Stop “Educating” Your Customer.
If - after months of effort - you find yourself saying one or more of the following:
“They just don’t understand how our product can…(cure cancer, make their teeth whiter, solve world hunger…)
“They just don’t understand our value proposition.”
“They just don’t understand our pricing model.”
Stop! If customers “just don’t understand” - it’s not their problem. It’s also not their job to buy your product, make you profitable, or grok your models or value proposition - particularly if you’re actually saying “pricing model” or “value proposition” to them. Ack!
Don’t “educate” your customer. Go where they already are. How are they doing things today? How can you easily fit into their comfort and/or happiness zone? (Comfort and happiness are just as important in B2B - maybe even more so, since so many people dislike their jobs.) And, that pricing model? If they just don’t get it, it’s time to come up with a new one - and in doing so, banish the words “but” and “can’t” from your vocabulary (see above re profitable.)
Note re educating - there’s a big difference between providing useful, relevant information and beating someone over the head repeatedly with marketing hoo-ha.
Related Posts:
Your Customers: Loving Wisely or Too Well?
Forget the Elevator Speech
Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, pricing, product development
View the Blog Roll
August 30th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Amen, Mary! If your customers “just don’t understand,” then it’s time for them to educate YOU on what it is they want and DO understand.
Great post!
Michele
August 31st, 2007 at 7:45 am
Why is it so many of us feel the need to keep trying to pound that square peg into the round hole!