Matt and Alper talk to product manager Ömer Gençer, who describes how he customizes his presentations for the many different audiences he encounters in his day-to-day work life.

Episode transcript:

Matt Krause
Alper today we have a guest on the podcast, Ömer Gençer. And Ömer is a product manager in the tech space here in Turkey. And actually, he works for a German startup startup company, but he and his family live in Istanbul. And before we get started, I have a little Ömer anecdote that I want to tell. In one of the first conversations that I had with Ömer about a year ago or so. It was on Zoom. And Ömer and I were talking and he looks off the camera and he starts talking Chinese. And I thought, incredulously. Wait, is that Chinese as I speak a little chinese, which is how I recognize it. And I also don’t hear it very often, which is what surprised me. And it turns out that yes, in fact, it was Chinese Ömer’s wife is from China. And Ömer lived in China for a while. So we had something in common right off the bat.

Matt Krause
Anyway, before we move on to the main question that we have for you today Ömer, and just so I don’t forget to do this later, tell our listeners if they want to get in touch with you. How can they do it?

Ömer Gençer
I would be appreciative if they can have a touch of me in LinkedIn on LinkedIn. Sorry. So omergencer and directly I pop up would be best way. Or they can get in touch with me via email ogencer@outlook.com

Matt Krause
Okay. So anyway, Ömer on to the burning question that we have for you today.

Matt Krause
We talk a lot here on this podcast about the importance of tailoring your message to your audience. And in your line of work. As a product manager, you probably talk to a lot of different people, right? Sometimes it’s the C suites, sometimes it’s the software developers, sometimes it’s the end users of the software. So what are some of the important things to look out for when you’re tailoring your message to a particular audience?

Ömer Gençer
Sure. Um, first of all, we, I define what kind of message I want to deliver, because we need to decide the core what we want to deliver at the end, then, actually, more than what we deliver, how we deliver might matter most more, because, okay, I have a thing that, okay, this is a piece of software, or the feature is gonna work this way. That’s the core, that’s the message content.

Ömer Gençer
But when you deliver to the end user, you need to tweak a little bit, or when you deliver to C-suites or sales, all the different stakeholders, stakeholders are expecting to hear something different.

Ömer Gençer
Obviously, you don’t hold a meeting, when they you group them all together. That’s also another case. To me, if it’s like we, we need to prepare some basic slides as clean as possible, then, based on our audience, we need to decorate as much as we can, if we are having a meeting with technical team, just the picture or few bullet point bullet points are not going to work.

Ömer Gençer
Because they’re, they’re expecting more detail, you need to know what kind of language they want to hear from you. So like you can use input output. Or you can use some flowchart models more like the squares or some arrows connecting each other.

Ömer Gençer
So this is way better presentation for them so they can understand and we can have a product meeting with the technical team.

Ömer Gençer
While they’re like if you’re having or organizing meeting for end user, you need to be as plain as possible. It also depends on who’s your end user. But let’s say let’s say a warehouse from one of my previous experiences. So if the end user, the staff in the warehouse, you need to be as clear as possible because this is not only presentation, but it can be a training document for them as well.

Ömer Gençer
This is an important part. For the C-suites, it’s, it might be a bit different because while you’re different presentation presentation for them. They also want to see it some actions because for them in the most important part is what you deliver.

Ömer Gençer
But at the same time, if there is any action connected to that delivery, so, okay, this is delivered, okay, it’s online, when is online if everything is well.

Ömer Gençer
So you need to make some little differences, even in the core messages, you need to add some extras for the core messages so they can have some actionable insights from your presentation.

Ömer Gençer
And the last one is sometimes companies, very multinational companies, it’s very interesting way is to instead of like, what they’re doing meetings, but there are a lot of talks, sometimes they use presentations, to tell were some words to each other, like they fill words or sentences all over the presentation, I am never fond of that one. I want to deliver my message as creative as possible, in a simplistic way.

Ömer Gençer
But if your company’s culture is like that company culture only accepts that those sorts of presentations that then you might need to go with that version as well.

Alper Rozanes
I have a question. It’s an interesting point that you bring up as the corporate culture or the company culture, do you feel sometimes we can people can not feel but do you think sometimes people can feel obligated to use a slide deck, or a presentation where it actually was not necessary in the first place?

Ömer Gençer
This is actually depends on how much power you have, and how much that organization empowers you. Because if you, if there is a Lean management system, even though many companies they say we are lean, we are altogether, it’s not how it looks.

Ömer Gençer
So this is you need to work you need to be in that organization to understand, so sometimes they empower you, okay, you bring your own style, we want to learn from you. And sometimes they add some constructive feedback and you grow.

Ömer Gençer
But sometimes that is not that, that is not the case. So depends on how much power you have, if you’re in your early career, or middle career, you might need to follow what company wants you to follow, because you don’t have that much power.

Ömer Gençer
Either, you need to leave. But everyone needs to learn some improve their experiences and earn some money. So it might not be the viable options.

Ömer Gençer
Otherwise, you need to have double life, since you’re keeping that method, you need to always think by yourself, which could be better, and put that one in place. Once you have enough power in your next chapter. Or next position.

Alper Rozanes
Did you have to go through that yourself?

Ömer Gençer
Some part, yes, some part I think, I think most of the people had to because you prepare something that you that you think is enough, but then you realize your manager or upper manager does expect expectations are different.

