Bob London debunks the myth that customers want to be great product users. In 2,600+ discovery conversations, customers spend 80-85% of their time discussing their core job responsibilities, not the product itself. Align value to the one or two key tasks that define their role.
Chapters
What's up everybody? I'm Bob London, customer discovery expert. This is my friend Mike. Today we're going to talk about the first of the 6 myths of customer intimacy. That's right, based on 2,600+ customer discovery conversations that I've had, turns out there's some reasons customers aren't engaging. And of course, engaging is the first step towards getting them to open up so that we can learn more about what their problems and priorities are so that we can grow our own business by helping them. First myth: no customer ever said, "Hey, when I grow up, I want to be a great customer. I want to be a great software user." That's bullshit. We tend to think that the customer's world revolves around our product. That's why we do things like ask for 4 quarterly business reviews a year. "Hey, can we just suck up some more of your time to talk about us?" So the reality is that customers are experts in their jobs, in their business. They are not that really that interested in your product. Your product is a means to their end of just feeling good about the work they do, feeling satisfied in their job, maybe getting a pat on the back at the end of the day. But your product is maybe, what, 10%, 20%, 30% of their job responsibility? If you, if you think of it this way, their job description is probably 1 or 2 pages long, single-spaced, and but the essence of their job— they can't do all those things well— the essence of their job is maybe 1 or 2 things. Are you aligning the value of your product with the 1 or 2 things that they're ultimately accountable for? So why is this important? It's important because when you think of customers engaging, they're going to engage on the things that they're experts in, that they're comfortable talking about. That's why, in my experience, in my Conversations with customers, doing discovery especially, they'll talk 80 to 85% of the time about what's important to them. If you ask about them, ask about what's going on in the highest levels of their company, what are the priorities and challenges, how do those priorities and challenges influence the priorities that this person that you're speaking with, that you're building a relationship with, that they have to accomplish. If you keep asking about, you know, your product, our product, give us feedback, let's review metrics, etc. That's all, that's all about you, and that's why customers don't engage as much. So think of it that way. That's all for today. Stay tuned tomorrow for customer intimacy myth number 2.
