At ProductCamp Boston this past weekend, Steve Johnson of Pragmatic Marketing asked a very simple, but telling question during my session.
He asked the other attendees:
How many of you have visited customers in the last year…without a Sales agenda?
It seemed like a fairly straight forward question. Surprisingly, only a couple of people raised their hands. One person raised his hand, but then lowered it as Steve added the “without a Sales agenda” phrase.
Travel budgets are tight, we know that. And many of us are tied up with firefighting in the office. But if we’re not getting out of the office to develop market understanding and bringing it back into the company, then who is? And ultimately, what value are we as Product Management professionals delivering to our companies?
Here are the questions
1. What is stopping you from getting out of the office and visiting customers, partners etc. to gain insight and develop market authority?
2. And for those of you who don’t have this problem, what solutions can you offer others to help them get more interaction with customers/partners and build deeper market insight?
Leave your answers in the comments section below.
OR if you want to maintain your anonymity, click this link and give your answers via the form. I’ll summarize any responses and post them back on the blog in the near future.
I look forward to hearing from all of you.
Saeed
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