Translating customer language 101

Hey Rob, welcome back. Good to see you, man.

Yeah, good to be back.

Yeah. And I'm speaking with a world champion weightlifter. I hear that's what, that's what rumors on the startup street are.

Yeah. I now, I now, I hit my 3 first 300-pound squat over the weekend, which to a person who doesn't lift weights, it's like, wow, 300 pounds sounds heavy. Sounds like a lot of weight. And then to anybody who lifts weights, they're like, wow. I can't believe you've never done that before.

That's all right. So we'll, when we advertise this, we'll try to get exclusively the part of your audience that is not into weightlifting to listen to this one. We'll, we'll all like nod our heads and be like, wow, that's, that's probably impressive. I don't know. I don't think I could do that.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We, we need, yeah, I need to be around the people who have never lifted. Well, we, I, I met a friend out in Utah and he told me, yeah, I was like, oh yeah, I've been lifting. I've been like getting a lot, I feel like a lot, getting a lot stronger. And, and I was like, by the way, like you, you lift weights too. He is like, yeah, I squat 450 or I've squatted 450 before. And I was like, okay, cool. I'm gonna just never talk again.

So yeah, exactly. I need, I need to be around people that make me feel better about myself constantly and are very impressed by my minor accomplishments.

Yeah, exactly. Well that's what, that's why you hang out with me.

Well today we're jumping into customer Customer Language 101 is the name of the Substack. We'll link to it in the, in the show notes as a translation guide. We're diving deep into demand hairballs, into basically, you know, we've talked a lot about like what— or last week we talked about what's the sales script, how do you go through structure a sale early in the call. You are almost certainly on many calls you're going to run into a demand hairball, like, which is basically why did you take this call or what's, you know, it comes after a an open-ended question about what's the project they're working on. And then they, you know, they vomit out something and it's your job then to like live interpret. And this week's post is helping us understand how to do that. But why don't, Rob, is there other context on why this is on your mind and who this one is best suited for?

Yeah, this, and this is for basically anytime a customer talks, you have to interpret what they're saying. And it seems like a thing that you should be able to do fairly easily because you've been talking to people for like your entire life and you've been interpreting what other people have said your entire life. And so What tends to happen is we think we understand what they're saying and we don't. And so I basically had to create this new— I had previously called whenever a customer talks, you know, they often like do this kind of like long monologue. I had called that a demand hairball, which is funny because it is like a, they're just kind of like hacking up a hairball. I was like, oh, that's, that's gross. But the word demand in there implies that they're just talking in demand language as if they're, they're literally just on the demand side, which is never the case. That is never the case. And so I don't like the term demand hairball. I don't, I'm gonna stop using that. It's just a hairball and it's customer language. And so, um, this post is hopefully going to be your translation guide to or the start of your translation guide to how to interpret the things that customers are saying and of the things they are saying, what do they mean and what should you trust and what should you not trust?

Yeah. Okay. Well, rest in peace, Demand Hairball. You have evolved into your second version, which is just the Customer Hairball or the Hairball or something like that. Let me, I'm gonna read something to kick us off. I think that was a really good intro right there, but this is what you wrote in the blog. Customers do not speak demand language. They speak customer language. Customer language spans demand, supply, and random nonsense. The scary part about customer language is that it sounds like our language. Imagine a foreign language that uses all the same words and grammar that we use, but the meanings of the words and sentences are wildly different. Sometimes that's customer language. Let's maybe, Rob, like when you tell us a little bit about this translation that you're talking about, or like, why is this, why is it not as simple and straightforward as listen to customer, understand their demand? Like what's, what's complicated about it?

