S1 E12 | Finding Non-Consumption to Help Your Business Grow

You're looking at your products, the things you're responsible for of saying how many more people want to do this but can't and what are the barriers? And you have to pick off barriers and then you have to by your, by your strategy will tell you what barriers you can pick off and what barriers you can't pick off. Because some people might be able to go down market where other people can't based on their strategy. So you have to find the non consumption and you have to figure out what your strategy, what your business strategy, what your metrics are and then decide whether to go after it or not. And what disruption does is a lot of times big companies have this strategy of always growing profit or margin or something like that that makes them make the decision to go up market and not go sideways or go down market a lot of time.

Welcome to the Circuit Breaker podcast where we challenge the status quo of innovation.

And new product development.

We'll talk about tools and skills and methodologies used to build better products and make you a better consumer. I'm Bob Mesta and I'm the co founder of the Rewired group and I'm one of your co hosts and we're.

Joined by Greg Engel who is my.

Co founder and the chief, Bob interpreter. Join us now as we trip the circuit and give you time to reset, reorganize and recharge your brain to build better products.

Hey, welcome to the podcast. This is just a little bit of preview. Greg and I dive into the whole non consumption, I'll say pool, right? There's just so much stuff going on there. And so we take the time to really unpack what is non consumption? How does it work? We give a couple of examples. Wrapped around it. We actually dive into how we have wrestled with non consumption in kind of building a CRM and some marketing and how we've overcome it. But in the end it's really about how does non consumption help people grow their businesses and being able to identify it and how do you identify it? And so ultimately through the podcast we will end up getting you to the assignment of trying to help you identify non consumption.

Hey Bob. Hey Greg.

What's going on man?

Today we're going to talk about non consumption.

I love this topic.

So I first want to start off with in your mind I want you to define for everybody what is non consumption.

So the concept of non consumption is where people, you know, they want to make progress but they can't. And so it's this notion of pent up demand or the aspect of like they're, they're, they have a struggling moment, they haven't quite come to the conclusion of either the trade offs they have to make or the decisions they have to make. And so they're kind of caught in this world of workarounds and things that kind of might help them. But the real is they're, that struggling moment is not eliminated. And so they're, they're sitting there waiting to kind of make progress, but they're stuck.

So is every human in non consumption.

I think the reality is, is that the other ingredient that's important to non consumption is that there's a desire to be better. If there's not a desire to be better, it's just like this is inconvenient and I just like you tolerate it. Right. You could say they're in non consumption but it's that notion of I want to do something better or I want to be able to do something that I can't. And that's. That tension is what causes the notion of what non consumption is.

I think that's what we would always say is look, when you, when you're looking from the supply side out, a lot of people want to say anybody that's not buying my project product is in non consumption. That's not true.

That's not true for sure.

What's true is the people that want to do something that your product will, will fulfill but for some reason they can't economically time, knowledge, any of those things will get in the way of consuming access.

So it's access like I'd like to do it but I don't have access to it or boy this is too expensive or I don't know how to do it. And so it's those, those are the other underlying premises of what non consumption kind of frames out to be. Is like they want to do it but they don't know how or they want to do it and they, they can't afford it or they want to do it and they, and, and it's this aspect of they want to do it. So you could say is everybody in non consumption? Yes. But at the same time it's like it's, if they don't have the energy then they're not actually going to figure out how to make that progress.

But my pool of people to buy me there are people that are not consuming.

Yes.

And there's non consumption.

Yeah, yeah. So there's a difference between what I would call is the way that they define a market is a, is A what they'll say is the addressable market is people who could, at any situation or any, these are people who could buy my product. Right? But the thing that they always miss is it's not about who can buy it, but it's about when, where and why. And, and not everybody is in a why situation to make that progress. And so even though there might be, you know, a hundred thousand small businesses out there that, that need our product, how many of them are struggling, how many people are actually trying to make progress and how many people are actually stuck? And so it might be down to, well, there's only, you know, 10,000 people struggling right now and there's another 25,000 people who want, who, you know, who are doing workarounds or want to make progress but can't. It's not that the market is 100,000 and you need to get all 100,000. If they're happy, they're not looking. Right, Right.

So they're not non consumption.

They're not in that.

They might not be buying you, but they're buying somebody to, to do that. Right.

Or they're, they're not struggling. If they're not struggling. They're, they're, they're not, you know, so it's that element of they're struggling. They've got energy to be better. And the fact is there's some barrier of access, knowledge.

