Main Takeaways: -Focus on a specific problem, not the solution. -Become the specialist on that problem. -Share your findings, listen for feedback, repeat

1. www.productschool.com
How to Transition from Sales to
Product by Booking.com Sr PM

2. CERTIFICATES
Your Product Management Certificate Path
Product Leadership
Certificate™
Full Stack Product
Management Certificate™
Product Management
Certificate™
20 HOURS40 HOURS40 HOURS

3. Corporate
Training
Level up your team’s Product
Management skills

4. Free Product Management Resources
BOOKS
EVENTS
JOB PORTAL
COMMUNITIES
bit.ly/product_resources
COURSES

6. Product School
Transition from Sales to Product
Bruno Pais,
Senior Product Manager

7. Agenda
● My path into Product
● The most frequent concerns when considering to join Product
● How sales and product are connected?
● A real example applied in my career
● Key Takeaways

8. Joined Booking.com
Joined as a Junior
Account Manager.
2012
Joined B.Com HQ
Joined HQ as an
Account Manager
Worked together with
Product team to share
my learnings on that
process.
2014
Joined Product Department
Joined Product as a
Junior Product Manager
to work in Internal
Tooling.
2015
My path into product
Continue in Product
Senior Product
Manager in Payments
Today

9. Most Common Feedback
● Clarity - “I don’t know what is needed to get into product”.
● Skill Set - “...each product is different, what do I need to learn to be a product manager?”
● No common background - “Some PM’s are engineers, some come from sales, some data
scientist, I don’t know if I have the right background.”
● Resources - “No engineering team to work on my idea. I can’t develop a product without them.”
Frequent concerns to join Product

10. I learned to... Sales Product
Identify customer pain points ✓ ✓
Sell, reach out to customers ✓ ✓
To gather feedback and overcome objections ✓ ✓
Sizing the market opportunity ✓ ✓
Define a good product architecture ✓
Validate Ideas ✓
Most Common FeedbackWhat can you take away from sales that will be useful to your product
career?
Most Common FeedbackSkills learnt in sales that can help you in product

11. Which problem I was facing?
I was spending on a daily basis more than 1h to
gather all the relevant data for partner report
creation.
What did I learn throughout this process?
- I wasn’t the only one having this pain,
more Account managers were struggling
with the same.
- Automation of this process could bring
benefit to a lot of people within my role.
- I didn’t had engineers so I decided that an
actionable prototype could be done via
excel.
Most Common FeedbackMy side project to learn product mindset

12. May 2014
While being interviewed for Sales role
this side project was referred.
I was hired in HQ still as Sales.
Feb 2014
Research, how the current target
audience solves the problem.
Got the first BETA users onboard to be
part of this research.
Dec 2013
Identified the problem and brainstorm
a potential solution.
Feb 2015
Started to work closely with Product
teams, sharing my knowledge around
internal tools.
Got hired as Junior Product Manager.
Most Common FeedbackThe product development process
Scaled this solution across multiple
offices in different regions. Eventually, I
got contacted by HQ to share some of
my learnings.
Mar 2014

13. Converted frustration into a clear problem statement
We all want to solve what is most important for business, but be realistic of your resources.
Your audience can also be internal
There’s a common misconception that PM’s need to solve a problem from external customers.
Remember that your colleagues are also your potential customers. Eventually they can turn to be your best ambassadors to step into
product.
Get on the phone,pitch, gather feedback
Your clients don’t know you are trying to get in a product neither that you have a solution for them, unless you tell them.
Most Common FeedbackIn retrospective what i learned?

14. Focus on a specific problem, not the solution
You can get the product mindset as PM despite not having an engineer. Focus on identifying a problem,sizing the problem,
understanding who’s your target audience. Your colleagues can also be your audience.
Become the specialist on that problem.
Get the visibility on helping others in solving the same pain, this will help you to become the “go-to-person”. Personal branding is
a key element to help you in this transition.
Share your findings, listen for feedback, repeat!
Don’t be shy or quiet about it. Whether you are building for internal colleagues or external customers, keep selling your product.
Most Common FeedbackMain takeaways

15. www.productschool.com
Part-time Product Management Training Courses
and
Corporate Training