I was scared of customers until this changed everything
I was scared of customers until this changed everything
How a small mindset change helped me overcome my fear of talking to customers, and it’s how the pros do user interviews too.
My palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy. I’m nervous, but on the surface, I look calm and ready.
I try to catch my breath before I join the Zoom call. I’m about to talk to… a customer. 😱
The call starts, and they talk, but I’m not fully listening. I’ve spent hours studying their business, anticipating what they will say about my product. And now, my mind is distracted, practicing the clever things I prepared to say, waiting for my chance to sound smart.
Oh, sh*t, they just asked me a question. I didn’t plan for that! What do I do?!
Talking to customers can be nerve-wracking. This is a scene that, unfortunately, I experienced often. And given how many product managers experience imposter syndrome (92%!) I’m guessing some of you have felt this way too. One small mindset change helped me overcome this fear, made my user interviews 100 times better, and can help you too.
It’s also the same thing that some of the greatest product leaders do, one’s who aren’t afraid of customers, to gain customer insight and build the world’s greatest products.
Get out of the building 🏢
Before we get into how to talk to customers, let’s talk about why we need to do it.
Talking to customers is how we explore the problem space to find real user problems, understand the whole problem, and get more creative with solution ideas. It’s a critical part of the discovery process and key to a product manager's job.
Steve Blank, the serial entrepreneur responsible for the ideas that led to the lean startup movement, says it like this: “Get out of the building.”
His advice is aimed at startup founders, but it’s true for product managers too. “Get out of the building” is a reminder to test our hypotheses by talking to real customers. (Source: YouTube)
As a product manager, you should talk to customers often. Common advice is to have a conversation with a customer at least once a week. Those convos are usually called user interviews; they can be formal or casual, and the goal is to learn about your customers. Ideally, you can walk away from interviews with one or more insights that you can bring back to your team to help you all understand the user’s problem space and design better solutions for them.
But it’s scary outside of the building 😱
For me, talking to customers was nerve-wracking because I thought I had to have all the answers all the time. As a product manager, I’m supposed to be an expert, an authority, on the product. But in reality, I’m an expert-ish in my product area, not the whole dang product.
As a senior product manager at Looker, a data analytics company, customer calls gave me extra anxiety because the product was so technically complex, customers used it in so many different ways, and I was often talking to users who were running the data teams at huge companies and the most successful startups. It was intimidating! I thought they were experts who would expect me to be an expert, but I didn’t always feel like an expert. (Hello, imposter syndrome! 👋)
So whenever I had a customer call coming up (which was all the time), I would force myself to do tons of homework before I could even have a conversation with them.
Ahead of a meeting, I’d try to figure out how they used data and how they were using our product. I’d try to anticipate all their feedback and requests. I’d spend hours looking at notes from our sales and support teams. I’d go into the meeting sweating, distracted by wanting to not look dumb in front of our customers.
Sidenote: Your product may not be as technically complex, and your users may be less intimidating, so maybe you don’t spend hours on “homework” before talking to them like I used to. But the fear of not knowing something and asking “stupid questions” is a real and natural human fear in the workplace.
Back to the story… My approach was failing me. I started to dread talking to customers.
Instead, I should’ve taken my husband, Jeremy’s, approach from when he worked at a hardware store.
Lessons from Ron Swanson
Jeremy worked at a local hardware store when he was a teenager (before becoming a firefighter). Like any hardware store, this one sold lots of parts and tools for various construction projects. Customers could come in with all kinds of projects they were working on, like fixing a bathroom sink, replacing kitchen cabinets, or even building a tree house.
With so many different use cases, it was impossible for Jeremy to be an expert in everything a customer could possibly do, especially as a new, young employee. And then there were the intimidating, Ron Swanson type of customers, who were actually experts and had no patience for fakers.
So, instead of trying to have all the answers, Jeremy listened to customers and asked lots of questions. He would learn as much as he could about the customer’s needs to find ways to be helpful.
For example, if a customer needed to hang a picture frame, Jeremy would ask more questions to learn the context of the customer’s needs.
What are the dimensions of the picture frame?
How heavy is the frame?
What material is the wall made out of? Is it ½” sheet rock or ¾”?
If he didn’t know the answer, he’d consult with colleagues who knew more than him and get back to the customer with an answer.
Every time he talked to a customer, he had one goal: to understand their problem to help them solve it.
It’s not about you 💡
That’s the mindset shift we need to make when talking to customers. It’s not about us… It’s about them.
