, , , , , ,

Book Review: The Mom Test

We’re doing a lot of customer discovery work right now at SalesWise. We’ve built a great platform with strong enthusiasts, but we need to keep evolving to help our customers do what they do best. Helpful, then, when a colleague recommended I check out The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. Rob describes the book simply:

“How to talk to customer and learn if your business is a good idea when everybody is lying to you”

You may have a notion of what the book is about, but it’s likely not that – not just about target audiences in customer discovery. It’s both more general in its approach and more specific in asking the right questions to get the most useful input.
What I liked most about this book was its focus on tactics. Many books like the Lean Startup, the Challenger Sale, etc. are great at shaping your conceptual thinking. They’re great frameworks. However, they aren’t as tactical as what I found in Fitzpatrick’s book – a welcome change of pace. Plus, I can always ask better questions.
  • The gist of The Mom Test is to get beyond compliments and to facts. Most people provide what you want to hear – spare your feelings. They’ll tell you how great your idea is. They’ll tell you to keep them in the loop for when you launch. When it comes time to launch or buy, they don’t. Instead, ask for specific examples of how they accomplish tasks today. Ask for real problems – examples. Ask how problems affect them. Ask for facts.
  • “Why do you bother?” An interesting question here. It’s a question to get at the effects/ impacts folks run into. Get to the “why” and “how is that important”. “It’s important for me to know how productive my team is”, “I have to run reports daily on employee overtime”, etc. Impact sheds light on value.
  • Don’t talk about the idea. When gathering feedback, it’s important to not lead the audience. Ask questions about the current situation that your product/ service (idea) may solve for. Ask for impacts. Ask how they currently solve the problem you hope to solve. How has the audience tried to solve the problem – have they found other solutions? If they haven’t, why? Maybe it’s not a big problem after all…
  • Bad is good. That is, if the multiple folks in your market reiterates they have a fine solution, and they say their problem happens only so often, that’s good. If they says they don’t bother to look for a new solution, that’s good. Yes, you may want to show off your idea and try to convince them why your idea will save their lives. However, if the signs are not looking good, this is good feedback. Maybe you shouldn’t actually pursue this idea after all. Pursue another opportunity with better traction and viability.
  • Have conversations. Fitzpatrick highlighted the importance of having “conversations” rather than interviews or meetings. Approaching casually enables the dialogue to flow with honesty and buy-in.
  • Meetings are only productive when there is learning and/ or clear next steps. This is already highlighted in countless sales books. Even if the next step is not to move forward – again, moving on is a good thing. Get commitments and advances – time, money, or reputation (e.g. introductions).
  • Democratize feedback to get alignment and provoke thought leadership. Withholding input from conversations challenges creativity, problem-solving, etc. Share feedback across leadership, teams, etc. – transparency or democratization of insights.
  • Segmentation is critical to success – addressing a target audience to ensure a product/ service has a market. If there are too many different responses, take a sub-segment till you have cohesive feedback. Too many responses could mean too wide of a market which could lead to too many solutions. Then, no segment actually gets satisfied.

The book could use a professional editor. There are quite a few typos and misspellings. Normally, this stuff distracts the heck out of me losing a lot of credibility. However, the book’s points and lessons were great. Thus, I highly recommend this book. 

/by
, , , , , ,

Entrepreneur Interview (pt 1) – A Grammy Award-Winning Sound Engineer

For fun today, I decided to speak to a friend who is a Grammy-award winning sound engineer and producer. He’s freelancing working with some incredible talents including an artist who boasts more than 300 million records sold. Given he works in Atlanta, he’s now taking on sound engineering work for the many film and television series. Needless to say, he’s quite successful. I’ll keep his name hidden for now, but wanted to share with you a few of his insights as to why he enjoys freelancing vs. working with a record label and the like.

So why do you freelance?
Love the freedom, hate the insecurity.

Any lessons or advice for others who are looking to freelance, too?
“Weather the storm: think long-term.”
He continues, “Think in-terms of years, not months. You can’t look at the financial status on a year-to-year basis. There will be months that go real well, but there will be months with no money.”
“In some industries, you don’t know what your good months or bad months are. It can go year-to-year.”
Reflecting on the unpredictable nature of freelancing (and perhaps very much associated with the music industry), “No way to predict it”. He points out how even this August, he can’t definitely say he’ll be able to take a vacation.