Yeah. So I really, really like the, the idea of two totally different languages that use all of the same words and sentences, because then what's gonna happen is you're speaking those languages to each other, but, and like you're both forming some picture in your head of what is happening in the conversation and the pictures in your heads are totally different. And so I think the challenge is that customers will talk about things that they're trying to give you context. They're trying to tell, they're trying to communicate things and they don't have very precise ways to communicate what they're trying to communicate. And so, and sometimes they don't feel comfortable communicating what they're trying to communicate. And so they speak in a way that is kind of hard to decipher. It is, it is, seems to outwardly make sense. And if each sentence is logical, the whole thing seems kind of logical when you look at it. But when you are trying to interpret it and like, okay, what do they actually want? What would they pay me for? What, what do, what are they saying here? There are a million ways to look at it based on what they literally say that could lead you to and quite often lead us to try to sell them the totally wrong thing that makes them feel like we weren't listening at all. Yeah. Or there are, and like that can lead you to build the wrong thing. And so it's just, we, we, we kind of like see what they are saying and interpret it our own way. And that is usually in my experience, wrong because it misses the nuances of customer language where, you know, as an example, if they're talking about like, I want a CRM, right? What I'm looking for is a CRM or an alternative to Salesforce. That is like that. I don't trust that. Yeah. So like we can, we can get into it, but like certain things they say are not the, are not actually what they mean. They're just using the closest words to them to explain something. And if you take what they say at face value, you're going to be wrong.

Yeah. It's, it's making me reflect a little bit about like relationships. And it's like, you, you go through this like period of, okay, when, when she or he says this thing, this is the way I interpret that. And you're like, the first way that you interpret, you react to it is is wrong. It's just like, it's always wrong and there's confusion and chaos and that's it. It's a different dynamic, obviously, one, because you're in a relationship with them and two, because it's repeated and so you can refine over time. And this is an art that you have to hone. How do I interpret live, get it right the first time that I interact? And maybe the last time that you interact with, uh, like with a, with a customer. Um, let me—

I think the interesting thing there is like each kind of like each person, I, I thought about going the like dating direction, but I was like, I don't think I can, I don't think I could do that.

It's been a long time since you dated her.

Yeah. But yeah. Or the spouse direction too.

Yeah.

Because you still, it's still, but like, that's a one-to-one kind of thing. I think there are, there are commonalities across all customer language. So every time a customer speaks, they all kind of speak the same language or they, they're the same structures underneath the language they speak.

Oh, interesting. Interesting. Well, we'll get into that structure here in a moment. Rob, do we want to ground in the example that you embed in the, in the Substack.

Yeah.

So want me to, I can, I can read it for context maybe just so that, um, people, yeah, I think, I think that makes sense.

So what, what I wanted to do with this post is I wanted to give you an example that is, it's kind of, it's, it's kind of a real example, kind of not. I tried to kind of blend it so it's a little bit less, uh, less obvious what company it is and all that kind of stuff. Um, but this is also in the book, not very blended. Uh, and so. Buy the book, you'll see the whole thing. Um, and so what I wanted to do is I wanted to give you this example. And what I want you to do is I want you, if you're reading the post or if you're listening here, I want you to pause before we get into the translation guide. I want you to answer the questions. What does this person want, if anything?

Yeah.

And is, do they actually, like, do they actually, are they gonna buy something? If so, what do they wanna buy? What should we pitch based on this?

You know, I was, I did that exercise. I've seen you do this, like tear this down. I don't know, 5 times, like a bunch of times at this point. And I was thinking about this one while I was reading it and I was like, I know the answer to this and I still have a hard time like identifying in like, there's so much information that's in it that it's, it's hard to find. But let me, let me, I'll go ahead and read this. So this is that, imagine that I'm, what was the question that preceded this? Like, why did you take the meeting? Or like, what are, what's the context or something like that? And this is the potential customer's response. Yes. So we've been struggling with Salesforce ever since I've been here, which is, wow, going on like 5 years now. Crazy how time flies. Anyways, we're obviously a mission-driven nonprofit and Salesforce doesn't feel like it's built for us and what we need to do, managing volunteers and whatnot. I know other people who are in sales roles, obviously, and in tech or whatever, and Salesforce seems like a great fit for them. But for us, we've had to get a bunch of consultants to come in and try to clean it up. And we've had multiple rounds of that in my time here, but it's, it's just not reflecting our work to funders. And now that we're fundraising and the and the current environment is what it is. We need to fix that. So basically my boss, our CEO, asked me to look into alternatives to Salesforce sometime in the last year or two. I haven't talked to anyone yet though. There's so much that's going on in this right now. And there's, you know, one of the things about this is there's some words in there that we're like, our brains are like triggered to naturally like latch onto, for example, my boss, the CEO, has asked. Like that sequence, as it, as it turns out, we'll get into that. That's not, that's not really where the, where the gem is in this. But Rob, why don't you, you know, or if folks want to pause and like think about it, or Rob, if you want to give a quick reaction, how you would approach untangling this one.

