In my first official product role, I was the product lead at a scale-up. I joined them just when they were just starting to scale, and led one of the two products they had at the time for three years until a successful IPO. After years in engineering, it was the first time I told my husband I felt I had a real contribution to the share price.

Before I joined, after the interview process, they said I had passed all the interviews but my future boss wanted to talk to me before they gave me an offer. We met and he told me it was going to be a tough role. I believe he wasn’t sure I had what it takes. Telling me something is going to be a challenge does the exact opposite of scaring me, so after listening carefully to his scare talk, I told him I was going to be a product manager, with their company or somewhere else. I got the job.

Many years later, I have to agree with him (on the toughness part, not on me not having what it takes!). Product roles are not for everyone. 

One of the challenges is that everyone always has an opinion about product work, and they keep challenging you. It sometimes feels like whenever you want to lead in a certain direction, someone will tell you you are wrong. They could be right, and it could be that you are both right, because there are no absolute correct answers in product work.

I don’t know about you, but when people keep telling me I might be wrong at some point I start believing it myself. And so I found myself complaining to our VP of Marketing (who was in charge of product at some point) about how everyone tries to tell me what to do. It’s not like me to complain, but I’m glad I did it that time.

He gave me an answer I didn’t expect at all, and it had a tremendous impact on me. He told me that he knows that I know my product and market better than anyone else in the company. In other words (or maybe he continued with explicit words, I can’t remember), he told me that he trusted me and that I should too.

It was a defining moment for me. It didn’t change much of what I did later on, but it definitely changed how I felt and managed certain situations.

I’m sure you know how it feels.

It’s really hard to lead when everyone has an opinion on what you need to do.

It’s even harder when senior people, often with money on the table, come and say that you must do something or else they will fail.

But if you just do as you are told, you will not be doing your job, and over time it might do more harm than good.

Here is what you need to do to stay true to your real responsibility.

Own the Bigger Picture

Before you can build trust, you must know what you are doing. With great power comes great responsibility, so before you ask people to follow your leadership, you must make sure you know where you want to lead them.

The reason my VP of Marketing was able to trust me so bluntly was that I worked really hard to know what I was talking about. I met customers on a regular basis, and when I did I listened carefully to read between the lines and not just take what they tell me at face value. 

I made sure to seek to serve the market and not specific customers since that’s our responsibility as product people (even if the road to serving the market goes through working with specific customers, which is often the case).

I took the time and freedom to think about what makes sense and what doesn’t, to provide real insights and drive meaningful discussions.

It is the foundation for everything else I say here.

Trust Yourself

Once you do all of that, you will still have doubts. That’s the nature of product work, especially when it comes to dealing with specific requests from senior and often assertive people.

To be able to cope with them, you must trust yourself that you have a say. That you have what to contribute to the discussion, and not just be a gatekeeper who has to say ‘no’ all the time.

More often than not, I see product people not letting themselves think things through, because they assume their role is to say yes and serve the business.

While a can-do attitude is the right one (more on that below), there is a big difference between that and just taking orders from other people.

You must remind yourself to treat customer requests for what they are – requests. A request can be answered fully, partially, not at all, or analyzed to realize that there is another request that is the real need, to which you can provide a good answer without shifting priorities too much.

Make room for yourself to consider all of these options, at least in your head. Don’t lose before you play.

Trust Them

By now, we have established that you need to know what you are talking about and that you need to allow yourself to think and debate things.

This might come with the notion that you are the only one who knows these things and that salespeople don’t really know what they are talking about. It’s so tempting to think that sales come to ask for product features just because they don’t want to work hard to sell.

While it’s sometimes true, you don’t want to start there.

Instead, start a discussion. Understand what they did and tried, how they got to the conclusion that this feature is needed, and how significant is it for closing the deal. 

You should assume they did what they needed to do, and this discussion is merely your way to understand that part.

Once you do, it will be much easier to navigate your way to a solution that everyone likes.

Make Them Trust You

If you want to create a real partnership with sales and customer success, you must build your credibility. You can’t say ‘no’ if that’s the only thing you ever say because they will most likely stop approaching you and go above your pay grade. That’s when you will really get orders to do something, whether you like it or not.

Instead, you need to create a partnership with them. It’s not so hard, because you have a shared interest – for the company to succeed and make more money. You want your product to win these large deals, don’t you?

That’s why your default approach should be to want to help them and say ‘yes’. It doesn’t mean you say ‘yes’ eventually, and certainly not to the same thing they requested, but you are there with them.

They need to know that you care, that you are going to do whatever it takes to help them win this deal, and if you say ‘no’ eventually and cause them to lose it it’s because you had no other option.

Sometimes merely by getting on a call with a customer and analyzing their real needs, the original feature request could be out of discussion, since the customer would realize there is a better solution.

Your value goes beyond feature delivery. If you come with the right mindset, you can create magic. Remember that you are both on the same side and do what you have to do.