Does Your Product or Service Really Deliver What Clients Want?

Understanding the Real Needs of Your Clients and Learn How to Respond

23/10/2024
Know-how

Some say that good marketing and a strong sales process can sell even a subpar product or service. While this might work in some cases, it’s not a strategy you want to rely on—especially if it doesn’t work for you. Besides, wouldn’t you rather hear your clients say, “Wow, I love your product!”?

This article will guide you through crafting a product or service that truly resonates with your clients. Learn how to identify real client needs, ensure your offering delivers genuine value, and build something that earns enthusiastic praise like, “OMG! I can’t imagine living without this!”

Do They Really Need What You Want to Give Them?

As an entrepreneur or a manager responsible for a company’s strategic development, your mission is to deliver a solution to the market that solves your future clients’ problems. That’s the equation for success: if their problem is solved, they’re more likely to buy from you. But how do you know what they really need? It all starts with identifying real problems.

Understanding the Nature of People’s Problems

Temporary Problems – These are issues that may impact many people but only for a short time. For instance, a seasonal business like a ski resort solves a temporary problem—entertainment during winter—but it requires careful planning to sustain profitability. Ask yourself: is this problem persistent enough to sustain a viable business over time?

Low priority problems – problems that but they are not enough pain points to make clients really think and will to solve them. For example and it doesn’t neccessarily mean that if you deliver XYZ you will find clients that makes you profitable.

Problems for a Small Group of People – A problem may deeply affect a small group of individuals, making it a significant pain point for them. However, if the target audience is too narrow, the market may not be large enough to support a sustainable business. Assess whether the problem’s scope justifies your investment.

Unknown or Unclear Problems – Some problems exist, but potential clients may not yet be aware of them or fully understand their impact. These issues often correlate with market timing and resources. For example, some complex business solutions solve significant issues, but clients don’t recognize the value until after extensive marketing or education efforts. Building a business in this area requires a strategy to raise awareness and justify higher marketing expenses.

Your goal is to objectively identify the type of problem your product or service addresses and assess whether it’s significant enough to build a sustainable business around.

Does My Product or Service Really Solve the Problem My Potential Clients Have, or Do I Just Think So?

One of the most common challenges when delivering value to clients is perception. Many founders and managers often convince themselves that their solution genuinely solves a problem, but here’s the thing: it’s your perspective. Your clients may see things differently, even if it feels frustrating. Instead of getting upset about it, let’s explore how you can approach this and improve your product or service.

Real Problem Identification – The first task here is to identify problems that are objectively declared by potential clients—problems that can be verified as real pain points for others.

Maybe the Problem Isn’t the Problem – A common mistake is trying to convince yourself that people really have the problem you think they have. We’ve all had that „Eureka!” moment with a business idea, but there’s a trap. We might end up convincing ourselves that the problem we’re solving truly exists, but when viewed objectively, it may not be a problem at all. It’s crucial to validate that the problem is real and widespread.

Or Maybe It’s Already Solved – The next step is to verify if the problem has already been solved. If someone else is already solving it, there may not be enough room in the market for a new player tackling the same issue. Unless your product or service offers something truly unique or innovative, reconsider whether the market is saturated.

Alternatives and Competitive Solutions – Even if you determine there is space for your product or service, you must evaluate how your competitors are solving the problem and whether clients are already choosing alternative solutions. Understanding this is essential for the next stage of designing and positioning your product or service. If your competitors are already doing a good job, you’ll need to figure out what differentiates you.

start building your solution How my prod. or service responds to clients problems

Alright, so you know what problems your clients has, you know how they already deal with them and what are the options on the market and you are pretty sure you can do better for them. Now it’s time to start crafting your product or service. Let’s consider what to figure out while crafting your prod. or service.

Start with list of identified needs and build second one with list of features that your product or service will deliver.

General vision – start with general perspective and then narrow it to see how your prod. or service will respond to the identified problems. Build a concept of it and try . It’s good to start backwords – what problem will be solved – what effect and value my cleitns need to receive in order to do so, what my clients except to happen in the process of delivering value – how we gonna do it.

Step by step response – once you describe how you will help your future clients solve their problems, then you need to set what will you start with. You need to assess your capabilities and then try to assess realisticly what will you be able to do. If you are short on resurces you need to chose which featrue will have the bigges impact and help clients most at the beginning – in other words which pain point is most important.

Assess if you are able to deliver full value – also consider that your organization may not be able to deliver full value of your solution – for example marketing may not be able to teach clients about value of your solution and even if you build it and deliver you may not have enough of resources to show people how to use it and they may not see the value.

Understanding how you solution works – in regards to the previous point you should understand what makes that your prod. or service provides value sometimes its not only prod or service but also some „soft” things like community that must be built or some specify people in your org. or partners. So you need to make sure you will be able to provide full value to solve the problem.

Understanding solution nature – you will also understand the nature of your product or service and how it solves the problem

You Can’t Be 100% Sure—But You Can Play the Odds

Remember, that even after considering all the factors above, you can never guarantee that your product or service will captivate everyone. However, you can significantly increase the odds that your audience will love what you offer.

It’s essential to remember that the work doesn’t end once your product or service hits the market. Even if people are buying from you, continuous monitoring is key. Regularly assess how your offering is performing, taking into account the same factors you used during development. This ongoing evaluation ensures you remain aligned with your clients’ needs and can adapt as necessary to maintain your competitive edge.

Building the solution - resources, your org. capabilities, type of problem you solving - planning what and how will build

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Lean approach – It will be also helpful if you need to build an mvp or other type of limited solution to eliminate what is crucial in this fundamental version of it

Are You Sure Your Product or Service Meets Your Clients' Needs?

There’s no guaranteed way to be 100% certain that your product, service, or solution will perfectly meet your clients’ needs. However, you can greatly improve your chances by taking the right steps.

We’re excited to share our tool with you—a resource designed to guide you through a thorough review of your product or service. Let us help you align your offering with what your clients truly want and need.

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