Yeah. So this is, this is interesting. This is a shortened version of what is usually a much longer and much kind of— I tried to condense it. A bit here, but the interesting thing, if you just think about this, this paragraph and how we usually approach paragraphs and things is like, there is some sort of almost like sequential structure you should expect, but you don't get in Kustoko language. Like I would expect, right? If they're, if they're trying to say, hey, here's what I need, you would expect a person to communicate that clearly. We are looking into this kind of thing, and here's the details of exactly what we are looking into and why we are looking into it. And instead, what you get is you get this basically paragraph of text where it's not clear what's relevant or isn't in it. And it's not clear what the sentences mean. Some of them are helpful. Some of them are counterproductive. Yeah. Which means you need a translation guide for it. And I don't feel like there's been really good translation guides put out there for what customers say, which is where we get started.

Yeah. What— Rob, can you help me understand when you say translation guide? Yes. What do you mean? Like, what is it like at that— explain it as if I were like a dingo, you know, Michael Scott's words, explain it to me as if I were a 7-year-old. But like, what do you mean by a translation guide here?

Yeah. So, okay. There is a paragraph there. It is in customer language, which means it looks like and sounds like something that you understand, but you don't understand. You need to translate that into your language and to translate it, you need a— there's, there's this paragraph, then there is some machine that you put this paragraph through and out the other side of that machine comes something that makes you understand what this person wants to buy, if anything, and what you should pitch.

Gotcha. Perfect. So we've got— what was it? Enigma, the Enigma machine from World War II. That's what we're developing right here. Amazing. Well, you've— and basically using your frameworks, this— so we input the customer hairball, we run it through the translation guide, and we output the structure here that you have is demand, supply, and irrelevant. Can you, you know, maybe break down like what are you looking for in each of those?

Yeah. So it turns out, big shock, the pull framework and the concepts of demand and supply can be that machine in the middle so that you can take customer language, translate it into something that is actionable and that you actually understand and that What's in your head is the same as what's in the potential customer's head, which is cool. But like the way I get there is I find it's very useful to separate the world into demand and supply stuff. Supply stuff is stuff about products and solutions and tools and methods and all that kind of stuff. Like the, the means by which we do things. So it'd be things like For example, Salesforce is, we've been struggling with Salesforce, right? That's right. Supply that I don't, that's not working for me. That's on the supply side. On the demand side, it's not about products at all. It's about what are they trying to accomplish in their job, in their life? What are they trying to do? What are they trying to accomplish? And it, must not have anything to do with supply.

Yeah. What would, what would they be trying to accomplish if no supply basically existed or if you didn't exist? If, um, yeah, like what's, what's going on agnostic to supply?

Yes, exactly. I'm going to, and so, so we have to, yeah, you pull that up while you're talking is like, we have to separate this so that we can know Is there any demand here at all? And then there's like also what I put in the irrelevant category, which is stuff not related to demand or supply.

Yeah.

So let me— crazy how time flies, you know, Salesforce is for salespeople. It's great for salespeople, right? So it's like, okay, cool. That's not—

yeah. And it also, they also might talk about somebody else's project. Like there's, there's sort of, you know, things that are, are not, or, uh, in irrelevant could be like, 5-year plan. Like, there, you know, there's all these other red herrings that can be irrelevant. They're actually— and are easily mistaken sometimes for demand. Uh, what you've got here, uh, I, I've pulled it up for those on Spotify or YouTube. Um, and maybe someday we'll migrate to Apple video on Apple Podcasts. That's a new thing. I've got to figure that out. Um, but, uh, basically from the, um, from the Substack Rob's broken down demand, supply, and irrelevant. In the supply column, let's talk about that before we get to demand. You've got struggling with Salesforce for 5+ years, seems like it's not built for us, had a bunch of consultants. That's another one they brought up. My boss asked me to look into an alternative. I'd like to get your thoughts on this one. My boss asked me to look into an alternative to Salesforce sometime in the last year or two, but I haven't talked to anyone yet. Why is that last one that one to me, I would've put that one in demand as kind of like a weak demand. But I don't, but I, you've got it over here on supply. So what's, what's going on there?

