Building strong customer relationships is the cornerstone of any successful product strategy. As product managers, we often focus on features and functionality, but the real magic happens when we connect with our users on a deeper level.

I've discovered that forging meaningful connections with customers falls into two distinct categories: those we're just getting to know and those we've built a rapport with over time. Let's explore strategies for both scenarios.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Cultivating New Customer Relationships

When approaching new customers or users, preparation is key. Before any interaction, I make it a priority to:

• Research their company, industry, and specific use cases
• Analyze their purchase history and support tickets
• Identify key stakeholders and decision-makers

This groundwork allows me to enter conversations with context and demonstrate genuine interest in their business.

Regardless of the relationship stage, following up on commitments is non-negotiable. After every meaningful interaction:

• Summarize key points and action items
• Set clear expectations for next steps
• Deliver on promises, no matter how small

This consistency builds trust and shows customers that their input is valued and acted upon.

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BEST MOMENTS

“Let them know that the evolution of your product relies on honest and constructive feedback from users like them.”

“Building rich relationships with your various stakeholders, especially your users, will transform you into an expert, shape you into a trusted resource, and actuate the accuracy of your knowledge toward your business's objectives for your customers.”

“If you listen to and solve problems for a broad base of your customers, your investments will become aligned with your business intentions.”

“You may need to carry the conversation with some users. Remind them that you asked for the meeting so that you could listen to their experiences, even if the feedback is not favorable.

VALUABLE RESOURCES

My free customer baseline guide + bonuses

My free tips for conducting customer feedback sessions

Check out my programs and workshops

ABOUT THE HOST

Heather has had more than 25 years of experience working with 1000s of customers and securing hundreds of millions of product funding. Early in her career, she was successful at rapidly growing start-up organizations, and over the past 15+ years she has a record of aligning diverse teams to deliver value for customers and strategies for organizations. All through having a focus on solving customer needs to achieve business outcomes.

CONNECT & CONTACT

Visit my community on Mighty Networks

Find me on LinkedIn

Email: info@listen-evolve-inspire.com

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Before I ever book a meeting with my management to ask for funding, lay out a strategy for my product's needs, or ask for sponsorship, I make sure what I'm asking for is grounded in reality.

Therefore, you will need an accurate and believable pitch. Precise prioritization of what should be in your pitch requires real user data, which means you need a broad enough sampling of user feedback to prove out the story for your pitch. Anything less than hard facts will only embarrass you and risk your credibility.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. The first thing I always do is seek out enough information from end users.
2. Here's a pro tip: I always ask my users to prioritize what's most important to them before concluding each feedback session. Doing so will reinforce the accuracy of your foundational data
3. The second action I take is sharing the summarized, prioritized user feedback with my business peers
4. The second action output will include summaries of prioritized user feedback and business priorities, which were mapped using user data.
5. My third action is to share the business output with my stakeholders. This output is aimed at making informed decisions based on a combination of prioritized user and business needs.
6. The stakeholder analysis's output should include details of resources, effort scoping, timelines, and budget requirements. I like to summarize these details into points within the overall product program pitch

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BEST MOMENTS

“When I prepare for a pitch, I need to anticipate the questions and possible push-back moments from what I'm presenting. The pitch needs to make sense right away to the new listeners.”

“The priorities of what I'm asking for must be rock-solid, or I won't get the business to invest in my strategy.”

VALUABLE RESOURCES

My free guide

Check out my programs and workshops

ABOUT THE HOST

Heather has had more than 25 years of experience working with 1000s of customers and securing hundreds of millions of product funding. Early in her career, she was successful at rapidly growing start-up organizations, and over the past 15+ years she has a record of aligning diverse teams to deliver value for customers and strategies for organizations. All through having a focus on solving customer needs to achieve business outcomes.

CONNECT & CONTACT

Visit my community on Mighty Networks

Find me on LinkedIn

Email: info@listen-evolve-inspire.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As December comes to a close, I like to revisit my year. From a fiscal year perspective, I review the goals of my mid-year in-flight programs.

1. Are your programs on track, and can you measure their trajectory?
2. What must occur from January through June to accomplish your goals?
3. Then, what strategic business outcomes can you plan for and fulfill to meet goals between July and December?

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Another way I reflect on my year is to assess if my work compelled me to evolve how I interacted with my customers, partners, peers, stakeholders, and management.

1. Did I target and act on my professional development goals to level up my skills and add one new habit to my professional operating model, making my goals a reality?
2. Did I receive or seek out feedback from others about how I can evolve my techniques for interacting with the teams I work with?
3. Did I cultivate any new customers and partners into advisory roles this year?
4. Looking beyond myself, who did I mentor or support with their role or career?

DM me in my community on Mighty Networks, ask me anything!

BEST MOMENTS

“As a professional, it’s essential to constantly assess what’s working and what’s not working so that you can evolve your next opportunity.”

