The Secret: Saying No

When I think about product marketing, I always cast my mind back to Steve Jobs.

He was arguably the best product manager of all time.

The secret: saying no.

Every company that sells physical or digital products has to consider their product marketing strategy. Take your typical FMCG company like P&G, which sells thousands of products under numerous brands.

Most companies are fortunate to sell less, but even then, they struggle.

Upon returning to Apple, Jobs brought back the power of "No." By rationalizing the product lineup, he could position Apple in Consumer and Pro markets. Within Consumer and Pro, he added two classes of products: Desktop and Portable.

The result was two products that not only revitalized Apple, they changed the world of technology.

The iMac and iPod led Apple to dominate consumer technology until today. All stemming from Job's 2x2 matrix product philosophy.

It's always tempting to sell everything to everyone; we see modern giants like Google and Amazon and small family-owned businesses trying to do it all.

The result? Some hits but a lot of misses. And lots of spinning plates. Think about it: the restaurant with everything on the menu vs the Michelin-star restaurant focusing on one cuisine.

So, how do you define what markets to sell to and the products you should go to market with. Again, this is where Jobs differed radically from his peers.

He said no to market research and yes to intuition.

Job's Apple made products that they themselves would recommend to friends and family. Jobs repeated this "friends and family" line repeatedly.

It encapsulates his thinking and still defines Apple.

When thinking about your product marketing strategy, think about it from this framework:

- What market are you best at serving, and what products resonate
- Products you'd be proud to recommend to friends and family

It's not much more complicated than that.