Yeah, it's, it's, it, you could put like boss pressure. Yeah. Under demand, but that's not, that's not a clear like thing I'm trying to accomplish necessarily. I feel basically The boss told me to look into an alternative to Salesforce. Alternative to Salesforce is like the key thing for me there that keeps it on the supply side. It's about a product. It's about a tool. And so what I'm, what I'm doing here is I'm trying to basically separate them talking about supply. They do or don't like, or do or don't want is like one huge category of con— like things that they will say in customer language, but just having them complain about supply is like, there's the classic Bob Musta quote, which is bitching ain't switching. They can complain in the supply category all the time and not have demand.

Yeah. Um, yeah, that's a, that's a super interesting, and I think that one, having watched you interact with founders around, uh, around this or a similar example that wasn't, uh, wasn't edited the way this one was. The, my boss asked me to, is always one of the ones that basically like flags as, okay, this person has a responsibility. But the, the second half there is sometime in the last year or two, but I haven't talked to anyone yet. And you had an interesting commentary about the way that you characterize that in this post was like, If they haven't talked to anybody in the last year, they can continue basically, I think it was on this, they can continue not talking to anybody about this. Like what, it's not, you know, this is, that there's a, uh, there's a flag for like almost potential demand, but then they negate that because it's obviously not something that is urgent if it's lasted, you know, the search has lasted somewhere between a year or two.

Right, right. Yeah. And if they've struggled for sale with Salesforce for 5 years, they can struggle with Salesforce for 50 years. Yeah. Like it's not, it's the default state. They could be in equilibrium, just disliking Salesforce. And that's fine. Like that's, that's just an equilibrium state. There is no need to change. They can complain about it all day long, but they're like, default is they're not going to change necessarily. And so the question is, and before we move on from here, right? Like if you just take all the stuff in the supply category that we're talking about, we've been struggling with Salesforce, seems like it's not built for us, had a bunch of consultants come in and try to make it better. My boss asked me to look into alternatives to Salesforce, right? If you just take that column and say, what do they want? You're going to come up with something that sounds like, well, it's an alternative to Salesforce for nonprofits.

Yeah.

And you're going to be wrong.

Yeah. And build, literally build a CRM, like, you know, huge investment based on an incorrect diagnostic of what demand is. Why don't we jump into supply? I just flipped the screen here. Rob, do you want me to read this one?

Yeah. I mean, we just, we basically just added demand, right? Where it's, and so it's like, okay, cool. We've, now that we have this translation engine, we've been able to put most of what this potential customer says onto the supply side or onto the irrelevant side.

Mm-hmm.

Right. And, and, but we didn't fill out anything on the demand side. And that's the important side because that says what's the shape of the thing they're trying to do? What's the, what's the thing? What's the project on their to-do list? What's the priority? What's the, what's the content of what they're trying to accomplish? And Well, it turns out there is one sentence hidden in that monologue. Yeah. Like towards the end. And it is, it was basically like, we're trying to raise money and our current reporting for donors or funders is not cutting it.

Mm-hmm. Yep. And is that a, is that something common that you see, Rob, that demand is hidden like that in the, in the middle or even toward the end. Like what you would, you would think real demand would surface first, but, uh, that didn't happen in this case. Like why, why does that happen? Is that common? Like how, how should we think about that?

Yeah. So sometimes it is like, sometimes it comes out the, the like first minute of the conversation and they lead with it and they walk through exactly why. Sometimes it shows up just somewhere, like somewhere random. And the challenge is like, they are under no obligation. They don't understand this framework. They're trying to communicate stuff to you and they're gonna just use their own language, their own way. And so we like, each, each person could be different in the way they structure their sentences and the way they structure their paragraphs. And so they're not by default going to lead with here's the thing I'm trying to accomplish in my life. Here's why my existing options, like that sometimes happens. And I saw a call like that yesterday where the founder heard that, filled out the pull framework in their mind, and then just like, they're like, I don't know what to do because you just filled out the pull framework for me. Uh, I feel like it's just like, there's like a, like a 5-second pause while the founder was just like racing through everything. Like, all right, I guess, I guess we're checked off all the boxes here. But by default, that won't happen. And so this is why we need this kind of like translation engine because throughout we basically have to do a search through the conversation, through, through all the words they're saying to pick out, to pull out that one line, which might be at the very beginning, would be great. Not gonna happen by default. Or it could be at the very end, or it could be, you know, somewhere buried in the middle and it's like, okay, cool. I need to pick out the demand type things because that's what they are literally trying to do. Right now? Like, what are they trying to do right now? And then on the supply side, it's like, okay, why aren't their existing options or methods or tools good enough? Okay, cool. I need to understand those two things. And if I understand those two things and kind of like the rest is kind of context or, or totally irrelevant, but I like, I have to understand those two things in order to fill out the pull framework. And then be able to sit, like play that back to them and offer them something that they will actually pull out of my hands.

