What are the seven essential qualities that SaaS product managers must possess?

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While many factors contribute to the success of a SaaS product, such as having a leading business model, excellent product, and strong marketing and sales teams, the role of the SaaS product manager is often overlooked. However, in the current era of product-driven growth strategies, the success of a SaaS product is heavily reliant on the abilities of its product manager to identify and incorporate key elements into their success strategy. A competent SaaS product manager can bring significant benefits to an organization, including increased revenue and profitability, customer satisfaction, referrals, and long-term market ownership. In this article, we will explore the seven essential qualities that a good SaaS product manager should possess to achieve these outcomes.

I. Learn about products, business and services exhaustively

To be effective strategic planners and executors of new and existing products, SaaS product managers must possess a comprehensive understanding of all the product lines offered by the enterprise, as well as have expertise in product services. As enterprise customers' demand scenarios are diverse, there are often SaaS products that cater to specific business scenarios. For example, a single enterprise may use Kingdee Cloud for financial software, E-Gate WMS system for supply chain, and Weaver OA system for internal coordination.

Multiple SaaS products are often integrated to form an aggregated platform that can address diverse business scenarios. For instance, a restaurant SaaS platform might include a dining system, a cashier system, and a WMS logistics warehouse management system. A competent SaaS product manager should be familiar with all the products, business scenarios, and service aspects within their organization. This knowledge is necessary to continually iterate the product to meet changing customer needs, develop a sustainable vision to meet market demand, and ensure customer satisfaction. Product managers can collaborate with other product managers, sales staff, and marketing teams across product lines to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the company's products, business, and services.

How can a new product manager efficiently learn about the product, business, and service to quickly start working? Here are some tips:

• Review previous product design materials, PRD documents, and prototypes to gain a basic understanding of the product and business.
• Collaborate with product managers, direct reports, technical, operations, marketing, and sales teams to create a product stakeholder network map to aid in subsequent product planning and design.
• Analyze competing products in the market, understand their business models and product design logic, and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses by listing them in a table and comparing them to your product.
• Focus on core SaaS metrics in your organization, such as Recurring Revenue (MRR/ARR), Customer Lifetime Value (LTV), Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA), and Customer Churn.
• Seek external help by attending peer-to-peer networking meetings or white paper conferences to learn about the industry quickly.
• Read books about the industry and field to quickly accumulate knowledge about the industry and related product and service systems and form your own knowledge framework.

II. Analyzing the implicit needs of users

To design successful products, product managers must understand the difference between explicit and implicit user needs. Explicit needs are clearly stated by users, while implicit needs require further exploration and analysis by product managers.

Focusing solely on explicit needs can lead to product homogenization, so it's essential for product managers to gain a comprehensive understanding of both types of user needs. This involves studying users' habits, characteristics, psychological states, desires, and economic status from various perspectives to ensure a positive user experience.

Therefore, in product design, product managers must provide a comprehensive overview of users' implicit needs, their meanings, and characteristics from a user experience perspective. By doing so, they can create products that meet both explicit and implicit user needs and stand out in the market.

III. Sense of ownership

The importance of a product manager's sense of ownership in the success of a SaaS product cannot be underestimated. Although product success depends on many factors, the product manager bears most of the responsibility for failure. Apart from possessing the necessary skills and overall strength, the product manager should have a strong sense of ownership. This includes developing a vision for the product and being committed to its growth and success over time. A product manager with a sense of ownership actively collaborates with different teams to improve the product's performance and listens carefully to customer feedback to understand user needs. Companies are increasingly recognizing the value of employees who work not only to complete tasks but also to improve the product and benefit the company. When evaluating a company's product development prospects, it is essential to assess the percentage of product team members who work diligently and those who just work for the sake of work.

IV. The soft and hard skills to promote the product successfully

To successfully promote a product, a product manager must possess both soft and hard skills. Soft skills, which include leadership, prioritization, and interpersonal skills, are essential for leading product teams and efficiently completing the product lifecycle. On the other hand, hard skills, also known as technical skills, such as creating a product roadmap or strategy, writing technical specifications, and effectively utilizing product management techniques, are crucial for developing and designing products. A successful product manager must be adept in both sets of skills to effectively promote a product.

V. Leadership

Dynamic leadership is crucial for product managers as they need to earn the trust and followership of others and maximize team members' efforts to transform vision into reality. Leadership is often misunderstood, and it is not related to a person's job title or personal attributes such as being domineering, responsible, or charismatic. Instead, it is a centripetal force that motivates people from the inside to work towards a common goal.

One of the most important leadership skills for product managers is the ability to communicate effectively and inspire passion for the product or service. Listening to the concerns of colleagues and customers is also critical for long-term leadership success, as it helps in convincing them of the product's value and enhances the message of solving user problems.

Building credibility and earning respect from the extended team are other crucial leadership skills for product managers. This fosters confidence in the product manager's ability to create a successful future for the product line.

VI. Product decision making ability

The ability to make effective product decisions is a critical aspect of a product manager's role. These decisions are made based on past product operations data and user feedback, and have a significant impact on a company's success by meeting customer needs.

In order to provide the business with effective and implementable product strategies, a good product manager must have strong decision-making skills. They use a combination of intuition, analysis, and feedback to make the best product decision strategy by weighing the risks and possible reward options. However, it can be challenging to balance these inputs and achieve the best outcome.

Individuals, teams, and companies often have biases towards particular decision models, which can hinder their ability to truly understand their markets and make informed decisions. This can leave them vulnerable to disruption. Therefore, product managers must strive to make decisions that are objective, data-driven, and focused on meeting customer needs to ensure long-term success.

VII. Forecast of products

The importance of anticipating the future of products is crucial in product management. Despite the emphasis on monitoring market and user changes, product iteration is often reactive. This reactive approach results in missed opportunities because of the time required to adjust from analysis to product solution.

A skilled product manager, however, can use various data and information to predict future product trends and anticipate changing user needs. By proactively embracing these changes, rather than following public trends with hindsight, product managers can stay ahead of the curve and capitalize on new opportunities.

Conclusion

In the present circumstances, the survival of a company has become a collective concern. The question of how to thrive in such times is an important topic for discussion.