Before I met Arik, I was single for a long time. Over 8 years, my longest relationships were three months or so, and they were rare. I spent most of my 20’s either dating or taking a break from dating. It wasn’t at all fun. I knew I didn’t want things to be that way. I was so jealous of my friends who got married, and even left a wedding once early since staying there was too painful. 

I definitely knew that something wasn’t working, and that I didn’t want that anymore. But it was only after I started seeing a therapist that I realized that I had no clue what it looked like when things did work. I felt like my most important achievement was to find the love of my life, but didn’t think at all about the life that comes after it. Specifically, I realized that the goal is much more than to find the right person for here and now. I learned that maintaining a happy relationship for a long time requires constant work. And so it was much more important to find the person that will work with you throughout those years to come. The whole definition of what success looks like changed, and how I approached it changed accordingly. 

One year later I met Arik, and the rest is history 🙂

When something doesn’t work, you often feel it and want to solve the pain you feel. But sometimes, especially when the resolution depends on other people, you must be able to paint a brighter future for them to even be willing to go along with you.

I feel that with product strategy, this is often the case. When you don’t have one you feel it. You might feel lost – going through the motions but not knowing why and where you are going with this. You feel the misalignment with the other leaders – either through conflicts (which is a good sign because it gives you an opportunity to talk about it) or through complete detachment – each does their own and you don’t interfere with each other (because that would be too hard). You have a hard time prioritizing, and feel that the goals keep changing. 

You definitely want to change that. 

But product strategy isn’t something that you can just decide to do on your own. It relies on the company goals, and if you don’t have any these discussions need to be invoked. You also don’t write the strategy for yourself, it is the alignment around it that brings the real value.

When I talk to CPO Bootcamp candidates who want to get budget for the program, I always say that they should explain the problems with the current situation (without a solid product strategy in place). They feel them, and their managers feel them as well – it’s just a matter of highlighting them. But it’s also important to talk about how product strategy solves these problems, and what it would allow you to do.

Of course, having a product strategy helps with alignment and prioritization. It creates a framework for discussions in the leadership team, and it guides your roadmap and what everyone is working on. That goes without saying. 

But here are additional 3 benefits of having a product strategy, that come on top of the two I just mentioned, that explain how a product strategy really helps you succeed. You can use with your managers to convince them to join you in building one.

The Product Sells More Easily

A great product strategy takes into account not only the product, but also the market. It focuses on choosing the right customer segment, and defines the ideal customer profile (ICP): A detailed profile of the persona that is most likely to benefit from the product and is also likely to buy. It helps streamline the entire customer journey in a way that makes sense from the customer’s point of view.

And guess what? When done well (and iterated time and again) it works! If you understand which customer segment is most likely to buy, and you validate your assumptions along the way, you are usually able to either fail fast and find another track to success or, well, succeed.

It happens not only because the product strategy chooses the right ICP and allows you to create the right product for it (which obviously makes it easier to sell since the product is what they really need). It also happens because the product strategy clearly defines the value that this customer profile is expected to get from the product, and this helps everyone involved say the same thing.

When the messaging on your website speaks about the same value that the salespeople are talking about in a meeting, and that exact same value is actually delivered by the product everything works more smoothly. When these three components are not aligned it is much harder to succeed. If you are on Product-Led Growth (PLG) that’s even worse, since there is no man in the middle to help the customer go through the funnel even if the value doesn’t 100% match what they expected. A good product strategy which aligns at least these three components (marketing, sales, and product) is a must have for the product to sell easily.

You Can Scale Without Too Much Process

The alignment created by the product strategy is not limited to these three departments. With a clear product strategy, everyone in the company should easily understand what you are trying to do and why. On top of better prioritization and less conflict, this has another hidden benefit: it’s easier to scale with people rather than with process.

Great processes are hard to define. I mean, it’s always easy to set some process in place, but for the process to actually work for you and not the other way around, a lot of investment is required. It’s also a never ending one. I once read an article saying that agile failed because the whole point was to keep learning and developing the process that works for you, on an ongoing basis, but people don’t love doing that. People love stability. People love finding one thing that works and sticking to that. That’s why many processes fail – they are good for you at a certain point in time but then become outdated, and no one likes to reopen them.

A great product strategy allows you to be less dependent on process. That’s not to say that you don’t need a process at all, but if everyone understands what you are trying to do and why, you can give people more freedom and still get everyone on the same page.

Decide What Not to Do

Last but not least, a great product strategy allows you to decide what not to do more easily. Note that I’m not talking about prioritization, because that goes without saying. I’m talking about the fact that it’s easier to say no to certain things when you have a good alternative at hand.

Without a product strategy, all opportunities considered can seem equally important. Sometimes, what makes things important is that the CEO wants them. In such a climate, it’s hard to say no to anything, because they are all too good to give up on. 

But a great product strategy allows you to paint a clear picture of what success looks like, and where you want to go if you choose a certain opportunity or path over another. By showing the road to success, other alternatives start to appear as distraction – not only to you (you knew you needed to focus from the get go, right?) but also to the other leaders in the company.

Since the product strategy needs to go into details and define in depth where we are going, it is easier for everyone involved to understand and grasp the idea much more tangibly. It’s easier to say yes to such an idea that makes sense and seems to have good potential.

Remember – it’s much easier to say no to something when you already said yes to something great. That’s true in product strategy and also in relationships which brings us back to the beginning of this article 😉