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So, is losing a million dollars painful enough for you to take action?
Not for some people!
Earlier today on my problems/solutions thread, a pleasant and enthusiastic new member (@Richie_Sage ) asked me if it’s a good idea to think of 10 solutions every single day.
Well, Richie was heading along the right lines of course.
I wanted to write a decent answer for Richie, so I started to tell a personal story from my business life.
As I was writing I realised the story might just deserve a thread of its own.
Well, here we go…..
Hey @Richie_Sage ,
Thanks for the positive feedback, and yes, you are going along the right path with your thoughts.
I'll throw a twist onto your twist if I may.
You must focus on solutions to problems or concerns that people have (or believe they have) today.
You might see a problem, and even think of a most outstanding solution. However, unless a viable number of customers are trying to solve that particular problem then you will always be trying to open the biscuit barrel whilst wearing straightjacket.
Which leads to………
The Three Most Important Words When Evaluating An Idea
Validate, Validate, Validate
Ho ho ho…..I know.
….but truly madly deeply, that’s why @MJ DeMarco and so many of the wise guys and gals on TFF talk about validating the need first. Yup……we say it often, and we’ll say it again. Validation is vital!
It’s not impossible to elevate a customer’s awareness so that they suddenly realise they have a need (and therefore need your solution), but it’s a lot easier to sell a solution to someone searching for it themselves.
@Andy Black does this all the time. Andy has done some simply stupendous posts about validation from an Adwords perspective. Well worth a read in their own right.
Anyway, I can speak from experience here too, and you might be surprised how much self-inflicted pain a company needs to suffer before it will accept that a problem exists and that a solution is needed.
I’ll give you a real example of how some companies act, and it all comes down to who feels pain (or not) regardless of the issue at hand.
The Background
My company was running a project to deliver “Solution X” for a very large international company.…..a job that lasted several months.
The customer-chap was a pretty important manager, multi-million budget, smart, decent, sharp, critical, kind and fair).
He was fantastic to work with and always looked out for the whole company, not only his own part. Just the kind of guy you would want running your show.
The project was going great….ahead of schedule. Smiles and biscuits all round.
The Unbelievably Obvious Problem That Any Sane Individual Would Want To Solve….errrr right?
During the delivery of “Solution X”, our customer-chap noticed a problem in a different part if the organisation.
It was a well sized one…oh yes.
A million dollars……
…………per month!
........sized problem.
Now, it was a big company, but a million a month is still some serious juice to bleed.
It wasn’t his area, but customer-chap asked me and my right-hand to quickly review the situation and work out a solution………by the way, now I write this that’s another terrific example of how solving problems leads to new business, but let’s stick with the current play.
Within 1 or 2 days we could describe v0.1 of a solution that would cost roughly 250k and were invited to meeting with some fairly big wigs.
There was our (again, very good) customer, and 3 other senior guys from the most relevant departments.
The problem definitely fell within one of those 3 other departments, and it was definitely not within our customer’s portfolio.
Well, the meeting was insightful to say the least.
An Insightful Meeting With A Great Business Lesson
The 3 big-wigs soon agreed that a million a month was indeed unacceptable and warranted an urgent fix. Much nodding and gruff manly approvals.
But there was a twist in the tale……isn’t there always!
By a circumstantial accounting anomaly the million-per-month was not hitting their individual budgets. It was real money flowing out of the company, but no individual pain…….aha, and here is the relevant point.
Yes indeed, none of the 3 people needed a solution at that point in time.
So when the elephantine question was raised (i.e. who will find the relatively paltry 250k) there was much head shaking, and the guttural manly approvals gave way to rather less endearing sighs of difficulty.
No pain, no desire!
To a man they were sucking teeth and finding more excuses than a bad plumber.
It was like asking seven year olds to eat broccoli instead of ice cream for their dessert.
Considering the shareholder money at stake it was especially bizarre to witness this spectacle.
I was amazed that not one of them was “big enough” to play the hero. I mean, that’s surely an opportunity to plonk your pair of giant “problem solving” cojones on the board’s table come bonus time…..but no.
