Detailed Notes
As consultants and service-based business owners, one of the biggest challenges is identifying your ideal customer and effectively pitching your services to them. In this insightful podcast, Rob and Michael dive deep into this topic, sharing their experiences and strategies.
The Primary Focus: Solve the Customer’s Problem
The core message that resonates throughout the discussion is the importance of understanding and addressing your customer’s specific problems. Instead of leading with the technologies or services you offer, the initial focus should be on the customer’s pain points and how you can provide a solution.
Pitching Your Services: Tailoring Your Pitch Pitching to potential customers requires tailoring based on their understanding and role. For high-level executives or decision-makers, keep the pitch concise. Focus on the problem and solution without delving into technical details. However, you should provide granular information about technologies and methodologies for those involved in implementation.
The Power of Questions One effective strategy discussed is to engage potential customers through a series of well-crafted questions. You can gain valuable insights into their unique situation by asking about their specific challenges, constraints, and desired outcomes. This demonstrates your expertise and allows you to propose a tailored solution that directly addresses their needs.
Use Website and Online Presence Your website and online presence are like your pitch. It’s important to emphasize the problems you solve for your audience. Start by defining their challenges. Position yourself as the solution provider. Avoid leading with a list of services or technologies.
Continuous Learning and Adaptation Throughout the podcast, Rob and Michael emphasize the importance of continuous learning and adaptation. As consultants, it’s essential to stay updated on industry trends, customer pain points, and emerging technologies to ensure that your services remain relevant and effective.
Overall, the key takeaway is to position yourself as a problem-solver for your ideal customer. By understanding their unique challenges, tailoring your pitch, and continuously adapting your approach, you can effectively communicate the value of your services and establish yourself as a trusted partner in their success.
Additional Resources to Help You in Pitching Your Services * Bootstrapping Success - https://develpreneur.com/bootstrapping-success-navigating-startup-costs-and-self-employment/ * Ramping Up Your Skills Through Broad Experience - https://develpreneur.com/ramping-up-your-skills-through-broad-experience/ * Commitment And Consistency In Building Your Brand - https://develpreneur.com/commitment-and-consistency-in-building-your-brand/ * Check our online courses - https://school.develpreneur.com/
Transcript Text
[Music] there we go so welcome in we actually have just been talking about and we'll continue talking about our business here but I want to make sure that we actually hit the record button because this might be useful to you guys um so carry on Mike talk c talk about customer definition essentially in your story yeah so one of the things we talked about uh probably about a week or so ago and also through the co-starter class I've been in is been about defining your customer you know who are who is your target audience and one of the big things we run across and I personally have a problem with this at the moment because I've rebranded from a consulting company where I service all it basically all information of things to a very Niche kind of Market of just being QA focused and the problem I'm running it to at the moment is where do you set the level or where do you set your customer is it the CEO CIO is it your VP is it the uh QA engineer the QA manager or is it the developer it's like at you really can hit all levels but your marketing your branding needs to be specifically focused I think generically enough that you can kind of cross a couple but it has to be narrow enough with your message that you're defining story that the customers within that section understand the problem that this is potentially their problem and then you're going to walk through okay here I'm your guide I'm going to guide you through this problem here's how to solve this problem and then here is how I've done it in the past or how we've done it and what our solution will do to get you you know get you to the Finish L get you to success and avoid failure and it's just been a struggle right now because one A lot's going on you know the official launch is in April and I've just got all these moving pieces going on you know like with a business you got your day life too and it's just been very hard to take like what we've done in the past and I've taken a couple exercises with like a current project where I work full-time now and I just tried to write a story based on that at the customer customer for the project that I'm working on and I was able to get it almost there but then I ran into the problem of okay who's the audience who's the customer does it have to be technical do I need to mention things like Java spring boot uh you know AWS Athena or do I need to keep it uh cleaner and just talk to the business talk keep it at like the project manager the business manager hell even the owner whereas uh they come in they read this and it's like okay here was the problem that they were trying to solve here's the solution here's how they got there um without the technical speak you know um I forget the guy's name the clean code guy talked about in one of his examples you know building a um HR a uh billing you know a payroll system well you're pitching the payroll system not the technology behind the pay system it's like oh this customer needs a payroll system so that's where I'm kind of struggling with a little bit because when you're dealing with QA you kind of have to explain a little bit about the technology I guess or at least a little bit about the sectors or the components of QA that you'll be addressing that doesn't technically always apply to every technology right I mean concepts of it do but not all of it and that's what I've been really struggling with kind of this week and within the last few days yeah that's a it's actually a it's interesting because it's very much a struggle that I've been working through for gosh probably the last year now and have been really trying to like adjust make some adjustments and some tweaks to it based on uh some of the marketing and lead generation campaigns and stuff like that that's going out there and what and it does it goes into those same some of those same issues um as far as like what do I what do I talk about where do I talk about it when do I talk about it um and I think right now we're going to talk about it from the podcast side and I think it's a it's a perfect way to dive in that so we'll kick that one off and then we'll we'll get right into it so well hello and welcome back we are talking today about customer definition for lack of a better term and it's really going to we've talked about this before but we're really going to get a little bit into the weeds of if you've got a service based business such as Michael is working from a QA side I'm working usually more from a consult a technology Consulting solving business problems integration kind of side how do you how do you label that to people who do you talk to who is your customer and how do you address that customer or how do you tailor your your pitch for the customer now I wanted to start out with one of the things that we we had in the the pre-show a little bit was the the idea of where do you include the technology call them the keywords like where do you mention I do Java or I do react or I do responsive or I do blah blah blah whatever that technology is we all know that there is there is some level and this goes back to really a lot about the whole building a better developer there's some level of difference between for example and and there's varying levels of differences between for example react C Java Pearl PHP python there's there are those families and languages and we know as technologist that sometimes those are sort of replaceable I mean you can like just you can sort of swap out one for the other it's like roughly like if you know a couple like if you know jQuery you can probably handle a couple of the other JavaScript you know Frameworks that are out there that are that are roughly the same if you know angular you can sort of you know you can pick up react pretty quick those things that are yeah they're not the same but the the concepts behind them are close enough that you're probably going to be able to transition particularly if you've been doing this for a while and particularly like on a QA side there's you know it's it really it does but it doesn't matter to some extent if you're testing a web application because the keys you need to understand there is things like what should a good what web application look for look like as far as far as like having IDs and not having to chase down CSS selectors or xass or some of those things that are just you know flaky and very difficult from a a testing point of view and I I think the first thing I want to want to talk about a little bit is it's like is the Trap and a little bit about as just sort of us maybe beat you know tossing us back and forth because we have two things we're serving right now as one our customer whoever our Target customer is we want to we want to speak to them in a language they understand however we don't want to miss out if we're doing something that is a if it's something that's like an advertisement or something like that we don't want to miss out on some little AI or HR System that's just looking for those keywords and ignores us if our keywords aren't in there and so I would like to I would sort of like to place it a little bit is instead of one pitch save you know to save them all to serve them all is you have the um it's really more like the