Escaping the “Better Product Cult”

Escaping the “Better Product Cult”

It hit me like a lightning bolt after our product leader repeated his usual line about the superiority of our products…

Immediately after the meeting, I beelined it for my desk and quickly opened every file we had worked on for the last year.?

As I looked, my worst fears were confirmed…

Staring back at me through the computer screen were brochures dripping in incrementally improved product features, me-too market category descriptions, and endless lines of copy that seemed to wheeze out dryly:

“we’re the same as the other guys, but better.”?

By then, I had become obsessed with the idea that our customer needed to be the central figure in our marketing message, not our product.?

I knew that logically, but somehow it hadn’t translated to the work my team was putting out. Until that day, I hadn’t realized just how focused our company was on proving that we had “the best product.”

…and looking around agtech, I realized that we were not alone. Most of our competition was doing the same thing.

It was like we had gotten ahold of the same playbook, and we were following it with the religious conviction of zealots.

We had all bought into the fallacy that “the best product wins.”?

The Journey From “What” to “Who”

This discovery had started years before when I was working at a Fortune 100 company. The company had a significant position in its market, but we were in love with our products, not the customers those products were intended to serve.

If you had asked me then, I would have blamed my frustration with our marketing on big, clunky company culture, but I quickly learned that wasn’t it…

I went on a mission to devour as many books, podcasts, courses, and speeches on marketing as possible. I spent years learning and applying principles from the brightest minds in marketing, and I had some solid success.

But I always had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that something could be better, that the way we were doing things wasn’t quite right; it felt like somehow, we were missing the mark. Years passed, and I felt like I was circling a big realization.

Then one day, it happened. In a seemingly mundane meeting, years of frustration and searching converged into a single question that rang out in my mind:?

“If we make the best product ever and no one knows about it, is it really the best product?”

The answer was clearly “no.”

The Moment Everything Changed

At that moment, everything seemed to click into place. I realized that the perception of our product WAS our product.?

Our team kept repeating, “we have a better product than company x,” and it wasn’t penetrating our target customers because we failed to tell a different story. We were card-carrying members of the better product cult

In our haste to be recognized as a player in our market, we started where our competition’s product ended, not where our customer’s problems began.?

In short, we were out of touch with our target market, and we didn’t even realize it.?As I looked, I couldn’t help but see the signs everywhere:

  • All our marketing material ended in ‘-er’; better, faster, smarter, and on and on…
  • We anchored our value on the market incumbents, forcing us to compete for their existing demand with a “better” product and a “better” brand in their market category.?

Stories That Differentiate

We were ignoring the fact that the most successful technology companies we intended to emulate, like Facebook, Twilio, or Apple, had effectively marketed their products by writing a story with seven key elements:

  1. The protagonist: the customer.?
  2. The setting: the competitive context.?
  3. A customer insight: an obstacle or challenge this customer faces.??
  4. The central conflict: the definition and explanation of the problem.
  5. The customer aspiration: the value proposition.
  6. The plot: an explanation of how the product works.?
  7. Success: the result we want to give the customer.?

If you don’t believe me, I have one question for you – have you ever heard of the social platform Tribe Networks? Probably not.

They launched around the same time as Facebook, but Tribe waited for users to write that story instead of telling a story for their customers to participate in.

Tribe launched around the same time as Facebook, but they failed to give their customers a reason to share the product with their friends and colleagues. In contrast, Facebook succeeded (think of Facebook’s relationship status feature… which was built-in marketing).

Similarly, when Twilio CEO, Jeff Lawson, wrote his book, he didn’t title it “Twilio: The Programmable Communication Tool Builder.” Yuck.

No, he called it “Ask Your Developer” because that MARKETING MESSAGE articulated the point of view Twilio held. Their organizational belief system was to let your development team operate as a strategic business unit.

And I don't need to remind you of the legendary storytelling of Steve Jobs. Google it or scroll through your LinkedIn feed for a minute - you'll probably find an example.

Each of these products is fantastic, but more importantly, the companies behind them told stories that resonated with their customer base.

The Lies of the “Better Product Cult”

For years, the teams I worked on had, often subconsciously, bought into one of the following beliefs of those in the “better product cult”:

  • “We have the best product. Why can’t the customers see that?”
  • “We have made this thing, and it’s so cool; let’s find out how customers might use it.”
  • “Once this market matures and gets smarter, they’ll realize how much better we are.”
  • “Marketing is what you do when selling vapor-ware or a crappy product.”

The truth is that the market can’t see how great your product is because you’re hiding it behind the competition; no one cares yet that you made your product, and they’re probably not looking to show you how it’s valuable to them; you need to lead the market and prove how valuable your product is; marketing is an extension of your product that contextualizes its value.?

Don’t let your product sink to the level of a one-size-fits-all commodity. Don’t allow yourself to be pulled into a competition with every other player in your space. Don’t answer the call of perpetual mediocrity. Don’t buy into the lie that the best product always wins.

I escaped the “better product cult,” and you can too. Trust me. It’s way better on the outside.

Make something different. Make people care. Make fans, not followers.

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