Mistake #12: One needed a speedboat. One needed a life raft.
In 2020, 2 kinds of customers came to WeSupply asking for the same thing: order tracking.
The first kind was growing too fast to keep up with orders and support tickets.
The second kind was bleeding money on returns and angry customers.
Same profile. Same product.
I gave both the same demo.
One needed a speedboat, to get ahead of the wave.
The other needed a life raft, to stop the bleeding.
The urgent ones closed fast.
Then they killed us with support, because the urgency was really "you are my last resort before I go out of business."
What looked too good to be true on the demo turned into a nightmare after the signature.
Here's what I missed:
Not all clients have the same needs, even when they ask for the same product.
A customer is in one of 4 states when he comes to you, and each state buys differently:
Bleeding: Losing money right now. Closes fast because it's urgent and needs to stop bleeding and usually protect the bottom line. Check that he's injured, not walking dead, or he'll drown your support team.
Slipping: A solid business where something changed, an algorithm update, a new policy, and what worked stopped working. He's comparing solutions to get back to where he was. You show up as the consultant: "understand, recover, guarantee."
Stable: Rock solid, great demo, no urgency, contained so he moves you to next quarter. You move the deal by revealing the hidden leaks: "be smart, be more efficient." In nature, things are either growing or dying.
Leading: Loves your vision, wants to grow fast, asks you every question, then builds it himself. You show him what building it costs in time, and that if he wants real speed, you deliver faster.
Two of them move away from pain.
Two of them want the next level.
Why the same feature is two different solutions:
Both need customer shipment updates. That's the only thing they have in common.
Bleeding: He needs the one thing that's bleeding fixed. Sometimes it's an edge case nobody else has, sometimes it's the plain version, but he needed it yesterday. Speed is the solution.
Scaling: He needs the next level. Hyper customization, better data, the ability to sustain volume, or the next level of technology. Capacity and technology is usually the answer.
A life raft is small, fast, and it floats.
A speedboat is built for speed and volume.
Hand the drowning customer a speedboat and you'll spend a month building while he sinks.
Hand the growing customer a life raft and he outgrows it before onboarding ends.
Your job is to know which state you sell to, and say it so clearly that the right customer recognizes himself.
Secret Sauce: Not all clients have the same needs. Sell to the state they're in.
Best,
Virgil
PS: Mistake #13: I sold to mice and elephants.