interview in person kind of stuff where I'm talking to somebody or and it may be via email or something like that but I am directly communicating with a person and not some you know going through some doorkeeper or something like that some HR person which is different from if I'm doing like a general advertisement or general postings or general descriptions about my company does that make sense about maybe splitting those two off yeah and that's interesting that you said that so the other thing is one of the things you didn't touch on is you talked about you know talking to people in person and then we talked about doing like the marketing thing with the AI but what kind of message would you put on your website which is kind of a diff it's kind of a combination of the two right you want something that is both Mission critical what is brand what is the problem you're solving but also kind of touch on the services uh and the technologies that you can provide because not all services are compatible yes the idea of like a webbased testing is one thing but there are subtle differences between you know if you're a react shop if you're uh doing PHP if you're doing uh you know just straight up HTML or even Java versus C so there are some layers and complexities between those but the same message might still be you know the customer has a website that is having problems and they need a way to test it and you know you would lead it with some type of a web-based testing solution like a web driver selenium web driver you know selenium grid but you would essentially build them a test framework that would test their web application and then provide them essentially a baseline or a framework for them to write their tests in a way that will test their system and then they have the reliability and the um understanding that their site is of is working uh to that extent however if you kind of flip it to that's kind of like one General use case a little more generic one though is when we're talking about like a software assessment or a QA assessment that is high level but that can also mean different things for different companies right yeah and I think that and that's that's I think the well there's two things so one that's very key is one it is what is the this goes back to who's your customer if you are targeting a a QA assessment then you're doing it that at that higher level and while yes you should have those Technologies somewhere as a part of it I don't know how many times I've had conversations with at at that level when you're talking to you know seite or vice president or something like that where you can start mentioning those Technologies and I've literally had people where I like get into that a and say well we've done this this and this like I don't know what any of that is nor do I care and because they don't that's not the problem that that you're solving and so sometimes yeah it's useful to help that you have that if somebody's trying to you know sort of check off some boxes but in that conversation you're not going to want to have it however if you're on the flip side on the other the more detailed approach where you're generating essentially you're generating code you're not talking to a CEO about a framework that's going to be generated that they're going to write code because he would have just like his eyes are going to melt and fall off his head while you're explaining that because he doesn't doesn't know doesn't care doesn't want to it's not his stuff so it's a that is those two things are very very different customers and I've run into those where yeah you you start with one and then you do eventually sell to another but that's where it's a to me it's a whole different pitch at that point now I want to do swing back from the the website I see it as a uh and I got this actually from and hopefully we'll have somewhere in our show notes a link to it is we in particular we talked about and I wish I could think of her name off the top of my head we talked a lady about LinkedIn and she's a LinkedIn expert and she talked about how set you set up your profile it starts out with you know a picture that doesn't look like you're you know a convict or something like that and then you've got like a tagline that should draw your ideal customer in and then as you get further down on your profile it starts talking about like what have you done Where Have You Been stuff like that and it's basically the idea I think is the same on the web is you start with again it goes back to who's your primary customer the first thing they should see when they come on that web page is essentially like here's you know do you need this problem solved or do you need one of these three problems solved or whatever it is and your your goal is that they're like heck yeah I need that problem solved right now I need that because that means they're going to look further down they're going to like you know worked out just like a funnels they're going to start going deeper into it and say okay well he just mentioned my problem let's see if he can solve it and then probably along the way ideally you know you're customer enough so they're going to say yeah I need that problem Sol and then you know what their next question is going to be like hey do you support Microsoft Technologies or Java Technologies or do you support mobile application or however your your funnel goes but it really is thinking through that conversation and putting that onto the web page so that yes eventually that technology stack will be there somewhere but I think it's and really if you look at any uh especially Boutique type consulting or anything like that you'll find that stuff is like way down the list it's a you know it's one of those that you're on the primary page and you go deeper into stuff before you finally get to like hey here's all the crap that we can do because most you know you get to that point at our level most the places are going to be the same where when you get down to the Brass tax of what technologies have you dealt with the the vast majority of us that are good have dealt with all of them basically at some point so we're going to be able to just have families of them and then it's just a laundry list but I think that's what I don't think there's anybody at all really that starts with that from your website I think that's something that just it should show up so if somebody's searching maybe that'll hit but that's about it um you know if you want to do it if you if you're doing like a proposal or something then you may want to have that like sort of at the bottom of that like hey here's all the things we do which is I'm thinking about it I may want to start adding that to some of mine um although I guess I do I have those in the Flyers and such I have where I just have like the sort of the things that I put with posts with proposals typically include like here's who we are here's what we do here's some background here's the Technologies and you make it easy for them to get to what is the problem that they have what is the story that you're going to sell them on and I think that's it's building those pieces around it but keeping that again it goes back to like what's the why why do why do they want to talk to you and then go with that and that's where I've struggled is getting them to that really it's getting them into that conversation phase beforehand I want to get them hit them with the right things so I don't scare them off that I don't like lose them but I'm like I can drag them in more and say hey it seems like you have this problem they say yes I do can you tell me more and it's like oh yeah by the way if you will just step into this room over here I'll tell you more it's one of those you've got to like lead them without giving them too much and I say this not being an expert by any stretch at being able to do this thoughts yeah that's kind of always been the the lead right it's that elevator pitch you know that quick conversation you have with someone to sell your company you have it what was it like three minutes to sell your whatever service product you're trying to sell and a lot of the documentation I've looked at that you had that I guess might have confused me a little bit was because some of the stuff especially from uh you know developers or you know software developers you know testers whatever is we have this especially if you work for big companies for a long time you've worked on a lot of different projects over your career how do you translate that from a resume to hey here is the project I worked on here was the problem we we're trying to solve here is how we solved it without one violating an NDA two giving away company Secrets three being too technical as far as explaining like the full stat you know if you're applying for another job sure that's important because that's your customer right that's who your target is is potentially another customer that has a similar product that you want to go work for them and work on that product flipping that around we're selling our services or we're selling our story and the brand to a potential customer a different customer not that particular Target and I guess where I struggle and I think you do too between the assessment and say doing like a software assessment or a test assessment versus writing code or building an application they are slightly different in who our customers are right we're not necessarily pitching it to the same level of customer but we're still in the same Market that's I think where one of the biggest struggles I see uh or one of I guess the biggest traps we can get into as developers yeah I I agree that it's U they're they're similar but they're different enough so if I'm doing an assessment it really is going to have a lot more to do with when I talk about an assessment to somebody I'm talking about in general it's a lot more generalities it's like hey you have a company you have an accounting system or financing systems you have fulfillment systems you have shipping you have HR you have