As you start up, realize that both your ideas of a "killer offer" and the "ideal customer" are nothing more than best guesses at the outset. You could spot-on, or you could be dead wrong, on one or both accounts.
The only way to validate these ideas is to take the offer to the customer.
Your conversation with a customer (Tom) might go something like this:
You: “Hi Tom, I am planning to start a business to offer (name of product or service). Is this something you have a need for?”
Customer: “Yes. But we already buy this from Acme Inc.”
You: “Yes, Acme is good company. Their key features are (describe Acme's key features), but a number of customers are telling me that they prefer to have something that can do this (describe YOUR key features) instead, for these reasons (describe the benefit of your key feature). Would this better meet your needs?”
Customer: “Hum... I can see how your product could be a better fit for me. But I am not sure if it's worth the price premium. We order a lot of these and your price premium will add up pretty quickly.”
You: “We've designed this product to delivers a lot of benefits, but maybe it has more features than you really need. If you can help me understand your priorities, I think we maybe able to scale back on some of the less important features so that we can come in at a lower price point for you.”
You: “Tell me, of the 5 key features mentioned in this sales flyer, which ones are the most important and which ones are the least important to you.
Customer: - “The most important features for me are... for these reasons....
Customer: - “The least important features for me are... for these reasons....
You: “Ok. Now if we can find a way to scale back on these less important features and improve on our pricing – say around ($new price) – would you place an order with us?"
Customer: “Yes. I would be prepared to do that.”
You: “Ok. I will see how we can make this work for you. I'll get back to you in 2 days?”
Customer: “Sure. I appreciate you trying to make this work for us.”
When you get valuable feedback like this, try to incorporate them into your next meetings to see if other customers agree with Tom's values and priorities.
You will got through many conversations and few cycles of pitch – pivot – pitch – pivot before you arrive at the optimal feature set and price point for your products or services. But it's well worth the effort to have these conversations with your customers.
You may also find that you have different segments of customers that require different product features. Resist the temptation of wanting to cater to them all. Start simple. Focus on the customer segment that you can best serve right now.
I'll talke more about this next time.
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