Tag: growth

When coffee and kale compete

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Every person wants progress, and when we design or market products and services we should focus on the progress we are enabling customers to make.

This is the foundation of Jobs To Be Done (JTBD).

With this approach, two things happen.

First, value is no longer seen as a transaction. It does not run out the moment a purchase is done or a service is delivered. Progress extends over time. The best way for a company to serve their customers is to understand the system of progress they are in – a good example being Weber, that does not stop at producing high-quality grills, and completes the offer with tools and resources to make the customer the grill master they want to be.

Design your product to deliver customers an ongoing feeling of progress – Alan Klement

Second, competition is no longer restricted to products or services that have a similar functionality or physical appearance. Anything that helps the customer achieve the progress they have envisioned (or might envision) for themselves is competition.

A Job To Be Done is the process a consumer goes through whenever she aims to transform her existing life-situation into a preferred one, but cannot because there are constraints that stop her

Alan Klement, When Coffee and Kale Compete
When Coffee and Kale Compete – Book Cover

Systems

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An extraordinary performer will add little to a toxic environment – an environment that puts results above people, that promotes performance at all costs, that prioritizes external over internal input, that assumes lower ranked people are less important than those higher up.

So before you get to hiring (and firing, and hiring again, and firing again), make sure your internal system is working as you intend it to work. Make sure you have rewards that promote the behaviour you wish to promote. Make sure you have rules in place, or even better norms, that will guide people to speak up, to share ideas, to flag issues, and give them the freedom to follow up.

Shaping systems is a long-term effort that requires high levels of awareness, and not many organisations want to committ to that.

It’s a mistake.

Someone else

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There is always someone else.

No matter how skilled you are, no matter how wonderful your product is, no matter how supposedly unique your culture is. There is someone else out there offering the exact same thing, covering the exact same spot, addressing the exact same problem.

And you have two things to do to mitigate this problem.

First, understand who someone else is – and by the way, this is a decision of those you are serving.

Second, be as specific as possible in figuring out and expressing what you are.

The alternative is most of B2B marketing nowadays: companies with fantastic products and services playing in broad and fuzzy markets to increase their customers’ productivity. All the same type of better, faster, cheaper.

Pass.

The different shapes of success

Fabrizio1 Comment

Success comes in different shapes.

Sometimes it is up and to the right. This kind is easy to recognize. It is success that comes from accumulation. More of this, more of that. We just need to be mindful that what we are accumulating is what is best for ourselves, for our dear ones, for our group.

Sometimes it is down and to to the right. This kind is not as intuitive as the first one. It is success that comes from reduction. Less of this, less of that. What makes this particularly challenging is that cutting what is not best (for ourselves, for our dear ones, for our group) gets more difficult over a long period of time.

Sometimes it is right in the middle. Most people feel uncomfortable with this kind. It is success that comes from consistency. One of this today, one of this tomorrow, one of this the day after tomorrow. It turns out, in the long run it is still accumulation (or reduction). Just not as evident, arguably more impactful.

We need to be able to appreciate and celebrate the different shapes of success.

If we don’t, we are stuck in a narrative that is not our own.

All good

FabrizioLeave a comment

When we ask “how are you?”, let’s sit down and take in the full answer.

I am fine, I wish I had more time to dedicate to this project.

I am alright, unfortunately I was not accepted for that online programme.

I am well, thanks, there has been a bit of a misunderstanding with my colleague, but I am well nonetheless.

We often rush to labelling our exchanges as “all good”, and we fail to grasp the issues we might want to act upon. And then we are surprised when the minor crack turns out to be a foundation problem. We withdraw – they said they were fine, how could they lie to us? – and we make the whole situation irreparable.

Forget the first part of the answer, hand in there until the honest reality kicks in, and tackle that head-on.

How could you make more time for the project?

How can I support you in your learning and development?

What happened, and what can I do to facilitate a conversation between you too?

That’s the way to be taken seriously, to build a relationship, and to maintain the people around you engaged and motivated.