Yeah. Why don't we let, I'm pulling up your, your post here just so that we can look at the paragraph. And I'll highlight, let's see. So we've got supply here. It's literally, if you're, if you're watching the video, I'm highlighting where it, where it falls. It's, it's fragment of a sentence. It's not even the, um, you know, the, like the, the full sentence there at like 4/5 of the way through this one. Rob, what is it in this? What did you hear? What, what flagged to you like demand is, is right there in that, in that moment?

Yeah. So like, what am, what am I looking for? I'm looking for what are you trying to accomplish right now? What, and, and, and not related to supply, not related to complaining about existing options. Like I'm just putting those in a different category. Like what's the thing that you are trying to do? Yeah. And so, right, like you can complain about supply, but I need to know why do you need to change? What, what's different? What are you trying to do? What's going on that's causing you to need to change? And what kind of change do you need to make? And so here it's like, okay, I specifically wrote it this way too, to make it feel like a throwaway con— like a throwaway comment, because it often comes across as a throwaway comment where it's like, it's just not reflecting our work to funders. Now that we're fundraising and the current environment is what it is, we need, we got to fix that.

Yeah.

Right. And so what you can see there is, oh, okay, wait. Now they are fundraising right now and it's hard to fundraise. It's not reflecting their work to funders. They need to fix that now. Like there's a, there's this thing, it's like there's something they're trying to do right now that has made their existing options no longer just good enough. We can cope enough with them. We need to fix that. That's what's happening on the demand side, trying to Fix our reporting.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and, uh, and then the, the customer sort of layers camouflage onto it by saying, you know, look into our alternatives to Salesforce in the last year or two, which is actually a separate, it's an entirely separate thing. Like fixing the reporting, again, agnostic of supply, could be in Salesforce, could be, it doesn't really matter where it comes from. But fixing reporting for fundraising that is going on right now is the immediate priority. Supply is the sort of secondary consequence of that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, it's, and so this is where it gets confusing, which is they're saying on the supply side, we're looking into an alternative to Salesforce, but on the demand side, they're saying we're trying to fix our reporting so fundraising gets easier. What you might say is, okay, we are an alternative CRM to Salesforce. Cause it sounds like you want to look into an alternative CRM to Salesforce. We are an alternative CRM to Salesforce with better reporting, right? That is an option here, but when they're saying an alternative to Salesforce, that doesn't necessarily mean We want to rip out Salesforce, which sounds crazy. It sounds like they're saying we want to rip out Salesforce, but that's not— they're just saying like Salesforce, we can trust more what they're saying on the demand side. On the supply side, it's, we can't trust it quite as well. We can trust what they don't like, but, but the supply they want is way less clear. So if they say, right, like, I don't like Salesforce because it doesn't reflect, it doesn't its reporting isn't good enough for our funders, right? That is supply I don't like. The thing, the thing I don't like about supply. If they're saying we are looking into an alternative to Salesforce, an alternative CRM, that is supply I want. And they don't get to, they like, basically they, they don't really get to shape the supply they want. We shouldn't trust them there. We actually have to discount that part because if you remember from forever ago, customer comes in and requests a specific feature, a permissions feature. They don't actually want the permissions feature. They want something on the demand side, which is I want to stop people, like I want to stop people from archiving projects. And so we should, we should ignore when they say, here's the supply I want. We should pay attention when they say on the demand side, here's what I'm trying to accomplish right now. And then on the supply side, here's why I can't do that with my current options. Here's why my current options are not good enough. Then they jump into like telling you what product they want. That is, that is basically where you, customer language, having this translation thing is you just discount all of that.