customer relationship of some sort you may have a full-blown Erp but especially if you're a small company you probably don't you've got the equivalent of what an Erp should be but it's it's scattered into all sorts of different Technologies or maybe you've got like a wannabe Erp and then you've got some Integrations going into it those are like that's the level I'm going to talk to them at and not really get into the specific Technologies now they may mention and say oh yeah we've got you know we use just picks it like you know HubSpot and so it's like yeah I've worked with HubSpot before or hey we've integrated you know we have Integrations with these three Payment Systems cool worked with lots of payment you know it's it's really not and it's it is a challenge when you're in that level when you're having that conversation to not Rabbit Hole down on a technology but instead to sort of like brush it aside and focus back on your you the customer your business what is it that you need what is it where are your pain points and getting that information because they really at the end of the day the technology doesn't really matter to them and I have had now multiple customers I've walked in and they've had an entirely different technology stack than when we walk away because they've got one that's just it's broken or aged or whatever or doesn't fit them or it's it's too broad and then we say hey let's take these 15 Technologies you have that you're trying to CH chase down let's turn it into one because we can because they you know things have moved on when you're on the when you're on the building a solution or building a framework yeah you need to talk about it but even then I think it's it's serves us better to not get stuck in the technology as much um I found that I find this with other Consultants that I've dealt with if they lead with their technology or if they're very big on like we use whatever you know we are a ruby shop and we use Ruby on Rails and we knock this stuff out and all that it's great good for them but to me they're going to sell me then a ruby on rail solution they're not going to think about they're not going to talk about what I need they're going to build whatever is that I need built in Ruby on Rails or in PHP or in Java or whatever it is and that's not always the best solution I would rather have and that's sort of what I try to sell to people is like hey let's we will build you the solution and sometimes I'll even tell them they'll say well how would you build this like I actually don't know right now because we haven't gotten far enough into the requirements it's like it's prob usually I'll be like it's either going to be you know this this or this and it's usually going to be something like it's either going to be like maybe Java or or python Jango or you know maybe PHP or maybe it's react or whatever it is depending on what their targets are um but sometimes it may be something like hey we might build you a custom solution in Java or you may have maybe all you need is a really good WordPress site you know there's things like that that I sometimes I'll push back on the technology questions and say look I I would rather us solve your problem we'll figure out the best technology for it and then we can talk about it because again usually they don't care I mean it's they do if they're a bigger company and they've already got an IT shop yes they're going to care because they're already going to have people that know that language that stack or whatever and that's cool that's that's a valid reason to stick with that stack but a lot of times they don't have it they've got situation I've got one right now that I'm working with that they they had this stuff that was built by all these different developers it's in two or three different languages and we're just trying to like shrink it back down uh there's another project we actually almost went the other way we had uh and you know I was working with Timothy and so we had a stack that was built on what he knew and I came in I was like oh hey this thing would be perfect to do in like this you know little crud type thing be perfect to do in D Jango and I start I was like no wait we've just that's just added language I said no let's swing back around and we'll do like you know spring boot instead because we can then keep the the core Technologies in that Java world that we had as opposed to doing it somewhere else and you that's that's where a lot of those go so I think while we want to I think we're almost better served to avoid the technology question as long as we can yeah that's a good point I mean it circles back around even within the testing world right when we talk requirements we talk building software you always talk about the story but the story is really hyperfocused right you're the the story is to this particular solution that you're trying to solve and normally it's very small scale so it's like you write a ticket you put in the the story the description and let the engineers go figure out how to implement it in this case we're flipping that right we have to understand the needs of the customer what their problem is and then explain how we can solve that or how we can walk them through their problem to get them to a solution to suceed right ultimately that's the bottom line that we're trying to solve here is determining that story brand that we can use to Market ourselves or our companies right yeah and I think that's and it really is you've got a it's there's not going to be one story usually what you're end up doing is you're going to have a story that has all these little sub stories within it and that's that's really where you do is that's where you draw them in as you get their primary story which is the the primary pain point the primary need the Urgent thing that has them talking to you and then within that as you start talking through that you're going to say hey okay I get it let's like we're going to take you through this and we're going to solve this problem however in doing so here's another little story of something we're going to deal with you know it's things like just customer relate like crms are are nice and easy because like hey we need to be able to keep track of and talk to our customers and you start talking about hey that's great we're going to have a an opportunity for you guys to add customers but within that then you're talking about things like the store about and we want to talk about how are your employees going to access those customers maybe where the way you're set up and sometimes you'll pitch it to them sometimes you'll draw this out of them but it's things like are your employees remote do you need to log in do you have multiple people do they need to work are you going to have multiple employees working a single account do you need to have account managers do you need to have structures your customers uh have multiple contacts and and on and on and on and really each of those those questions in itself which is now goes into the QA side of it really is that now there's all those little stories and those very hyperfocused detailed stories but when you're talking up to your when you're at the selling point where you're like this is somebody that's signing the checks signing your check in this case if you're going to if they're going to sign off and take on the project then it's keeping it up at that high level because yes they may want to come back and learn those detailed stories but initially it's really going to be sold on one it's going to be sold on the big story and two you're more times than not you're you're going to be guessing those stories initially because you you first need to get the details from them so that you can turn around and give them a good solution again I say this just because I've gotten burned by this in times where I've gotten into calls and I sales calls and I'll talk to a customer and I'll get into something and start sort of going down a you know sort of a rabbit trail of like well there's this and we can go solve it this way and it takes away from the primary focus of hey you have a pain Point Let's solve it uh exactly and I've been in so many of those situations where you start talking to the customer and you they have one problem but then it's like oh well I have this and you kind of spiral down it's like whoops you're now kind of implementing a solution before you really have all the details right you really just need to kind of keep it at that high level uh which is what I'm focusing on right now is trying to keep that QA assessment as the main lead in to my company because really unless you understand your QA um or how the QA Works within your company you're not going to be able to really Implement a good QA solution which is why a QA assessment necessary the problem I run into though is especially with software a lot of companies don't understand what QA is so trying to define the problem in a way that they understand it from a QA perspective it is a little difficult um for instance you made a comment you know where QA would come in at the end you know after you talk I say the QA should be the discussion from the beginning what is it the customers want are you defining the requirements correctly when you talk to your customers and so it's kind of twofold it's I need to understand my customer enough to explain my solution to their story whereas in their case they're trying to sell their product to their customer or their end user and they have to make sure that they understand that they're solving the problem for them so it's almost the same but slightly different where I'm trying to come out to them to pull that information out from a user persp perspective for how software Works where in this case I'm trying to talk to the customer or the end user in my case as to how is your software you know what is the quality of your software how do you define quality how are you finding problems or where is your problems within your software you know what are they seeing and what are the types