Capital Equipment Product Manager Coaching

Product Success Leads to Career Success.

A product manager is the individual responsible for the commercial success of a product or product line. It follows then that if you as a product manager produce commercially successful products, you can expect more recognition, higher compensation, and better career opportunities.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a newly-minted product manager just getting up to speed on the fundamentals or an experienced product manager dealing with more complex issues. The mission is the same. You want your products to be as successful as possible so you can be as successful as possible.

With one-on-one, product-manager coaching I can help you achieve that success. I’ll help you

  • Secure more customers at higher prices,
  • Avoid mistakes and do-overs,
  • Produce better, faster results on your most important initiatives, and
  • Improve your product management skills.

I’ll be with you every step of the way. With one-on-one, product-manager coaching, you’ll get

  • Direct, one-on-one access to me, Michael Chase,
  • A private account on your online coaching portal,
  • Regularly scheduled calls to review progress and plan next steps,
  • Unlimited online, telephone, and email support for any issues where feedback and support are needed,
  • Documented action plans and session notes,
  • Online session scheduling, and
  • Access to my templates, tools, training materials, articles, and other content to support your goals and accelerate your progress.

I have helped dozens of capital equipment marketing and product managers accelerate their careers and grow their product lines this way. I would love an opportunity to help you.

With Mike’s coaching, I’ve applied value-based pricing to my current portfolio and developed a roadmap that focuses engineering efforts on solutions that drive economic value for our customers.

Since working with Mike and adopting a value-based strategy, we’ve literally added millions of gross margin dollars to our bottom line.

Todd Templeton

Product Marketing Mgr., FEI Company

Ready to explore how I can help you and your company?

Product Manager Coaching Frequently Asked Questions

Is one-on-one product-manager coaching right for me?

Yes, if you are a capital equipment product manager that wants to

  • Maximize your product line’s commercial success,
  • Improve your product management skills,
  • Get important work done more efficiently, and
  • Accelerate your career.

One-on-one coaching is perfect for the newly-minted product manager looking to master the fundamentals as well as the experienced product manager looking for help with more complex issues.

I’m a capital equipment product manager, what can I expect from one-on-one coaching?

You can expect faster and higher quality results from your initiatives as a result of

  • the focus and discipline that a coaching relationship puts on critical initiatives that might otherwise wane in the face of day-to-day demands,
  • less time spent trying to figure out what to do, and
  • learning and using approaches that have been tested across many equipment companies.
I manage a group of product managers, what can I expect if I enroll them in coaching?

You can expect your portfolio of products to grow faster and be more profitable. When you enroll your product managers in one-on-one coaching,  you’ll achieve your desired results with less time spent on day-to-day support, work-product review, and mentoring. 

I’m an early-stage-company CEO, can your one-on-one coaching help me?

Yes. A product manager is “the person responsible the commercial success of a product line.” In an early-stage company, that person is often the CEO. If as CEO you are performing the product management function, I can help you.

Can I just attend a training class instead?

When you attend a great training class, you usually leave feeling inspired to apply what you have learned. But that inspiration is often crushed as soon as you return to the office by a backlog of work and day-to-day demands. Before long the lessons of that great training class and the ambition to apply them fade.

One-on-one, product-manager coaching solves this problem. Like training, coaching imparts knowledge. But unlike training, coaching also provides the on-going support and motivation to apply that knowledge and create lasting improvement.

What are some examples of the product management initiatives that you can help me with?
Opportunity analysis and validation Market requirements and product definition Marketing strategy development
Situation and competitive analysis Product roadmap management Competitive positioning
Customer value definition and modeling New product market introduction Pricing strategy
Product strategy and roadmap development Product lifecycle management Sales and marketing tools development
Voice of the customer market validation Product-Line/Business Reviews Salesforce development and training
How do we decide what to work on?

We will work on the initiatives that are most important to you. These are usually the things that you and your manager have decided are your top priorities. These could be preparing for a sales training event, making an important strategy decision, launching a new product, or setting product pricing. Anything related to product management and value-based strategy is fair game. Not sure what your priorities should be? No worries. I can help with that too.

Once the initiative priorities are established, we’ll develop action plans that you will execute with my support and guidance. By working together on your most important initiatives, you’ll produce tangible results while you’re improving your product management capability.

What are coaching sessions like?

Coaching sessions are conducted via an on-line meeting with screen-sharing and video capability.

Before each coaching session, I’ll send you a pre-session check-in worksheet. On this worksheet, you’ll indicate your progress since our last session, the topics you’d like to discuss, and the desired outcome of your coaching session.

During the session we’ll review your work, answer your questions, and determine next steps. If appropriate, I may also enroll you in training, provide templates, or recommend reading related to your work. Also after each session, I will create session notes. 

All session notes, actions, templates, training materials, files etc. are posted to your private coaching portal.

How do I get the most out of coaching?

I encourage you to attend regular sessions with me to assess progress, review results, identify help needed, and establish next steps. These regular sessions allow me to engage with your initiatives early and deep enough to help you improve your capability and produce high-quality results. They also help establish accountability for making progress on your most important initiatives.

How often will we meet?

As often as you like. We’ll set up a time for regular sessions. But you can schedule a session anytime help is needed.

What is this “Online Coaching Portal” thing?

In our work together, we will create action plans, follow through on them, and review the results. We will repeat this cycle many times.  This routine will quickly generate a lot of information. Keeping track of all this information can be a real challenge.  We don’t want messages like these in our inboxes:

“I forgot what we decided on for next steps.”

“Is this the latest file?”

“My computer crashed. I lost all of my project files.”

“Remind me again where we left off the last meeting?”

When we lose track, our productivity drops, insights fade, and actions can get forgotten or confused. Managing this information is also important for keeping me in the loop about your progress and challenges. This is important because knowing how things are going is one of the keys to effectively helping you.

You will be given a private account on a web-based system that will help facilitate our coaching relationship. This is your private “Online Coaching Portal.” This intuitive system puts everything you and I do together in one place

Who will be my coach?

I will. I never outsource coaching to other coaches. You can learn more about me here: About Michael Chase.

Do I really get unlimited access?

Yes. You will have direct access to my calendar where you can schedule a session anytime you need help.

Outside of online coaching sessions, will I have email access to you?

Yes. You can email me anytime. I usually respond within 1 business day.

Do I have to make a long-term commitment?

No. Coaching agreements run on a month-to-month basis and can be cancelled any time with 30 days’ notice.

What if I’m not ready for a coach?

No worries. I can still help. Check out my free product management guides. If you sign-up for my newsletter, I’ll let you know whenever I add new content. You will also will find a lot of useful information in my books, Master the Essentials and Get Your Price!.

How do I get started?

Go to my contact page. In the message field just put “I’d like to talk to you about one-on-one coaching.” Once I get your message, I’ll send you a link to my calendar. From there you can schedule a convenient time for us to have a call.