Product Management
Building a Brand Image for Product Managers
In the words of Andre Agassi, image is everything. For product managers, there is no greater truth
In 1991, Andre Agassi was not the best tennis player in the world. However, he may have been the best-known tennis player in the world, due in no small part to his personal image. The wild hair, big personality, and Lamborghini all helped build this image. Famously, in a commercial for Canon, Agassi coined the phrase, “image is everything.”
For product managers, image is everything. The brand you create is about more than just your product. You are the brand embodiment for your product, your team, and yourself. While some products and organizations lend themselves to a completely different image, most will conform to a business casual motif. This doesn’t mean product managers need to become completely corporate, but they should exude a level of professional appearance that is aspirational to the brand image they seek to build.
The old cliche to “dress for the job you want” isn’t entirely out of place here. Substance has to be behind style, but style is an important and often overlooked component in product management. Imagine a product that delivers great value, but has poor visual design. It’s entirely likely that this product will have a difficult time being successful. Conversely, we often see examples of products that look beautiful, despite delivering questionable amounts of value. These products often survive on their “sex appeal” for far longer than they should, thus buying the time to improve the value proposition. In product management, we ideally aim to have both: high value-adding with great design. However, when one aspect of your product or team is lacking, you can attempt to overcome the challenges by overcompensating in other areas.
Building a personal brand at work is important as a product manager. Scott Galloway encourages students to build a personal brand in his Brand Strategy course at NYU Stern, and it’s an underrated piece of career advice. There are very few points in time when professionals are educated on how to present themselves. During a student presentation in Professor Galloway’s class, teams of students were presenting cases on brands they researched. Professor Galloway stopped one casually dressed team, mid-presentation and called them out on their attire. In relation, most other teams were dressed business formally, mostly in suits.
This moment stands out to me among my memories of my MBA experience. While I was fortunate to have been in the majority that dressed appropriately for that particular class, I began to think about what goes into a personal brand. It’s a topic that I continue to impress upon my own team members, as they seek to advance their product management careers. The question to be asked at the beginning of each day is, “how do I want to be perceived today?” Beyond the outward image of a product manager, demonstrating a strong work ethic, being communicative, and arriving on time are all things that build a personal brand.
The duality of the types of stakeholders you will interact with on a daily basis means that sometimes your product management brand needs to change for the audience. Conversations with technical teams may create the feeling of an overly casual environment, but business stakeholders — especially leadership — are a completely different domain. What do you think of a person that wears a t-shirt and flip-flops to work everyday? While you may not mind the laid-back attire in the workplace, it’s likely that you have subconsciously formed an opinion on that individual’s brand. Regardless of whether certain behaviors are norms within an individual’s team, attire creates a certain image of a person from a professional standpoint.
This doesn’t mean product managers need to get extreme. On most days, it’s probably not necessary to dress up as if you’re going to The Met Gala — unless of course that is your brand. But in the same way, most days probably aren’t about appearing like you’re going to the beach, either. Finding this balance takes time and will vary based on your desired brand image. The best way to reconcile this is to think about what you want your product to represent. Who are the users, but perhaps more importantly, who are the buyers of your product? Aligning to these and other senior stakeholders is usually a good way to align your aspirational product image with your own personal product management image.
The bottom line here is that for product managers, image is everything. Whether it’s your physical appearance, your work ethic, or something else entirely, you must remember to create a brand image about yourself and your work. As product managers, we often think about product-market fit, but we should also pay attention to our product-image fit. And as the ultimate ambassador for the product, a product manager must lead by example when it comes to promoting the tools, value, and the people involved in the product. So, what will you be known for as a product manager?
Let’s continue the conversation on Twitter or in the comments. For more on product management, follow Trust the Product on Medium.
