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Quick Clarification and How to Convince Your Boss to Get You Training

by The Cranky Product Manager on June 3, 2010

in The PM Profession,Your Career

Just wanted to clarify the Cranky Product Manager's previous post on training.

The Cranky Product Manager is NOT against training for product managers.  Not at all.

In fact, she HEARTS training, and any effort product professionals make to improve their skills and knowledge.  There are some really great classes out there! (see note 1)

It's the PASSIVE nature of the 'sit-back-and-train-me' attitude that drives the Cranky Product Manager bonkers.  Especially when used as an excuse for not getting the job done.  

The Cranky Product Manager says this as someone who has supervised a fair number of product managers: if you want to use 'lack of training' as an excuse, your performance review had better NOT be the first time your boss hears about your training needs.  

Instead, you should have been making the business case for training as soon as you concluded your skill gaps were getting in the way.

Now, here's the Cranky Product Manager's recipe for "Convincing your boss to give you training."  It works.  Really.  Well a lot of the time (probably not in early-stage startups).

1. Make a 30 minute appointment with your boss.  

2. Go into this 30 minute appointment with a half-page, bulleted printed handout that he/she can review.  This handout should make the case for getting you trained and give your boss several options to consider.

3. If you're stuck, structure your doc according to a classic "Situation, Complication, Recommendation" outline.

Situation:

  • The specific skills you already have
  • Where you would like to be, and why your boss should agree that this is a good goal for you. (maybe refer to a previous performance review)

Complication:

  • The gap between your current skills and where you want to be
  • If you were to remedy this gap, how would the company benefit? What's in it for your boss?  In which release would your boss's life improve, due to your improved skills?  

Recommendations:

  • List a few different options for closing the skill gap (bosses love to pick from different options).  For each, list the pros/cons, the cost, and the time frame. 
  • The Cranky PM recommends that you suggest at least one option that involves no budget but instead involves time.
    • For example, your boss could tutor you in this specific skill and meet with you once or twice a week.  In proposing this option, you should be very specific about how often you'd want to meet and what you would need from the boss (without seeming too needy).  Example: (provide face-to-face feedback on the latest version of my product strategy document once a week, help me brainstorm how to segment the market, give me a lollipop and a "you're a SUPERSTAR" sticker at the end, etc).
    • Note that the bigger the time commitment needed for your "free" option, the more likely your boss is to pick another option.  
  • Make sure you highlight which option YOU recommend and why. 
  • Acknowledge that there are several constraints at play: budget, release schedules, who will pick up the slack while you sit in training, etc. Explain how you will minimize these impacts.

4. Go over the handout in the meeting.  Get your boss nodding "yes" as you mention each point.  Hopefully that yes-nodding will get her/his neck limbered up, and s/he will also agree to one of your training options.

5. If your boss immediately picks an option, great. Go back to your desk, write an email to the boss saying something "Thanks for meeting with me today. We agreed that I should sign up for training class X."  Then go sign up. Hurry. (But pray there is a decent cancellation policy if your boss is one of those people who changes his/her mind every 3 minutes).

If your boss wants more time to think about it, do NOT leave the meeting without nailing down a time frame for a decision.  Immediately set a meeting for follow-up.

6. Remember, NO WHINING!  No "you owe me." Keep focused on the benefits of your training to YOUR BOSS and the company.  

7. If the boss says "no," be mature about it. Try to understand why. Then go educate yourself as directed in the previous post, using all the resources of the online PM community.  And then, in a few months, try again.

Now, you might worry that all this would be pestering and annoying to your boss. That's a valid worry.  But more likely is that your boss would be 20% annoyed (because now s/he has to make a decision and maybe spend some money) and 80% patting him/herself on the back for hiring such a high-potential, results-focused product manager. Because the way you approach the training issue shows how you would also approach the rest of your job.

Note 1: The Cranky Product has partaken of many training opportunities (a self-funded MBA, Product Camps, UC Extension, Pragmatic Marketing), but her employers never paid. Apparently, she did not master the above-described technique until too late in her career, when she became the boss and found herself on the receiving end.

