Standing out in a competitive job market requires more than technical skills — it demands a clear narrative of how your experiences add unique value. This is especially true for aspiring product managers, where the field lacks a standardized career pathway.
For Bowie Sievers, a product manager at NextRoll, his edge came from leveraging customer knowledge and implementing account-based marketing strategies to drive impactful results.
“One of the most impactful projects I led was aimed at helping customers increase their revenue potential by using account-based marketing techniques, specifically identifying accounts and contacts that had obvious missing actions and to help them take the next best action,” he said. “This required unifying data and providing customers with proactive guidance to craft marketing and sales strategies.”
ABM flips traditional marketing approaches by prioritizing deep, personalized connections with high-value accounts. It offers product teams critical insights into customer pain points, enabling them to make data-driven decisions about features, functionality and user experiences. By homing in on feedback from the most relevant users, ABM also ensures that product development aligns with market demands.
Collaboration is the backbone of successful ABM, as Sievers learned firsthand. The result was a product that empowered customers to act on data more independently, a milestone Sievers considers a career highlight — a testament to how understanding your unique skills can open doors in product management.
Whether implementing ABM or capitalizing on your own knowledge and experience, opportunities abound for new product management professionals to carve a unique path to career success. Built In SF heard more from Sievers about how he made his way to product management and his advice for others looking to transition to a product role.
NextRoll is a marketing technology company delivering products that companies can use to grow their businesses.
Can you describe your journey into product management? What motivated you to pursue this career, and what key experiences helped you transition into the role?
I started my career in customer success, where I developed a customer-first approach. Over time, I moved into a role supporting all of customer success, where I had to have a deep understanding of our customers and product. Around that same time, the company launched a new product which required close collaboration with the product team.
My interactions with the product team really sparked my curiosity about the role and its impact. My transition to product management was shaped by the environment and people around me. Being part of a growing organization allowed me to interact with teams and people I wouldn't otherwise have, and I had a manager who supported my transition into product management. Advocates within product and engineering teams also helped my transition, offering mentorship and opportunities to learn. The culture at NextRoll has always been really supportive of continuous learning and career development.
Tell about a product you managed from conception to launch. What were the key challenges you faced, and how did you overcome them?
A key challenge while implementing account-based marketing was getting organizational alignment, as the project required four different engineering teams. Collaboration across design, engineering, customer success, sales and marketing was critical.
We hosted workshops and discovery sessions to clarify the vision and used smaller milestones to gather customer feedback and iterate quickly. When we launched this product, we empowered customers to act on data more independently, and in accordance with best practice. It’s definitely the project I am most proud of during all of my time at RollWorks, a division of NextRoll, because of how well different teams and functional area leaders collaborated. I gained invaluable experience in using data to form a compelling strategy to get cross-functional alignment.
What advice would you give to someone looking to follow in your footsteps and become a product manager?
To succeed in product management, I always recommend folks focus on three things: writing, relationship-building and market and customer knowledge.
Writing is essential to clarify your own thinking, distill complex topics to understandable concepts and align cross-functional teams. Building strong relationships across functions fosters trust and collaboration, which is critical to getting buy-in. Deep understanding of the market and customers helps you understand why certain problems exist and how a customer is affected, which results in better solutions and outcomes.
Finally, don’t feel pressure to have a perfect path into product management. Many PMs transition from other functional areas. Start by leaning into product-adjacent work, like collaborating with product teams or owning small initiatives. These experiences will prepare you for the role and help you hit the ground running.
“Don’t feel pressure to have a perfect path into product management.”
