Question Page

How do you see growth product manager versus a business development or pure sales roles ? Differences and Similarities ?

2 Answers
Jackson Hsieh
Jackson Hsieh
Upwork Senior Director Of Product @ UpworkAugust 26

I see them as partners working together for a common goal to help grow the company. The main difference is that they each have their own responsibilities that contribute to this common goal.  

  • Sales Manager - their responsibility is to directly engage with the customers to close deals. 
  • Business development (BD) - is usually responsible for making new partnerships where 1+1=3. 
  • Growth PM - is responsible make the features that support smooth onboarding, referrals, discounts etc. 

Analogy (best i can think of right now) - We are a real estate developer with a goal to sell multiple homes we've built

  • Sales - they bring potential buyers of our house (the product)
  • BD - they find gardening vendors so that we can charge you an HOA fee
  • Growth PM - they build the electronic signing documents, and keyless entry lock to insure buyers have a smooth transaction 
2057 Views
Nicolas Liatti
Nicolas Liatti
Adobe Senior Director of Product Management, 3D CategoryDecember 7

I think it depends on the company. If both are doing a similar job, they may have different titles depending on the company.

Eventually a pure sales role is about selling a product, with all the process of negotiating contracts, etc. - while a PM acts on influencing the team to improve business.

502 Views
Top Product Management Mentors
Poorvi Shrivastav
Poorvi Shrivastav
Meta Senior Director of Product Management
James Heimbuck
James Heimbuck
Doppler Principal Product Manager
Paresh Vakhariya
Paresh Vakhariya
Atlassian Director of Product Management (Confluence)
Natalia Baryshnikova
Natalia Baryshnikova
Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility
Zeeshan Qamruddin
Zeeshan Qamruddin
HubSpot Senior Director of Product Management, Flywheel
Clare Hawthorne
Clare Hawthorne
Oscar Health Senior Director, Product Operations
Orit Golowinski
Orit Golowinski
Jit.io VP of Product Management
Anton Kravchenko
Anton Kravchenko
Carta Sr. Director of Product Management
Tom Alterman
Tom Alterman
Notable Head of Product
Rishabh Dave
Rishabh Dave
Stripe Product Lead, Financial Infrastructure