We can't all be the best.

I’ve been in the world of brand and communications since I was 11 years old if you count the weekly village paper round when I had to insert various promotional leaflets into each paper prior to despatching it through the 200 odd houses. I can remember those leaflets which advertised plumbing services and double glazing, insurance and all manner of other products and services. They would include large bold text and make big claims about being UNBEATABLE and BEST VALUE. Being the best was a common thread amongst all these promotions as I recall and that seems to be a marketing claim from which many businesses continue to deploy as the main headline and reason for you to trust them.

Although I have spent over thirty years within brand and marketing, I have only been in and around the world of software and SaaS for a relatively short time and I have only really started to get into the detail of marketing this sector over the last few months. On researching our own (ClearCourse) brands and their positioning, go to market messaging and communications and on looking out to all manner of competitors within the SaaS space it’s been noticeable just how many organisations still rely on claiming to be the best and to have the best software, platform, CRM etc. It’s an impossibility that they could all have the best offering, and, in many ways, it seems ludicrous to make this claim without having a thorough understanding of what it is the potential client / user is looking to solve and achieve.

I started thinking last night about how human beings court each other to embark on a relationship and I considered how far you might get if your opening lines started with ‘I’m the best cook, best travel companion, best potential husband, best lover, best potential father’ etc. I’m not sure that these claims would be believed or if it would captivate the intended audience with the intended results. Worthwhile relationships happen over time as two people get to understand each other’s personalities and idiosyncrasies and discover whether they’re likely to be compatible.

It strikes me that the building of relationships between organisations and their SaaS providers are not that different to those of potential (life) partners. I go back to my point of how stating to be the best for the potential user is a speculative and inaccurate claim when you do not yet know what they think they need or want. It is only through the discovery and discussion that you can gain a clear understanding of their requirements which then places you in a strong position to be able to properly specify a solution and recommend the direction, strategy, platform, and solution that will be fit-for-purpose and future proof the organisation.

It would be better at the discovery stage of the buying process for SaaS providers to only make firm claims about what they know they’re great at. These claims might be around their people or their discovery and research processes being the best. It might be that they feel they have an exceptionally strong development team or the most communicative and proactive Account Managers or their migration methodology and implementation are second to none. There should be aspects of any organisation that they believe to be best-in-class and those USPs should be actively promoted and continually published. To simply claim to have ‘the best CRM’ is too basic and it’s almost certainly not true as what is fit and proper for one organisation will differ from another.

There may be situations where the SaaS provider is so well versed within their vertical that they are truly a specialist. If this is the case then they have the right to claim to be the best but will importantly communicate 'who it is' they are the best for. This SaaS provider may outline on the home page of their website that they're the best solution for a specific type client and in this instance it could be right and proper to claim to be the best.

?