Sales lead automation for Product management

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hi everyone and we are back with another session of alumni of the week and this time we have Mansi Gupta with us hey Mansi how are you doing fine pretty cold you're at home all right so again this time we are going to hear an amazing uh story and her experience so a quick introduction about manfi so Mansi is presently working as a product manager with quintup Technologies and she also started her journey uh yes you guessed it right being an engineer uh so let's just see and hear from herself that how she went from different stages and how she transitioned into the product manager uh profile the whole profile itself so over to you man see a quick intro about you like how would you uh let our community know hi everyone um I get awkward in you know these formal kind of introductions so I'm not like Chandler who cracks jokes when I'm awkward but I'll try to keep it as uh casual as possible um as um rightly mentioned like many a million years in the million people in the country I am an engineer uh by education um I think something I I shouldn't say it out loud in public but yeah something I think I didn't want to do and I was more focused on an MBA over an engineering degree but uh I did engineering and in a subject I wasn't really fond of in particular that is computer science but I'm an I.T engineer by education so yeah so you know those children uh who listen to their parents uh and are very by The Book Students I was one of those and I did that because maybe I didn't have a direction of my own and I was happy with the guidance I was getting so I did that my first company who walked into the campus for interviews I got hired by them which was a surprise for me myself and I got into it I was pretty sure in 18 months I leave that place and move out for MBA and but that didn't happen and when I got a chance to choose between MBA and on-site I picked that up probably because I wanted to explore more on different working and different geographies working with different parts I think that worked well for me and yes um I managed to reach uh you know different projects and different roles and through that journey I ended up realizing that I am more interested in working on the business and software and product side of things versus working just on the tech part and I took it like a free project to work on to understand whether I'd like to actually Venture it and the moment I came back to India I realized that maybe it's time to take the plunge it took a lot of gumption to say bye to Wipro to buy to that stable incoming income stable incoming slow and dropped in my papers and I got into a very early stage startup where they were building everything from scratch they were about a few months old only and I was lucky that they took me in um I was only one working in product there um and yeah that's how I left the pro said bye for gold and entered that place that was early uh last year or December 2021 Jan 2022. but uh when you started there I got a shock expected I came from a very organized sector into a totally unorganized place the the part that it was unorganized was not the problem I think more it was on the fact that um a lot of times what you are thinking versus what people around you are thinking that's not fitting in right I I ended up realizing that there is a lot for me to learn I still have a lot to learn and that's where I stumbled upon hello pm where I felt that they were giving a very structured layout of a course like a proper methodical you know place where I could learn chapter wise chapter subject is PM multiple chapters every chapter has a homework I felt I wanted to go I needed to go back to school and while I was doing this small product stint I started studying with Ankit and the team and of course like I said I knew nothing is what I made myself understand and I wanted to be at probably a place that was between the startup and Wipro so somewhere where people have already been you know working for six seven years the company is established there is a team of developers testers sales marketing CEO CTO functioning maybe a product team as well because if you have more people you end up realizing what wrong could you be doing as a single person I thought everything that I was doing was fine and maybe there is no correction needed it happens right yeah so so along uh Journey spent in trying to find a job um into a slightly more stable company than where I was and that's how I ended up in quintype Technologies uh I mean I also know uh personally uh people who have transitioned from um testing phase to another job profile but while they are there in the you know the whole scenario of being a tester they go through a lot of things and psychologically as well as you said while you are switching um that emotion was leaving out the stable job you know you were there you know you reached up to some certain level you achieved certain things and you're you're at stable space you are going um you know offshore onshore yes so yeah there is a lot of things that are going around in your head uh while you are switching but yeah I mean kudos to you you did a phenomenal job I mean people uh do I mean people many people look up towards it like I'll be doing something but there are very few who you know have that thing to get out of it but mostly people are on that stage they they are noticing the problem they're talking about the problem but action is not there and I guess mostly product management is all about taking execution and then action after you have all the insights right even all the websites now how you can execute those insights to your knowledge the flat with a couple product manager our product management and it was somewhere in 2018 reason because I had never heard of that field also before and everybody knows that how product management and product manager as a role has suddenly come up in the last few years okay and it's been very catchy and eye candy and everything my initial thought was that I want to be a brand manager I I'm very fond of handbags it started off with brand and it reached a product because I ended up realizing that uh product manager will always probably fit in somewhere or the other so a product manager can always be a brand manager but a brand manager will never be able to become a product manager yeah damn I mean I was about to go with the next question and apparently this was my next question so I mean the question that I was about to ask was how you came to know about product management yeah you answered it before there you go yeah good product managers know it before I mean they just know it man they just know it okay this is what is going to be now and finally a couple of friends who I spoke to and