The Joys of Pricing
I like pricing things.
I think the biggest reason for this is because I know the cost of a product so intimately once I’ve done it. There’s no way I’ll ever be in a scenario where a prospect can stump me on the price. Once you’ve handled something for a while in a ton of detail, you get to know it pretty well. Especially when it’s all your idea.
Of course, the downside to this is, if the product never sells, you’re the fall guy.
I’ve come to learn that that’s OK. There’s no reason to shy away from being that fall guy. You can play that part effectively, so long as you are staying in tune with what the market is asking for. Don’t ever let yourself slip out of touch - it becomes tough to gather the trust back of those going to you for answers about what to do.
This doesn’t only apply to pricing - it also applies to other scenarios within product mgmt. Documentation, for example. If you write the docs, or come up with the “standard” doc set that gets rolled across all products, it’s pretty easy to remember exactly what’s available for use.
So, what’s the tough part here? Well, the functionality. I find that because I didn’t code the thing, I sometimes have a hard time remember everything, exactly. I’m not saying I forget how a product works - but there are certain things that I find take me longer to get into my thick head, because I wasn’t the run writing the actual code that’s driving them.
So, I guess I’m saying it all relates. When you price a product, you remember a lot better because you know the reasons behind why you priced it the way you did. When you code a feature, you know exactly why and how to justify coding that thing, and every foreach and if statement.
One thing I’ve found to help me out is a) think about the technology driving the product a lot b) think about the product a lot and c) review and talk and ask questions a lot.
In combination, I’ve found to be able to learn new products / technology quite quickly so I can start actually managing them and coming up with ways to sell or market them, and build upon new ideas.
Happy Friday!