Ömer Gençer
Even color selections. They like some, because they’re, they’re more experienced than you. Sometimes. This is not the whole, that’s not always the case, but it happens.

Ömer Gençer
So you understand how that manager operates. And you just change the color and that manager is okay, then you realize, I don’t need to change whole content, just I can change the color and the managers are right, it’s so like, if we can give some feedback during this process to this manager, okay, this color or this font, or, this style is better in a nice way. It is perfect. But sometimes it is very hard to do that.

Alper Rozanes
I can imagine.

Matt Krause
Ömer, my question for you is that you have described an incredible, incredible amount of individualized tailoring.

Matt Krause
You know, picking the colors for the person that you’re talking to picking the targeting the changing the the way that you talk about the subject, even changing things like the vocabulary that you use.

Matt Krause
So do you find that this degree of tailoring, is this a pretty common skill that pretty much everybody who comes into this industry is going to know or already be thinking in those terms, or is this just something that they acquire through time?

Ömer Gençer
Definitely something that you acquire through time, but these sort of skills or these kinds of requirements are in general you need to deliver during the early stage or middle stage of your career because then because there are a lot of expectations then that you need to fulfill.

Ömer Gençer
Then you’re in your late like even you’re getting some upper level senior level in your career, then you have some power to continue with your own model, then that creation because any sort of creation cost you time.

Ömer Gençer
Any sort of creations, because there is imagine that there is one file and you create five different versions of the file, it takes time, all of them are cost.

Ömer Gençer
So once you’re in your senior level, you can kind of tweak that one even use the same template. And while you’re in the presentation, you can address differently, you can manage that one, but you also acquire this skill there through the time.

Ömer Gençer
But about this very detailed level of creation, obviously, if you’re a worker bee at your organization, if you ever worked in I always call multinationals, it doesn’t have to be multinationals, it could be large companies, well, where there a lot of stakeholders, then you realize that you need to proceed the project, there’s a project then.

Ömer Gençer
Like, very, in general, no one really want to pay attention to details why this doesn’t move. Everyone wants, everyone wants some progress. So to be able to get some progress at individual level, you need to have confirmation with every stakeholders.

Ömer Gençer
And that’s why you need to do as much as you can. And then you learn what is the mistake? What is the correct way of doing and then you bring your own version in your later career.

Matt Krause
Okay. So Alper, that pretty much wraps up my questions for the day, we’re coming towards the end of the podcast. Do you have anything that you wanted to chime in with?

Alper Rozanes
Yeah, I want to ask him, I want to pick his brains on one more thing. You’re now working for a German startup company, right?

Ömer Gençer
Yes.

Alper Rozanes
In your professional experience, do you see a noticeable difference between the way the presentations are made or expected to be made between, say, a multinational company and a startup company?

Ömer Gençer
Um, yes. But, you know, when you call multinational companies very interested, it’s fragmented.

Ömer Gençer
Like, to me, it’s funny, because when you if you name it, any multinational company, inside of that multi national company, there are divisions, and any divisions are like different brands.

Ömer Gençer
Yeah, like you just move one, the like to other room, and the culture, slightly changes in the company. So. But for long story short, you have a template in multinational companies there, some suggestions, three, four suggestions, at least you don’t deal with the design stuff, colors, and everything is set, you just put your content in there.

Ömer Gençer
And you just check some old because there’s shared documents, you check some old styles, how they manage that, if everyone is happy with that, unless you really want to have some revolution and presentation skills, you just continue that one, you focus on the content, which actually I’m not against, because there is a system and you follow, you proceed that system unless there is a problem.

Ömer Gençer
In startups, startups are chaotic, I need to tell you, it doesn’t matter where it’s based. Because startups there are a lot of unclarities these there are a lot of potential, we when you talk about users or customers, or you don’t know if those are potential customers or users everything mixed up.

Ömer Gençer
So you need to be ready to change your presentations. 10 times like maybe 10 times in a day. Because your needs your requirements, your audience target, and your touch within the company itself.

Ömer Gençer
Too much in multinationals, you’d see the top two, maybe three, four guys in the day, in startup, maybe 10, maybe even more. So it’s way more dynamic until it finds its foot or its culture.

Ömer Gençer
It is there’s a lot of trial and error process. So but especially when people reach out their career at some level, then they can actually deliver value. So this is what I do at my current company, so I learned some stuff. And then I’m trying here sometimes works sometimes it is not because we are also learning we are also evolving, there is.

Ömer Gençer
In my position as a product manager or I believe any other position, there is no like, Okay, it’s done, it’s going to be like that forever. No, we are always evolving. But now I have a chance to bring those ideas that I’ve been keeping or I’ve been learning during my multinational company years.

Ömer Gençer
So, this would be better. I couldn’t do that because I had to be in the system right out I can try and I get a feedback from my managers, if they say okay, this is good, if I can, and then if they say no, I can if I can counter I can convince I can come to otherwise I change there is always consensus space.

Ömer Gençer
Try as much as things that they have never tried even though it might sound ridiculous, some ideas they need to try. They need to see that it doesn’t work because this is the only place you can do.

Alper Rozanes
You can do that. Yeah.

Matt Krause
All right, Alper. So shall we wrap up for today? Well, thank you very much for joining us on the podcast today Ömer.

Ömer Gençer
Thank you. Thank you very much for having me.

Matt Krause
And we’ll talk to you later then.