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Guest Post: The Cranky Sales Engineer on Sales Training

by The Cranky Product Manager on January 29, 2009

in Guest Posts,Sales

Today we have a WICKED AWESOME guest post and a bit of role reversal. Listen up, Product Managers, as the Cranky Sales Engineer schools you on what he wants from the product training you inflict on him during the annual Sales Kickoff meeting.

Now, the Cranky Product Manager must say that she does not agree with everything the Cranky Sales Engineer says. In fact, some of what he wrote makes the Cranky Product Manager want to bitchslap the Cranky Sales Engineer. Said bitchslapping can be found in the tomorrow’s  post. 

Oh, and while we’re at it, go read the Cranky Product Manager’s earlier post on The Joy of Sales Kickoff.

——————
It is freezing, the NFL Playoffs are almost over, and his office is abuzz with the frenetic contract-closing activity of year-end. That means that its time for the Cranky Sales Engineer to make travel plans for Sales Kickoff and sales training.

The Cranky Sales Engineer is as much in favor of the warm-weather debauchery associated with Sales Kickoff as the next guy, and he looks forward to a week of expense-report funded single-malt scotch. But in payment for the sweet sweet products of Scotland, he must endure hours of Product Managers trying to convince him to sell their products. In hopes of making his Scotch-free time as painless as possible, he is presenting his “top seven” list of tips for Product Managers, cranky or otherwise.

1. Do not spend time telling the Cranky Sales Engineer that computers are getting faster or that other obvious trends are continuing—The Cranky Sales Engineer sells in the high tech arena and he knows very well that computers are getting faster. He does not need this trend pounded home by a series of up-and-to-the-right slides demonstrating the wonders of Moore’s Law. He also does not need to be told that customers will be trying to save money in 2009 and that budgets will be tight.

2. Do not tell the Cranky Sales Engineer how to sell—There is nothing that pisses off the Cranky Sales Engineer faster than a Product Manager who provides pearls of wisdom like, “Make sure the customer has budget.” REALLY? REALLY? Oh thank God you provided free sales training because the Cranky Sales Engineer was going to stand on the street corner with a bullhorn and see if he could interest poor college students in your Stupendously Expensive Software 2009.3b. Thank GOD you suggested they have money.

3. Do not tell the Cranky Sales Engineer how excited you are about the future—The Cranky Sales Engineer makes money selling real things that exist today. While a roadmap is useful, it is not a replacement for a product that works today. When simple features are missing or broken today, do not tell the Cranky Sales Engineer that they will be fixed in 2010 unless you want the Cranky Sales Engineer to start selling your product in 2010.

4. Do not lie to the Cranky Sales Engineer—If a feature is broken, and you know it is broken, do not tell the Cranky Sales Engineer to sell it. The Cranky Sales Engineer test the feature, learn it is broken, then he will find you and he will kill you. There is nothing that Cranky Sales Engineer hates more than losing a customer’s trust because he sold something that was broken. Well, there is one thing, selling something that the Product Manager knew was broken.

5. Do not mistake features for benefits—The Cranky Sales Engineer is duly impressed by your cleverness and the cleverness of your engineers, but he is not impressed by features that serve no value. If you cannot cite a benefit for a feature then do not mention the feature to the Cranky Sales Engineer.

6. Do not have more than seven words on a slide—If you deliver 90 slides with dense text and read them to that Cranky Sales Engineer, things will go poorly. The Cranky Sales Engineer can read faster to himself than you can read out loud. If you want to write the Cranky Sales Engineer a memo, then write that. If, instead, you write a memo on a slide and start reading it to the Cranky Sales Engineer, he will respond by answering the email on his Blackberry until you go away.

7. Bring the Cranky Sales Engineer some real references—The Cranky Sales Engineer got cranky by being slapped around by Cranky Customers. The Cranky Sales Engineer has never thrown the product team under the bus and has taken it on the chin for the product team. Therefore there is nothing that impresses him more than a real reference from a real happy customer who found real value.

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