“Challenge yourself to mature a reputable operating model. Then, work it into your daily practice.”

VALUABLE RESOURCES

My free guide

Check out my programs and workshops

ABOUT THE HOST

Heather has had more than 25 years of experience working with 1000s of customers and securing hundreds of millions of product funding. Early in her career, she was successful at rapidly growing start-up organizations, and over the past 15+ years she has a record of aligning diverse teams to deliver value for customers and strategies for organizations. All through having a focus on solving customer needs to achieve business outcomes.

CONNECT & CONTACT

Visit my community on Mighty Networks

Find me on LinkedIn

Email: info@listen-evolve-inspire.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This conversation delves into the methodology of conducting Product Insight Sprints, emphasizing the importance of user feedback in product development. I outline the process from planning and preparing for the sprint, engaging users during the sessions, categorizing and prioritizing feedback, for assessing implementation efforts and creating an executive pitch deck. The focus is on fostering genuine relationships with users and stakeholders to drive informed business decisions and enhance product usability.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The goal of design sprints is to reduce adoption risks and improve a user's experience by:

• Hearing use case-specific feedback directly from users
• Getting answers to critical business questions to make informed decisions
• Coming up with new ideas with users and subject matter experts
• Aligning teams under a shared vision
• Developing scope estimates with all teams
• Prototyping an idea, developing wireframes or workflows
• Validating it rapidly with users
• Finally, having a formulated a data-driven, user-validated pitch for your management and stakeholders

BEST MOMENTS

“I consistently check in with users and stakeholders to stay current with what users need and keep my relationships genuine and accessible should I need to make various business decisions.”

“This product insight sprint is a series of sessions in which users of products and employees from various teams share and discuss usability feedback and run ideation sessions that conclude with a nicely formed pile of stack-ranked decisions for a specific product.”

‘In a nutshell, a product insight sprint is a series of time-bound processes that use design thinking activities to help design or redesign a product, service, or feature.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

My free guide

Check out my programs and workshops

ABOUT THE HOST

Heather has had more than 25 years of experience working with 1000s of customers and securing hundreds of millions of product funding. Early in her career, she was successful at rapidly growing start-up organizations, and over the past 15+ years she has a record of aligning diverse teams to deliver value for customers and strategies for organizations. All through having a focus on solving customer needs to achieve business outcomes.

CONNECT & CONTACT

Visit my community on Mighty Networks

Find me on LinkedIn

Email: info@listen-evolve-inspire.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Landing programs and messaging are super important, so you want to translate them in a way that will engage folks. Engagement is number one. With it, you will be able to move very quickly. Key to your accomplishments is driving alignment and engagement with your stakeholders, who will be the most important people in implementing those programs.

When crafting executive messaging, assume you only have five minutes with a senior audience. You must land all the important stuff on that first slide. The first slide needs to make the goal clear. Because senior audiences will be able to look at an excellent summary in two seconds, grock, what they want to know to address your ask for support. You could have 1000 appendix slides, but you need to land the important stuff upfront

They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. - Maya Angelou. To be a courageous leader, you must lead with the desire to build trust and accept vulnerability. How you show up constructs a foundation of how you make someone feel and that progress can initiate positive or even motivational actions.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Building next-level partnerships comes from knowing your colleagues; it will add another dimension to your professional relations.
• When you develop long-term relationships, colleagues will not hesitate to call you after a meeting because they want to clarify a topic they weren't aware of during a program update, were caught off guard by a specific detail, or sensed frustration due to noticeable body language. Perhaps they could see that everyone wasn't on the same page and reached out to discuss it.
• If you want to embrace this fail-fast culture, you must be willing to speak up, be vulnerable, and, ideally, have an open culture around you that supports it.

BEST MOMENTS

“You work with two categories of folks. There are the listeners, colleagues who are going to listen and then respond, or there are people who are just waiting to talk and are not actually listening. My challenge to the listeners here today is to think about: Are you a listener? Are you someone who's waiting to talk?”

“Have a solid plan to ground all the stakeholders. If there isn't enough information, they might not be on board. It's important to know early on whether or not everyone involved agrees with how to measure the outcomes and agrees that we've achieved our goal. You need to have people in the room nodding their heads and engaging in the conversation.”

VALUABLE RESOURCES

My free guide

Check out my programs and workshops

ABOUT THE HOST

Heather has had more than 25 years of experience working with 1000s of customers and securing hundreds of millions of product funding. Early in her career, she was successful at rapidly growing start-up organizations, and over the past 15+ years she has a record of aligning diverse teams to deliver value for customers and strategies for organizations. All through having a focus on solving customer needs to achieve business outcomes.