when they said that Mansi what do you want to do I'm like I don't know what I want to do I know I don't want to do testing or I don't want this track anymore and then moving ahead from there so um like while you were after you came to know okay there is something that exists now what was your journey as in how you navigated through the process of researching about what it is how it's done and then how you came across hello PM as a community like yeah so what was the article yeah so so I as I told you that okay right because I had a roommate and that was an advantage so I understood from her what it is she gave me a couple of books I would skim through when I had the time and then around 2019 is when I told you about a pro bono yeah project right and that's when I So within the organization I myself was anyway trying to work more on the product part and not just as a QA delivery manager because I was I was a delivery project delivery manager there uh but I was I was more interested in what's happening on the other part of the software and the products that we were working on so while that was already ongoing I got a chance to work here so this was sort of my research you can say that this was the way for me to know whether I really want to do this or not or basically take the plunge and once a week so the weekends primarily so once a week they would be disconnect misunderstanding you know product thinking listening and at that point also I was not reading these big big articles or um going through these big terms and terminologies that are currently using this first principle thinking and these kind of things that these these fundas and jargons that have actually come in you end up realizing that you've been doing it yeah you don't know what to call it we've been doing it we just don't know what to call it we've been applying Common Sense wherever necessary and for health Team also I did a bit of research I went on LinkedIn I wrote to random people who had put hello PM tag in their profiles I wrote I asked them I asked them about the other programs they've been in whatever feedback I got I got a feedback but uh see no course is uh great or no course is less great or more great it's the same thing with colleges right so anybody who's been to IIT if they've not done their part well at IIT they've also not risen right and there are so many people from tier three to four colleges we've not even heard of and they're probably CEOs of companies today so that perspective was there in my head that I'd like to go here because I like the core structure very being very clear about it I love the core structure I loved how methodical it was and it was touching upon every single Concept in the PM book that I was aware of or not aware of and that's it I started my journey with Ankit and the team okay all right awesome so let's just uh push it into a box and just let's just we realize okay so as in um the whole journey if you uh summarize uh how was it in three words I mean your journey like what would you say so I think I would Define this journey as lendi um painstaking a lot of research and commission okay nicely articulated into four uh words okay going ahead a quick question and how would you um summarize this question in a manner so that each and every person who is listening to it gets it so the question is I mean uh can anyone from any background like from sales or Commerce you you have been there like your yourself are coming from a testing uh background so not from a developers and but a testing it is totally different right so people who are coming from different verticals or different backgrounds uh is it really that feasible for anyone to get into PM if yes then what are certain things that will help them to navigate easily through the process yeah so um when I also was trying to transition into PM I was made to realize by some learned people around me that anybody can be a part of product management I maybe from a technical background because I'm from the pro and the it part is there but personally I'm not very fond of tech side of the world all right even as a QA I was more thinking more like a business and less and more like a customer and less like a techie but uh having gone through that phase and understanding that a PM is supposed to touch upon every facet of the company I feel that yes to a greater extent anybody can become a product manager as long as I think we've got that understanding of what the product is what the problem is more on more than solutioning what the problem is what the root cause is how can we go about solving it right um it's a it's funny but it is true when they say that Common Sense helps but it's true there are many small small things in our life that we are doing not realizing that that's actually common sense and naturally product thinking all right I get this question asked in fact by a lot of qas in my new company that man see you mentioned YouTube and they get zapped at okay we are a QA or you were a QA how many years were you a Q and how did you move here honestly had somebody told me that become a business analyst and it could be the easiest part to end the product management I would have probably done that when I had had been offered a role that okay become a ba and I quietly who does behave no no no I want to do business analysis I have no idea what it is so um and I know of cases where uh there are people who were customer success managers who were account managers you know in uh companies or b2c companies and they have become product managers right right not because they knew I.T it's because they understood customer they understood business they understood product and problems and the moment they understood these four parts I think it was pretty easy for them to sell themselves as product managers or at least step into that case okay so it's more of your thought process the way you thought yeah right uh what what you should say because as you suggested like if you if you are from any of the backgrounds like if you are from a customer success profile or maybe marketing or maybe sales or design some other way you are um holding on to one vertical of being a product manager like remotely connected to itself correct I mean again um uh all of these people I mean all of these uh divisions in the organization right they deal with the customer they deal with the business may or may not deal with the tech it depends but they do speak to Tech when we see Tech they speak to product managers to understand what features are you bringing or what's new that you're launching how do we want to go and sell it in the market apparently product managers are supposed to influence that decision also that how do we want to Market it how do we want to place it position it so um it could be uh the the the the range