Customers are the key to developing any business, it's that obvious.
Knowing, categorizing and empathizing with our users and clients, from our market niche, will make us find the problem that is worth solving and with it, develop a viable and profitable business.
This activity will be done twice.
First time: Hypothesizing what you initially think are your best Niches and estimating their responses. You will do it based on your experience and market analysis.
Second time: After validation, knowing first-hand in greater detail the response of your potential customers.
Steve Blank He calls it customer development and it is just that, a method that helps you develop a product based on the needs you identify in your niche.
This exercise will be very useful to you now that you are putting together your strategy, but also when you begin to qualify your leads to detect those with the greatest propensity to purchase and focus your efforts on the accounts with the most interest, that is, when you start with the process commercial, to classify which strategy to carry out with each one.
Data-driven decisions are the parachute that protects us from big failures. To the extent that we can collect, order and select that information, we will be able to make better decisions.
Based on the validation interviews carried out, we obtain a series of data, which allow us to categorize those clients whom we have interviewed and the information that I have obtained from them. That score will give us an idea of ??the interest that our product or service has caused in those potential customers, and if that type of customer has the qualified customer profile (having Money, Authority and Urgency, MAN=Money Authority Need)
Or by On the contrary, we have not obtained interesting information, either because the selection of the type of client has not been correct or simply because there is no problem where initially it seemed that there was.
In both cases the solution is to pivot.
In the first case, pivot the type of customer and in the second case pivot the value proposition, until you find the problem that is really worth solving (the Niche problem).
It is important before starting, that you do not forget the comments, feelings and information of clients who leave the profile that we have set, because many times they provide us with data, clues or problems that are important to them. and they can give us new ideas to incorporate into our product or service.
Everything will depend on the different number of Targets that you can go to. The more generalist you are, you already know that it will be worse to make sales efficiently.
In this case, the business idea does not matter as much as being able to establish a classification of needs.
This is the matrix, by columns we have the 7 categories that I mainly focus on, but do not hesitate to add any that you consider necessary.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GmM27KcYhLGoqaOf9nT_1wMXd2-W9KStx4X0H9uZCuE/edit?usp=sharing
Make a copy of this document and save it to your Drive folder.
These categories can be expanded or reduced, depending on the type of project we have in hand.
The important thing is to establish behavior patterns that allow us to recognize for which client the problem that I am trying to solve with my product or service is: We
greaterscore each box from 1 to 3 depending on the degree to which the client meets the marked condition. One is the minimum (bad score) and 3 is the maximum (the best for us).
I will explain each of the fields.
It is the genuine interest that our product, our idea or our prototype has caused in each type of client.
This can only be evaluated, being in front of the client, either physically, or by zoom.
Most of the time body language is more important than what they are saying to you.
That's why always we place a lot of emphasis on recording the interviews so you can review it later.
It reflects how important the problem that I am going to solve is for the client.
If it is not very important I will put 1 and if it is very important for the client I will put 3.
This point, in addition to knowing how important the problem is, helps us to know if the client has actually detected that problem or not.
What often happens when doing a problem interview is that clients have not detected the problem that we want to solve.
That shows that it is not really a problem for them and that surely we will not be able to develop a profitable business from it.
Educating someone who doesn't know they have that problem is VERY HARD!...try to start with "known" problems until you have more credibility in a market and can up-cross-sell more complex problems.
It is related to the previous point.
Sometimes it happens that the solution that we have proposed for a specific problem does not solve a real problem of your company but one of the Target Person itself, so on this occasion we must indicate the different Target persons for whom we solve it.
If there is a current solution, even if it is homemade/manual, it is necessary to evaluate how satisfied they are with it, how they use it, and what problems it generates.
This customer information is essential to assess the seriousness of the problem to be solved with our idea. The more dissatisfied the better for us.
In addition, when proposing a solution, it will be very useful for us to know what currently exists and with which solutions they are most satisfied and why.
That way we can PROMOTE the effectiveness of our solution on the most in-demand features and ignore the functionalities that we see that they are not using in other products or services.
It is important to try to know the purchase period of other technologies, products or services, which may be related to ours.
If the period is long, it will be bad for us because it will be easier for the proposal we are making to fall on deaf ears.
While if the purchase period is short, it is easier to monitor the offers, and check whether the proposal we have made goes well or not.
It reflects whether we have found the right person, whether they have decision-making capacity or are simply an intermediary in the decision.
The more people there are between our first accessible contacts and the person who has to make the initial decision to try the demo, buy or sign the contract, the worse for us.
The longer the chain of decision, the easier it is for the information to be diluted along the way, lost or not reaching the person who has the power of decision as we would have liked.
Therefore, it is very important to carefully select the Target Persona profile with whom we are going to speak, so as not to waste time or create false expectations.
Many times it happens that during the interview, everything seems to fit, the person is receptive, but perhaps he just goes with the flow because he knows that the power of decision is not on his shoulders.
It is dangerous when this happens, if it is not detected in time, because it gives rise to false expectations.
A fundamental characteristic of potential customers is that they should be spending money on solving the problem, either in direct money or man-hours.
Therefore, it will not be all in false purchase promises, if not, we have clear proof that they are already trying to solve the problem and are investing in it.
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Many (score of 3) or few (score of 1), will give us an idea of ??the size of the business, but that at least they spend something, it will tell us that there is a problem that is worth solving.
In summary, the table will help you sort the information on the Problems (Niches), Targets and possible sectors/Industries to classify them and continue advancing in the development of the product with them.
Each product or service will have special characteristics that will force you to add or delete some of the columns in this table, adapting it to your specific needs.