Most failed businesses were trying to sell something that people didn't really want. I know you might be thinking that you know people need or want what you are selling. Maybe what you sell is actually a necessity or a proven product. What you are selling, though, is not only the product or service you offer. What you are ultimately selling is the outcome you create in your customers' lives. You can sell something people really want but deliver it in a way that they don't like. The outcome you create is bigger than just the product or service you offer it's the entire experience and how much value you create for the customer at each turn.
Countless marketing dollars are spent each year to grow businesses that are selling something people don't really want. Sometimes people sort of want it or don't have a better option, and that makes business owners feel like they are on the right path. Just because a business has sales doesn't mean it's selling something people really want.
Example: Many service businesses (like plumbing, accounting, and lawn care) have customers and revenue, but they don't really grow. There is no question that people want the services they sell (leaky pipes fixed, taxes prepared, and grass cut), but what each service business sells in these cases is not just the service itself because customers can buy the same service from a lot of different companies. These service businesses are selling what we call Secondary Value (we get into this more in the Framework). These service providers are selling the unique way they deliver their service. If you're selling a service that millions of people need, but you aren't seeing growth, it's most likely because you are not delivering that service in a way that the customers really want.
It all comes back to selling value. Your customers are buying the value your product or service creates for them. Do customers want a toilet plunger, or do they want an unclogged toilet? Does anybody really want teeth whitening strips, or do they want white teeth? You get it, the point is you have to sell the value the customer wants to buy, and if people aren't telling their friends to buy from you, then chances are it is not as valuable to them as you may think.
Example (details have been changed to protect client anonymity): I was hired to consult with a company that spent 3.5 million dollars creating and trying to grow a health food app. They had identified that people didn't like how hard it was to find and manage recipes on most health food apps, so they built theirs to solve that problem. After several years I was hired to help them figure out why more people were not buying the app. After a series of meetings and working through some of the tools in the StacDek Framework, it became clear that while they had made it easier to find and track recipes, they hadn't done a good job of stocking the app with really tasty recipes. People were buying the other apps primarily because the recipes tasted good. The value customers really wanted (Easy access to healthy food that tasted really good) wasn't effectively met through this new app.
Go ahead and answer the questions in the Principle One Assessment.
Most failed businesses were trying to sell something that people didn't really want. I know you might be thinking that you know people need or want what you are selling. Maybe what you sell is actually a necessity or a proven product. What you are selling, though, is not only the product or service you offer. What you are ultimately selling is the outcome you create in your customers' lives. You can sell something people really want but deliver it in a way that they don't like. The outcome you create is bigger than just the product or service you offer it's the entire experience and how much value you create for the customer at each turn.
Countless marketing dollars are spent each year to grow businesses that are selling something people don't really want. Sometimes people sort of want it or don't have a better option, and that makes business owners feel like they are on the right path. Just because a business has sales doesn't mean it's selling something people really want.
Example: Many service businesses (like plumbing, accounting, and lawn care) have customers and revenue, but they don't really grow. There is no question that people want the services they sell (leaky pipes fixed, taxes prepared, and grass cut), but what each service business sells in these cases is not just the service itself because customers can buy the same service from a lot of different companies. These service businesses are selling what we call Secondary Value (we get into this more in the Framework). These service providers are selling the unique way they deliver their service. If you're selling a service that millions of people need, but you aren't seeing growth, it's most likely because you are not delivering that service in a way that the customers really want.
It all comes back to selling value. Your customers are buying the value your product or service creates for them. Do customers want a toilet plunger, or do they want an unclogged toilet? Does anybody really want teeth whitening strips, or do they want white teeth? You get it, the point is you have to sell the value the customer wants to buy, and if people aren't telling their friends to buy from you, then chances are it is not as valuable to them as you may think.
Example (details have been changed to protect client anonymity): I was hired to consult with a company that spent 3.5 million dollars creating and trying to grow a health food app. They had identified that people didn't like how hard it was to find and manage recipes on most health food apps, so they built theirs to solve that problem. After several years I was hired to help them figure out why more people were not buying the app. After a series of meetings and working through some of the tools in the StacDek Framework, it became clear that while they had made it easier to find and track recipes, they hadn't done a good job of stocking the app with really tasty recipes. People were buying the other apps primarily because the recipes tasted good. The value customers really wanted (Easy access to healthy food that tasted really good) wasn't effectively met through this new app.
Go ahead and answer the questions in the Principle One Assessment.