of diff I mean the difficulty rate could be high or low right some are totally non-tech Bank around might get those inhibitions and those scares that yeah I have no idea how even technology functions or what's a software testing life cycle or software development life cycle and how am I supposed to work towards product management but uh I don't see it as a problem for anybody wanting to transition into this role but the struggle is there no doubt the hard work has to be put in uh the research has to be done the study has to be done and again I felt that finding something within the organization is is the first easier step to do then canceling everything out and trying to enter into an organization saying that I want to be a product manager without having to show what we have on the resume reason reason because everybody goes on perceived by you right now a 32 year old in turn um sounds bizarre I don't know why I keep quoting H but uh but it is bizarre and then you see the movie in turn where uh uh Robert De Niro was a 70 year old intern and find okay everything is fine in life its final day it doesn't matter I am more interested in venturing into this so small projects uh within the organization trying to apply as an intern outside trying to do these pro bono uh cases where you probably have to invest uh time on the weekends to work for uh companies free of costs right um I think our uh some of the ways where one can try to venture out to get that experience onto paper Okay cool so uh going ahead this was all from while you were navigating through the part where you were learning about you were exploring and then how you transition so uh now I'll be shifting towards when you got into hello PM when you started the journey with hello PM so what were the things uh that worked for you from Hello PMs and like what were the things that helped you out specifically maybe it could be live classes or maybe one-on-one calls or Capstone so what were the things right so hello PM I think first and foremost understanding all the concepts and basics of product management from jargons from their meaning from where they rooted why do we had what we have why do we have a prioritization matrix in the first place and that's helping to be very honest but uh so the basics for sure I thoroughly enjoyed doing the assignments the PPD part and I think my most favorite was uh the product uh sense activity where we had to break down and answer those products thinking and line questions and I actually was the guinea pig of my batch to go through the interview as well um yeah so uh I would definitely say uh the assignments uh because that that demanded uh extra hours to be put in to do some research to understand what's out there then you go and notice that there's so many people doing this on a daily basis you know even if there are PMs and spms in their company they're actually doing these assignments daily foreign I think having uh people working in product companies talking to you and telling you the problems they face real life I think that was very insightful okay we know that in MBA we are taught projects there are Capstone there are professors who come from across the world there are big leaders who come and talk to you but I think this was as good as that these important uh because you end up realizing that what you study is you have to find a way to implement it at workplace so these were the people who actually brought that out saying that yes they have tried implementing Concepts wherever possible because it's not always I think it's not as easy as okay you have this uh Matrix so you can put it here no that doesn't work every time but yeah I think these people who are working as spms and PMs season PMS coming and sharing how they work how they function I think that was very interesting okay so um um while while you are suggesting uh you initially mentioned there were other couple of communities and so many courses also are there so uh again I'm asking from a perspective of people who are listening it so how did you filter it out okay this course would be better or you you know um gathering around okay finally these two to three other courses that I'll look later on right out of these 10 I need to filter this so how did you so uh one I said and I connected with people online to get a feedback and I got a mixed review some said great some said yeah slightly slow slightly methodical um too detailed not needed for them um for me it was I had to behave like a fresher who had no idea what it is for me some of the other courses I felt I would have been able to grasp the content if I were already a functioning PM for about two three years where I would have understood how the PM role functions how a PM functions how a company functions all those things were missing for me because I was in a very big organization right right part of my PM Journey there you understand how a project functions how a company runs is not is seen from a very small view you don't see it very closely right that is sort of possible when you work probably more in a smaller organization you want to call it a startup you can call it a startup but somewhere where everybody is in your connect I used to work in a team of hundred people here the company size itself would be 5200 and I think that is what was missing for me I had no idea about multiple sectors I mean the closeness that proximity of work was very low yeah so for me hello pm again like I said structured methodical for a freshman all right for somebody who's new who wants to understand from basic level and that's fine for me I didn't find it boring I didn't find it oh I already know this so what if you know this learn it do it again it doesn't matter so uh uh going ahead um so lastly just to summarize all these points what is that one thing that stood out for you from Hello PM I everybody kept it simple here I didn't find anything over the top complex um and simplicity in everything whether it's the class whether it's uh the ease of talking to the instructors whether it's the approachability I would just say that hello PM just keeps it simple all right so um moving towards uh the one of the the last question as in uh the last a longer question I will say okay is finally a word of advice or like couple of uh things that you want to suggest people who are transitioning or you can say these are aspiring product managers yeah people who look forward to be a product manager next one to two year or maybe this year in 2023 how they should map out their navigation points or how should they map out like maybe hudders you want to uh pinpoint or the struggling phases you want to pinpoint things that you can point that they need to look upon definitely they work they need to work harder on so yeah um so first thing I would say is let's