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One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned is that the value of your product depends entirely on the perspective of your customer. If you’re selling ice cubes, on the coldest day of the year the value of them is pretty low. However, on the hottest day of the year those same cubes have a lot of value! If it’s the hottest day of the year AND there is a power outage, their value is enormous. All of those might be the same customer, but their perspective can be very different.
Ice cubes are simple, but the products most businesses build and sell are complex. We spend so much time on those complex products, it’s easy to believe the value lies in the parts that are the hardest to build. If a feature takes a lot of effort to create, your immediate bias is that the feature is worth a lot.
Plot twist #1: Often customers find the most value in features that are the easiest to build.
It’s easy to be proud of something that is hard to do, but customers care only about utility. There is no premium for solving really hard problems, only for providing really high utility.
For example, almost all business intelligence tools are the same, allowing you to consolidate your reporting in one place. Many years ago, one company realized that a common use of BI tools was to create slides to present at a weekly status meeting. To make that easier, they added an “Export to Powerpoint Slide” button. It was a simple feature that had HUGE value for the customers using it.
Today, most BI tools have a similar feature and it wasn’t hard to build.
Plot twist #2: Sometimes the highest value the customer gets isn’t from your product at all.
Customers buy products for a lot of different reasons, and sometimes those reasons don’t include the utility the product offers. You shouldn’t assume you know those reasons, and certainly don’t assume they buy the products for the reasons you think.
For example, very few companies see their customer service as the reason the customer buys the product. It’s considered a cost center, and something you do to make sure the customer keeps buying the product. However, if you’re selling a new category of product (like AI) many customers want you to teach them about the category as much as buy your product. They see your customer service as a partner to teach them, and that might have more value than the product itself!
Similarly, when people buy some luxury brands the most value to them is being seen with the brand logo and not the actual item itself. The prestige earned is worth more than the utility.
The overall lesson here is to realize that you and your customers can perceive value very differently. Even if you believe you understand their perspective, test your assumptions! Ask them, test it and always be vigilant.
Perceptions change often, and those changes can come at you quickly.
For more on Sales and Customers, see: