News September 2009
How many hours have salesmen spent over the course of their career trying to convince someone that the expensive technology they were trying to sell was actually going to save them some pain?
"Understanding what makes your product a "must have" painkiller rather than a "nice to have" vitamin is the key to successful marketing”, said Terry Forsey, the UK’s leading technology sales and marketing coach, “Identifying the key pain points and how your product relieves the pain in a simple value proposition is the top priority”.
Terry advised that companies should make a list of the pain points their product or service solves “Pain killer products provide solutions for specific problems where the pain is measurable in terms of returns on investment.”
“Get this right and your sales productivity will sky rocket. Get it wrong and you’re wondering why you’re not being successful” added Terry.
Terry offered five questions to help businesses dig into the problem and determine if they are selling a pain killer or a vitamin
Do you have a problem or a feature?
Terry added “A lot of technology companies try to sell features rather than solve a pain point, very often this is because the initial idea was created by an engineer?
Do you have a specific target market?
Terry added “A tell-tale sign of a feature looking for a problem is to target ‘everyone’ or ‘all small businesses’. Companies that claim that everyone needs their product doesn’t have a million pound opportunity, it means they don’t understand the problem they can really solve.”
Can you describe the person who will use your product?
Terry added “Can you describe the how, where and when of the work environment and what is it exactly that causes the ‘pain’? Can you describe what life will be like before they use your solution and after?”
Is the pain measurable?
Terry added “If you can’t measure the pain you have two problems. Firstly you might be wrong and more importantly you can’t tell if your solution is an improvement!”
Is it verifiable?
Terry added “OK, you may find some way to quantify pain but how do you verify with the people who matter - the users? Have you identified ways to double check, like surveys, focus groups or one-on-one interviews?”
“Of course, having answers to the five questions doesn’t guarantee that you have a painkiller.” concluded Terry, “It just makes it more obvious whether the pain you think you solve is really that painful."
ENDS