CONNECT & CONTACT

Visit my community on Mighty Networks

Find me on LinkedIn

Email: info@listen-evolve-inspire.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I recommend going into each interview with a mindset of accurately knowing what your users experience. When you ask 'why' questions amongst the scenarios a user shares with you, you will begin to peel back the onion of reality for each user. They will take note and feel heard. Even when you think you know the answer, ask your users why they do or say things. The answers will sometimes surprise you. Never say "usually" when asking a question. Instead, ask about a specific instance or occurrence, such as "tell me about the last time you. Another good practice to follow is to keep historical records about how you made decisions. What data patterns and use cases led you to make particular decisions?

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Pay attention to nonverbal cues. Be aware and capture when body language and emotions occur in the context of the conversation.
• And don't be afraid of silence. Interviewers often feel the need to ask another question when there is a pause. If you allow for silence, a person can reflect on what they've just said and may reveal a deeper insight, share an example, or tell a story.
• Gather facts, not opinions. Ask 'why' to get the juicy bits of what's really going on for your users. Don't ask 'Would you…?', Ask 'When was the last time you have…?'. Other good examples are:
• Ask: "Why do you need to____…?"
• Ask: why is ____ vital to you?'"
• Or, Ask: "why is ____ such a pain point…?’"
• Or ask, 'What are the most significant limitations you are struggling with?'

BEST MOMENTS

‘‘Your goal is to listen and learn, not to inform, impress, or convince your customer of anything. Avoid wasting time talking about your own benefits because it will cost you time, which you can use to learn about your customer.’

‘Clear communication can lead to good relationships and can show your leadership acumen. Follow-through reinforces that you are serious about your partnership and are a leader of your product and career.’

‘After you and your users dig into each question, recap what you heard to verify you heard them accurately. Ask if there are next steps that are important to them. You may not satisfy the subsequent steps, so connect them with contacts who will follow through.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

My free guide

Check out my programs and workshops

ABOUT THE HOST

Heather has had more than 25 years of experience working with 1000s of customers and securing hundreds of millions of product funding. Early in her career, she was successful at rapidly growing start-up organizations, and over the past 15+ years she has a record of aligning diverse teams to deliver value for customers and strategies for organizations. All through having a focus on solving customer needs to achieve business outcomes.

CONNECT & CONTACT

Visit my community on Mighty Networks

Find me on LinkedIn

Email: info@listen-evolve-inspire.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Commitment to your professional evolution by developing a powerful operating model requires intent. How you change the interactions with your internal and external stakeholders influences the consistency in your achievements. I'll talk about how two specific books and their authors have helped me consider what to incorporate into my systems and why I would consider changing my operating model.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Have you ever been so inspired by a book, podcast, or speaker because the topic resonated with who you are and want to be more of in the future that you began to act on that idea or feeling?
• You may have even begun taking action. Writing down critical points of what you heard and jotted down a list of ways to keep that feeling in motion and move in that direction of change.
• Dedication to follow through is the ultimate challenge, turning that inspired feeling into a habit long enough to become a practiced pattern, ultimately bringing the initial feeling full circle into a reality.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I don't know about you, but I already have a life of habits that make up how I operate. If I want to add a new way of operating, I must first work out how to harness that feeling and turn it into an endured action.’

‘Choosing to 10X yourself to that higher level of operating is how you unlock your next level of thinking and freedom.’

‘Pay attention to what inspires you to be more of your authentic self.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

My free guide

Check out my programs and workshops

ABOUT THE HOST

Heather has had more than 25 years of experience working with 1000s of customers and securing hundreds of millions of product funding. Early in her career, she was successful at rapidly growing start-up organizations, and over the past 15+ years she has a record of aligning diverse teams to deliver value for customers and strategies for organizations. All through having a focus on solving customer needs to achieve business outcomes.

CONNECT & CONTACT

Visit my community on Mighty Networks

Find me on LinkedIn

Email: info@listen-evolve-inspire.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does experience mean for users, employees, leaders, and companies? Some companies are beginning to think about the interconnectedness of business, users, and communities. What does that mean and how can businesses evolve to change their ecosystem and opportunities, to create a shift in how employees think about their role in an organization?

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Download my free guide

Check out my programs and workshops

EPISODES TO CHECK OUT NEXT

Andy Hagerman Pt 1

ABOUT THE HOST

Heather has had more than 25 years of experience working with 1000s of customers and securing hundreds of millions of product funding. Early in her career, she was successful at rapidly growing start-up organizations, and over the past 15+ years she has a record of aligning diverse teams to deliver value for customers and strategies for organizations. All through having a focus on solving customer needs to achieve business outcomes.

CONNECT WITH ANDY

• Andy Hagerman's LinkedIn profile
• The Design Gym website
• Free Download: TDG's Customer Discovery Toolkit
• Free Download: TDG's Innovating For Growth Facilitation Card Pack
• Book mentioned: Unreasonable Hospitality, by Will Guidara
• Book mentioned: Setting the Table, by Danny Meyer

Visit my community on Mighty Networks

Find me on LinkedIn

Email: info@listen-evolve-inspire.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.