of questions they're asking you know from a QA perspective there's lots of things I can solve but what is the pro like I I can solve this particular problem this and the assessment solves a lot of problems but how do I pitch that to a customer does that make sense yeah and that's exactly where I'm at is that in an assessment you really are you're looking at the the overall situation there's a lot of things that you're you're providing them with that and this is what I'm working on right now is instead of a a essentially a 30 minute sales call that just gives an idea of an assessment and saying okay this is this is why you need it and this is where we can help you because just same things you're running into is there's there can be a level of Education that's going on there and that's really what we want to do down the road you if we're having to educate them then it like then it's going to be tougher to sell instead what we should be doing is solving a problem for them and that's usually where I'm going to come in and I've been working towards this is so in a call or even in in the some of the material it's more about here's your are you running into this are you running into this are you running into this if you are this is what the solutions are going to look like it's going to be you know here's your here's your situations here's three different ways that this is going to the solution is going to look right you and usually and it's it's sort of the same it's either you're going to change something you're GNA you know you're either going to stay with what you've got and go over a cliff you're going to buy something you're going to enhance customize your thing um or you're going to build something new I mean it's say there's those are General but that's basically what you're going to run into and that's what I'm trying to work on right now is instead of hey you could do this you can do this you can do this is get it more down to a problem so what is your problem and it's basically I'm thinking of a of a essentially a script at this point almost it's like you could throw at a at a monkey almost although it's going to be you know the outcome is obviously going to have the skills behind it but it's really you know what's your biggest problem what is that why is it your big biggest problem what is that cost you and time and money and what are you how long has this been going on and getting that what is your environment what are some of the constraints around that problem and instead of getting into all the ways we can help them is just focus on that say this problem this is what it looks like this is what the next steps would be to solve that problem and I think that's going to end up being a essentially like a freebie that I give them is sort of like a mini road map that says you give me a problem we're going to talk about it for 30 minutes and the outcome is you're going to get a series of recommendation you know basically a road map of how do you progress from here to address that problem and whether it's you know whether you come back to me and we do stuff or you go to somebody else doesn't matter but like now you've got those steps and so you've gotten something and ideally they'll like how it goes they get to see how you work get to see how you think they get to see the they get to look at the kinds of recommendations you have and that's the kind of stuff that's going to draw them in hopefully that's going to draw them in and sell you know sell business but it's not i' and I've I've talked to a couple people that say you don't want to get into you don't want to be educating people in the in that initial sales call you want to like bring them along and show them instead of lecture them essentially and say hey these are the things that you should be doing and this is why in instead you say what are your problems let's fix them and then you can show them that oh by the way because you weren't doing this this is why this was a problem and lead them you know that way instead particularly um I think from the QA point of view is I think it's look at what are you pick probably in your case one or maybe you know three top uh outcomes top problems that occur when QA isn't there or is bad and then ask for PE look for people that have that problem and then go talk to them about this is okay so this is your problem let's talk about your situation and then get enough information so that you can talk very specifically about the problem and about the solution that you recommend for it does that make sense yeah it does in fact I've been trying to find some companies around here uh that develop software have some type of In-House software solution to just open up the conversation like just kind of maybe do not necessarily cold call but just market research and say hey what are you guys doing you know what is your level of QA do you even have QA uh you know how is your application working how do you know it's performing well things of those nature uh I've even started looking at online groups and that but that can be a little tricky if you haven't quite nailed down your target right because you could go down the wrong Rabbit Hole of the wrong group and then you're solving a problem for essentially the wrong customer and and that's kind of where I'm struggling a lot because when I initially did the website I wrote a challenging page right I Define a bunch of different problems that companies have and ways to to solve it but then I added an additional page for services which may be an injustice to me uh and maybe I should just hide that and just start stick with the challenges as the stories right and maybe even remove that page and just move that to the front page and say Here's with one or two or three like you said and focus on that um I I like that approach it's just getting that conversation going with some of these people can be hard because you know Cod calls aren't the easiest thing in the world but then also to be able to talk to them in a way that can guide them uh first to understand the problem and then guide them through uh the discussion to understand okay here is what's going on here is what you need for a solution or here is how what we offer can help improve your situation yeah and I we're going we're hitting it on time a little bit here so we'll wrap this one up but I think the a parting thought on that is to with the the questions the challenges that you're seeing that you're going to introduce people to when they they get to your website or your LinkedIn page or your wherever it is wherever you're advertising yourself essentially wherever your services are at I think what you want to do more is yeah you want to you want to nail the problem you want them to be like wow that's exactly the question I'm s asking myself or that's exactly the problem I'm I'm running into but instead of giving them a solution is your solution should Point them to talking to you so that you can at the very least I'm and again I've talked about before I am overly nice in how I've shared out information stuff like that over the years and what I've provided to customers and often I've been told I don't I don't charge enough and all that kind of stuff but still even there I figure if I'm talking to them then I at least have a conversation going I at least have the ability to try to get see if we're going to work together well as a as a a vendor and employ a customer and get that personality side of it to see if that's going to work and so if I give them a you know some of a solution or something like that then it's like okay hey at least you've invested your time to talk to me so I'm going to pay you back by giving you some sort of a solution instead of just like continuing to drag you on and I think that's it is where you don't you don't want to you you don't want to answer it too easy and and maybe it is unless it's super easy and that's where you look at like where is a c where would I have a potential customer that they have the problem but their solution is so easy that it's just not worth it's not worth my time and like think about it in code it could be somebody comes to you and they're they want to build some you know their idea is I want to build a website in a database and instead what they really just need is you know maybe like WordPress and they can do it themselves those kind of things so maybe you have like a some sort of like a a filtering kind of thing or something like oh by the way and maybe it's as you ask questions if you're this then you can just go right here here's a link knock yourself out shoot me an email if you have questions because then it's basically like hey maybe I'll find out about them but really I don't want to spend much time on them because I'm never going to be I wouldn't you know it take me a half hour an hour and it's not worth the transactions the billable times and all that and the non the overhead for that so I think you you want to keep keep that in mind as you're putting your your questions in your what you are offering to sell yourself out on your on your site or your page wherever it happens to be uh final thoughts from you yeah those are good points Rob yeah the biggest thing uh it's especially for anyone watching or listening to this is what we're discussing here is what we go through all the time I mean a lot of this is not just us you know you're probably watching this because you're running through these same struggles the trick is to ask these types of questions you know reach out to us if you have these kinds of problems and we can try to help you it takes a discussion not a silo approach to solve these problems you're going to need to talk to people to figure out what the customer wants what your ideal customer is cuz like Rob said you don't necessarily want that quick and easy customer but what you also don't want is a customer that your solution isn't even quite the right solution and you end up with a customer with all these problems or all these headaches because they're not getting what they feel they're the worth is they're not getting their money's worth for it so be very careful with that but also you know talk to people you have to have these discussions you can't just sit there and just say hey I'm gonna solve x without understanding who X is for and what the problem really is that's good point is it goes back to know your customer have that Avatar know what your what your goal is and what your focus is because otherwise you'll you'll end up just taking on whatever you can and a lot of times those do not those don't end well I mean maybe you get some money out of them or you break even or whatever but a lot of times the stress and the other things even if you have a very profitable customer can be more than you want to so as always as we wrap this one up if you have any questions Sho us an email at info@ developer.com check out the site developer.com check out our YouTube channel that is YouTube develop andur you can see us on Twitter SLX which is also develop andur and just you know let us know or you know leave drop us a line whatever you want to do any questions comments suggestions anything like that because we're here for you as well as obviously working through our own little personal problems and business problems as we have these conversations as always go out there and have yourself a great day a great week and we will talk to you next [Music] time