Price, other things that are in the way that keep them from wanting to do that. So it's, it's this notion of like, I think of the stupid image I have is a horse like the Kentucky Derby in the, in the, in the stall or in the, in the shoot, ready to go and just ready to like get out, like just open the gate. And it's like the, the gate is that fact is like I don't have access or I can't afford it or I got to do some other things. And so, but there's energy that's waiting to be accessed.

And why should companies care about non consumption?

Because the thing is, is non consumption is actually where real growth comes from. So if you think about it from the supply side, growth for them could be I'm stealing share from somebody else. But when you really look at where markets have exploded, right? Things like the, like photography, right? And how is it the noncon, how many people wanted to take a picture but didn't have the camera with them? And the camera industry just went off and literally made better and better cameras, but they didn't actually think about how to actually get it have better access to it or have it with them. And in some cases, people were willing to trade off a great picture for anything for that moment. And so this is where like I have this vivid image or memory of me taking with a Motorola RAZR phone, you know, a picture of my kids trying to play soccer. And it's like, I know I have a big camera and I know how to take the pictures, but I don't have it with me. And like this picture is better than nothing. And it was just one of those things where it's like all of a sudden you realize.

That'S the definition of non consumption. I want to take a good picture, but I just don't have that ability right now.

And as we work with people and we talk to people about non consumption and product development and things like that. Tell me the difference between innovating for non consumption and innovating for blue sky.

Yeah, so.

So I, I will say this is. I, I'm not sure I understand the blue sky thing because it's like, it's almost like no constraints, thinking and like I personally, I've never been able to make that work ever. I feel like I need constraints wrapped around it. And typically what happens is when I do blue sky, I end up doing what the camera companies did, which is to go up market. Oh, we could add this feature. Oh, we could add that feature. Oh, people would love to have this. And it's like, it's, it's more supply side Dr. What we can do where when you're looking at non consumption, 9 times out of 10 it's, it's about something being sometimes half as good as opposed to being something twice as good. And so the thing I love about non consumption is the notion of I just got to be better than nothing.

So I want to. I want to. Which I know you say that all.

I know you hate that.

I don't really like that because that's actually not true.

I get it.

It's not better than nothing, but it's, it's to solve my struggle when and where I want it.

That's right.

And sometimes that means there's things competing with it, sometimes it means there's things not competing with it. In your phone example of the picture, the competitor was the big cameras. But if you're running from thing to thing and you didn't pack the camera right, there is non consumption there. So it's, it is better than not having the memory.

That's right.

But it still has to take a picture that's Right. It still has to be able to be sharp enough that you can see it's your kid and not the neighbor's kid. So it's not nothing.

That's right.

But it's to fill the void of that struggle.

That's right.

And what, and what we often tell people is when we're. When we're doing this stuff and they talk about blue sky and they're looking for this, whatever they're calling it, the. The new field and all these different things is look for a struggle. Right. And non consumption usually shows us struggles.

That's correct.

If we actually look for the people that want to do something and can't, we'll help us find that. If we just do blue skies without any constraints or anything like that, then what usually happens is, like you said, you go upmarket or you stay in your supply side and say, well, people will do it. When I show them what it is, they don't even know they're missing out on it.

That's right.

That's usually the sign of death.

I would say that is my definite definition of like you're headed down the wrong path for sure.

Because if you have to convince someone to do something, it's nearly impossible.

I don't believe you can convince anybody of anything. They convince themselves. And so part of it is, is that's why we have to speak in their language and we have to actually see things their way and see it through their eyes. And this is where if I have to convince them that this is better, then the fact is they're not actually looking for better. They convince themselves.

So I think a lot of times we talk about non consumption and it's trying to get people to realize that their products do a job to be done. The people have the job to be done, the product isn't the job to be done. And oftentimes they get in this mindset of the product is the job to be done. So they end up trying to go blue sky because they think they can make a product to open up the space, open the market.

Right.

And when it's really, can you look at someone's life and say they want to do these things? How do I make it accessible for them? And it could be up market or down market, quite frankly, it could be sideways to what you're doing today. There could be a lot of different ways to approach it. But how do you actually approach it to get more people in the door?

Yep.

At the right product, at the right time. At the right time.

That's Right.

And that's really what we're talking about when we're talking about designing for non consumption.

Right. And this is where I always say it's like it's not only who, but who, when, where and why. It's those are the things that help define the market. Not just who. Right. And not just when, but who, when, where and why. And those, those that, that's where we start to. So we think of it more as jobs, as like moments or situations that people have in their lives. And so if it's just the count of small businesses, that's one thing, but it's the small businesses who struggle with accounting that's actually the size of the market we're talking about.

And in your opinion, who's usually better at looking for non consumption? Big companies, startups. Like who's usually hitting that mark?

