Getting good at saying “no”.

The quarter is over.  And last week, this conversation happened in many companies, many times a day:    “Hey Product Manager.  We can get this great contract if we only did [fill in the blank].”  “Why would we do that?” “Didn’t you hear me?  We can get a deal!”

It happens all the time.  Whether you’re in a start up or an established business, sales, business development and execs are relentless at discovering new opportunities for the company. 

As product managers, we like to say “yes” to our customers and partners.  We like to accommodate, to find solutions to problems, to win business.  Our responsibility, though, is to get good at saying “no” when the opportunities move the company or product line away from its mission.

Getting To No

As ideas and opportunities are presented, ask yourself and the team these questions.  If the answer to any of these is no, you most likely need to walk away from the opportunity.  A lot of times, the answer is ‘maybe’ and then the real conversations about how you extend and support your products can happen.  This moves the conversation from a single request, idea, concept into moving the company and its position in the market.

1.  Does this serve a customer in our target market?  If you serve small and mid-size e-commerce retailers, would you want to build features to serve a regional brick and mortar retailer?    The answer here might be “maybe” if you determine there is an opportunity to extend your product offering into the offline market.  But to do features for one customer?  The answer needs to be no.   The opportunity costs are too great; you will be building features for one client when you could build features for your entire target market.   Support, maintenance, sales and training will also need to tool-up for just one customer.  The business is too expensive in the long run.

2.  Does this customer meet our customer criteria/definition?  Take our software company providing ecommerce solutions for small and midsize online retailers.    We’ve determined that to be successful, our customers need to have adequate IT resources that can implement, manage and maintain our software.  Mom and Pop e-merchants with no IT investment simply won’t be able to run our software and will fail to renew or implement.  The sales teams need to qualify these opportunities and stop selling to this type of customer.  Selling one at the end of the quarter to make goal, doesn’t serve the company or the customer.

3.  Does this opportunity support our mission and philosophy?  Or does it divert us from our objectives?  Take a company producing an expensive software application for sales teams.   A software vendor has approached us with a partnership idea.  They have a great new application that will reduce our costs to communicate with our customers.    It’s amazing and cool, with 2.0 features galore:  chat, forums, polls, wikis and ability for user-generated content to be uploaded cataloged.  IT really wants it.  Support really wants it.   Users will be able to self-help themselves.      Do we do it?  Does this support our support philosophy of providing personal, professional, exceptional customer service for our complicated applications?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

4. Will this feature make us more competitive against our top competitors?  This is trickier because often features can be spun as giving a competitive advantage.  But check against which competitors it will help you win business.  Is it enough to move the needle?  Or are you still going to be crushed by pricing, service, company reputation, etc.   Say yes only when the competitive feature really helps you to be more competitive.

5. Will customers pay more money?  Or will this make us more profitable through increased efficiencies?   Validate this by talking to customers and field operations.  

6.  Can we get it to market in time?  If it takes 6 months to bring this feature/partnership to market, will the market and opportunity still be there?

7.  Are we willing to give up ‘x’ to do this? 

Get good at saying “no”.   Know your target market.  Know the problem you solve and the value you bring.  Know the profile of a profitable customer.  Know the capabilities and expertise of your organization.   

I have a business mentor who counsels me with sage advice:  “You don’t have to go through every open window.”   Asking some questions and knowing your goals will help steer your organization to say “yes” to the right opportunities.

Want to read more: 

Case Study from Harvard Business Review

Strategy Means Saying “No”.  David Maister

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