You are more than your product

I have been at Inbound 2023 this year, and it’s been a great experience. Partnership development has been a common message at Inbound this year, and it makes total sense.

A group of us had a discussion the night before about Marketing Strategy, and I wanted to share my thoughts.

Now, at the time, I was using bar napkins and beer bottles along with wild midnight gesturing to paint my strategic concept of what I like to call “Hero and Mission Alignment.”… for you, I will use some illustrations. They are much more fun. ??

Let’s start with our company. By our company, I mean your company. Use your own perspective here.

We sell products and services and often talk to our customers about them as if they are the only part of our world. We align them very deliberately with our customer’s specific pain points, and we do a good job at this. Solving for a pain is likely a band-aid to a bigger problem. That one pain point is a hurdle or a roadblock to a greater Mission your customer is trying to accomplish.

The thing is, we are more than our products and services.

In order to create the products and services we offer, we have to have a breadth of knowledge and experience that is greater than our products and services. A lot of companies do not leverage this experience in a way that adds value to their customer’s Mission. They take it for granted.

This experience and knowledge should be leveraged to add value to your customer’s Mission- positioning you as a thought leader.

Beyond that, you have and should be developing relationships that not only help your business but also help you become a better solutions provider to your customers.

Now we can add even more value to our customer’s journey, and we are demonstrating more and more that we are a thought leader for the Mission our customer is trying to accomplish.

If you shift your perspective to that of your customer, you will better see the value you need to offer.