Following on from yesterday’s missive about the problem with being in love with your product, let’s look at that better mousetrap of yours, and why people somehow just don’t seem to value it the way they should. And, obviously, how to change that.
Because obviously: if you want to succeed in business, one of the things you need to figure out, is ‘how to build a better mousetrap’:
You take something broken, non-existent, half-functional or merely decent, and you improve and innovate on it.
Problem is, once you build your better mousetrap, you then have to figure out the next thing:
How to find strangers, and turn them into customers.
And that’s where entrepreneurs often get completely derailed.
Especially when your better mousetrap is an actual innovation, or something that shifts paradigms, or radically transforms how the market sees an offer or a solution.
That’s when you need to be doubly careful that you don't 'make it about yourself'.
Because the truth is, nobody gives a damn about a better mousetrap.
It’s an easy trap to fall into, to think that people want to buy a better mousetrap. But just like when someone buys an 8mm drill bit, what they actually really want to buy, is an 8mm hole in the wall.
And so it is with your product or service:
What your buyer ultimately wants isn’t a better mousetrap: what they want to buy is the end of that damn mouse infestation.
So when you show up talking about how good and innovative and effective your mousetrap is, the only thing you’ll achieve, is having a buyer tune you out.
Because, again, they don’t care about your better mousetrap. They just care about their problem, and about how to get rid of it.
I had this illustrated once again a while ago, in a discovery call with a consultant whose sales are complex and lengthy on a good day, and who came to me because she’s having trouble getting people to the starting line and hiring her.
As we spoke, the reason for that revealed itself: she’s quite focused on the apparently truly innovative aspect of her methodology.
And that means the signals her buyer gets, are that she’s more focused on her solution, than she is on their problem.
And whenever a buyer gets even a whiff of that impression, the results are indecision, "We need to think about it", and getting ghosted.
Your mousetrap is about you, but solving the mouse problem is about them.
So talk to your buyers about their mouse problem, not your better mousetrap.
Ask your buyer about their problems, until they ask you about your solution.