Maximize Your First Impression

In high school, I worked at Barnes & Noble, and it gave me my first appreciation for merchandising in a saturated environment. Thousands and thousands of books under one roof: how do you differentiate? In many cases, it was the artwork on the cover of the book. The same happens in the beer aisle. Go into any craft beer store, and your eyes will naturally gravitate towards the more intricate label designs.

My eyes were immediately drawn to Left Hand Brewing’s Good Juju

For the B2C (business-to-consumer) environment, the first impression is all about the app download, the website registration process, the email signup, etc. How many steps does it take? How intuitive is it? Is your copy friendly and reflective of your brand? What’s the experience like the first time your user logs in? (Note: read more about The Minimal Homepage at growhack.com)

But in the B2B environment, first impressions are often a much different type of touchpoint. You’re so much more reliant on your people.Your sales team is the one at the pitch, giving the demo or passing along the user guide. As the product manager, it’s critical to spend time with your sales team, ensuring that (1) they have expert knowledge of the product and (2) that they’re able to clearly articulate the benefits that particular customer will see. If you have multiple products, you need to be comfortable that they are pitching the correct one as a solution. If you’re not supremely confident in either of these, you’ve just found your next project.