Transcript Segments
[Music]
there we go so welcome in we actually
have just been talking about and we'll
continue talking about our business here
but I want to make sure that we actually
hit the record button because this might
be useful to you guys um so carry on
Mike talk c talk about customer
definition essentially in your story
yeah so one of the things we talked
about uh probably about a week or so ago
and also through the co-starter class
I've been in is been about defining your
customer you know who are who is your
target audience and one of the big
things we run across and I personally
have a problem with this at the moment
because I've rebranded from a consulting
company where I service all it basically
all information of things to a very
Niche kind of Market of just being QA
focused and the problem I'm running it
to at the moment is where do you set the
level or where do you set your customer
is it the CEO CIO is it your VP is it
the uh QA engineer the QA manager or is
it the developer it's like at you really
can hit all levels but your marketing
your branding needs to be specifically
focused I think generically enough that
you can kind of cross a couple but it
has to be narrow enough with your
message that you're defining story that
the customers within that section
understand the problem that this is
potentially their problem and then
you're going to walk through okay here
I'm your guide I'm going to guide you
through this problem here's how to solve
this problem and then here is how I've
done it in the past or how we've done it
and what our solution will do to get you
you know get you to the Finish L get you
to success and avoid failure and it's
just been a struggle right now
because one A lot's going on you know
the official launch is in April and I've
just got all these moving pieces going
on you know like with a business you got
your day life too and it's just been
very hard to take like what we've done
in the past and I've taken a couple
exercises with like a current project
where I work full-time now and I just
tried to write a story based on that at
the customer customer for the project
that I'm working on and I was able to
get it almost there but then I ran into
the problem of
okay who's the audience who's the
customer does it have to be technical do
I need to mention things like Java
spring boot uh you know AWS Athena or do
I need to keep it uh cleaner and just
talk to the business talk keep it at
like the project manager the business
manager hell even the owner whereas uh
they come in they read this and it's
like okay here was the problem that they
were trying to solve here's the solution
here's how they got there um without the
technical speak you know um I forget the
guy's name the clean code guy talked
about in one of his examples you know
building
a
um HR a uh billing you know a payroll
system well you're pitching the payroll
system not the technology behind the pay
system it's like oh this customer needs
a payroll system so that's where I'm
kind of struggling with a little bit
because when you're dealing with QA you
kind of have to explain a little bit
about the technology I guess or at least
a little bit about the sectors or the
components of QA that you'll be
addressing that doesn't technically
always apply to every technology right I
mean concepts of it do but not all of it
and that's what I've been really
struggling with kind of this week and
within the last few
days yeah that's a it's actually a it's
interesting because it's very much a
struggle that I've
been working through for gosh probably
the last year now and have been really
trying to
like adjust make some adjustments and
some tweaks to it based on uh some of
the marketing and lead generation
campaigns and stuff like that that's
going out there and what and it does it
goes into those same some of those same
issues um as far as like what do I what
do I talk about where do I talk about it
when do I talk about it um and I think
right now we're going to talk about it
from the podcast side and I think it's a
it's a perfect way to dive in that so
we'll kick that one off and then we'll
we'll get right into it so well hello
and welcome back we are talking today
about customer definition for lack of a
better term and it's really going to
we've talked about this before but we're
really going to get a little bit into
the weeds of if you've got a service
based business such as Michael is
working from a QA side I'm working
usually more from a consult a technology
Consulting solving business problems
integration kind of side how do you how
do you label that to people who do you
talk to who is your customer and how do
you address that customer or how do you
tailor your your pitch for the customer
now I wanted to start out with one of
the things that we we had in the the
pre-show a little bit was the the idea
of where do you include the technology
call them the keywords like where do you
mention I do Java or I do react or I do
responsive or I do blah blah blah
whatever that technology is we all know
that there
is there is some level and this goes
back to really a lot about the whole
building a better developer there's some
level of difference
between for example and and there's
varying levels of differences between
for example react C Java Pearl PHP
python there's there are those families
and
languages and we know as
technologist that sometimes those are
sort of replaceable I mean you can like
just you can sort of swap out one for
the other it's like roughly like if you
know a couple like if you know jQuery
you can probably handle a couple of the
other JavaScript you know Frameworks
that are out there that are that are
roughly the same if you know angular you
can sort of you know you can pick up
react pretty quick those things that are
yeah they're not the same but the the
concepts behind them are close enough
that you're probably going to be able to
transition particularly if you've been
doing this for a while and particularly
like on a QA side there's you know it's
it really it does but it doesn't matter
to some extent if you're testing a web
application because the keys you need to
understand there is things like what
should a good what web application look
for look like as far as far as like
having IDs and not having to chase down
CSS selectors or xass or some of those
things that are just you know flaky and
very difficult from a a testing point of
view and I I think the first thing I
want to want to talk about a little bit
is it's like is the Trap and a little
bit about as just sort of us maybe beat
you know tossing us back and forth
because we have two things we're serving
right now as one our customer whoever
our Target customer is we want to we
want to speak to them in a language they
understand however we don't want to miss
out if we're doing something that is a
if it's something that's like an
advertisement or something like that we
don't want to miss out on some little AI
or HR System that's just looking for
those keywords and ignores us if our
keywords aren't in there and so I would
like to I would sort of like to place it
a little bit is instead of one pitch
save you know to save them all to serve
them all is you have
the um it's really more like the
interview in person kind of stuff where
I'm talking to somebody or and it may be
via email or something like that but I
am directly communicating with a person
and not some you know going through some
doorkeeper or something like that some
HR person which is different from if I'm
doing like a general advertisement or
general postings or general descriptions
about my company does that make sense
about maybe splitting those two
off yeah and that's interesting that you
said that so the other thing is one of
the things you didn't touch on is you
talked about you know talking to people
in person and then we talked about doing
like the marketing thing with the AI but
what kind of message would you put on
your website which is kind of a diff
it's kind of a combination of the two
right you want something that is
both Mission critical what is brand what
is the problem you're solving but also
kind of touch on the services uh and the
technologies that you can provide
because not all services are compatible
yes the idea of like a webbased testing
is one thing but there are subtle
differences between you know if you're a
react shop if you're uh doing PHP if
you're doing uh you know just straight
up HTML or even Java versus C so there
are some layers and complexities between
those but the same message might still
be you know the customer has a website
that is having problems and they need a
way to test it and you know you would
