conversations, both internally and externally, there are two words to always remember: “Not yet.”
Let’s dive into the nuance of how 4 letters can make such a big difference…
“Not Yet”: The Two Most Important Words for Product Managers to Use
Remember when you were a little kid and you wanted something and you asked your mom or dad? How did you feel when they said “no”?
Chances are you were pretty unhappy.
We’re not so different when we grow up.
Just say no…to saying, “No.”
As a product manager, when you tell customers and colleagues, “no”, it creates problems for you now and in the future.
No is denying what they want.
No makes them feel unheard.
No is a wall between you and them.
And most importantly, no is the end of a conversation.
Where do you go after you say, “no, we’re not doing that”? You can possibly explain why, but the other person is likely already thinking about how they can either convince you to change your mind or tuning you out in frustration.
The Power of “Not Yet”
Four letters. That’s all that separates “No” and “Not yet”, but in reality it makes all the difference.
Not yet is, “we might do that down the line…”
Not yet is, “I hear you, but…”
Not yet is hope.
And most importantly, not yet is the start of a conversation.
“Not yet” builds empathy
If you’ve ever learned about the power of using “and” instead of “but” in conversation, you know that a simple change in word choice actually leads to a larger transformation.
By changing the word you use, you change the entire nature of your discussion the rest of the way.
When you say, “not yet,” it lends itself to explaining why. This is powerful because it helps them understand the choices you’ve made.
When it’s an internal stakeholder, explaining why can help them see the other priorities. I’ve lost count of the number of times that once I’ve explained what we’re doing right now already they suddenly are willing to wait on their request; you may even be working on something important to them.
Meanwhile, with customers, it’s an opportunity to build excitement and engagement. Maybe you can’t give them what they asked for right away, but you can tell them about some other things in the pipeline.
Often, a couple of the things you’re doing are also important to the customer. You can then offer them the opportunity to provide feedback on the feature as it’s developing, or early access. Either way, it ends up feeling like they’re coming away with something, even if it’s not what they originally asked.
Show your work.
A key part of all of this is that you’re showing your work to others. You don’t need to explain the whole roadmap, but even a small snippet can help people see there’s a solid foundation to the decisions you’ve made. It also demonstrates the hard work and rigor of the product team:
- Data driven: Good PMs know their numbers, so you can explain to them how the feature they asked for may have a much smaller impact than the current features you’re working on.
- Customer focused: Whether you have an enterprise contract with deadlines due in 30 days, or are finally delivering on the #1 most requested feature, showing that what you’re doing is backed by real customer insights shows you’re a PM that listens to customers.
- Strategic: Great PMs see the big picture, and help others see it, too. Concisely explaining strategy comes with practice, so use these “not yet” conversations to practice clearly explaining how the new API opens up thousands of leads a month, or how the onboarding improvements will drive more revenue to hit key company goals.
When you show some of your cards to your colleagues and customers, you help them understand your decision making process. While they may not always agree, they’ll often respect the decisions you’ve made a lot more than when all they heard was, “No.”
In my experience, when you show you have data, strategy, and customer insights backing up your decisions and bets, your colleagues and customers will trust you. Just like they expect you to trust them to do their jobs well, they’ll see plenty of evidence to believe in you as well.
Save your relationships!
This may seem like a small thing, but I can tell you from experience, it matters a lot. No may feel like the expedient way to handle requests, but it comes with a long term cost.
Over time, saying “no” leads to resentment and may sour relationships. People you want to partner with to make launches successful and for everyone to hit their numbers suddenly avoid you, except when they want to demand and override your No’s. They may even try to go around you and talk straight to a designer or engineer to get what they want.
And since you represent the product team, it can even lead to inter-departmental drama and rivalries. Rather than engineering and sales being partners, they become enemies, with each side criticizing the other. I’ve seen and heard it too many times, and it’s really the fault of product managers on those teams for it becoming like that.
You can avoid being that kind of cautionary tale by taking the time to regularly communicate with other teams, stakeholders, and key customers. When you meet and talk with them, remember to use “not yet” so those relationships flourish and they understand your decisions.
Never underestimate the power of using the right words.