My customer really did a good job of explaining and logically outlining the case, but to no avail.
The Aftermath
The meeting ended with a decision that would make civil servants the world over rub their hands with glee and pride………to plan another meeting in 2 weeks. Well woopity doo……top work y'all!
Got that?....a decision to delay a further 2 weeks?
Since dear reader you are fastlane type, you will no doubt notice that the 2 week delay would likely cost more than at least one possible solution. True.
Do you think they would have become dynamic go-getting corporate superheroes sporting underpants over Armani suit trousers the next time? Hmmmmmm…… errrrr……..no, nor do I.
A day later my customer-chap called us in and said...
What a guy. What a guy. Clap clap.
So we did and he did.
The shareholders (and my company) were lucky to have customer-chap in that organisation. Without him I’m confident that the pain would have lasted a long time without anyone looking particularly hard for a solution.
The Lesson
For me at least, that was a fascinating lesson.
…a lesson about focus, and how you should sometimes recognise and bend with the political flow.
Effort to address even this massive pain point (at least with those individuals) would likely have resulted in no reward.
….but focusing on an alternative route via a different department, with the right person, who happened to feel the pain even though he formally didn’t need to bother worked!
Be flexible, and look for who is feeling the pain.
Do you know, it wasn’t even that complicated in the end, so it was quite a profitable piece of work for us.
…..and later on, when an organisational change came round with some layoffs looming, guess who was selected as “primus inter pares”…..yep good ol customer-chap. Well, whad’ya know, the good guy won in the end.
Time for a celebratory biscuit.
A Summary, and back to the twist on a twist……..
So there you go….a real world “millions of dollars” “no painy, no spendy” example just for you.
In short, yes get started thinking of solutions, but as soon as you can, start zeroing in on the problems that people/companies are complaining about today, and talk to the people who feel the pain.
Better to develop a solution for one of today’s validated problems than solving a hundred problems that might become complaints in the future.
A validated problem with a viable market is where you will find the biggest smiles and the tastiest biscuits. Yum yum.
Good luck!
Not for some people!
Earlier today on my problems/solutions thread, a pleasant and enthusiastic new member (@Richie_Sage ) asked me if it’s a good idea to think of 10 solutions every single day.
Well, Richie was heading along the right lines of course.
I wanted to write a decent answer for Richie, so I started to tell a personal story from my business life.
As I was writing I realised the story might just deserve a thread of its own.
Well, here we go…..
Hey @Richie_Sage ,
Thanks for the positive feedback, and yes, you are going along the right path with your thoughts.
I'll throw a twist onto your twist if I may.
You must focus on solutions to problems or concerns that people have (or believe they have) today.
You might see a problem, and even think of a most outstanding solution. However, unless a viable number of customers are trying to solve that particular problem then you will always be trying to open the biscuit barrel whilst wearing straightjacket.
Which leads to………
The Three Most Important Words When Evaluating An Idea
Validate, Validate, Validate
Ho ho ho…..I know.
….but truly madly deeply, that’s why @MJ DeMarco and so many of the wise guys and gals on TFF talk about validating the need first. Yup……we say it often, and we’ll say it again. Validation is vital!
It’s not impossible to elevate a customer’s awareness so that they suddenly realise they have a need (and therefore need your solution), but it’s a lot easier to sell a solution to someone searching for it themselves.
@Andy Black does this all the time. Andy has done some simply stupendous posts about validation from an Adwords perspective. Well worth a read in their own right.
Anyway, I can speak from experience here too, and you might be surprised how much self-inflicted pain a company needs to suffer before it will accept that a problem exists and that a solution is needed.
I’ll give you a real example of how some companies act, and it all comes down to who feels pain (or not) regardless of the issue at hand.
The Background
My company was running a project to deliver “Solution X” for a very large international company.…..a job that lasted several months.
The customer-chap was a pretty important manager, multi-million budget, smart, decent, sharp, critical, kind and fair).
He was fantastic to work with and always looked out for the whole company, not only his own part. Just the kind of guy you would want running your show.
The project was going great….ahead of schedule. Smiles and biscuits all round.
