Closing a sell for product management

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everybody this is Rich with product gy and today I'm joined by my friend Dennis former Wayfair product manager and today's YouTube Interview Dennis has a problem that he wants me to solve which is uh what do you do when you are how do you go out there and essentially generate an offer from your final round interview faster Dennis you want to go ahead and tell me more about what's the problem what's bothering you and some context yes so um you know I've done I've been been doing pretty well with interviews I've been uh using the mock interview train been doing quite well LinkedIn messages crafting those and getting responses resum converting pretty well so top of funnels looking pretty good uh interviewing itself also looking pretty good uh which sounds great on paper right but I'm having a hard time really converting the fly around offer uh for a few companies so what I mean by that is I'm getting told you know there's glaring positive feedback which sounds great oh we we don't have any negative feedback okay so what's what's next they're telling me um everything that's great but they I'm the first one through so they need to interview other candidates uh even when I push them and say hey um you know like if everything's positive like why can't you move the needle they this is they kind of just say this is their policy so is there anything I can really do to fix the problem of being the first candidate in the pipeline when all other people say to be the first candidate to apply so isn't that kind of like like isn't that a double-edged sword right there yeah so you want to be the first person to apply so can be the first person into the interview yeah but then in this crazy Market that we're trying to navigate you're doing all the right things and you become the first person to go into the final round interview and then now it's like apparently well because I'm the first person to interview to get the final round interview I can't get the offer because they want to interview some more so it just always seemed like there is something right like I just got off the phone with a recruiter she this is just she just told me this 30 minutes go yeah it must be that's must be quite frustrating uh okay so let me go ahead and break it down for you in terms of like let let's talk about why this is happening but more importantly let's go ahead and talk about what is it that we can do about this situation so the reason why companies and even when somebody on my team including myself when we're interviewing a candidate there is a lot of emotional vest in terms of this person if they don't work out for us there money we can always make back but time we can never ever buy back so even when I am very very excited about a candidate I also restrain myself from making an offer to them straight up just for the fact that there legitimately could be somebody else better than that so this is something that's normal not just with other companies but I've seen this happen tons of times as a former recruiter now I'm BL to be in a position where I'm an employer I also hold myself back uh even if it's somebody that's a manager somebody that's very senior here at product gym I also tell them to hold themselves back even when I'm interviewing a candidate that I'm very excited about I also have my team along with my partners and co-founders I also have them hold myself back as well just in case we're not giving ourselves enough data whether or not this is the right person you have to like really think about it uh real EST agents they also do this to kind of it's kind of a sales tactic too they kind of hedge their bets in terms of like which house they think you know this newly wed or this person is is as a as a as a home buyer is going to go ahead and purchase and they kind of save it all the way until the end because you kind of want to see a few properties before it's like wow this is really great but like should I actually pull the trigger or should I actually not so what can we go ahead and do to basically incur some type of urgency to get them to move the needle a little bit in our favor well let's talk about generally speaking in a sales perspective what are things that can actually drive urgency uh scarcity is the number one thing so when there's a limited number of something now they have a reason to go ahead and Knack urgency this is why one of the most common questions is hey are you interviewing with any other companies uh and a lot of times candidates they don't want to make it seem like they're desperate and they'll say something like hey uh no I'm only interviewing with you guys okay great so if we don't make a decision for two weeks you're Gucci right so what can you go ahead and do set the precedent from the very beginning that you're very much in demand so you want to let these people know your interview activity from the very get- go the closing in any sales relationship and people don't look at interviewing as a form of sales but it is you are closing a sale in fact you are closing a very high ticket sale you are closing a $150,000 transaction that if they get wrong there's a lot of people don't also think about like I think another thing that people don't think about is this people don't think about what happens to the people that are still at that company when they made the wrong decision to hire this person there is a imagine I was your boss and it's like this person didn't work out what do you think I'm going to do to you I'm G to say well uh how did this happen I mean the person's only been here for what two months yeah so so walk me through what went down like well he or she was very qualified when we talked okay did we talk to anybody else uh we only interviewed that one person can you imagine for a second how uncomfortable that conversation it would be for you talking to me as the boss I think you I think you already know probably you don't want to turn your camera on for the zoom calls for like the next month or so so like you got to understand like there's that aspect of it um so I would say one of the strategies that you can employ very easily uh is actually letting them know from the very get-go you're in demand so even if they have to interview a few more candidates they don't stretch it out because a lot of times what you know we have to bargain for what it is that we can get here a lot of times it's like you're telling them well I don't have any other interviews going down it's like all right so we got two more candidates uh we got two more candidates okay they said they could do it next week all right so you know right now is at the time of this recording it's a Thursday if you're like I have two other companies I have to get back to by Friday maybe I push it out to Monday now all of a sudden you know you know Sally and Jerry let's lock down on