It doesn’t stop there…
“Even though you work for yourself, you’re at the whim of your client.” This is an important note a lot of people forget about when they toy with the idea of going solo. Being a freelancer or a CEO of your company does not mean you are truly your own boss. The people who pay you is ultimately who you must be accountable to.
“You have to make yourself available to them, or else they’ll go to the next person.” He laments how competition is always there ready to fill a position should he not be able to do the work. For his clients, they still need to produce music to be relevant. Thus, they’ll go to someone who can/ will do it.
“In some ways, you have more freedom and less freedom. Does give more flexibility on a day-to-day basis. But this also depends on the non-9-5 job.”

What’s more specialized for you in the music industry [versus a “normal”, non-entertainment industry]?
He continues highlighting the importance of servicing his clients – “Always there to serve the artist.”
In fact, he cites how professionals in the industry are “really only as good as your recent work.” This dictates your relationships and reputation.
As such, he points out the importance of network and having uncompromising work quality – “Letting other people know what you do, and you’re available to work with them. When you accept a job, you put in 100% effort to make sure the end-product is the best it can be.”
“Some people, work towards the budget – ‘small budget, small amount of work’.” However, when his name is attached to it, it’s his reputation.
“Compromises affect reputation.”

Any recommendations for people to do when they listen to music? Anything you want to point out so listeners know what or how else to appreciate music?
“Listen to music for enjoyment.”
He reflects how it’s his job to listen to the “snare for 10 minutes”. He’s putting a puzzle of rhythms, acoustics, instruments, and the like into a “cohesive, single” song. It’s a lot of hard work that he pores over, and hopes everyone listens and enjoy the artistry.
/by
, , , ,

Interviewing 102: Aligning on a Mission

In 1914, Ernest Shackleton wrote a job posting for his ship’s crew members for his voyage to Antarctica. It read something like this –
(photo cred: http://seamlessbrand.blogspot.com/2011/01/hiring-like-shackleton.html)
Ernest received over 5,000 applicants, and eventually hired 26 men (+1 stowaway) for his voyage to the icy continent.
The incredible part of this story isn’t how many applicants would wantingly apply. Instead, it’s that the ship never made it to Antarctica. 10 months after setting out, the waters around the ship turned to ice, trapping the ship and its crew. The crew split to seek help, and extraordinarily, all 27 crew members survived and made it back two years after they launched! That’s incredible.
I bring this up as the follow-up to my last post — Interviewing 101 – No Hypotheticals and Go Deeper. Having read the Shackleton story (“Endurance”) in Simon Sinek’s Start With Why, I’m integrating a similar idea in my hiring process.
Sales is hard. It takes 6-8 touches to reach a prospect these days. That number has potential to grow given the number of sales tools in the market. Read: there’s a lot of noise to get a prospect’s attention.
Also, working at a startup is hard. You wear many hats, and you can work long into the night and on the weekends. Success isn’t guaranteed. It’s not as glamorous as others make it out to be.
Couple sales at a startup, and the intensity and difficulty amplify. As a sales rep, you’re challenged with prospects’ uneasiness of viability of the company, low brand recognition, a nascent product (or you have a substitutable product in a highly competitive space), etc. You don’t have the benefit of marketing and sales ops teams tinkering to make success even more successful. Maybe the startup hasn’t even hit product-market fit… It’s tough.
In terms of sales, working at an early startup can be akin to traversing to Antarctica in 1914. To that point, I want to dig into what drives candidates. Why do them want to be a sales rep at a startup? I want to know if the candidate is financially motivated. I want to know if the candidate is purpose motivated. I want to know if the candidate is competition motivated. Does the candidate hope to use this experience to build her own startup one day? I want to know the candidate can not only can handle the pressure and the difficulty, but I want to know she wantsto. Does she embrace the challenge?
The key to all this, too, isn’t just about hiring and finding someone who will be a sales rock star for the company. The co-key, if you will, is being a company where the candidate will be successful. A candidate is investing his time and energy with us. The candidate could be forgoing higher pay and simple life. Burning out or leaving after 3 months is not good for any of us. The candidate will be an integral part of the team. When I hire, it’s not just about company. It’s about the candidate. It’s about how we, as a company can help the candidate achieve his WHY and his PURPOSE. It’s about how I can enable him to be successful.
/by