Product Managers…Change Shortage…and a Missing Joe…
Oh My!
Happy HUUUUUMMMMPPP DAAAAAAAAAYYY!
I can’t believe it is the middle of the week already. The first two days of my work week went by in a flash. Lots of fun though …. We are working on SO many cool new products. So much fun. Child face masks, washable fabric face masks in child, kid, and adult sizes, UV light wands, hand sanitizer advertising kiosks, and sock puppets (just making sure you’re listening), among other things. I am having so much fun being involved in product development, and I hope you are enjoying / finding value in the things we work on / launch. More to come soon as we get closer to launching some of these new products.
As a leadership team, one of the main strategic things we have been working on over the last several months is building what we call product management and specifically product marketing disciplines and roles. The idea of product management is having someone focused on understanding our customers and their needs, our competitors, and what the market is saying we need to work on including new products and new channels to market. Depending on how many total product lines we have at the time we will have several product managers focused on different customer segments and product groups. Within each product group will be product marketers, who own lists of products and are responsible for the overall sales, profit, and inventory health of that list of products.
In the past we have had exactly zero product managers or product marketers. Now that we have made this a focus we have someone leading the charge of building the team (Rebecca, nicknamed Rerun), and one dedicated product marketer (Joe), who oversees safety supplies. We have been working together weekly to figure out our reporting and the rhythms of the role, and are already working on hiring our next product marketer who will be over fiber cabling. From there we will hire others for Ethernet, Transceivers, Switches, etc. What that means is that as we hire new people to focus on these areas, the products will begin to receive the day to day attention they deserve – and that you deserve as a customer!
I just thought I would share a little about our strategy while it was on my mind. Maybe you find it interesting or useful!
So apparently, we have a change shortage. A CHANGE shortage. Due to a variety of proverbial trains going off the tracks, we are struggling to have enough change … (CHANGE!) to do business. https://www.forbes.com/sites/advisor/2020/07/20/is-there-really-a-coin-shortage/#4dd4f3e1f0a3
I cannot decide how to feel.
[Read more…] about CEO Daily Update — 7.22.2020