When does a fact become a pain point?

Marketing is becoming more and more personalized and, as marketers, we all start to care about customers' pains more than about our solutions.

Just kidding! Of course, the solution comes first, but the pain makes our customers search for a solution and find us, so our job is to make sure they can recognize themselves in our communications.

Honestly, nobody cares about the solution - all we care about is not living in pain, but that's not how you sell your marketing campaign to a stakeholder.

Here's a pain point template that works for me.

Step 1: Is this a pain point or just a fact?

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I struggle with [Fact].

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“I struggle with a [lack of automation]."

You can do nothing about this fact even though it sounds like someone is in pain:

Who struggles?

What does ‘struggle’ mean?

What is enough automation?

Why manual doesn’t work?

You don‘t know where to start to solve it.

Step 2: Fact becomes a pain when it blocks you from achieving your goal

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I want [Desired Outcome], but struggle with [Pain Point].

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I want to [launch targeted marketing campaigns faster], but struggle with a [lack of automation]."

Goal narrows down the focus and provides draft definition of acceptance criteria: if we‘ve achieved the goal, then we’ve successfully solved the pain point.

Step 3: What makes this goal important?

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Because [Trigger Event], I want [Desired Outcome], but struggle with [Pain Point].

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"Because [we are preparing for a major product launch], I want to [launch targeted marketing campaigns faster], but struggle with a [lack of automation]."

Every goal has a trigger that affects the timeline, resources and level of attention that solving the pain will get. This is the change that helps you to prioritize the initiatives and pain points associated with each of them.

Step 4: Okay, but what if we do nothing?

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Because [Trigger Event], I want [Desired Outcome], but struggle with [Pain Point], leading to [Consequences of Not Acting].

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"Because [we are preparing for a major product launch], I want to [launch targeted marketing campaigns faster], but struggle with a [lack of automation], leading to [missed opportunities and lower conversion rates]."

Not acting upon the fact we’ve been living with up until now is always an option, so why would we? This is what makes a blocker a true pain - the price of not dealing with it - which is why it should ultimately mean money.

Step 5: Fine, Houston, we have a problem! Who’s in charge?

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Because [Trigger Event], as a [Job Title], I want [Desired Outcome], but struggle with [Pain Point], leading to [Consequences of Not Acting], making it essential for [Stakeholder/ Budget Holder] to support the solution due to [Specific Influence].

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"Because [we are preparing for a major product launch], as the [Marketing Director], I want to [launch targeted marketing campaigns faster], but struggle with a [lack of automation], leading to [missed opportunities and lower conversion rates], making it essential for the [Chief Revenue Officer] to support the solution due to [decreased overall revenue growth]."

If you’re selling to businesses, not end users, you will always have to deal with at least two people: one in charge of the solution, and the other one - in charge of the budget. Make sure you know and address all stakeholders‘ points of view.

I believe that a true pain point sounds a lot like a user story, even if you do services, not products. Because it gives you a scenario you can use to structure landing pages and blog posts, case studies, and webinar agendas.

One caveat: each of the templates above can help you structure the materials of different levels of generalization – from the most general used to do broad keyword research, to the most specific giving a structure to a case study or a pitch deck.

Position Statement Template To Ensure Alignment Across the Org

Have you ever checked how many different stories your marketeers and sales people tell when it comes to pitching the services that you offer? Do they have a clear understanding when to make that pitch and to whom? How much do you loose in revenue because your teams are not enabled to recognize customer's need correctly or can't communicate the value your product provides clearly?

Position Statement should be an actionable artifact, not a dusty long manuscript that no one ever reads.

This is a tool that is in the core of your marketing efforts and driving sales motion, it allows you to have a unified powerful narrative across all the customer touch points be it your blogs, 1:1 discovery meetings, Google Ads, or conference speeches. This is how you align end-to-end from first marketing piece through sales, delivery and up to the customer support.

Here's a Position template to make your product statement include something useful for everyone on the team while also building a single narrative that is easy to communicate.

Position Statement Template Components

Target Audience

Always start with the user

Users should be able to recognize your solution as their "painkiller" so make sure you speak their language. Learn from conversations with them and quote their responses as much as possible.

Then think broader and include those who can be a deal breaker from the buying perspective.

Make sure you equip your users with enough info about the value you provide so they can fight for you in rooms you're not invited to.

Understand your customer's context, reasoning, and motivations

Always analyze what was the last straw that broke the camel's back and brought your customer to you. Those triggers are the foundation for a more powerful offering enabling your:

• marketeers to tailor the messaging based on what is in your target audience's immediate attention span keeping them up at night;

• lead generation specialists to have a creative filter to browse companies for the outreach;

• teams to have in-depth conversations learning from every interaction with all clients.

Learn to ask the open-ended questions about the background. Things like "why you think your team needs this", "how did you come to this conclusion", "why now", "who and why is in charge of this initiative", "who else is impacted by this situation", etc. can help you meet your customers where they are, not where you want them to be.

The generated insights are not only your guides to fine-tune the product, they are a source for your experiments: new messaging, new target segments, new channels, etc.

