Don’t talk to the crowd

I once had a hands on training in which I had to identify my audience, tailor a fictional product to their needs, and sell them on why my product was better than 9 other competitor teams. This exercise was around learning how to message/brand/position a product to a core audience.

What happened? I got cute, I saw that nearly all of the prospective customer profiles listed 5 of 15 features in their top 3 requirements for the product (so instead of focusing on 1 or 2 I focused on 5). We’d been sitting through a class all day drilling away that you really need to focus in and nail the experience for that segment. Rather than following the days course I figured I was smart enough to convince the customers that while I may not have their top requirement I nailed enough of their needs where my product should be the one they choose.

Result: I was quite successful in convincing my team of the plan; however I wasn’t so successful with the customers. Only 1 of 9 customers chose our product. By expanding my positioning to fill multiple niches I missed our primary audiences.

Takeaway: Do one thing well before you try doing many. If you don’t speak directly to your audience you’ll not stand out in the crowd.