Dealing with Premature Sales Promises: A Product Manager’s Guide

How do you deal with your sales team selling a feature in your product that is not yet developed, or not even on your product roadmap/backlog?

I know a lot of us product people have been faced with this.

Having your sales team come back with a list of things that don't exist, already sold to a potential client, can be challenging.

Sometimes this is inevitable, but here are the things I do to reduce this from happening too often:

1. Open Communication and Regular Product Development Updates: I ensure everyone on the team, especially the salespeople, are kept informed about new updates, features, and the development process.

2. Ensuring There Is a Feedback Channel: It's important to create an avenue for regular feedback from your sales team. They interact with customers more often than you do. This feedback helps structure your roadmap and organize your backlog, ensuring you build features that meet customer pain points and support your sales team.

3. Train and Ensure the Sales Team Understands the Current Capabilities of the Product: Product knowledge is a must. This prevents situations where the sales team sells Feature A when we only have Feature Z.

4. Managing Promises Already Made: If the sales team has already made promises, work closely with them to manage customer expectations. Communicate clearly about the current status and involve the sales team in discussing realistic delivery timelines with the customer.

What other ways do you handle this?