It's not about your progress
Customers don’t give you money. They accept having to pay for something they want.
Its a subtle but important difference.
No one wants to pay anything. Parting with their money is always a pain for people.Their gain has to be bigger then their pain. And gain is always progress.
Progress for customers usually means one of two things:
- Improving your state
- Securing your state
When buying a coffee, you go from tired to awake. You improve your state. With the second coffee your secure your state, as you dring it before becoming tired.
The benefit of this has to outweigh the price. The more the better the deal.
Everyone has their own metric of observing their state. And it is usually more than one.
You need to find out, how they measure their own progress.
Progress has three dimensions:
- Functional
- Emotional
- Social
Coffe-Example
Functional: Help me to get my work done
Emotional: Help me to feel awake
Social: Help me to connect with my coworkers
Everything you sell generates progress in one of those dimensions. There are metrics to it. You need to find them.
Only if something improves along their metrics, it’s better. Your metrics don’t count.
The best coffee can be worthless to people, that want to socialise. And shitty coffee may ruin the best ambience. Or not.
You don’t decide about the features of your product or service.
The progress metrics of your customers do.
