Episode 227: Inside LinkedIn’s Product Strategy Culture with Monica Lewis

In this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast, Melissa Perri sits down with Monica Lewis, VP of Product at LinkedIn, to explore how AI is transforming sales solutions. Monica shares her journey from engineering to leading LinkedIn's billion-dollar Sales Solutions team, focusing on creating powerful AI-driven tools that increase the effectiveness of the sales team. Monica discusses the integration of AI in sales processes and highlights the importance of understanding customer needs to create solutions that address real-world challenges. She emphasizes the role of AI in streamlining tasks, thereby enabling sales professionals to focus on strategic activities that create value for buyers and sellers. If you want to learn how AI can reshape your approach to product management and sales strategy, tune in and gain valuable insights from Monica's experience at LinkedIn. You’ll hear us talk about:00:02:54 - Grounding AI in Customer Needs Monica explains how LinkedIn ensures their AI solutions are centered around customer problems, emphasizing the need for understanding audience and customer requirements first when developing AI-driven products.00:10:27 - Leveraging AI to Improve Sales Effectiveness Monica shares how AI is helping salespeople become more efficient by automating non-customer-facing tasks and providing valuable insights for better decision-making.00:30:01 - Embracing Failure and Rapid Testing Monica shares a pivotal moment at LinkedIn where rapid experimentation and smart risk-taking led to an increase in customer acquisition, highlighting the importance of quick testing, learning, and iteration. Episode resources: - Monica on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamlewis/ - Check our new course: https://productinstitute.com/p/mastering-product-strategy-overview Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 03:04 Dear Melissa 07:49 Building Sales Solutions at LinkedIn 13:01 Creating a culture of experimentation 16:12 Trends in AI and the evolving role of salespeople 21:17 Balancing metrics, data, and user value 25:13 Designing user experiences with smart cues 30:59 Monica's career pivotal moments and product strategy insights 36:59 Managing innovation, bets, and experimentation 40:46 The future of sales and advice to younger self