The Unbelievably Obvious Problem That Any Sane Individual Would Want To Solve….errrr right?
During the delivery of “Solution X”, our customer-chap noticed a problem in a different part if the organisation.
It was a well sized one…oh yes.
A million dollars……
…………per month!
........sized problem.
Now, it was a big company, but a million a month is still some serious juice to bleed.
It wasn’t his area, but customer-chap asked me and my right-hand to quickly review the situation and work out a solution………by the way, now I write this that’s another terrific example of how solving problems leads to new business, but let’s stick with the current play.
Within 1 or 2 days we could describe v0.1 of a solution that would cost roughly 250k and were invited to meeting with some fairly big wigs.
There was our (again, very good) customer, and 3 other senior guys from the most relevant departments.
The problem definitely fell within one of those 3 other departments, and it was definitely not within our customer’s portfolio.
Well, the meeting was insightful to say the least.
An Insightful Meeting With A Great Business Lesson
The 3 big-wigs soon agreed that a million a month was indeed unacceptable and warranted an urgent fix. Much nodding and gruff manly approvals.
But there was a twist in the tale……isn’t there always!
By a circumstantial accounting anomaly the million-per-month was not hitting their individual budgets. It was real money flowing out of the company, but no individual pain…….aha, and here is the relevant point.
Yes indeed, none of the 3 people needed a solution at that point in time.
So when the elephantine question was raised (i.e. who will find the relatively paltry 250k) there was much head shaking, and the guttural manly approvals gave way to rather less endearing sighs of difficulty.
No pain, no desire!
To a man they were sucking teeth and finding more excuses than a bad plumber.
It was like asking seven year olds to eat broccoli instead of ice cream for their dessert.
Considering the shareholder money at stake it was especially bizarre to witness this spectacle.
I was amazed that not one of them was “big enough” to play the hero. I mean, that’s surely an opportunity to plonk your pair of giant “problem solving” cojones on the board’s table come bonus time…..but no.
My customer really did a good job of explaining and logically outlining the case, but to no avail.
The Aftermath
The meeting ended with a decision that would make civil servants the world over rub their hands with glee and pride………to plan another meeting in 2 weeks. Well woopity doo……top work y'all!
Got that?....a decision to delay a further 2 weeks?
Since dear reader you are fastlane type, you will no doubt notice that the 2 week delay would likely cost more than at least one possible solution. True.
Do you think they would have become dynamic go-getting corporate superheroes sporting underpants over Armani suit trousers the next time? Hmmmmmm…… errrrr……..no, nor do I.
A day later my customer-chap called us in and said...
“Just fookin do it. I’ll pay, and I’ll explain my overspend come budget time”.
What a guy. What a guy. Clap clap.
So we did and he did.
The shareholders (and my company) were lucky to have customer-chap in that organisation. Without him I’m confident that the pain would have lasted a long time without anyone looking particularly hard for a solution.
The Lesson
For me at least, that was a fascinating lesson.
…a lesson about focus, and how you should sometimes recognise and bend with the political flow.
Effort to address even this massive pain point (at least with those individuals) would likely have resulted in no reward.
….but focusing on an alternative route via a different department, with the right person, who happened to feel the pain even though he formally didn’t need to bother worked!
Be flexible, and look for who is feeling the pain.
Do you know, it wasn’t even that complicated in the end, so it was quite a profitable piece of work for us.
…..and later on, when an organisational change came round with some layoffs looming, guess who was selected as “primus inter pares”…..yep good ol customer-chap. Well, whad’ya know, the good guy won in the end.
Time for a celebratory biscuit.
A Summary, and back to the twist on a twist……..
So there you go….a real world “millions of dollars” “no painy, no spendy” example just for you.
In short, yes get started thinking of solutions, but as soon as you can, start zeroing in on the problems that people/companies are complaining about today, and talk to the people who feel the pain.
Better to develop a solution for one of today’s validated problems than solving a hundred problems that might become complaints in the future.
A validated problem with a viable market is where you will find the biggest smiles and the tastiest biscuits. Yum yum.
Good luck!
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