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How to find out if your product or service is indispensable to customers. (Spoiler: Just ask them)

Name: How to find out if your product or service is indispensable to customers. (Spoiler: Just ask them)
Uploaded: 2024-10-14T14:56:21+00:00
Duration: 1 min 23 s
Channel: Bob London
Description: In this concise monologue, Bob London introduces a powerful diagnostic question designed to uncover which tools or assets a customer would consider…

14 Oct 2024 · 1 min

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1:23

In this concise monologue, Bob London introduces a powerful diagnostic question designed to uncover which tools or assets a customer would consider indispensable: “If I took away all the tools and assets you use to do your job, which one would you beg me to have back first?” He explains why the question works—customers are forced to think about core dependencies, and the novelty of the question signals engagement. London shares a concrete example from a chief revenue officer at a Series‑B company who, after excluding his team, identified ZoomInfo as the single piece of his tech stack he could not live without. He emphasizes that even if the answer isn’t your own product, knowing what customers view as essential is critical. By probing for these indispensable items, product, sales, and customer‑success teams can better understand how to position their offering, align with the customer’s core workflow, and potentially become that irreplaceable asset themselves.

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One of the great disruptive questions that I came up with over the years is something like this: So if I took away all of the tools and assets that you use to do your job, which one would you beg me to have back first? And in addition to the first response being, hmm, no one's ever asked me that before, which is a good sign because you're engaging the customer, or prospect, it defines indispensability from their perspective. So, for example, I once asked a chief revenue officer, I think it was a Series B company, that question. And he thought about it and he said, well, my team. And I said, no, not counting the team. And he said, well, I have like 15 items in my tech stack. And he said, I would have to say ZoomInfo. Because that's kind of where everything starts. That's the fuel that we use. So he couldn't— could not imagine cutting Zoom info if he was asked to make a cut. And I think it's important for all of us to understand, even if the answer to what, what would you beg to have back isn't our product, we need to know that. And we need to know what our customers view as being indispensable so we can probe on that and understand how we can achieve that as well.