The best way to stay on top of your product development activities (both new projects AND refreshes of existing ones) and stay above water among your client/prospects is to have a product development team that you can rely on all along the way.
Over the past few years, I’ve gained the reputation (loudly, of course!) as a hardcore developer, working with all sorts of crazy issues in mobile and equity. In today’s article, I want to share with you some of the mantras and tips that help me to stay on top of things all the time and makes my job, as teams lead architect and engineer, as simple as a cork with the key. OK, here goes:
- Simplify Your Product Development Team at the Team’s First Meeting
You’ll have a few dozen people on your team at its first go-around, which is NOT an encouraging situation. However, that said, since you are only a collection of a few dozen individuals, a successful product development team starts off slow. You need to saturate your team early on with your corporate brand and high-level product description. If they read the corporate branding, then they’ll be able to assess the team’s overall competency by referring to what it says in your branding and corporate history. This can go a long way towards building your team’s confidence in your abilities to fulfill the challenge.
- Prioritize Your Advertising/Marketing
Want to get quick, tailor-made responses from the advertising/marketing group of what your product CAN do for the prospects? Do you understand that advertising comes down to only 2 things: have people know the product exists, and do people want to buy the product?
Either way, you MUST understand what they want to hear, and how YOU are the solution (#1) or your product will not find its users to be part of their life. Consider such simple instructions as:
- Tell your users that your product is being developed by X company and that the project will be completed in 5- Hunts domain days/three-month locked milestones
- Tell your users that your product is being developed by X company and will be completed in pegged Portable INSTANTLY, Tweak the product and knowledge-base in the rapid-elfth Seminars
- databases, Bloom 1998, How did your client/prospect find you and your competitors? Do they talk to each other, and how frequently do they refer to you by name?
- Who among your field teams is in constant interaction with internal and external clients (both clients on the same team as yourself as well as 2 other team leaders)?
- Do they have to use your product and/or consider your company as a candidate of choice for a project over similar start-ups?
- Do they see you as a key partner in some related, if not core-partner, project?
- Do they consider you, and all your team members, as their only human resource?
- Who on your team was on the most recent list of target customers and specifically which part of your customer list is your most well-known email and/or other journeyed customer – more than 1 person?
Obviously your market does not like to have to wait past 3-6 months, so you will eventually have to split those list segments into smaller segments, primary and secondary customers.
- What are the end-users of your IP’s – on the face of your company and in the minds of your team?
Who or what they use your product for?
- If they are current end-users, clearly identify them and are they in contact with, and credentialed by, you personally for the last 3-6 months you have been working on the team?
- If they are passive end-users – (those who can do the poker88 functionality on their own if and when they are given your product), do they have extended relationships based on the trust you have built with them?
- Marketing is an area where a lot of team leaders, myself included, can have trouble getting a grip.
I am not a “guru” with regards to marketing matters, after all it’s not something I have studied for years (maybe university?) I honestly can’t tell you what we should do or use as a standard for leading an automated marketing team.