Companies buy because they have problems to solve (obstacles that stand in the way of their business objective).
A market problem is the key connector that enables business conversations between your company and your prospect.
Knowing the market problem your company solves is the essence of effective marketing.
You can learn about your client's problem through research techniques, to the point of actually “feeling” your client's pain.
When you know your customer's real problem, you can better understand your value proposition and your differential (with Value Proposition Canvas).
Many companies fail because they focus on the wrong problems.
The big challenge is to put yourself in the customer's shoes, understand their problem, understand how to solve it better than anyone else, and create a narrative around those points.
Every problem your customer has is a marketing and sales opportunity
Running a business is all about solving problems first and foremost.
And knowledge is the key to achieving it.
In our personal lives, the word “problem” has a negative connotation. It makes us think about the many problems we have as a society, in our lives, with the economy, etc.
But in the business world, a problem is a challenge to be solved.
In fact, if there is no solution, it is not a problem. This pragmatic approach allows us to treat problems as a game, a list of obstacles to overcome. And this makes it entertaining.
If you don't know your client's real problem, you're one step behind.
When you know your customer's real problem, you have an opportunity to differentiate yourself.
In B2B, customers buy because they have a problem to solve, a need.
In the B2B market…
A company buys a website because it needs to position itself, modernize and update itself.
You buy a CRM because you need to professionalize your sales and have greater control over commercial activity.
Hire a rebranding because you need to relaunch and renew your image in the market to be more competitive.
How would you define your client's problem?
Every business can be explained in terms of the market problem it solves.
Depending on the category of your product or service, you will be in the business of “solving x problem”
For example, our agency is in the business of solving the problem of lack of leads in consultative sales B2B companies.
A company that developed CMMS software is in the business of solving the problem of lost time and money caused by poor asset management.
Another company that sells licenses and consulting for a Business Intelligence solution is in the business of solving the problem of the lack of reliable and timely information to make good business decisions.
The company that offers a payroll solution is in the business of solving the malaysian numbers problem of loss of time and money caused by preparing HR settlements manually or through spreadsheets.
And so we can continue.
How to identify your client's problem
Your client's problem, however, is never so clear
Because depending on which area or department of the company you have to speak to, it can take different forms.
The Framework to understand your client's problem: Value Proposition Canvas
The best way I know to understand and delve deeper into clients' problems is to talk to them. And even more so, to talk with a frame of reference.
This framework is called Value Proposition Canvas (VPC), and it is a framework that allows us to define the characteristics of our ideal client based on 3 concepts:
Jobs,
Pain Points
Gain Points.
When we approach these concepts we can go deeper with questions like:
Who is our ideal client?
What does our ideal client want to achieve?
What problems do you encounter?
What expectations do you have regarding your work?
What obstacles prevent you from achieving what you want?
What things make you anxious, worried, or afraid?
What motivates you? What demotivates you?
When we work on the customer profile in VPC, we connect with the customer and empathize with their situation. We have the opportunity to put ourselves in their shoes, and try to feel what they feel.
This tool is very powerful for generating insights that help us understand how we can provide more value to our client. Sometimes we discover that what our client really needs is a part of our product that we are not focusing on.
Customers have a lot to tell us, if we know how to ask the right questions.
The way to feed the VPC with information about the ideal client is through in-depth interviews. A consultant must interview clients using research techniques, and try to find out what happens to the client, without being biased or contaminated by the commercial view of the product, which is what usually happens to the salesperson.
Thus, marketing and sales must rely on consulting specialists who can do this research and deliver the real insights, the things that really happen to our client, which give meaning to our value proposition.
How to know if you are solving the right problem
One of the reasons why a business can fail in B2B is when the problem it solves is not actually a problem for the customer. Or at least it is not a significant problem.
How can we anticipate whether the problem we are trying to solve will really interest our client?
The first thing we need to do is validate the idea. And the best way to do this is to experiment with a minimum viable product that our client can pay us for.
Let's put it bluntly: There is no real validation if the client doesn't pay us.
It's not enough for a potential customer to tell you that they would “use” your product or that they think it's great.
In terms of business and market validation, the only real validation is the purchase.