time with them tomorrow because Dennis is going to make a decision on Monday if that so we're not stretching out any timelines because time kills deals every single minute that roll is open there is another resume that might look better than yours even though you know we work really hard making all your resumes look really really really nice and shiny uh that might legitimately be a better fit so we don't want that at all you know we want them to close up that window so that's also the other thing like I think sometimes product managers they kind of view a situation as like All or Nothing well at the very least that's not the outcome that we want but if it goes to that we don't want them to take their sweet time interviewing as like cuz the last thing they want to do to on a Friday is actually interview anybody anyways any too so now was like all right um I could squeeze one in at 1:30 I could squeeze one in at maybe 4:30 4:45 just lock down that person so at least by like 700 p.m. eastern time we can go out there and get word to dentist that's still a win versus like you know I had like four interviews this week I mean do I really want to go out there and do two more tomorrow it's Friday maybe not or like we're getting ready to go to Long Weekend right uh so we don't want that the next thing is well is there anything you could have done to make them feel more confident that you are the right person and this is actually where we have to Define what are the kpis that I'm responsible for and this is actually where we have to really drive home if you made it to the final round they think you're the best shot at taking whatever it is that they need off of their table so that means they initially like what they hear but they're still slightly a little bit unclear about the delivery so this is actually where you have to reham I'm going to do X Y and Z so if you go back a lot of times when people are writing this is why I think this air table here zo this is why I think this air table here is so important in terms of like how do we Define success are we talking about product launch market penetration Revenue growth user engagement okay we want to drive we want to improve increase user engagement right we scroll down right here and then we can go to all the subcategories what is it that we are trying to do with user engagement are we trying to go ahead and you know enhance the mobile experience are we trying to personalize the push notifications are we trying to get more user analytics or we trying to elicit more responsive customer support what outcome are we trying to grab a lot of times when people are writing a thank you letter they were just like hey Dennis thanks for taking time to talk to me today it was great talking to you guys you know I had a lot of great memories at Brown Brian Park growing up would love going into the office who okay they're going to like that doesn't really matter to them right uh I mean if you're good at your job you can just do it from home but if you're talking about okay I what we were talking about here like launching the wa for a credit card right okay what we were talking about here was actually you want to go ahead and have more interactive user onboarding and you want to minimize the customer onboarding time this is exactly what I did at my previous company and this is exactly how we did it so they now they also have some kind of BAS Bine to feel that much more certain and confident because you're inspiring the confidence that they need to be because you got to understand this a lot of times people are thinking I just need to get them to say yes we all answer to somebody here you know even elon's got investors seriously everybody's got a boss even the boss has got a boss you know so like even if you're getting them to say yes right you guys also have to think about who do they need to get a yes from if they went to HR or if they went to the CFO and they or they went to the CTO or the CEO and said we want to hire Denis even though okay let me tell you something this kid he understands on board okay take a look at his plan and a lot of people are they don't do enough of a of uh they don't do a good enough job of being clear about selling their plan so even if the worst case scenario you have to interview other people okay what's your plan because Dennis here is like talking about having some very clear kpis okay so the first thing that we did at my previous company to minimize onboarding time was identify exactly what was holding up the on boarding time and we noticed that there was five things we needed to do with onboarding most of the friction happens within the first three steps that happens within the first five days so this is how we were able to remove this do this do this do this so at the very least when you're comparing yourself with another candid it's like oh yeah I did onboarding yeah yeah I did a bunch of stuff with onboarding right who has the better plan so they're G to still go with you so even if it goes to the other candidate you actually have some legs to go out there and stand on the overall third thing that I always tell people to do over and over and over again is actually just generate more product manager interviews for yourself the less desperate that you are the more in demand you you you actually are because you're actually in demand even if you have an offer at a company that you absolutely do not care for or let's just say like you're okay about it right like you're like a 6040 coin toss I mean you're not exactly that pumped up on today's market want to just grab something going in there with a little bit more leverage cuz the more stress you have going into an interview and this is why I'm never a proponent of like and this is actually a really big reason if you guys been following us why I'm telling people generate as many interviews as possible is because the more practice that you have you sound more confident the bigger of a back if you have like interviews coming in from LinkedIn you got interviews coming in from like um uh cold applying you got interviews is coming in from like hiring referrals you have multiple sources of interviews like people have you know some people have multiple sources of income you're going in there cool ass water right and they're G no you have no there's no anxiety anymore when you go into it with that I mean when I you know when I talk to someone and it might be a no I'm like well I have 24 other this week I really don't care right and that really helps build your confidence that's the thing when you're going into an interview and it's so clear you need this you could have been the most qualified person a lot of times people are like oh yeah like they think that they're qualified but they're so desperate or they've been rejected a few times and they feel defeated so even though they're qualified for the job they kind of operate as if they're not