Over the last two weeks, I’ve been talking about Manager-to-Manager (M2M) sales in B2B environments, and how real decision-makers want you to be responsible for results and consequently have no interest in products, even if repackaged as “solutions.”
If I’m right about that — and the research says that I am — then it’s time to bite the bullet and admit that the Product Marketing function inside most B2B firms is largely a waste of time and money.
By Product Marketing, I’m talking activities centered around products: defining them, positioning them, comparing them, etc. These product marketing groups, by providing internal sales training and materials that are focused on product (aka “solution”) features, encourage and promote the mistaken notion that B2B sales reps are selling products (aka “solutions.”).
I don’t blame them. They can’t help it. Product Marketing groups are filled with people who are familiar with the product and the product category, but who in most cases have never (ever) had an actual conversation with a real customer. They know products and they talk products, and they’re trying to get you to drive your customers out of their minds with product information, thereby losing sales. That’s their job.
Sales pros encumbered with a Product Marketing group ALWAYS end up spending an extraordinary amount of time trying to translate all that product feature/function crap into something that a real customer might actually value. In most cases, that effort takes the form of trying to turn the “product” into more of a “solution.” But if you’re following this blog, you’ll realize that the decision-maker doesn’t want a product or a solution. The customer wants results.
Am I saying that you don’t need some product-oriented information? Of course not. Inside very customer organization there are propellerheads who need to know all about product (aka “solution”) features. And those drones can sometimes block a sale. They’ll want some product data sheets and maybe some comparison charts. Hire a freelancer to spend a few weeks making these documents. You don’t need an entire department to do something so trivial.
By the way, I’m fully aware that somebody is going to want to post the obligatory “can’t we all just get along?” comment. The answer is no. B2B Product Marketing is a largely useless function. It wastes money, increases cost of sales, creates confusion, and fails to generate leads. Let me net it out:
- Product market groups encourage B2B companies to think they’re selling products.
- Sales reps working in such firms try to craft those products into solutions. Better, but still off base.
- Customers don’t want product or solutions, they want results. They want the sales rep to manage those results.
- Sales reps who try to sell products (even when tricked out as solutions) lose those high-level sales.
- Product marketing is counterproductive because it encourages behaviors that ultimately prevent sales.
- Getting rid of the product marketing function will therefore increase sales.
I’m not saying that the folk working in Product Marketing are bad people or that they should be fired outright. If there are good people in that group (and there probably are), they could and should be reassigned to perform Marketing’s productive function: lead generation. Or they could try their hands at sales. (Good luck!) But in B2B companies that sell M2M — or want to — the “product marketing manager” needs to go the way of the cigarette girl, the milkman, and the western union messenger.
I’m sorry, but it’s true.
