All of us are trying to make progress in some area of our lives. Many of us are trying to be good parents. Others want to attract a partner. Some want to care for aging parents. The list is seemingly endless.
Wouldn’t it be nice if someone would help us make the progress we desire?
Of course, that is what every business does. Ultimately, every business provides a product or a service that helps a customer make progress on one front or another.
But few companies ask themselves this question: What progress is my customer hiring our product or service to help them make?
I used to sell custom logoed products to organizations that needed giveaways. You have received all of these things — T-shirts, coffee mugs, pens. But did you know that there are different and distinct reasons these are given away?
They can be used as a conversation starter on the trade show floor, as a form of traditional advertising or as a unity-building means of showing affiliation or allegiance.
What difference does that distinction make?
The way to price, describe and sell these products depends on what “job” they are supposed to do for the customer. Conversation starters are most effective if they are interesting. They don’t have to be practical, expensive or durable. Traditional advertisements need to be publicly displayed. Affiliation items need to be durable.
When we take the time to consider our products and services in the context of our customers’ lives and the jobs they need to get done for themselves, we create the possibility of new insights.
Arriving at a plain and accurate statement of the job your customer is trying to get done can be hard work. But it can also be rewarding.
The hardest part of articulating the customer’s job can be setting aside our own opinions long enough to hear customers tell us what they are really trying to get done. It takes a certain amount of confidence to open ourselves to the possibility that our customers don’t see the essential purpose of our products or services the way we do.
It also helps to have a few good questions to get you headed in the right direction.
My friends Bob Moesta and Chris Spiek at the premier consulting boutique The Rewired Group ask good questions for a living. Here’s one of their favorites when they are trying to find the job a customer has hired a product or service to do: “If you hadn’t been able to buy this product, what would you have bought or done instead?”
That single question changes the conversation from one about the features of the product into one about the customer’s situation and what the customer is trying to accomplish in his or her life.
Correctly identifying the job or jobs that your customers are buying your product or service to get done can sharpen your efforts to focus your company, outdistance the competition and increase both sales and margins. ●
Jerry McLaughlin is founder and CEO at Blow Birthday Cards
