What to Do If Your Product or Service Is a HARD SELL

"Our product is a hard sell."

Those were a founder's words during a recent call.

It was a blunt admission that caught me by surprise.

Despite spending over three years and several million in development and marketing,

Product-market fit has been elusive.

He remains convinced that their product is a “game-changer.”

Unfortunately, the target market has not agreed.

They’ve had some sales, but not nearly enough to approach profitability.

The founder was at a loss to explain the lack of traction.

We discussed several possible scenarios, including:

➡️ The product provides a solution to a problem the customer doesn’t believe they have.

➡️ The customer may be OK using an existing, familiar solution that works “well enough.”

➡️ The customer may be experiencing the problem but chooses to live with it.

➡️ The customer may perceive the product as challenging to use, creating more work, or lacking in some way.

He agreed that the best way to understand the issues is to interview customers (something he has not done to date).

To get a variety of perspectives and insights, we discussed conducting interviews with multiple groups:

✅ Current customers

✅ Churned customers

✅ Prospects that were pitched but declined to purchase

Time to dig in and get some clarity.

I love this work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Have a customer/market research question or problem? Reach out and I'll do my best to help.