Well, there's two things, and this is what Clay talks about in disruption, right? Is the fact this is that the senior, like the established incumbent, the first thing is they have barriers. I call it the church of finance basically says I can't actually do something that's going to be either less marginal or not generate a return that's equal to what we already do. And, and most non consumption is about the low end of the market. And that if you look at true disruptors, true disruptors come in and serve the underserved or the non consumers. And it's typically a product that is half as good or less than half as good as what the, what I say is the current product. So think about, you know, the first phone camera was horrible, right? But over time it got better. And most people didn't see the phone camera as a competitor to the regular cameras. But over time, to be honest, the camera market has dropped over 90% in less than 10 years because the phone is literally caught up and literally disrupted it completely.

But why was the first camera phone. Yes, why was that disruptive or non consumption?

Because it got to a point where that picture that I could take with my phone was better than nothing.

And I think that's the point we were trying to make is look, it needs to be when and where people want it and it needs to make sure that it's doing something for them and that you're looking at your product, you're looking at your products, the things you're responsible for, of saying how many more people want to do this but can't and what are the barriers? And you have to pick off barriers, right? And then you have to by your, by your strategy Will tell you what barriers you can pick off and what barriers you can't pick off.

That's right.

Because some people might be able to go down market Right. Where other people can't based on their strategy.

That's correct.

So you have to find the non consumption and you have to figure out what your strategy, what your business strategy, what your metrics are. Yes. And then decide whether to go after it or not.

That's right.

And what disruption does is a lot of times big companies have this strategy of always growing profit or margin or something like that. Yep. That makes them make the decision to go up market and not go sideways or go down market a lot of time.

Right? That's right. Well, and this is, this is the. IBM is the perfect example of back in the, in the 80s and 90s when they basically had mainframes. One of the things that they did is they, they tried to do the PC and who would say that, you know, we're building a computer for $150,000 selling custom software with it, all these other things. Yeah, but how many people wanted to use computers but they couldn't afford the 150,000? And so at the mo. At the one part IBM looked at and said why would we do this? This makes no sense. You know, DEC said that. I think DEC was the one who actually invented the PC and said like there's no way we're doing this because it's just going to cannibalize. But when IBM saw this opportunity, what they did is they said look, this is actually in direct conflict with our market or with our, with our current business market that we're serving. But at the same time the fact is this is actually if we don't do it, somebody else is going to do it and we need to actually figure it out. So they spun off a complete division and moved it to a completely different part of the country and said you go build the PC market and eventually put the mainframe business out of someone. They're still there, but it's like very, very small.

But someone in the company realized their business strategy.

Yes. Had to change.

Had to change.

And that it was, it was to be asked in conflict with the way that they actually, of their current business.

And the way they solved it was not changing the overall strategy but spinning something off and making a division that had a different strategy than the other strategy.

That's correct.

So that leads us to the next thing and I'm going to tell a quick story about non consumption from the rewired perspective and that is, we are constantly looking for, and we probably try two or three different CRM systems a year.

A year. We desperately want to make that progress, but, man, we just can't make it work.

We can't. And some of the things standing in our way, quite frankly, is we have an old way that we just write on a board and we move cards from place to place. There's a habit that's. That's ingrained in us.

It's ingrained in me.

We've been doing it forever.

Yes.

It's a way you remember. So those are the habits that are forcing us away from actually consuming.

Yes.

Then we have an anxiety of. We'll have a bunch of different people looking at this. How do we get everybody on board to do the same way? Think about it the same way, which is an anxiety of the new. And those always outweigh our desires of when we're slow. We need a CRM system, a trickle campaign, something that allows us to do this. Then we, when we get busy, we need something to help us keep track of everything. Right. Because things fall through. But when things are just moving along at its normal pace, it just. Why bother putting anything in?

Yep.

We know we're going to get a deal. We know we have to get so many a month. It's not a big deal. Nothing's happening. So why change our behavior? And that's kind of the context we're.

In, to be honest. We've been doing it for 12 years and it's. And it's worked. And so it's one of those things. We look at something new, like you said, in two cases, when we get really slow and it's like, okay, where the lead's going to come from and who should we call and what's going on? And then the other side is like, oh, my Gosh, we've got 20 proposals out there and which one are going to come? When are they going to land? How's it going to work? And how do we get the CRM to help. Help us understand how to execute, if you will. And so we're always picking it at the wrong times.

So we've. We've done free trials. We've bought some for a year.

Yes.

And used it for two weeks and abandoned it. All these things. And, and some of the reasons why it doesn't work for us are.

Most of them are rigid.

Yes.

In their definitions. And our definitions are different. We're trying to fit our sales process into a rigid system that doesn't fit.