So let's, I want to get into that, what to trust and what not to trust, what I think is a very practical, framework that you gave. What happens as a result of this? Maybe like you've painted one picture, which is the founder that's on the other side selling this could have said, I need to design an alternative to Salesforce that's for nonprofit and has good reporting. Play that out. How does— you've seen that not in this iteration. I don't think that's what they did, but you've seen that direction where you follow the customer's request on supply, how would that have played out? And then what actually happened and how does— like, how does the situation go?

Yeah. So remember, what they're trying to do is they're trying to fix their reporting. So if you say we are an alternative platform to Salesforce, an alternative CRM to Salesforce that has better reporting designed for nonprofits, even if you nail that, But you get the supply slightly wrong. What's going to happen is they're going to go back and be like, oh gosh, that reporting would be useful. You'll have good sales conversations, but the idea of ripping out Salesforce is like this massive new project you're putting on their to-do list that they're generally just like not going to do. It takes a ton of work and it's not real, even though they say they want an alternative to Salesforce. We know what they really want is on the demand side. They just want the easiest possible way to fix their reporting so that their fundraising gets easier. And so what winds up happening is you wind up having sales conversations that go well. They're like, wow. Ideally it's that they go well. I'll give you kind of like a couple of different gradients of this, but they go— the most frustrating one is you have a bunch of sales conversations that go well. They seem like they get it. And then the sales cycles drag on forever. And worse, your pricing, because you're competitive with Salesforce, is tied to Salesforce's pricing. And so you have very long sales cycles, pricing at Salesforce's level, and you have a massive mountain of features to build to get to feature parity with Salesforce. And then you have a bunch to maintain and all of that kind of stuff, and that just doesn't, like, that is a total grind. The worst version of this though is that you totally misinterpret, you miss the demand piece of it. And so you will have sales calls, which you'll, you'll just hear the supply side. You'll just hear that Salesforce isn't built for nonprofits. And so then you're going to say, well, we're building Salesforce for nonprofits. And you have sales calls where people like seem to get it, but because their demand is, I'm trying to fix my reporting and you're showing them all the different parts of your CRM, at the end, they're going to say, uh, cool. That's really, this seems really useful, but I don't know why I would use it. Yeah. I don't know why I would switch. It's, it's not clear to me. It seems, yes, it seems like it is built for nonprofits. But like, that's great in theory. I'm trying to fix my reporting and they're never going to say this out loud. It's just like minute 27 of the sales call, you're just going to get a weird question and it's going to be like, and it's going to be confusing. Yeah.

Yeah. So true. It's like the, the, that, that's probably another translation guide. What, how, what, uh, how to translate weird questions later on. It's almost It's never about the feature that they're asking about. It's, um, there's something else that's going on there. Um, let's talk about what, okay, what's the consequence of recognizing, correctly recognizing what is demand in this case? Like what do you build? Yeah. What happens with the customer? How is that different from redesigning Salesforce for nonprofits?

Yeah. So, okay. So if you, if you just focus on the demand side, It's, I want a better, I need better reporting for funders. On the supply side, it's, I don't like, like Salesforce hasn't worked despite us getting a bunch of consultants and spending a lot of money on consultants. So what you would sell then is not something that replaces Salesforce. You would just sell something that fixes their reporting for funders. That probably plugs into Salesforce. And so your, you know, you're like feature area is way smaller. You're really just focused on, you're basically like a donor reporting service or kind of like tool or whatever. And maybe it's custom, maybe it's whatever, but it's, you're offering a reporting tool specifically for nonprofits for fundraising. Surface area is smaller. They no longer have this project. To, I have to rip out Salesforce to get the reports that I want out of this. And then the pricing options here are like way different because they're not comparing it versus Salesforce. And so it's like, it's what did you spend on consultants? Well, this is the same cost as a consultant per year, but it works, but it actually works. Right. And so instead of it being $5,000 or whatever a year for a nonprofit, for a normal size nonprofit. Right? Like it's $40,000 per year and they buy faster.

