Liz Strauss.com

Staying Close to the People We Serve

When we developed an international strategy, I made an agreement with my boss about the kind of relationships I would forge with the publishing partners we would work with around the world. It involved three basic points.

• People at our own company would refer to the companies that we worked with as “partners,” not vendors, not licensees, not other publishers.
• We would adjust our process to meet theirs as well as we could.
• I would visit their companies at least once a year.

Could we have completed our business by not doing any or all of the three? Most certainly we might have. Other publishers did just that.

However, by keeping to these three “rules of conduct,” our company became the first partner of choice. We enjoyed special access to content, and we were the only company in the US that was given files rather than required to share the first print run of books with the smaller publisher to help their bottom line.

Because I visited the companies every year . . . I was also a person to them and a true relationship formed. That relationship, and the access it afforded us, allowed us to save $1000s and to control the timing of our inventory at every product launch.

Companies are buildings with people inside.

Liz Strauss
Find out about working with Liz.

Question What We Think

In October I went to a presentation by an evangelist from a huge corporation. He was speaking about how to serve customers. He made the following statement.

Customers want innovation.

It was also one of his PowerPoint slides.

“Oh dear,” I thought. “Here I sit in a room filled with people. Some of them, based solely on this man’s title and his place on the speaker’s platform, were bound to repeat that silly statement.”

In the olden days, when I had less patience, had that man said that sentence in a meeting with me. I would have tried to handle it gently. Yet, I would have felt obligated to point out the choice of words that were bound to skew his thinking.

Customers?

Every customer is a person.

See how the sentence changes when it becomes

People want innovation.

Do we? I suppose some folks put down hard earned cash for “innovation.” Personally, I’m not fully sure what innovation is.

When I go looking for something, when I buy something on impulse, when I spend my money on what I need, want, or desire, innovation is not on my mind. Solving a real or perceived problem is.

Solutions make my life, easier, more fun, more elegant. Solutions make me feel better about myself.

Innovation isn’t about me. It’s about the person who thought it up.

Liz Strauss
Find out about working with Liz.

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What’s Usually Missing

Almost always when I speak with new product developers, they’ve done the thinking about what it is they’re trying to make. Most folks who are serious about bringing a product to market know that it has to be researched and “thought through thoroughly.”

They usually know:

• who has a similar offering
• how their offering is different
• what is a competitive price or package

These concerns are all of the head.

The product developers might even have a fairly detailed description of who will buy and use the product or maybe not. . . .

Folks making new product are less likely to be able to articulate.

• why the new customer will fall in love with the new product
• how that product will fit in that customer’s life
• What the customer might have to do or give up to incorporate the new product into his or her life.

I can truly admire the elegance of a product that I will never buy or use.

Those last three points are what makes the difference in whether I do.

Liz Strauss

Come Out of the Cave

The best web developers are like great mathemticians write in symbols and code. It’s a sort of poetry. The concentration it requires to produce accurate, elegant results often leads them to go off to a “cave” to work. Developers can be highly individual people.

They’re immersed in their own thinking.

In the past month, I’ve been asked to evaluate three major products. All three were beautiful, easy to navigate, and did what they promised most accurately.

All three were more accurate and have more benefits than what’s out there.

All three were boring.

Boring is anything but sticky.

What Web Developers Often Don’t See

Web developers see the beauty of well-executed code that delivers a sleek, accurate result. What they often don’t see is the people who will be using what they have built.

When I asked the three teams, who would use what they made, two answers came — everyone or people like me. Both answers really mean I haven’t thought about it.

That’s why the products were boring.

By the very nature of building a product, you no longer represent people who might use it.

Customers expect accurate, but want fun.
Customers expect function, but want design.
Customers care less about innovation, but want something that makes their life easier.

A developer’s satisfaction is good, but it won’t pay the bills.
Customer satisfaction is sticky.

Liz Strauss