How did I get here?

Have you ever had a handful or Roma tomatoes thrown at you from your employer during the peak of the dinner rush?  What about going four days without sleep trying to get a your “hot off the press” enterprise software solution ready for a live productive use? Balance going to college with waitressing, working at a flower shop and delivering newspapers in the middle of the night? These are some of the events that impacted who I am today. There is a lot more to my story, but as I dig deeper, I fully understand my path to becoming a product management leader and why I’m obsessed about delivering customer value, quality products and doing whatever it takes to get the job done.

How did my life and work experiences shape me as a professional and as a person?

Have you ever stopped to reflect on which values and beliefs (motivational variables), or character traits (how you feel, think and behave) you built throughout your personal and professional years?  I thought a lot about this during my Covid-19 quarantine and started to uncover just how select events and certain individuals influenced who I am today. 

If you have never done this exercise before, it’s an interesting journey to take. You might be amazed at all of the funny situations, interesting and amazing jobs and people that impacted you along the way. Before we look at the outcome of my experiences - let’s look at a few more interesting inputs.

1. Three interviews, a personality test and an exam testing my knowledge of every ingredient used to prepare our menu items (even the sauces), just to get a side-gig waitress job to help get me through college. Really? I’m slinging hash, right?
2. Requesting a transfer from my hostess job to getting behind the scenes as a dishwasher. Leaving a job greeting customers, taking reservations and showing them to their seat, to a thankless fast-paced job that was overall pretty disgusting - unless you like vile smells, having mice run up your legs and leaving drenched in god-knows-what after each shift. Why on earth would anyone want to do that?
3. Begging and pleading with airport security to let me keep my soldering iron so I could install new firmware for my customer. Why was I ready to fall to the ground and roll around in the fetal position to avoid losing this tool?
4. Sleeping with a beeper attached to my pillow, in addition to my responsibilities to provide quality assurance, product installation, and technical writing. What drives us to do whatever it takes when we are involved in a start-up software organization?

First of all, my life experiences created quite a list of things that motivate me (values and beliefs) and my character traits (how I feel and behave), but that list is far too long to unpack in this article, so I’ll focus in on a few of the most dominant values and traits. 

Hard work, Ambition, Hustle and Persistence

Why is hard work, ambition, hustle and persistence so important? I believe doing WHATEVER IT TAKES is the secret to creating customer value, making memorable experiences and building trust and loyalty.

Working three jobs (waitressing, selling flowers at Jerry’s flower shop and delivering newspapers for the Minneapolis Tribune in the middle of the night) while going to the U of M as a full time student was a bit ambitious, but I was determined to support myself and become independent, and the road to success meant I had to do whatever it took to get there.

Being employed at a small software startup called Time Management, in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s taught me everything about going above and beyond to create customer value and loyalty. We all had a shovel in hand and wore many hats to ensure customer success. Prior to having a dedicated support staff, we all carried a beeper to service our customers from around the world. It was 24/7 and we were available any day of the week, at any time of day. The job was our life, but we were dedicated and all-in. 

Hard work was never an issue for me. I worked evenings at the family restaurant, Café Volpicelli after putting in a full day at Time Management, which was a fairly demanding startup software job. There was no time to be tired, it was what we needed for survival, and we had paying customers to delight. We even ran a food booth at the Renaissance Festival on weekends in the Fall. I was on fryer duty most of the time; yes, another pretty disgusting job.

Working four days without sleep trying to get a client live on an enterprise software solution, while introducing a new, never-used module critical to their business was no small task. I was working as a software implementation specialist for Publishing Business Systems, who was at the beginning of their growth phase, so things were a bit crazy. I was persistent about getting this customer live, on time and on budget. NOTHING was going to get in my way of achieving success; it was what the customer expected and what they signed up for. Not even a program that was unfortunately stuck in an infinite loop could stop me.

My dishwashing job at Cicero’s Pizza in Edina, Minnesota, which led to line cook and the subsequent waitress jobs were my first memories of what it meant to really “Hustle”. I think restaurant work is where many people learn how to work in a fast-paced environment and deal with the crazy and unexpected. Working at Rupert’s American Café in Golden Valley Minnesota elevated my hospitality game, as the premium dining experience and quality required a much higher-level of hustle and organization. We were all quick on our feet, the pace was fast and furious and there was no room for error. When dining prices are high, so is the definition of customer value and customer experience expectations. 

All of these work experiences influence my career as a product manager. I’m thankful for all of these different experiences, crazy situations and broad range of jobs because it made me who I am today. It takes passion, dedication, ambition, hustle and hard work to build best-in-class products, people and processes, which I believe are key to product management success.

Customer Experience and Quality:

Why is the delivering a memorable customer experience and high-quality products so critical? Because the customer is “King”, they will always have a choice and trust is extremely hard to win back if you mess it up.

Making sure EVERYTHING we did produced a quality product and over the top customer experiences was our mission at Rupert’s American Café. I now understand why I had to pass three interviews, a personality test and how critical knowing the exact ingredients in the food we were serving was to their success. This company was a fine-dining establishment and nothing, but the best would be tolerated. From shining the silverware, to the precision we used to fold a perfect white linen napkin, we were prepared with the highest level of quality. To elevate the customer experience, we taste-tested every special before each shift to properly describe these incredible entrees to our audience and knew every ingredient in the homemade sauces to help with dietary restrictions. We were prepared, and we did it right. The customer was the center of our world, and we were there to make sure everything was perfect.  This was my introduction to quality, execution and customer obsession, and I LOVED every minute of it.

Quality was the reason behind why a few of us waitresses at Café Volpicelli were pelted by a handful of Roma tomatoes. We were in the heat of the dinner rush, when the owner found several tomatoes in the bin we prepped for the evening with the “eye of the tomato” still intact. He picked up a handful of those tomatoes and asked us, “Would you eat these?”, and when we responded “No”, he said, "Don't serve them to my customers then". He threw those tomatoes at us to make a point about quality and customer experience.  Needless to say, while we didn’t agree with his approach, the point came through loud and clear.

Providing quality and the best customer experience is why I begged and pleaded to keep my soldering iron while traveling to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. This trip was extremely expensive, and I had a tight window to change out the firmware on the labor management hardware at Minerva’s Restaurant. I had to fly in, get the job done and fly back to Minneapolis with little time to spare. If they confiscated my soldering iron, I couldn’t get the job done and getting to a store to find an alternative didn’t fit in my tight timeline. I had to convince this security officer to allow me to keep this tool, as this customer upgrade was critical. Needless to say, I convinced security that everything was okay, that I would not engage in any wrong-doing and luckily, I was able to keep the iron and complete the mission.

All of these experiences in my earlier working years had a profound impact on me, influencing what I value to this day, and drives my passion for excellence. Without the customer, we have no value. Solving customer needs, creates value. When you create customer value with over-the-top customer experiences, you create trust and loyalty. With loyalty, you pave the way for long-term success.

Where am I at today? 

I’m a Product Management professional living in the “central nervous system” of software creation; obsessed with continual improvement, quality, relentless execution, creating customer value, customer delight and using professional product management to elevate people, products and processes. 

I think my first product obsession started when I was 15, when I made the move from hostess to dishwasher at Cicero’s Pizza. My goal was to get closer to the product creation, but at the time no 15-year-old rolled in off the street and become a pizza line cook on day one. In fact, Cicero’s Pizza at the time had never had a female line cook, so I had an additional barrier to break through to get my dream job. It required doing the dirty work washing dishes, but about 1 year into my adventure, my girlfriend Janet and I finally broke that gender barrier and became the first female pizza chefs at Cicero’s. Thinking back, this was my introduction to all things PRODUCT and where my passion for execution and quality started.  

Passion has been an important factor in achieving many of my goals. It certainly drives my obsession for delivering customer value, quality products, continuous improvement and creating memorable experiences. But, for me the key to success is living with a “It takes what it takes” mentality. 

Leadership Matters

I’d like to thank a few individuals for influencing me and teaching me so much along the way. While this is a short list of my key influencers and lesson learned, there are many others along my journey that made me who I am today. I am grateful for all you have done, the impact you had on my journey and the ways you have helped me grow professionally and personally.

My Parents: They are the original mentors of hard work, dedication and positive mindset.

Julie Sheehy: Julie taught me that hard work and doing what it takes will pay back. Without Julie hiring me as a waitress at Rupert’s American Café, I would have never met any of the following mentors.

David Webb: I learned from David that businesses must create financial security, and I admired his passion for food, perfection & quality.

Rick Webb: Rick was the master of customer obsession and showed me that quality ALWAYS matters. Nobody did customer experience better.

Penny Van Kampen: Penny taught me to treat people as humans, work hard and how to enjoy life and laugh. In an interview, find out what they would bring to a company potluck; that tells a lot about a person.

Joanne Gallery: Joanne helped us grow from a small company to an organized larger organization. We learned the Importance of process in the growth lifecycle, and how to herd kittens.

Mary Olson: Mary was an inspirational leader that demonstrated Integrity, hard work, the power of building relationships. She was a mentor to so many and she made a lasting impression.

Talin Bingham: I finally pulled it all together working for Talin. He inspired us to become relentless about our execution and to live and breathe quality. I learned that repeatable processes, on-time delivery and professional product management are the keys to success.

How did you get here?

I didn’t write this article to bore you with the details that shaped my career and my beliefs. I found it extremely entertaining and enlightening looking back and connecting the dots from my own journey and hope you can reflect on your journey will a lens of “how did I get here”.

What do you value?

How did you get here?

What experiences in your personal and work life influenced you the most?

What people had an impact on you and why?

What motivates you now and why?

Why do you feel so strongly about some of your values and beliefs?