Correct.

So we run into that problem or we get one that's totally flexible.

Right.

And we don't know how to set it up. Right.

Technically it's just from that perspective we end up kind of like either over complicating it. Like we can't end up making it simple enough.

So what did rewire do to get out of non consumption? What do we do?

Yeah. So the first thing. Well, we've been iterating on this and spinning our wheels for at least six or seven years, if not more. Right. And we've tried just about every little system you can imagine. And the funny part is like you might run one and I might run one and then we'll go like hey, I'm working on this one and we'll go back and forth. But. But eventually what we done is came back and said like, you know what? We actually need to hire somebody the with our marketing and understand how to.

Keep track of our leads and then have a system to actually put those things out. So instead of trying to buy the software first, we're actually hiring a marketing professional to actually help us put this all together and understand how to design the system so then we can actually pick. We were trying to have the system figure out how to help us as opposed to us figure out how to help it and then lay the system in.

So we, we hired a marketer.

Yes.

To help us with top of the funnel marketing.

Yes.

I know it's the dark side. People are probably flipping their cars right now going what the heck's rewired doing? They're going to the dark side. No. Marketing is a thing we. Everybody needs to do.

Yes.

We were able to do word of mouth mouth marketing and we're at a point in time now where we have to do a little bit more than that. Yep. And keep people we know. It's. We have a long sales process. Our sales process is a year to two years long for most.

For new people because most of our work is repeat. Yep.

So how does hiring a marketer to help us with top line. Yep. Help us with actually non consumption of a sales CRM system?

Because for, for us.

For us.

And what I would say is the fact is, is that what we actually needed to do is we again we kept trying to think of how do we actually adjust our approach to fit into the CRM system that exist as opposed to make our. Our, our system actually more explicit so we can actually go there. And so part of this is, is really about us taking that time to really think about kind of the Progress. We're trying to make and be explicit about it and, and at the same time simplify it because at some point we, we, we get, we got caught up, or I say I got caught up in kind of all the things it could do as opposed to what do we really need to do.

And what I would say is what we really did, and this is probably a just say it kind of a passive aggressive move. Yes. Is by hiring a marketer to help us with top line sales.

Yes.

We're going to have more people coming in the funnel that we have to do something with.

That's right. And so we have to have a process to actually figure out how to filter better and, and screen better and make sure that we can actually articulate our value proposition better. And to be honest, it helps people who, because they're, I can't tell you how many people that we've worked with go like, you know, we should have thought about having you help us with that. So there's, there's non consumption of us. That happens all the time. And so part of this is to build that notion of how do we actually make people understand not only when, what are the situations they're in where they can pull us in to help as well as making sure that we're a little bit more top of mind for them.

So what we did was we actually created a time wall for ourselves.

Correct.

By bringing somebody in.

Yep.

And bringing somebody in that we've told explicitly that our goal was to get to some sort of a process.

Yes. A market process.

Whether that's CRM or not, we don't know.

Yes.

But it's going to be some kind of trickle campaign, some kind of campaign to help people remember who we are, past and future type people. So we're building that. That's. Cause that's, that's helping us build that time wall to where, when we have to make the decision there's a time there.

Yep.

So we're kind of forcing ourselves down that timeline, if you will.

And the podcast is part of this is to build some content that we can actually use to trickle to people when they. So again, this is about finding the right space and time, who, when, where and why. And content like this is the thing that helps us get there.

So I think this has been a good conversation and we're trying to keep it to about 20 minutes. So I think we're pretty close to that. So what we want to do is we want to give a little homework because people seem to like that. I don't know why people want homework, but they seem to like it. So what I think we want people to do with this podcast is think about a time in their current life, in their personal situation that they want to make progress, but they can't. And then I want them to think about their forces of progress and figure out what is it about the force of progress that's not allowing them to make progress? Because that's really what it is. And we kind of in our story talked about our anxieties and our habits that are actually holding us back.

Yep.

So. And that's really what's happening. It's not the push and pulls are too, are too small. It's that the habits anxieties are too big.

Right.

And so we need someone to help us alleviate those, not actually put more pushes and pulls in front of us. Is what marketing normally does for people is they just give more, more pushes and pulls, not helping with the habits and anxiety.

That's right.

And so we went and hired someone to help us with that.

That's right.

So the homework is to go back and think about a time in your personal life that you want to make progress. You can't do your force of progress. Figure out why you're not making, why you're not making progress. Then once you do that and you kind of see how to find that non consumption, I want you to take something of your project you're working on today in your professional life and see if you can find that non consumption as well. Very good. So that's our podcast for today. Hope everybody enjoyed it. As always.

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