How to Succeed as a B2B Product Manager

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How to Succeed as a B2B Product Manager

Some believe that B2B product management is somehow easier than B2C. The thinking goes that because you're selling to businesses, not consumers, the demands are lower.

But as anyone who's actually worked in a B2B product can tell you, that's simply not true. In fact, I'd argue that B2B is more complex and challenging in many ways.

There are a few unique challenges B2B product managers face that, when unaddressed, can easily hinder your success as a PM.

In my career, I've encountered these challenges repeatedly across different organizations and industries. And each time, I've had to dig deep and find solutions.

So, In this post, I’d like to share:

1. Common misconception: B2B is B2C without design

2. Five challenges B2B product managers commonly face & how to overcome them

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1. Common misconception: B2B is B2C without design

Some say that in B2B, you don't need to worry about UX.

Unless you work on projects pretending to be products, this is completely false.

As Chris Jones (SVPG Product Partner) notices in Design in Enterprise Software Companies, product design serves three functions:

• People buy with their eyes (Original “Communicates product positioning”): In B2B, the sales process involves multiple decision-makers who discuss the product without the salesperson present. The product must communicate the value proposition to help compare competitive solutions.

• It is fundamental to a product's core value proposition: Design is not just about the user interface. Specific flows, interactions, and capabilities must be included and validated during product discovery, as they can influence technical decisions that can’t be easily reversed.

• Enables new paths to market: The consumerization of enterprise software is raising the bar for UX. The same trend was mentioned by Sean Ellis in our interview. For many B2B products like Slack, great design enables bottom-up adoption. For more information, you can also read about Product-Led Growth 101.

In my current and previous companies, we focus on every small detail of user experience. At iDeals, we even extended our product trios to include “product designers” and “content designers.”

It's that critical.

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2. Five challenges B2B product managers commonly face & how to overcome them

Problem 1: Limited access to users

In B2B, getting direct access to end-users can be a real struggle. Unlike in B2C, B2B users are often hidden behind layers of organizational hierarchy.

Customer success, account managers, product operations, or user researchers. In one company, I had to jump through hoops just to get a 30-minute call with a real user. It was like trying to get an audience with the Pope.

Unfortunately, without that direct user access, you're flying blind.

“This really should be obvious, but without direct, unencumbered access to actual users and customers, the product team has little hope of any kind of success in solving for value and usability.” - Marty Cagan, The Foundation of Product

Solution: Get direct access to users

So, what can a B2B product manager do?

Assuming your leadership doesn’t help get direct access to your users, get creative:

• Tactic 1: Build relationships with people working in other roles. This is crucial.

• Tactic 2: Attend sales, onboarding, and customer success calls. You can often support them by providing product knowledge. These calls are a great opportunity to connect with customers.

• Tactic 3: Browse support call transcripts and chats to understand the problems and identify the users you can contact.

• Tactic 4: Ask others to include your Calendly link in their communication.

• Tactic 5: Organize a webinar for your customers in collaboration with marketing or success.

• Tactic 6: If you don’t get support from the leaders of other roles, contact individual people working on those positions. That way, you can “hack” their official procedures.

• Tactic 7: Use your product to recruit participants. It might be as simple as creating a survey that collects customer emails and sending a highly personalized email.

• Tactic 8: Use your product’s data to find the emails and phone numbers you need.

If everything else fails, do what’s right. Ask forgiveness, not permission.

It rarely backfires.

Remember that:

“But the key here is not to let anyone try to prevent you from direct access to customers – not a sales or marketing person, not a customer success person, not a user researcher, not an Agile Coach, not a customer’s vendor manager, no one.” - Marty Cagan, The Foundation of Product

Problem 2: Limited number of customers

Another challenge B2B product managers face is the limited number of customers. Unlike B2C products, which can have millions of customers, B2B products often have a much smaller customer base. Sometimes hundreds or thousands.

This can make it tough to get statistically significant data, both when exploring the problem space and when testing your assumptions (in particular, A/B testing).