I had a fascinating conversation today. It was with an entrepreneur doing fascinating things in leveraging AI, data, analytics to help his customers. He had a number customers, including some thought leaders and opinion shapers in his markets. As we were discussing the problem he solved, he spoke in terms of data quality, currency, data analytics, reporting. It was clear that what he did had a very high impact on his customers.
As we spoke, I asked, “Is the way your customers talk about the problem the same way you talk about it? Do they describe it in terms of data quality, currency, data analytics, reporting?”
He thought for a moment, you could tell he was having an “Aha moment.” He laughed and said, “When I talk to the technologists at these companies, these topics really resonate with them. But the decision makers and users on the business side of the company never describe their problems in those terms.”
He went on to describe how the end users described their problems. “I don’t get enough time to talk to as many customers as I would like to….. I spend all my time trying to figure out what is most important to my customers and how to talk to them…… I’d just like to free up time so I could get out to the golf course……”
They didn’t use the words, “data quality, currency, data analytics, reporting” in describing their problems.
In the discussion, we realized the problems he solved weren’t the way the ultimate decisionmakers described these problems. In some sense, it’s like the old story of asking 6 blind people to describe an elephant. They are limited by their perspective—“It’s a trunk…. It’s a huge wall… It’s a massive foot… It’s a tail… It’s a …..” Each was describing the elephant, but each had a limited perspective of the elephant. So while each was correct, they each had a different perspective.
Too often, sellers fall into the same behaviors. We use words around what our products do. But those words are often meaningless to the customers.
Think about how we describe CRM, as an example. Thanks to ChatGPT, it told me what a CRM system does:
- Centralizes customer data
- Manages sales pipelines
- Enhances communications
- Automates repetitive tasks
- Improves customer service
- Supports marketing efforts
- Generates insights
- Streamlines collaboration
- Mobile access
I’m not sure I’d describe it in those terms, but when I talk to sellers, managers, CROs, they don’t describe the issues in those terms (or at least all of those. Sellers might say, “I want to keep track of everything happening with this customer and the things I need to talk to them about.” Managers might say, “I want to understand what my team is doing, where they are struggling, and how I can help them.” A CRO might say, “I’m naturally concerned about our performance, the numbers and goals. But I’m looking to understand growth opportunities, how I an improve the performance of our team, how I we can discover new opportunities.”
Each is describing the same elephant, but from a very different perspective. And we make it more difficult by explaining the same thing from our perspective.
As this entrepreneur and I continued our conversation, I asked him, “How would the end users describe the impact of what you are doing for them?” We discussed the concept of understanding “a day in the life of…..” We talked about how they might describe a day in their lives before the solution and a day in their lives after the solution. We realized the way they would describe this had nothing to to with the solution he had sold, but that before/after change was really the “problem” they saw was being solved.
For those few sellers that actually try a problem focused approach (as opposed to the majority who are clueless, just pitching product feature functions), sometimes we still describe the product in terms that are meaningful to the users. While they should care about productivity, cost savings, and so forth, the way they think about it in the work they do may not be in those terms.
We start talking about problems in terms that are meaningful to our customers when we can start talking about how it changes the work they do. We are far more impactful, we connect much more effectively, we create much greater value when we connect with our customers in ways that are meaningful to them.
Afterword: Consider getting “day in the life” stories from your customers, looking at the before and after. When you understand the differences they describe, you then understand how they view/define the problems.
Afterword: Below is the AI discussion of this post. It’s fascinating, they kind of get it, but clearly are influenced by some of the more traditional ways we look at things. So they are close in the discussion, but not quite there. What do you think?
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