Goals and Pains always go together

If your customers did not have a goal they wouldn't have had the pains as they become visible and hurtful enough when you can't achieve what you want.

If they didn't have pains and were capable of accomplishing the task themselves, why would they need you, right? Learn to identify those pairs.

Product Definition

When filling out this section try relying on the "Golden Circle" approach and incorporate the following angles:

• The Why (Purpose): Articulate why the product exists and why customers should care. This isn't about making a profit—that's a result. It's about the core belief that motivates the purchase beyond features or benefits.

• The How (Process): Outline how the product fulfills the company's purpose.

• The What (Product): Describe what it is that you actually sell to your customers.

The Product Section is your way to ensure consistency.

Use it so that no one on the team invents their own story, promise something that your product doesn't do, or keep the expectations unrealistic damaging your net promoter score later.

This is your basis for RFPs, demos, one-pagers and slide decks. This is your tool to keep everyone focused and able to break your product down both from technical and value.

Customer Journey

The last section is an optional one, but can be really powerful if you want to up your game as it adds details and links and layers to your messaging and product delivery.

Here's how:

1. Include quotes from your target persona that speak to their triggers, pain points, goals, and motivations. Real conversations with customers can yield insights that resonate more deeply than any market research and provide hints on how the needs can be met with more than just one offering. Tools like Gong can capture the language giving you authentic material for your marketing and sales copy.

2. Make sure your own products are not cannibalizing each other. Selling the right thing to the right audience is a tough task: but if you learn to differentiate between the offers it can accelerate your sales cycles, enable you to speak better to various segments, and organize your service or product catalog to accommodate for easy trials as well as for long-term and expensive deals.

3. Always have a teaser for the next step. With the initial need met what your other services naturally follow? If your product is a starting point, what complementary products or services can enhance and extend the customer's experience? This is how you maximize your customers' lifetime value. And this is your basis for website customer journeys too.

By covering these aspects thoroughly, you put your product into the context that resonates with customer needs, aligns with their growth, and paves the way for a long-term relationship. This approach ensures that when you tell the story of your product, it's not just a list of features or benefits but a narrative that fits seamlessly into your customers' lives.

Hero's Arc, Not A Customer Journey: How to Become Your Customer's Guiding Sage

Who's the leading hero in your business story? Is it you or your customer? If you choose random 5 texts from your website - what would be the ratio of you talking about how good you are vs your customer's context, triggers, pain points and goals?

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Customers come to you because they can't continue their life the way they did before. They pay attention to what you have to say only when you realize that your role is to help them embrace their adventure and come out of it as a transformed, better version of themselves, their team or their organization. And when you start acting accordingly.

Here's a short guide on how to become your customer's Yoda or Gandalf, whichever you like best.

The Drivers of Your Customer Story

In every customer's chronicle, there is a fundamental force driving their narrative. It's a quest for something vital—a quest for mastery, for clarity, for development, or for innovation, but eventually for revenue growth. Opposing this drive is an antagonistic presence—a shadow of doubt, stagnation, or inefficacy. The saga unfolds as your customers realize that the negative values are overtaking their routine and they cannot continue sticking to it.

Then and only then they begin their journey from the darkness of this void into the light of their desired state. And they seek help.

When Things Are Okay… Until They're Not

Customers are usually fine with small problems as, honestly, - no system is perfect and businesses literally exist because we have issues and we need someone smart to help us deal with them.

But sometimes, a problem so big comes along that your customers can't ignore it anymore. This one thing no matter how tiny it may seem from the outside makes enough people in the company recognize the threat and that actions must be taken to prevent the consequences.

That's their call to action. That's where you have to meet them.

The Symptoms vs. The Root Cause

What makes a small problem into a big one?

It could be something big changing in your customer's world, or a bunch of little things adding up over a period of time but this is when your customers will start telling their story. These are the challenges they recognize and are trying to beat - the dragons they see and want to slay.

But just like in a joke about a group of blind men who have never seen an elephant before but are trying to describe what shape an elephant has by touching it - they might not see the whole picture at first. Their 'vision' is impaired by a myriad of factors, like their experience, level of seniority, and expertise to the corporate culture and ways of working that were acceptable before the change.

Enough Storyboarding..

People always choose the easy fix. The problem is that easy fixes usually address the symptoms not the elephant in the room, iywim.

Sometimes you do need just a patch, but more often than not the patch will make the problem even more complicated because in a while you end up having a root cause and a bunch of solutions made with baling wire and duct tape. The consequences of tearing one of them down are unpredictable and your customer gets scared to take any action at all.

Here's where they should DEFINITELY find you. Step in, not just with tools, but with wisdom that shines a light on the path forward.

The New World And How To Get There?

Always have a map - offer your customers the milestones and navigation tools, not just for the immediate gratification but for them to be in the driver's seat at every step of the way. Instant insights, short-term priorities, and a long-term roadmap are the talismans you provide to ensure their transformation is complete.

But every wise sage knows that the story doesn't end there. With new skills and insights, there's always a greater dragon to face. Hint at the future challenges they'll encounter, ensuring that when they're ready to embark on the next adventure, you'll be there, staff in hand, ready to guide them once more.