This post is about the middle column of Clarke's Selling Grid - the solution. How easy or hard is your solution? What do your customers prefer? Have you considered making it easier or harder?
A stranger called Jo Stuart just posted the first ever review of The Bottleneck Detective:
"Short and punchy" - yay!!!!!!
That's exactly what I tried to achieve. It was hard work, too.
Take a look at this old review for The Bottleneck Rules:
Hawking didn't like the content, but appreciated that since the book was short it didn't waste so much of his or her time. Yay! Another victory for short books! Hmmm.
And then there's this one, which always makes me smile:
SRH is a genius!
"Save yourself fifteen quid and ask yourself this: is work accumulating at some state in your process? That's a bottleneck. Now figure out ..."
I spent 25 years trying to figure that out and all SRH had to do is read a book! Oh boy do I feel stupid 😉!
Back to the selling grid:
Ignore the before and after columns, and just focus in on the "Customer" and "The Idea!" for a moment.
You've probably spent hours and hours thinking about the intricacies of the idea - the details of the solution.
But have you thought about the cost (the time, money, effort, stress) of implementing the solution?
- Some people like short books. Some people like long books.
- Some managers love big, expensive transformations. Some prefer the quiet, focused approach.
- Some people, famously, buy IBM (or Deloittes etc) - they believe that "no one gets fired for hiring IBM". Intriguingly, I once got an IBM manager fired because he kept abusing that belief.
Your solution isn't just about the features and benefits.
It's about the ease of using and implementing them.
Go back to your grid. Add a little note for each customer, about how easy or hard it is to implement for them, and what they prefer.
Hope that helps!
Clarke
PS: I've reworked my new book's title.
It was:
- DON'T READ THIS IF YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT DELIVERING
- AGILE PROJECTS ON TIME.
It's now:
- DON'T READ THIS IF YOU DON'T NEED TO DELIVER
- AGILE PROJECTS ON TIME.
PPS: If you know anyone who needs help delivering expensive Agile Projects On Time, and wants to do it the easy way, please introduce us - clarke@clarkeching.com