100 Lessons Learned From People About Glock 26 Products

Handguns aren't new. In fact they have been around for quite a while. Everybody knows basically what they look like, what they do, and who makes them. The market is dominated by such big name firms as Smith & Wesson, Heckler & Koch, Sig Sauer, Beretta, and Steyr. You would not feel that that even the top product manager around would stand the possibility of having the ability to introduce a brand new product into this crowded market.

Apparently nobody told Gaston Glock see this. As described in a brand new book, Glock: The Rise of America's Gun, Gaston just happened to be within the right place at the proper time back in 1980 and overhead two Austrian colonels speaking about the Austrian military's need for new pistols. Gaston then did what any good product manager would do, he went and talked with the customer.

The customer within this case was the Austrian defense minister. The minister agreed to allow Gaston to bid on the handgun contract. Gaston then had to come up with a product to sell. He knew nothing about handguns so he went out and bought his competitor's products and proceeded to take them apart to be able to discover ways to build an even better product.

The gun that he ended up creating was nothing like the guns that have been currently on the market. The Glock 17 (so called since it was the 17th gun that Gaston made) was made out of industrial plastic which both made it lighter as well as more resistant to corrosion. The handgun was also built out of several subgroups that made it easy to remove and replace. Gaston won the handgun contract with the Austrian military.

Once we product managers are all too aware of, just having an even better product isn't going to assure your product of success and isn't good sufficient to put on your product manager resume. If you really want to capture an important part of your market, in which case you are going to have to do some serious marketing.

When it comes to the Glock guns, it was Karl Walter who took the Glock to the country. He faced an uphill battle getting this new and fairly ugly looking gun to be a success. At the time, the Smith & Wesson company ruled the market.

Walter did what any good product manager should do, he focused upon getting the Glock to be considered by people who were going to be buying a gun. He did this by getting the Glock to be featured within the October 1984 edition of the Soldier of Fortune magazine. He followed this up by getting Glocks employed in product placements in both Hollywood films and television shows.

After the Glock was adopted through the likes of the Secret Service as well as the FBI the game was over. Glock had won. What Glock had shown is that a carefully managed promotional campaign can certainly help even a whole new product to enter a market and to capture a significant marketplace share.

You could not be the product manager for a firearm, but the story of how the Glock handgun was created and what made it successful probably has a story for you. Simply because you are trying to enter a crowed, well established market will not mean that you need to copy the products which are already being sold there.

Innovation is a word that is tossed around a great deal right now, but it holds a special meaning for product managers. If we take the time for you to concentrate on what our customers' real needs are before we begin to define our product, then we have the real possibility of doing what Glock did and transforming our market. Almost sounds like this is an element that you'd find in a product manager job description, will not it?

Simply because you make a superior product doesn't mean that the world is going to beat a path to your product management door. Instead, you are going to be the person who is answerable for making sure that the term gets out about how wonderful your product is. Follow the example which has been given to us by Glock and also your product should have a shot at being successful.