qualified for the job because they're not really showing the confidence and that's getting people to think like well like you know we don't live unfortunately on the hiring side they're not very empathetic it's like oh yeah you know he must have had some low energy that day what do you do tell him the truth there's two other companies I was pumped about but I got rejected from it but honestly speaking I could do this job and I'm glad to take this one that that isn't getting anybody to want to grab their their checkbook out and draft up an offer letter right so I'll tell you just my one story the one day I had uh it was had a very bad day before and I only slept for one hour total so I went into seven interviews that one day one hour of sleep and just nailed every one of them and I just was just I was like well I have seven of them um I can't really make excuses I mean I did the first one I said look uh this is the situation they were pretty forgiving uh but not everyone's going to be like that and you just have to know you have to have your eye on the the prize you're like all right I don't do this one I have the next one and then I have five more and that's really what changes your mindset yeah because also like you got to understand something too is that everything that we're trying to do right here is to try to turn a no into a maybe and if they also see that you didn't take it well as a former recruiter if they say they have to interview other candidates like I do this for a living so whatever way you want to Jujitsu to get me to increase urgency I already know all the tricks in the book I mean publishing like 20 blogs a week you know like like we know it so if anything if you try too hard there's being assertive and informative I'm letting you know what's going on on my side of the process and then there's like aggressively being pushy I remembered somebody emailing me once that wanted a a marketing position here and they're like well I got nine other offers or like I have all these other interviews I forgot how they said it I have forgot exactly what they said but I remember exactly how they said it it's like that my Angela clo people would never remember what you said people would never remember what you did but people will always remember what how they felt about you and I was like Wow should I should I get the docy sign ready right now like it did it now all of a sudden I was like no I think we can find somebody better than you you know you would have been fully qualified but you also have to think about it in another sense too again it's not always about being qualified culture fit is a huge thing so when you have additional interviews how do you take that response if you're like and sometimes people miss out on sometimes to not overthink it and I know it's really hard right now with how crazy the market is people end up canceling out that offer solely based upon how they responded because they're like oh I didn't even feel good like I don't even know if I want to work with this person anymore right like I it went from like you're so you're so cool like I could totally see us hanging out to us grabbing beer and pizza together on a Thursday for company happy hours they're like what was wrong with that guy did you give us an example of what someone should not do like let's say I was the person the recruiter hey so you know at this moment you are the first candidate through and um we do we do need to have a baseline so just we need about another week or so to finish up the their other two yeah I mean like the best thing you can do is just try to go out there and uptake urgency a little bit more but uh always try to I know a lot of times people are like you know expect success expect success but like you know this is also where you want to go ahead and ask them their process right uh another thing that you can also go ahead and do is this is why I always tell people you need to ask them what was it about my background that stood out to you so much that prompted you to schedule a call with me okay great can you tell me more and in this market I also tell you guys all the time what was it uh you know what do you guys think it is that's so difficult why this role hasn't been able to be filled despite the fact that we've had seven going into eight quarters now of tech layoffs you guys should be you're willly Wonka the Chocolate Factory you can go out there and pick up any type of talent any type of product manager with any range of experience that you want what's been the most difficult thing about filling this role another Power question that I train you guys to go there and ask how long has this position been open how many how many people have you interviewed were the other candidates falling short you see because people go into this answering every single question like they're playing taking a Scantron first of all you shouldn't even be surprised that you're the first person to go into the final round interview you should already go into the final round interview knowing you're the first person going into the final round interview so that's kind of on you right so you you it's it's also like I think the expectation too that you're setting on yourself and you're also setting on them so to go ahead and recap I gave you guys I gave you a lot of action items that you can go out there and take a take part of but the first thing is you want to go ahead and actually from the very very top and not the chronological order that we've actually reviewed this from the very beginning you need to have a very solid plan that starts with having a good resume that starts with having a clear plan of attack on mass applying but also doing the targeted LinkedIn Outreach so you have more options on the table so you're not as emotionally vested on anyone any one interview that is going to reject you should not make or break the mood of your day period you should have backups upon backups and I tell people that volume gets volume you when you first met us you were so selective about applying you were analyzing everything about that job description you kind of came in here with a little bit of ego and then you know you're talking about these rates were too low blah blah blah blah once you hit all of them you started getting more interviews immediately the anxiety level came down and you were able to be more focused on being a better interviewer rather than just like where's my next interview coming from because you know okay even if it's a really whatever like mediocre company it's a numbers game bro so if you have like five interviews lined up you know one or two of them is going to be really really good and if you have 20 to 25 interviews that's five companies that you're really pumped up about the other reason why it hits as hard as it does emotionally is that 8020 is always real out of the 25 interviews you're doing a week how many of these companies