The Secrets of Product Management Podcast by Nils Davis: tips for product managers, covering storytelling, go to market,innovation, resumes, job interviews, PRDs, working with developers, persuasion and influence · Nils Davis

160: Seize the Customer Conversation And Other Advice With Mike Smart

·18 min·1 clip

Mike Smart says product managers are “still waiting for the world to change” instead of seizing the customer conversation.

1. The Secrets of Product Management Podcast episode 160 features Nils Davis talking with Mike Smart about product management, customer conversation, and go-to-market. 2. Mike Smart is the guest, he leads Egress Solutions, hosts GTM Disrupted, and brings experience from sales, marketing, product management, and Pragmatic Institute. 3. The episode asks what product managers should do when organizations keep waiting for permission to talk to customers and shape the market. 4. Mike starts with his early career at TCSI, a middleware company formally named Technicron Communication Systems Incorporated, where he moved from sales into business development. 5. He says product management was “significantly broken” there, and the CEO told him, “you’ll last six months” when he pushed into the role. 6. Mike describes working with a small group of very smart people who understood the technology stack but were not turning features into things people wanted to buy. 7. He says his sales and marketing background helped him translate “feeds and speeds” into the business problem customers were actually trying to solve. 8. One example he gives is a product launch at a large telecom trade show that repackaged existing code into a new solution with different messaging. 9. He says that launch worked because the team had identified the customer problem and then oriented the solution around user consumption. 10. Mike also says he documented 30 to 40 ad hoc customer interviews after his VP told him to write them down. 11. He says going into those conversations to listen, rather than sell, gave him direct customer input that the product team had been missing. 12. He recalls engineering working on highly customized AT&T deals worth $7 million, then finding opportunities to scale those solutions down below $1 million. 13. He says the real gap was not more technical depth but better customer language that helped buyers understand the problem being solved. 14. Mike and Nils compare that older pattern with current product dysfunctions, including relying on a small group of customers and giving sales too much influence over roadmaps. 15. Mike says one client engagement 90 days earlier showed the same pattern of trying to invert the roadmap to close a significant deal. 16. He argues that product leaders are still “waiting for the world to change,” and he wants them to seize the customer conversation even if they have to “break some glass.” 17. The discussion is direct and conversational, with Nils challenging Mike on organizational barriers, trust, and whether product teams are actually better informed today. 18. Mike also contrasts release velocity with sales velocity, saying that a CPO should care more about sales velocity than simply pushing features out the door. 19. Product managers and product leaders trying to shift from inside-out to customer-led thinking would get the most from this episode. 20. People looking for abstract theory without practical product-management advice may skip it.

As heard by us

A practical push to stop waiting and start talking with customers.

This episode takes on a familiar product-management problem: too many teams wait for the market to speak first instead of helping shape the conversation.

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Why you'd press play

If you need a sharper way to talk to customers, start here.

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