Regardless of whether you are selling a product or selling your business it is important to make sure you understand what the customer is buying.
An early mentor of mine by the name of Ron Muns had a business that developed software to track a company’s assets. After sales began to ramp up to unexpected companies he discovered that businesses were not using his software for its designed asset-tracking purposes. He discovered that his software was being purchased by third party computer maintenance companies to track their clients’ computer configurations and to track repairs.
He ultimately made a few minor design changes and his software soon became the dominant help desk software tool of the day. Later, he discovered that a new breed of company was buying his software. He found out they were using his database engine and layering it with some of their own custom software so that they could keep track of sales calls as opposed to assets.
My mentor made another minor design change and created the first widely accepted Contact Relationship Manager (CRM) application.
A marginally successful lumberyard was listed for sale. The seller thought he was selling his struggling lumberyard business, so he listed it at a discounted price due to the business’ marginal performance. The buyer of the lumberyard had no intention of keeping the lumberyard after the purchase. What the buyer was buying was the land, which happened to have a deep water dock which the buyer needed. The buyer would have been willing to pay much more for the lumberyard than the list price to gain access to the dock.
By not knowing what your customers are buying you may be leaving value on the table.
Are you sure you know how your customers are using your products?
