Hey, QlikTech! The Cranky Product Manager has a bone to pick with you! Instead of delivering a “keynote” presentation at this week’s Software Marketing Perspectives conference, you instead subjected the Cranky PM and her peers to a full-on, in-yer-face pitch for your “business intelligence” software.
While the Cranky PM fully expects any presentation given by a software vendor to be a thinly disguised sales pitch — after all, she plays the same game for her company – she was offended that, well… YOU FORGOT YOUR frakin’ THIN DISGUISE (see-through and gauzelike as it might typically be)!
At least have the decency to PRETEND you’re offering pearls of wisdom on the ephemeral art of software product management. After all, the Cranky PM and other attendees actually PAID to attend your talk!
But, QlikTech, even more greviously — and ironically — in front of an audience of software marketers, you broke Software Marketing Rule #1:
Software Marketing Rule #1: Your product pitch/demo should address the specific business problems of the audience.
QlikTech, while you droned on and on about your product and how you implemented a fabulous analytical app for some school system, the Cranky PM was waiting for you to:
1) Show you knew who was in the audience. At one point, your speaker said, “I’m here to talk to I.T.” Fantastic. But guess what?!? No one in your audience was in I.T.! The Cranky PM and her audience cohorts were software marketers. Also, this might be shocking to you, but you know what else?!? They all work in the software industry, NOT in education. Your success stories did not apply.
2) Describe how your product addresses the challenges the Cranky Product Manager faces day-to-day: Can your software tell her which activities and product features drive leads and sales? Can your software help her appropriately segment the market?
Alas, you never told her. You kept yammering on about school test scores. Pictures of brains (I shit you not. Pictures of brains!)…flashing powerpoint text…a demo… Meanwhile, the Cranky PM became crankier and crankier as she thought about her mile-long to-do list and how you were WASTING her TIME.
You are fortunate, QlikTech, that your audience was so unfailingly polite and let you finish your dreary, irrelevant pitch. But know this: if the Cranky PM wasn’t such a pitiful coward, she would have taken you task right then and there. Instead, though, she’s letting you have it days later in her anonymously published blog. What a crusader for Truth and Justice.
Regardless, after such a crankiness-inducing incident, the Cranky PM requires a drink to soothe her irritable nerves. Cocktail suggestions are most welcome.
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