lead it with some type of a web-based
testing solution like a web driver
selenium web driver you know selenium
grid but you would essentially build
them a test framework that would test
their web application and then provide
them essentially a baseline or a
framework for them to write their tests
in a way that will test their system and
then they have the reliability and the
um understanding that their site is of
is working uh to that
extent however if you kind of flip it to
that's kind of like one General use case
a little more generic one though is when
we're talking about like a software
assessment or a QA assessment that is
high level but that can also mean
different things for different companies
right yeah and I think that and that's
that's I think the well there's two
things so one that's very key is one it
is what is the this goes back to who's
your customer if you are targeting a a
QA assessment then you're doing it that
at that higher level and while yes you
should have those Technologies somewhere
as a part of it I don't know how many
times I've had conversations with at at
that level when you're talking to you
know seite or vice president or
something like that where you can start
mentioning those Technologies and I've
literally had people where I like get
into that a and say well we've done this
this and this like I don't know what any
of that is nor do I care and because
they don't that's not the problem that
that you're solving and so sometimes
yeah it's useful to help that you have
that if somebody's trying to you know
sort of check off some boxes but in that
conversation you're not going to want to
have it however if you're on the flip
side on the other the more detailed
approach where you're generating
essentially you're generating code
you're not talking to a CEO about a
framework that's going to be generated
that they're going to write code because
he would have just like his eyes are
going to melt and fall off his head
while you're explaining that because he
doesn't doesn't know doesn't care
doesn't want to it's not his stuff so
it's a that is those two things are very
very different customers and I've run
into
those where yeah you you start with one
and then you do eventually sell to
another but that's where it's a to me
it's a whole different pitch at that
point now I want to do swing back from
the the website I see it as a uh and I
got this actually from and hopefully
we'll have somewhere in our show notes a
link to it is we in particular we talked
about and I wish I could think of her
name off the top of my head we talked a
lady about LinkedIn and she's a LinkedIn
expert and she talked about how set you
set up your profile
it starts out with you know a picture
that doesn't look like you're you know a
convict or something like that and then
you've got like a tagline that should
draw your ideal customer in and then as
you get further down on your profile it
starts talking about like what have you
done Where Have You Been stuff like that
and it's basically the idea I think is
the same on the web is you start
with again it goes back to who's your
primary customer the first thing they
should see when they come on that web
page is essentially like here's you know
do you need this problem solved or do
you need one of these three problems
solved or whatever it is and your your
goal is that they're like heck yeah I
need that problem solved right now I
need that because that means they're
going to look further down they're going
to like you know worked out just like a
funnels they're going to start going
deeper into it and say okay well he just
mentioned my problem let's see if he can
solve it and then probably along the way
ideally you know you're customer enough
so they're going to say yeah I need that
problem Sol and then you know what their
next question is going to be like hey do
you
support Microsoft Technologies or Java
Technologies or do you support mobile
application or however your your funnel
goes but it really is thinking through
that conversation and putting that onto
the web page so that yes eventually that
technology stack will be there somewhere
but I think
it's and really if you look at any uh
especially Boutique type consulting or
anything like that you'll find that
stuff is like way down the list it's a
you know it's one of those that you're
on the primary page and you go deeper
into stuff before you finally get to
like hey here's all the crap that we can
do because most you know you get to that
point at our level most the places are
going to be the same where when you get
down to the Brass tax of what
technologies have you dealt with the the
vast majority of us that are good have
dealt with all of them basically at some
point so we're going to be able to just
have families of them and then it's just
a laundry list but I think that's what I
don't think there's
anybody at all really that starts with
that from your website I think that's
something that just it should show up so
if somebody's searching maybe that'll
hit but that's about it um you know if
you want to do it if you if you're doing
like a proposal or something then you
may want to have that like sort of at
the bottom of that like hey here's all
the things we do which is I'm thinking
about it I may want to start adding that
to some of mine um although I guess I do
I have those in the Flyers and such I
have where I just have like the sort of
the things that I put with posts with
proposals typically include like here's
who we are here's what we do here's some
background here's the Technologies and
you make it easy for them to get to what
is the problem that they have what is
the story that you're going to sell them
on and I think that's it's building
those pieces around it but keeping that
again it goes back to like what's the
why why do why do they want to talk to
you and then go with that and that's
where I've struggled is getting them to
that really it's getting them into that
conversation phase beforehand I want to
get them hit them with the right things
so I don't scare them off that I don't
like lose them but I'm like I can drag
them in more and say hey it seems like
you have this problem they say yes I do
can you tell me more and it's like oh
yeah by the way if you will just step
into this room over here I'll tell you
more it's one of those you've got to
like lead them without giving them too
much and I say this not being an expert
by any stretch at being able to do this
thoughts yeah that's kind of always been
the the lead right it's that elevator
pitch you know that quick conversation
you have with someone to sell your
company you have it what was it like
three minutes to sell your whatever
service product you're trying to
sell and a lot of the
documentation I've looked at that you
had that I guess might have confused me
a little bit was because some of the
stuff especially from uh you know
developers or you
know software developers you know
testers whatever is we have this
especially if you work for big companies
for a long time you've worked on a lot
of different projects over your career
how do you translate that from a
resume to hey here is the project I
worked on here was the problem we we're
trying to solve here is how we solved it
without one violating an NDA two giving
away company Secrets three being too
technical as far as explaining like the
full stat you know if you're applying
for another job sure that's important
because that's your customer right
that's who your target is is potentially
another customer that has a similar
product that you want to go work for
them and work on that
product flipping that
around we're selling our services or
we're selling our story and the brand to
a potential customer a different
customer not that particular Target and
I guess where I struggle and I think you
do too between the assessment and say
doing like a software assessment or a
test assessment versus writing code or
building an application they are
slightly different in who our customers
are right we're not necessarily pitching
it to the same level of customer but
we're still in the same Market that's I
think where one of the biggest struggles
I see uh or one of I guess the biggest
traps we can get into as
developers yeah I I agree that it's U
they're they're similar but they're
different enough so if I'm doing an
assessment it really is going to have a
lot more to do with when I talk about an
assessment to somebody I'm talking
about in general it's a lot more
generalities it's like hey you have a
company you have an accounting system or
financing systems you have fulfillment
systems you have shipping you have HR
you have customer relationship of some
sort you may have a full-blown Erp but
especially if you're a small company you
probably don't you've got the equivalent
of what an Erp should be but it's it's
scattered into all sorts of different
Technologies or maybe you've got like a
wannabe Erp and then you've got some
Integrations going into it those are
like that's the level I'm going to talk
to them at and not really get into the
specific Technologies now they may
mention and say oh yeah we've got you
know we use just picks it like you know
HubSpot and so it's like yeah I've
worked with HubSpot before or hey we've
integrated you know we have Integrations
with these three Payment Systems cool
worked with lots of payment you know
it's it's
really not and it's it is a challenge
when you're in that level when you're
having that conversation to not Rabbit
Hole down on a technology but instead to
sort of like brush it aside and focus
back on your you the customer your
business what is it that you need what
is it where are your pain points and
getting that information because they
really at the end of the day the
technology doesn't really matter to them
and I have had now multiple customers
I've walked in and they've had an
entirely different technology stack than
when we walk away because they've got
one that's just it's broken or aged or
whatever or doesn't fit them or it's
it's too broad and then we say hey let's
take these 15 Technologies you have that