be very sure of what you want to do if not very sure but at least remotely sure that yes you want to enter product management be able to answer that why as product manager is supposed to ask the wise let's first answer Ry why do I want to enter this division of work why do I want to venture into this part of career life that's definitely the first question I would want everybody I mean at least I did the second being when you're sure that yes this is something I would like to venture into please do that understanding of what your career has been so far how you can use it to your advantage into this field if not what are we supposed to be doing to enter this field everything is available on the internet right but the things that I realized that I had to do was definitely work on my resume all right I had to go back 11 years of my career to understand that every project that I did probably I did do project product management somewhere or the other so you I ended up portraying information in that manner so um definitely building on the resume and articulating experience in a manner that would attract or at least grasp somebody's attention where they would see the first few lines or the summary to probably want to talk to you okay if you can find a way to transition in in your current organization into the role in whatever form be it even entering the track of business analysts please go for it I wish I had done that the the Journey of finding uh quintype Technologies would have been a lot easier than it was um so definitely uh every company has this business analyst track and if you can find a way to enter it nothing like it okay and uh yeah a lot of patience patience a lot of patience and perseverance I had no idea how to apply for a job in LinkedIn or apply for a job for that matter when you're in one organization you generally and you've not ventured out a lot you generally have no idea how to do this I spoke to people and of course I got a lot of guidance from the instructors at hello PM where everybody said that they've all gone through that Journey where they have written directly to people on LinkedIn yep that's the first assignment anybody watching this that's the first assignment that Ankit makes you do first week assignment is to randomly write to five people who are product managers and ask them what they do and why they do that's it yeah the reason is for you to get out of the comfort zone of directly talking to strangers on LinkedIn right right when we say the world today is heading towards Community it is true it is heading towards the network it is true right because it connects even in the earlier years it work connects that people would use to change one job and move on to the other when you say your friend they refer me there this is what is happening even today except on the broader scale because you've got these networks built online initially they want so a lot of patients in the fact that you will write to let's say 100 people you will get cold responses or no responses and uh you will have to probably write to another 50 people for somebody who probably read and say that yeah they'd like to talk to you I've had experiences where there were people who read my resume and gave me a feedback that once we feel that your resume could do better here please add this they didn't have a job to give me or a moment of the time to take an interview but they at least gave a feedback on the resume no problem I think that also worked because you end up realizing that I said okay let me let me just change that no problem so we sort of need to leave your ego aside forget everything be very Shameless and uh a lot of patience and persistence and hope so I wrote to quintype again that hi uh any news anything wanted to understand from you and that's your reply oh yes sorry I was on leave yeah let's get your process started okay I don't know had I not written back to her she would have probably forgotten about me because she's getting so many resumes every day anyway it just started from there so that made me realize the importance of writing or following up with everybody who I've written to yeah follow up with everyone every interview round only helped me become more confident for the next one yeah yeah so go with the least amount of expectations because you have nothing to lose all right so moving ahead uh let's go to a quick rapid fire round okay so Mansi what's the one app that's always on your fingertips like I mean I'm guessing you're using it for shopping right mostly okay in the shopping primarily so uh as I am comparing a product so Flipkart or myntra myntra sorry one more app on my fingertips zomato okay again I was about to come to that question okay so uh Amazon or Mitra myntra for fashion Amazon for everything else everything else okay so here in the metal I mean definitely zomato the only reason because I can see reviews very very differentiating product difference in the two I can read reviews and see more photos out of all the products from Google suit which of the one is like your favorite one the Google play anything with search yeah okay then uh moving ahead um go ibibo or make my trip make my trip okay then um I guess mostly we covered all the products and mostly what do you prefer for chatting um like slack or Whatsapp office lag everything has WhatsApp everything else what's up I don't I don't losing WhatsApp for uh get used to it okay okay so um how often do you use Gmail now every day so you're coming from Outlook background correct correct I'm coming from Outlook background where everything was structured and then I had to start learning how to use Gmail's functions of automatic replies and uh everything so yeah I think the last uh two to three years I've been using uh Gmail okay uh your most used social media Instagram Instagram how how often do you open LinkedIn for the last one year every day every day all right I mean that was all for the day and all for uh all about the session so awesome awesome journey and we're glad to have you here on the platform I'm really thank you so much for sharing so much uh Insight around how you transition how you know your insights can help others uh to get something value out of it and yeah we really um thank you for coming on this stage and sharing your experience so thank you for having me and uh I hope all I said was not all gibberish and something useful that guys can take away from this and not get bored and say and so this is good for nothing but I hope it was uh if not informative at least entertaining definitely definitely so thank you so much and people who are watching uh thank you uh thank you for being here and watching this video till the end so uh subscribers and also keep breaking down the products this is Bobby's signing off see you on the next episode