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Hear from Julie Leonard who is the product director for the new Ascender platform. She has put in tons of work and tireless hours to make the platform the best for sellers and their team. 

• What made you want to come to Force Management?

For 9 years I had been working in a Professional Services team, building products and apps for customers and guiding a team of PM/Pos to do the same. While this was enjoyable, it left me looking for an opportunity to really sink my teeth into a product and evolve it over time. Joining this team with such a strong vision for addressing a market app for individual sellers was exactly what I was looking for. Everyone that I had talked to had a strong customer focus understanding that if we don’t provide value to our customers, our platform wouldn’t end up being successful. A small company with great people and a lot of upside potential for company and personal growth with the ability to make a difference helped influence my decision to come to Force Management. 

• What have you learned while helping to create the Ascender platform?

The most valuable thing is having an enthusiastic and collaborative team. I have found that is the key. We all have an ambitious goal and being part of a great team where everybody pitches in has been absolutely essential to us meeting our goals. Another thing I have learned is to always expect the unexpected. Most of the time it doesn’t matter how much you plan ahead or try to think of possible problems and mitigations, there will always be something unexpected happening. It is important to stay calm, prioritize, and work on what’s important one thing at a time. 

• What are some of your roles being the product director/ What is the product director?

My “product” is the Ascender platform’s implementation and evolution. I end up working with our Marketing, Learning, and Community leads on product requirements, implementation schedules, balancing customer value, risk, and time to market. Coordinating with vendors and partners to maintain our systems, resolve issues, and the development of our platform features also falls under my title. Together with our Acender team, I seek opportunities for innovation to allow us to provide superior value to our customers. It is my responsibility to ensure the content from our marketing and learning teams, as well as our community engagement shines and comes together in a value producing package for our customers. Part of my job is also making sure that we have user input, analytics and data to help us measure what’s working and what needs improvement and innovation.  I keep a keen eye on user experience, making sure our customers have the best possible experience with Ascender. 

• What have been your biggest indicators of success? When did you know it was making a difference?

The biggest indicator of success on the internal side, was when we started working on the Explore section first while also building the “under the hood” foundations of the overall platform. It was starting to come together once we had the Enroll section completed and we saw how content and learning can work together. After, when we connected the community where people can connect and engage, it was like the pieces of the puzzle had finally come together and the vision became real. An external indicator of success came when we started inviting our Beta users and the great majority of them were able to onboard and enjoy the platform without too many problems. All that while the last sprint of development was still in ful; swing. Their feedback was all we needed to tell us that what we are building will make a difference. It was then when I knew that this first release of Ascender as a soid foundation on which we can build future value and innovation. 

• What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

It’s not advice per se, but a quote by Henry Ford that I play back often: “If I would have asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” In practice that means that we need to read between the lines in customer feedback, user interviews, and survey results distilling what they NEED from what they WANT. It is also important to keep things simple and clear. Focus on making it easy and unambiguous for the user to get around and get what they pay for. That means letting technology handle the complexities and making things intuitive for the user. 

• What are your goals for Ascender? What do you want visitors to experience?

That’s easy. I want our platform to be the one-stop shop for Ascenders to be more successful in their jobs, close more deals  and more consistently. A platform that combines self-service activities like reading content and taking courses with the engagement and connection based activities that our community enables. Ascenders should be able to fill airport wait times scrolling through the Explore feed for insightful and informative daily content; have easy access to quality learning material they can consume in manageable bites and that can lead to certifications that lend them authority in their field; a community where they can not only connect with peers to share war stories, get advice, compare notes, but also with experts who can serve as coaches, talk about pitfalls, and provide tips and tricks. 

• What are your priorities as it relates to serving the people on the platform?

My priorities are evolving our product in a direction that continues to provide value that is superior to what they can find anywhere else. I want to have our platform be the tool that enables them to be more successful while getting and staying connected with peers and experts. Another priority would be making sure they have a great experience. That means avoiding delays, technical issues, and making it easy to use and built-in conveniences. Listening to and reaching out for feedback to get insight into what is important to them, is important to us 

• What do you think makes Ascender different?

Ascender is different because it provides to individual sellers and small teams the kind of coaching, information, and expert guidance that is usually reserved for larger organizations while also speaking to their individual need for personal connection and engagement.