you're trying to CH chase down let's
turn it into one because we can because
they you know things have moved on when
you're on the when you're on the
building a solution or building a
framework yeah you need to talk about it
but even then I think it's it's serves
us better to not get stuck in the
technology as much um I found that I
find this with other Consultants that
I've dealt with if they lead with their
technology or if they're very big on
like we use whatever you know we are a
ruby shop and we use Ruby on Rails and
we knock this stuff out and all that
it's great good for them but to me
they're going to sell me then a ruby on
rail solution they're not going to think
about they're not going to talk about
what I need they're going to build
whatever is that I need built in Ruby on
Rails or in PHP or in Java or whatever
it is and that's not always the best
solution I would rather have and that's
sort of what I try to sell to people is
like hey let's we will build you the
solution and sometimes I'll even tell
them they'll say well how would you
build this like I actually don't know
right now because we haven't gotten far
enough into the requirements it's like
it's prob usually I'll be like it's
either going to be you know this this or
this and it's usually going to be
something like it's either going to be
like maybe Java or or python Jango or
you know maybe PHP or maybe it's react
or whatever it is depending on what
their targets are um but sometimes it
may be something like hey we might build
you a custom solution in Java or you may
have maybe all you need is a really good
WordPress site you know there's things
like that that I sometimes I'll push
back on the technology questions and say
look I I would rather us solve your
problem we'll figure out the best
technology for it and then we can talk
about it because again usually they
don't care I mean it's they do if
they're a bigger company and they've
already got an IT shop yes they're going
to care because they're already going to
have people that know that language that
stack or whatever and that's cool that's
that's a valid reason to stick with that
stack but a lot of times they don't have
it they've got situation I've got one
right now that I'm working with that
they they had this stuff that was built
by all these different developers it's
in two or three different languages and
we're just trying to like shrink it back
down uh there's another project we
actually almost went the other way we
had uh and you know I was working with
Timothy and so we had a stack that was
built on what he knew and I came in I
was like oh hey this thing would be
perfect to do in like this you know
little crud type thing be perfect to do
in D Jango and I start I was like no
wait we've just that's just added
language I said no let's swing back
around and we'll do like you know spring
boot instead because we can then keep
the the core Technologies in that Java
world that we had as opposed to doing it
somewhere else and you that's that's
where a lot of those go so I
think while we want to I think we're
almost better served to avoid the
technology question as long as we
can yeah that's a good point I mean it
circles back around even within the
testing world right when we talk
requirements we talk building software
you always talk about the story but the
story is really hyperfocused right
you're
the the story is to this particular
solution that you're trying to solve and
normally it's very small scale so it's
like you write a ticket you put in the
the story the description and let the
engineers go figure out how to implement
it in this case we're flipping that
right we have to understand the needs of
the customer what their problem is and
then explain how we can solve that or
how we can walk them through their
problem to get them to a solution to
suceed right ultimately that's the
bottom line that we're trying to solve
here is determining that story brand
that we can use to Market ourselves or
our companies
right yeah and I think that's and it
really is you've got
a it's there's not going to be one story
usually what you're end up doing is
you're going to have a story that has
all these little sub stories within it
and that's that's really where you do is
that's where you draw them in as you get
their primary story which is the the
primary pain point the primary need the
Urgent thing that has them talking to
you and then within that as you start
talking through that you're going to say
hey okay I get it let's like we're going
to take you through this and we're going
to solve this problem however in doing
so here's another little story of
something we're going to deal with you
know it's things like just customer
relate like crms are are nice and easy
because like hey we need to be able to
keep track of and talk to our customers
and you start talking about hey that's
great we're going to have a an
opportunity for you guys to add
customers but within that then you're
talking about things like the store
about and we want to talk about how are
your employees going to access those
customers maybe where the way you're set
up and sometimes you'll pitch it to them
sometimes you'll draw this out of them
but it's things like are your employees
remote do you need to log in do you have
multiple people do they need to work are
you going to have multiple employees
working a single account do you need to
have account managers do you need to
have structures your customers uh have
multiple contacts and and on and on and
on and really each of those those
questions in itself which is now goes
into the QA side of it really is that
now there's all those little stories and
those very hyperfocused detailed stories
but when you're talking up to your when
you're at the selling point where you're
like this is somebody that's signing the
checks signing your check in this case
if you're going to if they're going to
sign off and take on the project then
it's keeping it up at that high level
because yes they may want to come back
and learn those detailed stories but
initially it's really going to be sold
on one it's going to be sold on the big
story and two you're more times than not
you're you're going to be guessing those
stories initially because you you first
need to get the details from them so
that you can turn around and give them a
good solution again I say this just
because I've gotten burned by this in
times where I've gotten into calls and I
sales calls and I'll talk to a customer
and I'll get into something and start
sort of going down a you know sort of a
rabbit trail of like well there's this
and we can go solve it this way and it
takes away from the primary focus of hey
you have a pain Point Let's solve
it uh exactly and I've been in so many
of those situations where you start
talking to the customer and you they
have one problem but then it's like oh
well I have this and you kind of spiral
down it's like whoops you're
now kind of implementing a solution
before you really have all the details
right you really just need to kind of
keep it at that high level uh which is
what I'm focusing on right now is trying
to keep that QA assessment as the main
lead in to my company because really
unless you understand your QA um or how
the QA Works within your company you're
not going to be able to really Implement
a good QA solution which is why a QA
assessment necessary the problem I run
into though is especially with software
a lot of companies don't understand what
QA is so trying to define the problem in
a way that they understand it from a QA
perspective it is a little difficult um
for instance you made a comment you know
where QA would come in at the end you
know after you talk I say the QA should
be the discussion from the beginning
what is it the customers want are you
defining the requirements correctly when
you talk to your customers
and so it's kind of twofold it's I need
to understand my customer enough to
explain my solution to their story
whereas in their case they're trying to
sell their product to their customer or
their end user and they have to make
sure that they understand that they're
solving the problem for them so it's
almost the same but slightly different
where I'm trying to come out to them to
pull that information out from a user
persp perspective for how software Works
where in this case I'm trying to talk to
the customer or the end user in my case
as to how is your software you know what
is the quality of your software how do
you define quality how are you finding
problems or where is your problems
within your software you know what are
they seeing and what are the types of
questions they're asking you know from a
QA perspective there's lots of things I
can solve but what is the pro like I I
can solve this particular problem this
and the assessment solves a lot of
problems but how do I pitch that to a
customer does that make sense yeah and
that's exactly where I'm at is that in
an assessment you really are you're
looking at the the overall situation
there's a lot of things that you're
you're providing them with that and this
is what I'm working on right now
is instead of a a essentially a 30
minute sales call that just gives an
idea of an assessment and saying okay
this is this is why you need it and this
is where we can help you because just
same things you're running into is
there's there can be a level of
Education that's going on there and
that's really what we want to do down
the road you if we're having to educate
them then it like then it's going to be
tougher to sell instead what we should
be doing is solving a problem for them
and that's usually where I'm going to
come in and I've been working towards
this is so in a call or even in in the
some of the material it's more about
here's your are you running into this
are you running into this are you
running into this if you are this is
what the solutions are going to look
like it's going to be you know here's
your here's your
situations here's three different ways
that this is going to the solution is
going to look right you and usually and
