Maybe you’re going through one of these situations…
“Things aren’t selling as much as I’m hoping. I interviewed some people but nothing really comes out of my research. I’m tempted to change my marketing, but I’ve tried that before and haven’t found an approach that works. I’ve been wasting my time and my attention trying to change my marketing approach, and I’d like to get some help with my research. I know there’s something here, but I just can’t uncover it.”
“People are cancelling our service, and I’d like to stop the spigot if I could! I know what people are switching to, but I don’t want to match the competitor, I just want to know what makes us unique.”
See your situation listed? Shoot me an email to tell me what you’re up against. Would love to hear the specifics. Or maybe there’s an article I wrote that can help out.
“I’ve been finally getting enough traffic to do some A/B testing, but I’m out of my element when trying some A/B testing alterations. I realize I have to research my recent buyer’s to get better insights, but that seems time-consuming to me. I’d like to get someone who’s good at research to propose some copywriting changes we can implement and test out.”
“It’s been a month and a half since we shipped a feature we’ve spent 5 sprints building. And despite us educating our users about the feature, the new feature is barely getting used! Yet, we’ve heard from our users that this feature was needed. Something’s wrong with the way we’re finding features to build, and we’re sure it’s because we’re jumping to conclusions about what the user wants. Help!”
You’re seeing:
- Bizarre patterns in who’s been buying your product
- Features that work more than expected, other features less than expected
- An uptick in cancellations
- A slowdown in sales
- A surprising success you didn’t see coming
“I admit, I just don’t understand some key things about my customers”
You were sure, but now you’re no longer so sure…
You knew, but now you no longer do…
I help fix your hesitations about your product by helping you more deeply understand your buyers and their purchasing behavior in their own context. I do product sharpening through understanding sharpening, if that makes sense.
Your customers just want to make progress
Your product gets hired into the lives of your customers for a reason. When they’re saying yes to your product, they’re saying no to something else. Saying no to that other thing was a key moment for them. It took time before they finally pulled the plug.
So what caused that switch from “not this, now now” to “yes, this, now”?
How is your product helping your customers to make some progress?
What was the job they needed to get done?
Are some of your product’s features causing people to think this?
“Hey, I don’t need this feature to get my job done, and that thing is causing me to hesitate. Should I pay attention to this?”
Just a few key insights are needed
What causes someone to buy two ebooks at the same time? “The price was too high for these ebooks, but I bought them anyway.” What’s that all about?
What’s going on in the mind of someone who buys a $450 pair of winter boots? Is it that he’s a millenial or is there something else in his life causing him to hire these boots?
In both of these stories, there’s something that can be learned. Anecdotes from your buyer’s purchase stories give you insights you can’t get from seeing stats or asking people why they bought your product.
You really need the whole purchase story. Because that purchase is the final decision in a string of many small decisions.
That insight you’re missing, that deeper understanding you’re after? It’s most likely found in knowing the story behind what caused people to pick your product, after all.
Purchase stories as part of your qualitative research
What’s needed to get enough purchase stories to learn something new:
- 5-10 interviews of recent purchasers (no more than 90 days in the past);
- Buyers who hesitated, deliberated before making the purchase;
- 50-60 minutes per call;
- A way to record the call and permission from the person you’re interviewing;
- An interview technique that asks the right questions.
That’s enough to get started.
There are more articles on the blog to learn more about all this, or if you’d like some help, let me tell you a little bit about what I have to offer:
What I offer:
I help you sharpen your product, and your understanding of your buyers, by doing this:
- Buyer Interviews and Buyer Research to uncover the job for which they hired your product, what they switched away from, and the emotional back-and-forth in their decision-making. 5-10 buyer interviews will suffice for most products. Even a single interview is useful for uncovering what happened to land a big B2B contract;
- Copywriting reviews and tweaks with split-testing (A/B testing);
- 1-on-1 calls to review your product approach (pricing, features, messaging).
Interested in talking to me about your thing?
Contact me to move forward with one of these engagements. Tell me about your situation and I’ll reply with more questions to learn a little more or with some small tips that help you right away. If I think I can help with one of these engagements, you’ll get a proposal with some options to go forward.
We’ll be a good fit…
… if you value understanding things deeply, if you’re interested in serving your customers in what they’re trying to get some progress on, if you’re interested in starting small and doing things right, if you’re into honest communication and being straight with people.
I’ll take the time to understand your business deeply, I’ll be thoughtful about serving the progress you’re trying to make, I’ll start small and do things right, I’ll communicate honestly and I’ll be straight with you too.
Hope to help
I’m doing this to help folks like you make a good living from the products and services you sell. So I hope I can be of some help to you.
Stay Sharp!
Pascal Laliberté
pascal@pascallaliberte.me
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
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