Many companies pursue pure follower strategies – they don’t design their products and their market approach around their main customer group, instead they only follow the market leaders.
What does this mean?
- some product features will always be missing
- sales will report that they lose deals because of missing features
- product roadmaps are feature and not benefit driven
- there will always be a competitor with more features for a better price
The “pure” follower company will fail – sooner or later. Me too is me dead!
Put the following question in the center of your thinking “What unique value should this company bring to the world?” If you and your team can’t answer this question, then close your doors!
The best way to identify your unique values is by talking to your customers and partners. Do everything to find out the real reason, why they bought your product – and what new values your product can bring to the market. Go visit your partners and talk to them. They and their customers are using your product. You can be sure that these conversations will give you new insights into your market and maybe open new market segments.
I always tell my team – everyone from sales to engineering – “Think end2end”, which means that they should understand our business, the benefits we want to create for the user and they should not live in their little box.
As an entrepreneur, you need to spend time with every person in your company who has customer contacts or can develop technological advancements. Often, competitive advantages in a product are hidden and not marketed, because “engineers just included the function” and no one in the company knew about it or understood the full meaning. But if you talk to customers, partners, your support, R&D, and sales people, they will tell you some “eye-opening” stories.
Summary:
- Analyse your market and understand your customers (this means talking to them and asking them lots of questions) – why do they need a product like yours?
- Don’t think in features – think in benefits and value them (in US$)
- Don’t let support define your next release – think in customer value and not in solved issues/closed support tickets
- Install a product marketing process (a great source for product marketing is www.pragmaticmarketing.com)