5 Surprising Jobs That Could Help You Be a Better Product Manager
I’ve been a number of different things in my working life so far, and some people might look at this as a bad thing. I guess I can’t blame them; on the surface, it would appear like a bunch of random choices or “career hopping”.
In reality, not all of us know exactly what we want to do with the rest of our lives at 21. Or 22. Or even 23, 24, or 25. So I spent those years relentlessly trying to figure myself out, having ruled out certain popular career paths that 99% of my peers seemed to be on. Because even if I didn’t know what I aspired to, I wanted to be honest with myself about what I didn’t aspire to.
I was willing to explore and go through the grind of uncertainty in order to find a career that truly felt right for me.
In doing so, I can now look back and see how the sum total of all these disparate experiences has made me a better person. I think they’ve also prepared me for the cross-disciplinary, myriad challenges of Product Management.
As always, I’m drawing from personal experience here (because otherwise wtf am I talking about?) — but here are 5 surprising jobs that I think can help you be a better Product Manager:
1. Restaurant Server
Being a server can be seriously tough work. Working at Houston’s steakhouse was one of the toughest jobs I’ve ever had. We had a 1–2 hour wait almost every night of the week, and the clientele was demanding. Most were regulars who knew exactly what they wanted, how they wanted it, and Houston’s prided itself on serving up just about any customization you could think of — all in the name of best serving our guests. Not to mention, Houston’s is part of a much bigger corporate entity called Hillstone Restaurant Group, which means there are rigid standards to uphold.
I was surprised to find out that many people actually failed the rigorous training program, and I myself thought by the third day that I might not survive its sheer physical demands.
Anyone who’s ever been a server at a popular restaurant on a busy night knows what I’m talking about. It takes immense patience to smile courteously at guests as they yell at you because their steak came out too rare; to smile at your manager as she yells at you for scurrying off the floor with too few dirty dishes, when your top priority is fixing this steak situation; to bring out bread and fifteen waters for the party that’s been waiting forever for someone, anyone to give them some damn attention and oh—you’re not actually assigned to their table; to deal with basically 8,000 disasters on a given night and somehow turn it all around for your guests so they leave happy and want to come back again.
Surviving the battlefield of a busy service night and learning to put customers first, no matter how trying they can be or how badly you have to use the bathroom gives you grit. And patience. And having both of these undoubtedly makes you a better Product Manager.
2. Retail Sales Associate
Retail sales associates, like servers, have to put customers above all else. In fact, there’s quite a lot of overlap between these two jobs. To their core, both are about making customers happy and delivering outstanding service. And of course, there is some element of sales and upselling to both as well — but not before taking care of the customer first.
For six months while working at Houston’s, I also worked as a Sales Associate at Louis Vuitton. At the time, I felt I needed a change of pace and scene between serving shifts in order to keep my sanity. What really ended up happening, however, was that I’d see the same customers at Louis Vuitton who I’d just served during my lunch shift (both stores were in the same mall), and inevitably they wouldn’t remember me. But I always did; especially the ones who’d been mean or tipped poorly.
But did any of that matter? Nope. I’d change out of one uniform into another, and at that point left all biases and ego at the door. I was there to do one job and one job only, and that was to serve the store patrons. However many questions they had, however much it felt that some were “wasting my time” without any intention to buy—it didn’t matter. Each one got my utmost attention and service. And boy, did I learn not to discount any customer.
One time, an unkempt man walked into the store looking a bit freaked out and lost (perhaps it was the dizzying price tags?). I greeted him in the accessories section, while the other sales associates avoided him like the plague—fearful he’d probably waste their time pretending to debate between one “measly” $500 keychain over the next. After some friendly conversation and handholding, I managed to get to the bottom of his visit: he was looking for something pretty and shiny on which to hang the keys to the brand new Bentley he’d bought his wife. I convinced him to walk out of the store with not only a beautiful keychain, but also a $3000 limited edition handbag in which to hide the keys (we’d come up with a “fun scheme” to trick his wife; “she’ll never know you got her the car, she’ll think it’s just the purse!”). He thought it was a hoot and left the store in great spirits.
Learning to talk to your customers, listen to their needs, and put your pride aside will make you a better product manager. A little practice in creative convincing and upselling won’t hurt, either.
3. Executive Assistant
If you’ve ever been an Executive Assistant, you know that you are the consummate prioritizer, organizer, and multi-tasker. Your job is to prioritize the hell out of someone else’s busy schedule so he or she can optimize their time. In doing this job, you get really good at a number of things—like being resourceful, knowing who and where to call for whatever occasion and purpose, and getting shit done no matter what. Seriously. Your boss needs a private jet out of Teterboro in the next 2 hours? No problem. You figure it out. You make the impossible possible and just get shit done.
This ability to get shit done is immensely useful and necessary in Product Management.
As an Executive Assistant, you are also the consummate self-sacrificer, often forgoing your own plans to make sure your boss can enjoy his or hers. No task is beneath you. If your boss calls at 3 in the morning because he or she needs an emergency car booked, so be it. Goodbye sleep.
Self-sacrifice is similarly crucial in Product Management. Putting yourself first just won’t fly. It is always about the greater good of the group, your team, and your product.
4. Office Manager
Take everything you read in the above description of being an Executive Assistant, and… extrapolate. Congrats, you now serve the entire office.
And possibly also the CEO.
5. Teacher
As a teacher, your responsibility is to educate, inspire, and lead. You have to figure out how to make a classroom full of fickle, often hormonal students learn things they may otherwise have no interest in learning, and do assignments they probably don’t want to do. These were just some of the challenges I encountered daily, in my 1.5 years of experience teaching everyone from seventh graders to high school seniors.
You have largely the same responsibilities as a Product Manager, except instead of students and teenagers—you are most likely speaking to an audience of adult peers, coworkers, and executives (not to mention users and customers, too).
How do you get all these people to listen to you? The same way a great teacher engages his or her students: with some combination of preparation, story-telling, and empathy. You practice and organize your thoughts and points, then deliver these in a compelling way, which often means telling the “story” of why there’s value in what you’re suggesting and for whom. And all the while, you need to listen to your audience and empathize with them; what is their body language telling you? How do they feel about what you’re saying? How can you adjust your current trajectory to make sure more people perk up and get on board? If you’ve lost anyone, how can you ‘speak in their language’ to get them back?
I’ve noticed in my time that the best teachers are also the best at explaining things. They have an uncanny ability to distill even the most complicated, confounding concepts into terms that everyone can understand. I leaned heavily on metaphors and analogies in my time as a teacher, and find that this is still the best way to get through to everyone on my team now, as a Product Manager.
If you’ve been a successful teacher, chances are, you’ve got a much better shot at being a successful product manager as well.
Concluding Thoughts
So here’s the recap. Being one or all of the above roles at some point in your career may help you be a better Product Manager because:
- You learn to value and serve your customers
- You get good at talking to people and engaging / empathizing
- You’re now a listener, not just a talker
- Self-sacrifice—it becomes second nature
- You just get shit done
- It’s never about “you” anymore, it’s about the team and its greater goals
- Metaphors and analogies become your most powerful tools of persuasion
- You can explain the shit out of anything
- ‘Thick skin’, ‘grit’, and ‘patience’ are your new first, middle and last names
And there you have it! With some luck and creativity, you might just make a killer Product Manager one day.
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Find me on Twitter if you want to chat! @SostephOh
