How to generate demand
plugging the efficiency hole

Little nightly thoughts
by Business Exploration

Dear Fellow Innovator,

You reached Flavio's blog
on Business Exploration.

Let's have a chat:


Grab a coffee

I am always happy to talk
with interesting people.

I call it "the efficiency hole".
It's the hole through which all the losses of a sub-optimal job-to-be-done flow to waste.
The solution you are trying to sell to your customer it's the plug.

This analogy has some interesting implication in helping you
generate demand and respond to demand.
Read more…


Aligning all the pieces of Demand Generation:

Demand is generated by the Customer's desire to move to a new status, to a new situation.
To move to a new status a customer needs some form of input: it can be goods, services or information.

Let's make an example: a customer may want to move from a routine, constrained life, to a new lifestyle, more varied and more free. This is the case of the customers of a boats' seller in Australia. His customers are typical early retired whealty people that want to enjoy their newly achieved free time. They just need "something" to make this happen.

The Core Idea:

There are several ways a person can achieve this status change.
Can just by a ticket and travel around the globe, get a caravan, or ..get a boat.

The Core Idea of our boats' seller is that: "Life with a boat is better". His goal is to link the need of the customer with a solution he can provide. All his sales activities revolve around this concept. His communication, starting from his blog and newsletter, conveys the idea that a boat "is" the thing that can help his customer achieve that status change.

This kind of message not only intercepts the customers looking for a solution, i.e.: knowing they have a problem, but also can influence people that till that moment had different plans.

"life is better with a boat"

Promising the solution:

Having linked customer's status change to a specific solution, is not per se a guarantee that the customer will purchase it.

Getting a boat is just the job-do-be-done that the customer has to perform in order to change his status. The customer may decide to do it himself, or get help. He will get help whenever performing the job-to-be-done by himself, will be less efficient than getting help.

It's up to the seller spot the "efficiency hole" into the job-to-be-done, and to find a "plug" capable to make it more efficient: Buy this "plug" and you will do the job of getting the "key" to your new status in a more efficient way.

"your plug will make job-to-be-done easier"

Identifying the losses:

There are several way a job-to-be-done could be performed better:

  • Lack of efficiency
    whenever the plug can save costs
  • Unwanted risks
    whenever the plug can make the job less risky
  • Uncertain timing
    whenever the plug can assure on time delivery
  • Narrow time window
    whenever the plug allows to get the job output within the right timeframe
  • Cost of opportunity
    whenever the plug allows to perform the job in a way that make it more convenient than e.g. to buy a caravan
  • External threats
    Whenever the plug can shelter the output from unwanted influences
  • Personal involvement
    whenever the plug can make the personal involvement into the job less uncomfortable.

We just have to identify the Loss that can be cured by our plug.

In the case of our boats' seller it could be as simple as demonstrating a greater understanding of customer's needs and therefore taking away some of the personal worries of the buyer.

In other cases, the improvement to the customer's job-to-be-done could be more explicit: e.g. offering a warranty that no one else is giving. "7 years warranty" was a popular claim of South East Asia car manufacturer, some time ago.

The whole picture:

A sales can respond or generate demand.
What is your Core Idea?
What is the "key" solution that can change customer's status?
What the "efficiency hole" and the "loss" you may want to tackle?
What the "plug" you are going to promise is capable to fix that hole?

Your sales strategy can be defined around these questions.

Hope this helps

Flavio


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