This document summarizes key differences between building consumer products and enterprise products. It notes that enterprise sales cycles are much longer, with fewer data points to understand what drives sales. It also notes that buyers and users are different roles in enterprises. Additionally, it discusses how organizational incentives often prioritize sales goals over product goals in enterprises. The document provides recommendations for enterprise product companies, such as conducting in-depth customer interviews instead of tests, understanding both buyer and user needs, and being prepared for pressure to add "special features" to deals.

1. Understanding Enterprise
Product Companies
Rich Mironov
Pacific Northwest
Product Management Community
25 March 2019

2. • Veteran product manager/exec/strategist
• Organizing product organizations
• Smokejumper VP Products
• 6 B2B startups
• Product management blog since 2002
• Founded Product Camp
About Rich Mironov
@RichMironov @PMCNW

3. Christoph Janz
consumer
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SMB/department
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enterprise
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@RichMironov @PMCNW

4. • Projects, clients
• Staff augmentation,
talent for hire
• “Bespoke, custom, agile,
lean, experienced”
• $: margin by project
Professional
Services?
• Products, customers
• Target market, defined
features, list price
• “This problem, this
metric, our solution”
• $: licenses, seats,
transactions, volume
Product
Company?
@RichMironov @PMCNW

5. • User = buyer
• Can talk to lots of prospects (with plenty left)
• Can run A/B tests with product variants, sign-up
variants, pricing options, alternate messaging…
• Identifying need > building solution
• User can “buy” before product works
Unstated B2C Assumptions
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6. 1. Long sales cycles, few data points, weak
pre-sales attribution
2. Buyers ≠ users
3. Strong organizational incentives for
sales escalations
Differences For B2B
Product Companies
@RichMironov @PMCNW

7. • 9-18 month close, dozens of
touches: what moved needle?
• Can’t run live A/B market tests
• Each internal group takes credit
for wins
• Vignettes and recency bias
1. Long Sales Cycles, Weak
Attribution, Few Data Points
@RichMironov @PMCNW

8. • Validate problems directly with dozens of customers
• You, personally
• Learning interviews ≠ selling meetings
• Dig deep on problems, motivations, quantifiable value,
buying processes, alternatives before pitching solutions
• Identify segments, qualifiers
(then share widely)
• Outside win/loss analysis
(not sales self-inspection)
What To Do?
@RichMironov @PMCNW

9. • “Closing” meetings
• Organized by Sales
• Goal is to close
• Anticipate/answer objections
• Never raise new issues or ask about new needs
• Listening/learning meetings
• Organized by Product Management
• Open-ended questions
• Dig for blockers, issues, ideas, new concerns
• Trial-close unbuilt products, unproven solutions
Two Kinds of Customer Meetings

10. • Your engaged paying users
interact with your system (SaaS)
• Who logged in this week? Entered
data? Checked status? Ran a report?
Needed help? Saved money?
• A/B tests, non-vanity metrics
• Predictors of good onboarding,
active users, renewals?
Actionable Data from User Activity
@RichMironov @PMCNW

11. • Two sets of benefits and
features and success criteria
• Users want great apps;
buyers want great ROI
• Roles and titles vary
• Complex set of influencers
2. Buyers ≠ Users
@RichMironov @PMCNW

12. • Say “buyer” or “user” instead of
“customer”
• Interview both, understand both
• Users want benefits/features;
buyers want ROI
• Sales-led Customer Advisory Boards
are selling events
What To Do?
@RichMironov @PMCNW

13. “By using our tech support knowledge automator, you can
reduce your support time per call by 25%.”
Hard Cost Savings for Buyer
Proposed savings 25%
Your savings $65,000
Your support calls/year 22,000
Average minutes/call 16
Total annual support hours 5,900
Current support team FTE 4
Average salary $65,000
Annual staff cost $260,000

14. • High-powered, expensive sales teams
• Long sales cycles, lumpy revenue
• CEO tracks major deals by name
• Sales wins deals; product loses deals
• “How hard could it be to add
this one tiny feature?”
3. Strong Organizational
Incentives For Sales Escalations
@RichMironov @PMCNW

16. • Don’t be offended or surprised. We love Sales!
• Identify executives who own trade-offs, feel pain
• Comp plans outweigh good intentions
• Preemptively discuss when no deal is on fire
• Frame all requests as trade-offs. Compare
all options in dollars. Replace AND with OR.
• Build trust and working relationships with Sales
Sales Escalations: What to Do?
@RichMironov @PMCNW

17. 1. Dozens of in-depth interviews replace hundreds
of market funnel A/B tests
2. Product must actually deliver on core promise
before we can earn meaningful revenue
3. Understand and serve both buyers and users
4. Intense pressure for “specials”
Enterprise Product Takeaways
@RichMironov @PMCNW

18. Rich Mironov
Mironov Consulting
San Francisco, CA, USA
www.mironov.com
+1-650-315-7394
rich@mironov.com
@richmironov