I was so focused on sounding smart, or more accurately, not looking dumb.
I didn’t want to embarrass myself by not having all the answers.
I was obsessed with me when I should have been obsessing over them.
When product managers talk to customers, it’s mostly about discovery. We’re having a conversation to discover the customer’s problems and needs. To do that, we need to focus on them.
Focusing on the customer means walking into a conversation with openness, genuine curiosity, and active listening.
My absolute favorite PM advice for talking to customers comes from Matt Lemay. He wrote a great book called “Product Management in Practice” and his advice? Play dumb.
Yup, you heard that right. And yes, the perfectionist in me is screaming, “nooooo!” but this advice is spot on. I’ll let Matt explain:
“When talking with users, your job is not to convince, or to impress, or to align. Your job is simply to learn as much as you can about their needs, their world, and their perspective. If you are to follow the guiding principle ‘live in your user’s reality,’ you must understand your user’s reality in bright and vivid detail. In many cases, this means that your best approach is not to sound smart, but rather to ‘play dumb’ and create as much space as possible for your users to communicate with you in their own words and on their own terms.”
—Matt Lemay, Product Management in Practice (First edition), p. 85
Quick sidebar here: there are two scenarios where you should not play dumb when talking to customers:
If you’re meeting with an angry customer about a problem they want a solution to (e.g., a huge bug in the software they purchased or a delay in a feature you promised). This is a very unfortunate scenario, and you should show up prepared.
If you’re presenting something on stage or doing a talk, yeah, it’s best to sound smart in this scenario.
But in most cases, when you’re talking to customers to do discovery work, playing dumb is a great tactic. Don’t make it about you looking smart; it’s not about you, it’s about the customer. Playing dumb also has the added benefit of removing your preconceived assumptions about the customer so you can learn more.
So, how did I learn to stop making it all about me? Honestly, it was on accident.
One day, one of my fellow PMs got sick on a day when a customer was coming to the office to have a conversation with them. I filled in at the last minute, absolutely zero time to prep. I didn’t have to play dumb; I knew nothing about this customer’s use case.
With no preconceived assumptions or prepared talking points, I let the conversation flow naturally from a place of genuine interest and curiosity. I asked lots of questions like, “Can you show me how you’d do X?”
I’d even go so far as to say, “I’m not an expert in Y; can you tell me more about that and why it’s important for your business? I’ll share your feedback with members of our team who are experts in that area.”
Guess what happened? I had FUN. And I learned more from that customer than any of the customer interviews I’d prepared hours for.
In my old approach, I’d have too many assumptions about the customer, and I was so stressed that I wasn’t open and curious. By “playing dumb,” I learned way more, AND it didn’t feel scary.
Like Ron Swanson at the hardware store, this customer didn’t want me to pretend to have all the answers. I could be more helpful to them by just listening.
Things you can do for better convos with customers
User interviews are just one user research method, but it’s usually the easiest and cheapest method for a product manager to bring a lot of value to their team.
Here are some things you can do to make these conversations easier, more productive, and more enjoyable.
User interviews 101
Remember: it’s not about you. Focus on the customer. You have one goal: understand their problem to help them solve it.
You don't need to know all the answers; play dumb to give the customer space to tell you their own story in their own words.
If you have access to a UX researcher, partner with them and let them lead! Listen to how they ask questions and learn from them. Following the lead of a great UXR person is a great way to learn the ropes.
Know what you want to learn from your customers and prepare questions you want to ask them.
Avoid hypothetical questions and ask about past behaviors instead. People will often lie to you and themselves, so focus on past behaviors (“Tell me about the last time you did X”) to combat that unhelpful human instinct.
Ask customers to show you how they do a thing over describing it.
Ask open-ended questions so they can tell you a story – you’ll get more interesting details this way.
User interviews pro tips
Bring your team along for customer interviews, and share insights, quotes, or video clips with your team. This way, everyone on your team gets to hear directly from your customers. This can spark more creative solution ideas from your whole team.
Set up ways to get continuous feedback by making the outreach and interview scheduling process easy. Teresa Torres has excellent tips on continuous discovery habits.
Make sure you know your company’s rules for talking to customers. Do you need users to sign an NDA? Do you need to go through your account management team before contacting customers? Are there privacy policies to adhere to? Learn these up front to avoid problems later.
Use quotes from customer interviews in your product strategy and roadmap presentations. This is one of the best ways to tell the story of your customers’ needs and influence stakeholders.
So remember, it’s not all about you. Get out of the building, focus on your customer, and just listen.
You got this!