it's it's sort of the same it's either
you're going to change something you're
GNA you know you're either going to stay
with what you've got and go over a cliff
you're going to buy something you're
going to enhance customize your thing um
or you're going to build something new I
mean it's say there's those are General
but that's basically what you're going
to run into and that's what I'm trying
to work on right now is instead of hey
you could do this you can do this you
can do this is get it more down to a
problem so what is your problem and it's
basically I'm thinking of a of a
essentially a script at this point
almost it's like you could throw at a at
a monkey almost although it's going to
be you know the outcome is obviously
going to have the skills behind it but
it's really you know what's your biggest
problem what is that why is it your big
biggest problem what is that cost you
and time and money and what are you how
long has this been going on and getting
that what is your environment what are
some of the constraints around that
problem and instead of getting into all
the ways we can help them is just focus
on that say this problem this is what it
looks like this is what the next steps
would be to solve that problem and I
think that's going to end up being a
essentially like a freebie that I give
them is sort of like a mini road map
that says you give me a problem we're
going to talk about it for 30 minutes
and the outcome is you're going to get a
series of recommendation you know
basically a road map of how do you
progress from here to address that
problem and whether it's you know
whether you come back to me and we do
stuff or you go to somebody else doesn't
matter but like now you've got those
steps and so you've gotten something and
ideally they'll like how it goes they
get to see how you work get to see how
you think they get to see the they get
to look at the kinds of recommendations
you have and that's the kind of stuff
that's going to draw them in hopefully
that's going to draw them in and sell
you know sell business but it's not i'
and I've I've talked to a couple people
that say you don't want to get into you
don't want to be educating people in the
in that initial sales call you want to
like bring them along and show them
instead of lecture them essentially and
say hey these are the things that you
should be doing and this is why in
instead you say what are your problems
let's fix them and then you can show
them that oh by the way because you
weren't doing this this is why this was
a problem and lead them you know that
way instead
particularly um I think from the QA
point of view is I think it's look at
what are you pick probably in your case
one or maybe you know three top uh
outcomes top problems that occur when QA
isn't there or is bad and then ask for
PE look for people that have that
problem and then go talk to them about
this is okay so this is your problem
let's talk about your situation and then
get enough information so that you can
talk very specifically about the problem
and about the solution that you
recommend for it does that make
sense yeah it does in fact I've been
trying to find some companies around
here uh that develop software have some
type of In-House software solution to
just open up the conversation like just
kind of maybe do not necessarily cold
call but just market research and say
hey what are you guys doing you know
what is your level of QA do you even
have QA uh you know how is your
application working how do you know it's
performing well things of those nature
uh I've even started looking at online
groups and that but that can be a little
tricky if you haven't quite nailed down
your target right because you could go
down the wrong Rabbit Hole of the wrong
group and then you're solving a problem
for essentially the wrong customer and
and that's kind of where I'm struggling
a lot because when I initially did the
website I wrote a challenging page right
I Define a bunch of different problems
that companies have and ways to to solve
it but then I added an additional page
for services which may be an injustice
to me uh and maybe I should just hide
that and just start stick with the
challenges as the stories right and
maybe even remove that page and just
move that to the front page and say
Here's with one or two or three like you
said and focus on that um I I like that
approach it's just getting that
conversation going with some of these
people can be hard because you know Cod
calls aren't the easiest thing in the
world but then also to be able to talk
to them in a way that can guide them uh
first to understand the problem and then
guide them through uh the discussion to
understand okay here is what's going on
here is what you need for a solution or
here is how what we offer can help
improve your
situation yeah and I we're going we're
hitting it on time a little bit here so
we'll wrap this one up but I think the a
parting thought on that is
to with the the questions the challenges
that you're seeing that you're going to
introduce people to when they they get
to your website or your LinkedIn page or
your wherever it is wherever you're
advertising yourself essentially
wherever your services are at I think
what you want to do more is yeah you
want to you want to nail the problem you
want them to be like wow that's exactly
the question I'm s asking myself or
that's exactly the problem I'm I'm
running into but instead of giving them
a solution is your solution should Point
them to talking to you so that you can
at the very least I'm and again I've
talked about before I am overly nice in
how I've shared out information stuff
like that over the years and what I've
provided to customers and often I've
been told I don't I don't charge enough
and all that kind of stuff but still
even there I figure if I'm talking to
them then I at least have a conversation
going I at least have the ability to try
to get see if we're going to work
together well as a as a a vendor and
employ a customer and get that
personality side of it to see if that's
going to work and so if I give them a
you know some of a solution or something
like that then it's like okay hey at
least you've invested your time to talk
to me so I'm going to pay you back by
giving you some sort of a solution
instead of just like continuing to drag
you on and I think that's it is where
you don't you don't want to you you
don't want to answer it too easy and and
maybe it is unless it's super easy and
that's where you look at like where is a
c where would I have a potential
customer that they have the problem but
their solution is so easy that it's just
not worth it's not worth my time and
like think about it in code it could be
somebody comes to you and they're they
want to build some you know their idea
is I want to build a website in a
database and instead what they really
just need is you know maybe like
WordPress and they can do it themselves
those kind of things so maybe you have
like
a some sort of like a a filtering kind
of thing or something like oh by the way
and maybe it's as you ask questions if
you're this then you can just go right
here here's a link knock yourself out
shoot me an email if you have questions
because then it's basically like hey
maybe I'll find out about them but
really
I don't want to spend much time on them
because I'm never going to be I wouldn't
you know it take me a half hour an hour
and it's not worth the transactions the
billable times and all that and the non
the overhead for that so I think you you
want to keep keep that in mind as you're
putting your your questions in your what
you are offering to sell yourself out on
your on your site or your page wherever
it happens to be uh final thoughts from
you yeah those are good points Rob yeah
the biggest thing uh it's especially for
anyone watching or listening to this is
what we're discussing here is what we go
through all the time I mean a lot of
this is not just us you know you're
probably watching this because you're
running through these same struggles the
trick is to ask these types of questions
you know reach out to us if you have
these kinds of problems and we can try
to help you it takes a discussion not a
silo approach to solve these problems
you're going to need to talk to people
to figure out what the customer wants
what your ideal customer is cuz like Rob
said you don't necessarily want that
quick and easy customer but what you
also don't want is a customer that your
solution isn't even quite the right
solution and you end up with a customer
with all these problems or all these
headaches because they're not getting
what they feel they're the worth is
they're not getting their money's worth
for it so be very careful with that but
also you know talk to people you have to
have these discussions you can't just
sit there and just say hey I'm gonna
solve x without understanding who X is
for and what the problem really
is that's good point is it goes back to
know your customer have that Avatar know
what your what your goal is and what
your focus is because otherwise you'll
you'll end up just taking on whatever
you can and a lot of times those do not
those don't end well I mean maybe you
get some money out of them or you break
even or whatever but a lot of times the
stress and the other things even if you
have a very profitable customer can be
more than you want to so as always as we
wrap this one up if you have any
questions Sho us an email at info@
developer.com check out the site
developer.com check out our YouTube
channel that is YouTube develop andur
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also develop andur and just you know let
us know or you know leave drop us a line
whatever you want to do any questions
comments suggestions anything like that
because we're here for you as well as
obviously working through our own little
personal problems and business problems
as we have these conversations as always
go out there and have yourself a great
day a great week and we will talk to you
next
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