Yeah, super interesting how the, um, you're actually, you're promising less and able to charge more like in, in many ways like that you've at the same time reduced your complexity and, uh, of implementing, of selling and increased the, uh, like the price range that you have.

Yeah, this is, and this is the physics of startups. Just like, this is like the perfect example of the physics of startups. They are trying to accomplish something. If we fit that well, they will buy faster. And the pricing is determined by the value of the thing they are trying to accomplish versus the alternatives there. Right? Like, this is just, again, another lesson in The Physics of Startups, which is your product breadth is not relevant. To the pricing. You're, that's a, that's kind of a push mindset. The pull mindset is that pull dictates what they want to buy, what they're willing to pay for it, and the bounds that you need to fit so that they will rip it out of your hands.

Yeah. Fascinating. You know what, on, uh, in my little company where we're, I'm running into this with, um, this week it's been like, oh, okay. I've been actually framing it from improperly defining it. Like what, what the demand is much closer to is storytelling that involves our product so that it is embedded. What I've been thinking it was, was your product in front of customers. And that's, they're, they're very, they're separate approaches with a similar media product. It's just a slightly a different way of talking about it that I'm seeing like much faster, shorter time to light bulb goes off in head to like, oh, that's something that you can do that feels natural in your, in the context of your media.

And so it's— Yeah. And so here's the, here's the frustrating thing about this, because this is, this is the thing that bothers me and bothers, I think everyone, right? Which is that the unlock is almost always a messaging unlock. But if you approach it as a messaging problem without this translation guide, without this kind of foundational framework, without the the physics of startups. You wind up just playing whack-a-mole with different messaging options and they're all guaranteed to not work. Yeah. Because there are infinite words you could use, all of which will make a logical sentence, but they have to connect to demand in the customer's mind. And that you need that way of thinking about it to have any chance of getting the right words and concepts that will unlock, that are so simple, but make that light bulb go off in their brain.

Yeah, I love that. Let's hit, Rob, before we wrap, what you write about what you can trust and what you can't trust. And you've alluded to this on a couple, but I do want to make it more explicit. Yeah, here, I'm just going to read this and then Rob would love your commentary on it. Now that we have a translation guide for customer language, But we need one— or excuse me, now we have a translation guide for customer language, but we need one last step as we interpret the things they say using this framework. What should we trust? On the demand side, trust they kind of know what they're trying to do or accomplish, but often need help articulating it concretely. They often use vague language like our donor reporting isn't landing. On the supply side, Trust that they can complain about existing tools and methods they don't really like, but don't conflate disliking supply with having demand. And then you go on, don't trust when they say supply they want, because that will lead you astray. For example, looking into an alternative to Salesforce will literally steer you into the iceberg. Rob, what would you, what would you add maybe on the, on the demand side?, to like what, what to trust when they say it.

Yeah. I mean, what I've generally seen is that somewhere in the hairball is somewhere in the monologue. They actually do convey demand. It is actually just the— and they convey it roughly. Often if they say like, our donor reporting isn't landing, you need to unpack, as Bob Melissa would also say, like you need to unpack. The word landing because I don't know what landing means. But they'll often convey it and it's more of a finding it problem for you. And you should trust it because they kind of know what they're supposed to be doing in their job. They kind of know what they have, like a rough sense of what they're trying to accomplish. And they often need help just kind of explaining it a little bit more to us. So that is pretty good. They also are pretty good on the supply side of knowing why their existing tool isn't good enough for that thing they are trying to accomplish, why their existing options aren't good enough. And they, yeah, like Salesforce, the reporting doesn't really work. We've tried consultants to fix that and they haven't worked either. And like, yeah, that's pretty rough, but we could say like, what does work mean there? Like, what does it, what do you mean it hasn't worked? But that's roughly right. Like we can kind of trust that, that's them pushing against their existing supply. We need to, and we need to take those two in combination though, because if we don't, then we get a laundry list of complaints on the supply side without understanding which of those are actually relevant, that they are, that fit what they are trying to accomplish. So those are the pieces there. And then the danger zone is when they talk about supply they want. That is a no. You can say what I don't like about my existing options. That's the negative. I don't like about my existing options, XYZ. That's okay. That's roughly okay. You have to just connect that to the demand side. When they say, here's the supply I want. Absolutely. Like, no, that is, don't trust that at all. Take that as actually probably likely to steer you in the wrong direction. And that's just because like, they don't, they, this is where it comes, where customers don't know what they want. That's what they're taught. They don't know about the specific instantiation of the supply that they, that fits their demand. That's your job as a founder is to design supply that fits the pull that they have. They're going to just, they're basically just going to kind of They're throwing concepts. Yeah. Because that's the best they have. They're trying to articulate this thing that's fairly complex for them to articulate, and they have no idea if you're picking it up or not. So they're just throwing out things at you. But that, that piece in particular is the dangerous piece.

