Only the Best Products Get Sold!

This is obvious, and yet many product managers do not pay enough attention to it. Every time a product is sold, the buying decision is made on assumption of the best choice made by the customer. Therefore it is always the best product which gets sold. The customer would never go for his second or third best choice. The purchase decision is always customer's first best choice.

Why?

Nobody can force the customer to buy anything less than the best according to what he is looking for. There exists no other force, which would influence the decision. Naturally, the customer always chooses the best product.

Still you can find many products on the market, which address the same problem. Yet this is not contradictory to what is said above. The premise states that the customer always decides for the best product for him. Different customers usually make different best choices. This means that customers possess different criteria for selecting the best product. In other words, different customers have different ways of satisfying the same need, but each particular purchase decision is made on assumption of the best product selection for that particular customer.

What does this tell us about product design strategy?

If you want the product to be sold - ever, it has to be designed in a way that it will be selected by at least one customer as his best choice. Not second best or third best! It has to be the best for at least one customer according to his purchase criteria.

Have this in mind when designing a product. It is by far the worst strategy to design a product in a way that it is mediocre in every aspect. Not only it will never be selected in purchase decisions of your customers, it will also mislead your market research. You will detect a lot of interest, a lot of potential, which will later on never be realized. You will always lose, maybe just by a little bit, to the best product for the customer. Think about it, if this is frequently happening to you.

What you should do is think carefully about your product. Is there at least one criteria according to which your product is the best on the market for a customer segment that you are aiming at? You need to be clearly the best! Do not fool yourself by thinking that you can get away by being among top three. On the other hand do not worry, if there are some other criteria and customers according to which you are not very good at.

Sometimes a purchase decision criteria is combined from several elementary ones, like for example price/performance ratio. Nevertheless, it is still a single criteria and it should be considered as such, if you decide that this is where you want to build an advantage with your product.

Remember, being always in the middle is not a good strategy for product development. Find at least one purchase criteria for a product, where you can clearly deliver and present the best solution in the market and make sure you execute that strategy perfectly, then your success will come naturally.

Trade Shows, Why are They (Still) Here?

If you are coming from IT industry, then you have probably already heard this claim, "Public business events are going to be replaced with internet technologies like web, webinars and social media."

And yet trade shows are still here. Why?

One thing is true. Internet technology offers strong means for almost any company to present their products and services to the world. Besides presentation there are also several options available for promotion like sponsored links, banners and promotional video clips. In most cases a company can build a technically more convincing presentation on the web than at the trade show. A promotion on the web can last forever. Usually, a web based promotion costs less than a public appearance at the trade show.

But trade shows have one unique advantage, which could never be replaced with web. They are personal, first hand, human, if you will. They are more aligned to a human nature than internet technologies. People go to trade shows not just to see products, but mostly to meet people, potential business partners and customers. Intuition and intangible quality play a major role here.

That is why I think trade shows are still around and they will be here for quite some time, until we discover a way to transfer authentic personal touch over the web - if ever.

When Challenged Use the Chicken Argument!

Today's topic is not a new one. I decided to write a few words about it, because I still face this issue from time to time. It is about speaking the right language, knowing your customers and knowing who is on the other side, when you are trying to get the message across. The problem was extensively studied by several authors Adele Revella, David Meerman Scott, Steve Johnson and others.

So, what is it all about? Years ago, when I started my work as a product manager, whenever somebody asked me if I can create a presentation of a product, I immediately knew what to do. My presentation was done in a very short time; it required no particular input from colleagues or customers (I knew it all, I was a product manager!) and it spoke a magnificent persuasive language.

Which language?

My language.

There was a problem with that. The customers were not product managers. They saw the product through their eyes. They were expecting answers to their problems, not an expose of my beautiful achievement. The message did not get to them, because there was no message for them.

I figured it out, eventually. In order to be listened to, I needed to convey the value of the product from the customer's perspective. Although there was a single product, there were as many perspectives as there were distinctive market segments. I needed a customized presentation for each market segment.

Since then whenever somebody asks me to prepare a presentation of a product, I immediately ask back "Who will be listening?" In some cases I still get a strange look questioning me "am I trying to avoid the task by asking annoying questions?" In these cases I need a simple persuasive argument to explain why knowing a listener is so important. Here is what I am using. You can try it too.

"Let us say you would like to present the value of corn to a farmer. How would you do it?

Further on, how would you present the value of corn to a cook?

Would you be more persuasive with two presentations or just one for both of them?

If you still think that corn is corn and there is no reason to present it differently to a cook as you would present it to a farmer, try this one -

- How would you present the value of corn to a chicken?"

Long pause.

"Are you kidding me?! You need a break - soon. Here is your customer profile."

;)