are you actually psyched up about probably only 10 to 20% so it's kind of like dating you got to go ahead and rev up some more numbers for yourself because if you're out there on five dates with people you're probably only really excited about one of those people right so wouldn't it be better if you had five Teslas or five Nikes or five Robin hoods or five door dashes or five Ubers or like weo uh the the the self-driving car Google I mean wouldn't it be cooler if you had like oh man I got 20 top level companies one of them's going to pop right so popping it all in at the very top of the funnel so you're naturally not as emotionally invested the next thing is you got to go ahead and actually gather up some more information as to what are and you should you're a product manager these people are your customers you should know what their pain points are you should understand what is your product Market fit you should also know where are the other candidates falling short why has this role not been filed yet this Ro says it's been open for 71 days on LinkedIn we've had close to 24 months the first round of tech layoffs happened in April 2022 we've had close to 24 months of tech layoffs salaries have clearly gone down so y'all can get what whoever it is that you want off the street right now but the roll is still open so I I I refuse to believe there's that many unqualified product managers in America right now I mean like I just refuse to believe it so clearly either you guys don't know what you want or you're looking for somebody so specific that you haven't been able to find that person the more information you're able to gather the easier it's going to be able to set up your answers right the next thing is you need a brand and not only uh brand position but also communicate that you're in demand a lot of people they make the mistake of like oh I'm only interviewing here really half the people you're interviewing with right now are applying to jobs themselves that's also a fact right uh and then overall fourth thing is well you know uh if you actually do have to take the hit uh at least if you legitimately have more interviews well at least they're shortening down that that that lag time and now they have a reason to go out there people can always get more done but people just choose not to that's just a fact especially on the hiring side they choose to go out there I used to be a recruiter I know okay can we wrap up three more interviews on we do it next Friday it's like a whole week is like an eternity for a recruiter for those of you that are looking for a job too right so in terms of all of this you know these are four very clear-cut strategies of what it is that you can go out there and do to take action uh we have a few strategies here to preempt and to mitigate but also if the worst thing happens and I see a lot of product managers don't really have a defensive game plan okay so they have to go ahead and and interview a few more people well what's your recourse then what if you absolutely lose out on the job this is what you got to go ahead and do you know so any other questions are you ready to go out there and and lay it out on your next interview uh to go ahead and brand yourself as like somebody that's highly in demand somebody that's actually in demand uh to go out there and communicate that definitely ready and I mean it makes sense it does start from the very beginning and you know I mean that mistake a few times but I won't do it again 100% I would say the fifth thing the bonus the bonus I would add on here is actually letting them know remember chapter five of never split the difference that's right I understand that as much as you believe that I could do this job or you believe so far I'm the best candidate as of right now to do this job that the reason why you are not hiring me as of right now is because there are some very negative consequences and implications for you if I don't work out here as a new high and I appreciate that because we've all hired you've been on the hiring side too I mean you were you know senior over there at Wayfair and we've all worked with somebody that we thought portrayed themselves one way on the interview turned out to be a whole different animal on the job so I totally get that having said that though you want to draft up that thank you letter and let them know your problem is minimizing customer onboarding time you want to get your customer onboarding time right now from two weeks down to 4 days and your biggest challenges are this and I have a proven track record of being able to deliver this and this is exactly how I'm going to deliver it um that's what you should have in that in that thank you letter so that they have in their mind like okay this person here I feel that much more confident going it back because that thank you letter actually if you really think about it should be a script almost that they could use to help sell you to whever it is that they need to get a yes from because otherwise you know everybody's supposed to be operating as like a red team right like they're supposed to go out there and be the devil's advocate so if you help them sell you your resume is not for the recruiter your resume is for the recruiter to help the recruiter sell you your round to is to help the head of director of product sell you to the tech with the business panel but you're you're supposed to have your thank you letter in the final rounds is supposed to help them sell you to HR yeah yeah this is actually why like candidates that are on visas they're some of our best performing members on here because the conversation that they have at the end oh you don't like this like final round thing the conversation that they have when they have to sponsor a foreign National is you're telling me in America that we don't have somebody in New York or San Francisco or LA to do the job I got to do an extra three hours of paperwork this week to sponsor somebody from this other country well I want to go out there and talk to this person this person must be the next what must be a rockstar PM right you got to think about it that way so they always like uh uh for those of you that are on work uh sponsorships uh or need work sponsorship uh definitely reach out to us because like we've we've done a really good job training them up because they have to usually do that bonus round to get that additional buying to be able to get the JB you know so like and that that's an unavoidable situation for them makes you appreciate a different perspective right this happens to you once every now and then that happens to that demographic every single time not to mention the Visa transfer feels like an eternity going from one company to another so don't even start uh I've given you guys a lot of information Dennis if you don't have any other questions I want to thank you so much for your time again man yeah thanks for having me