Yeah. Fascinating. Um, Rob, what should founders do with, with this now? Like, what's the actionable next step?

Use it, translate. That's it, right? This is a translation guide. This is your Rosetta Stone to what customers are saying.

Hmm.

Yeah. And it's the start of it. It's not, it's not complete. It's not complete. There's a bunch of other things that I need to include in the translation guide and all that kind of stuff, but maybe that's another book in the future.

Yeah. I love it. I'm going to run the, a recent call through the translation guide and see what comes out on the other end, because I suspect it's going to be different. I think I may have been, feel like nearing or being attracted by the song of the sirens, which is this is the supply I want. And there's, there's probably— it's really hard to resist that because it feels so simple and clear and straightforward in some ways. And sometimes, Rob, tell me if I'm wrong, sometimes they actually might be right. Like the thing, like there's, there might be some customers that can actually articulate the supply that you should build in order to satisfy that.

Yes. But unless you understand the demand and basically pull framework.

Yeah.

You won't know what success looks like to them. So you won't actually know what to build. You'll know like roughly what to build maybe, but you won't, won't know why you won't know what it needs to accomplish for them. And so you just wind up in this awful state with a product you're— they're onboarding to. You don't know what success is. They may or may not know what success is. And so that's a terrible situation to be in.

Yeah, good point. I like the drawing it back to the system approach or of thinking about a, a startup, the replicating case study and the factory and that the way that it's not just the sell, it's what you deliver afterward. And, uh, the clarity that comes from knowing what demand is. Why don't we hit one mailbag real quick? This one came from Dominique. Dominique, I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing that. He said, hey Rob, been listening to your podcast, reading your blog. After going through the Harvard Innovation Labs, the path to PMF slide deck, a light bulb went off. Suddenly I could grasp the difference of the demand framing, which was incredibly valuable. I, of course, also made the mistake of building first, but with the demand framing, an emotional shift happened. Instead of trying to sell my product, I check if the prospect has demand. The key difference for me is that when trying to sell supply, prospects can only say no to your product, which sucks. But by seeing if they have demand, they're not rejecting you or your product. They're simply telling you about their reality, which I find easier to deal with. What jumps out to you? It's not really a question, but would love your reaction to that.

Yeah, I think it's, it's an awesome point. And it's one that I think when you understand the physics of startups, this, the sense that if you are just pushing your supply, if you think it's all about the product, then they're just rejecting the product or rejecting you, which means you're going to wait to sell. You're going to suck at sales and then you're going to have an existential crisis when people don't know when people don't buy and you're going to misdiagnose why they're not buying. And it's just this terrible, terrible loop we're all down because we're not doing that separation between demand and supply.

Yeah. I, um, as a, the delicate flower that I am, uh, this has definitely, uh, hit home on just how like emotionally painful selling, uh, and rejection can be, but how it's, it's almost like an out-of-body experience a little bit because you're no longer, it's no longer about you.

It's about understanding them and that is I have not felt bad in a sales conversation in a long time because I actually like embrace, like, I just don't care. It's, they're telling me something. Why should I take it personally? It's not about me.

I love it. I'm going to turn someday, you know, my aspiration is to be an emotional robot in some ways, but, um, uh, squat 300 and you'll get there. Just a body of muscle where there's no more room for emotions in there. Um, well, awesome, Rob. Uh, anything we want to add, founders? Uh, another way of doing the translation, if, you know, if you're working on that and running into a wall, Rob helps founders with that translation and he's got a bunch of practice at it. Uh, Rob, anything you would add on working together or anything like that?

No, reach out. I gotta run.

All right. Have a good one, Rob.

Later.